March for America

On March 21 I joined more than 200,000 people in the March for America in Washington, D.C. This video shows some of what happened that day and gives my reason for participating.

The background music is my own rendition of "Quién nos separará" (Who will separate us?) by Juan Carlos Alvarado.

Siler City and the Children of Perú

Once every two years I take a group of travelers to Perú. We spend about a week and a half traveling to wonderful sites from the period of the Inca Empire and the Spanish invasion. We also get a good glimpse of the way of life of people in a wide variety of settings from the bustling life of the capital to remote Andean villages.

Over the past few years I have begun to see the effects of immigration to the U.S.A. even in these trips to Peru. In the summer of 2006 I was stopped in Cuzco (capital of the ancient Inca Empire) by a young girl who asked what state I was from. This is a common ploy used by children of the area to earn a few cents by telling you the capital of your state. I said I was from North Carolina. She responded, "Your capital is Siler City." She then quickly corrected herself, "No. I mean Raleigh!"

Her unwitting mistake was quite telling. Fifteen years ago Siler City was a rural town that few people outside the immediate county had heard of. Now it's well known even among the children of Cuzco in Peru. Siler City is one of the fastest growing Latino cities in North Carolina now. The poultry industry there has imported an enormous number of workers. Siler City has become a symbol of hope for a better life.

I was proud that my state is viewed as a welcoming place. I also realized that the phenomenon of migration to the U.S.A. is powerful—I dare say unstoppable.

If we do not reform the immigration process to make opportunity fair, we will surely continue to face a growing wave of undocumented immigration. Attempts to stop the flow across our borders will be like the naive counties in Alabama that try to stop their residents from consuming alcohol by passing laws banning its sale. Their residents simply go get the alcohol from the neighboring counties, and many of them DRIVE inebriated back home. The laws create more problems than they solve.

No quantity of harsh laws or strong fences will stop the flow of immigration. Sane policy will not attempt to stop it, but to regulate it in ways that are just and equitable.

Driver's License

What is behind the debate over driver's licenses for undocumented workers?

With millions of undocumented workers in the country, it stands to reason that we need a way to know who they are and where they live. A driver's license is the defacto ID card for most Americans. We do not carry our passports with us. We do not carry our birth certificates. We do carry driver's licenses.

What is the logic behind taking away the one form of ID that most undocumented workers would willing carry? Who benefits from this?

One obvious answer is the employers who exploit the cheap labor undocumented workers provide. By keeping these people anonymous, they further hide their abuse of them. By putting them at risk of arrest, they make them more dependent on the employer who controls their livelihood.

Democrats moving right on immigration?

In an October 31, 2007 post to New America Media (http://news.newamericamedia.org), Roberto Lovato argued that

The real threat looming on the electoral horizon is that more and more Democrats are joining Republicans in capitulating to the public antipathy against immigrants.

I have noticed evidence of this in the recent presidential debates. When faced with the question of allowing driver's license for undocumented workers, all of the candidates gave a quick "no" except for O'bama, and he was clearly uncomfortable with offering any real hope on this issue.

I'll have more to say about the issue of driver's licenses later, but I merely note the mounting swing to the right among democrats for now.

Immigrants are an Education and Training Windfall

A large majority of immigrants, whether legal or illegal, arrive in the United States in the prime of their working years. More than 70 percent are over the age of 18. Their education and upbringing were paid for by the citizens of the country from which they came, not American taxpayers.

The windfall to the United States of obtaining this human capital at no expense to American taxpayers is roughly $1.43 trillion. Immigrants are a fiscal bargain for our country.

For more on this topic see http://www.immigrantworkersfreedomride.com/facts.asp.

My Job

I teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at South Graham Elementary School, in Graham, North Carolina. The children I serve are awesome. Their parents are amazingly involved in their education, and I have come to know many of them.

I have no idea about their legal status. A Supreme Court ruling prohibits school personnel from asking about that, but I wouldn't ask it even if I had a right to do so. Still, I think it is highly likely that some of them are undocumented.

What impresses me about them is the level to which they are involved with their children's education. They attend parent-teacher conferences, show up to PTO meetings (PTA for some of you) and extra-curricular events in amazingly high numbers, and advocate for their children. They show great concern that their children not only learn the academic curriculum, but learn the values of American society.

Many parents have spoken with me about this issue. They want their children to learn respect for law and order, respect for their fellow students and their teachers, the value of hard work and preparing for the future. In essence, they want the same things for their children that I want for mine.

How, we might ask, can they claim to value law and order when at least some of them have clearly broken the law to get here? This is an important question, and one on which I hope to dedicate a good deal of energy in this blog. My own impression is that they do indeed value law and order. What I am interested in exploring is how they understand their own action of crossing the border in light of this value.

What is "Immigrant Economy"?

Immigrant Economy is a blog about the relationship between the U.S. economy and immigration (both legal and illegal).

Why is immigration such a difficult topic to discuss? Who benefits from illegal immigration? Why does the Republican party insist on characterizing any attempt to provide legal status to the millions of undocumented workers among us as "amnesty"? What is the motivation behind the use of that term? What are the factors that motivate people to come to the U.S. illegally? What problems are created for legal immigrants by the current state of the immigration debate?

These and many related questions provide the motivation and focus of this blog.