Border wall? A dumb thing to do
The War on Drugs is over, and guess what? We lost. Why? Because we tried to cut off the supply side of the illegal drug traffic while users continued to find new sources to support their habits as fast as we could eliminate the old ones. So long as there is a demand for illegal drugs in the world’s richest country, smugglers will find a way to bring them here.
Most drugs come in at regular ports of entry and official border crossing points disguised as or hidden in legal shipments. Trying to shut off the supply is a self-defeating impossibility. But something in the American psyche makes us prone to fight losing battles, all the time believing we are winning.
Illegal traffic, human and material, across the Mexican border has existed since the end of the Mexican War almost 180 years ago when we appropriated almost one-third of Mexico’s territory. But nobody has ever suggested a wall across the 2,500-mile Mexican border might solve the problem; that is, until the 2016 presidential campaign. But, as with the drug war, we must first address the demand side of that equation. So long as Americans are willing to hire them, illegals will find a way to get here.
President Reagan’s 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, while not a perfect piece of legislation, could work fine if it were faithfully enforced. But it has never been. Prior to 1986 the penalties were all on the worker. But the new law penalizes the employers as well, a policy organized labor had been pushing for decades. But probably because Democrats see immigrants as future voters and Republicans see them as holding down wage rates, this law has never been conscientiously enforced. Today American businessmen, farmers and homeowners know they can hire illegals with impunity.
According to the 1986 law employers are supposed to fill out a Federal Form I-9 attesting to each worker’s immigration status. And there is also a simple computer program called E-verify by which employers can quickly determine the legal status of a job applicant. But E-verify is voluntary and most applicants go unchecked. Fraud, including fake Social Security numbers, also goes unchecked. But what if Trump spent a small fraction of his demanded five and one-half billion wall dollars on more clerks and enforcement agents and E-verify were made mandatory?
Americans are addicted to cheap help to harvest their crops, slaughter and butcher their chickens, mow their lawns, clean their houses and tend to their kids. Enforcing the 1986 law would hit middle-and upper-income people where it hurts, in their pocketbooks. And guess which party they support? They back Trump in building a ridiculously expensive wall to keep illegals out, but they rush to hire those who make it across.
Again, the 1986 immigration law would work fine if conscientiously enforced. But at the same time for humanity’s sake we need to devise a path to citizenship for those who have worked, raised families here and are functioning as loyal, responsible citizens. The border wall? An exceedingly dumb thing to do.
George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@bellsouth.net.