The Left-Out Part of Immigration Reform

It’s very fashionable these days to speculate on immigration

reform. Our current president has his own views, most of which are keep ‘em

out, but current Democratic presidential candidates have jumped on the

bandwagon as well.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is the

latest, with I have a plan for that and she has some pretty good ideas.

But one thought I’ve had for decades now gets no  mention at all and I wonder why.

If we were to issue work return visas to our Mexican

neighbors, it could move a long way toward lessening the pressure on our

southern border. How would such a visa function?

A visa is issued for seasonal

work on the basis of an employer willing to hire. That could be

extended by additional willing employers who need seasonal workers.

Think of agriculture, landscapers and job-related industries, such as contractors

with a project to build. When continuous employment ends, the worker returns to

his native country with the guarantee he can return to a willing employer.

Fear of return is gone and everyone benefits.

According to a National

Agricultural Workers Survey, seventy-five percent of our three million seasonal

crop workers were born in Mexico. Fifty-three percent of those were not

authorized to work in the United States. That means 1.6 million are here

illegally and they’re just the crop workers.

And they stay, because they’re

scared to death to leave and not be able to get back in.

Work return visas would mostly solve

that issue.

 

Consider

the ‘off-season’ life of an undocumented worker. He’s away from his wife and

family, essentially without earnings and living a squalid life until the next

harvest. Unable to participate as a father, companion or loved one, he’s a

lonely wage-slave.

And

for what? For no discernable reason, other than our current disastrous immigration

laws.

Regardless of Mr.

Trump’s fear-mongering, most Americans have no fear at all, but he

certainly hasn’t helped the issue.

A 2016 Pew national poll

found that 76 percent believe undocumented immigrants are as honest and

hard-working as U.S. citizens, while 71 percent said they mostly fill jobs that

Americans aren't willing to do.

What Trump has done is shine a very bright light on

Congress’s total failure to come to grips with a better solution than tying

itself in knots over a useless and insulting wall between ourselves and Mexico.

For that, I thank him.

Consider that Mexico is the

third largest remittance receiving country in the world, with a total of over $25

billion received from both legal and undocumented immigrants in 2015. These

men and women are supporting families elsewhere.

Consider that, according to

their 2017 report, the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy

estimates that undocumented workers paid a total of $11.7 billion in state

and local taxes in 2014, the most recent year of data.

Consider that they’re not

just picking grapes. Illegal immigrants are particularly concentrated in certain

subsets of major industries. In 2012, they represented 24% of workers in landscaping,

23% of those in private household employment, 20% in apparel manufacturing, 20%

in crop production, 19% in the dry cleaning and laundry industry and 19% working

in building maintenance.

Work return visas would further provide a useful filter for

those who someday hope to become American citizens. Application for permanent

residency and eventual citizenship by a head-of-household who had a proven

record of dependability and employment would certainly be a good bet.

One often hears that migrants are

often arriving for economic benefit rather than fear of reprisals or

death-threats in their home countries.

Perhaps you can tell me what’s

wrong with that?

In the late 1800s, both my grandfathers immigrated from

England and both my grandmothers from Germany. Why did they come?

They came for the promise of

America. That’s why Donald Trump’s grandfather emigrated from Germany.

Unless you are a native American

Indian, your forebears came from somewhere else as well. They may well

have been fleeing religious persecution, poverty or the long arm of the law,

but they came and they stayed.

For the promise of America.

They built the America in which we live, fought and

died in our wars, hammered out our laws, argued with and supported their

neighbors. There is no need to Make America Great Again, we are already

great as a nation and our immigrant population enabled that greatness.

Can we possibly foreclose that

opportunity to others and remain great?

That’s a question worth

pondering.