PrintMay 7, 2010
Border Security -- another approach
Arizona folks understandably want to enforce the laws that Uncle Sam won't; but it won't do any good because the laws are unrealistic considering the economic forces at work.
The whole situation is ridiculous. You can't stop...and shouldn't try to stop the flow of economically driven goods and services.
Americans want drugs and labor. Our government has banned the drugs and our government has eliminated the supply of low-skilled labor. However, they haven't eliminated the demand for drugs and labor. Thus the flow across the border continues. It cannot be stopped by a wall or troops.
Labor shortage
The rise of the handout society has created a low-skilled labor shortage. It is simply easier to ride the dole than it is to work for $7 an hour.
Thus, few Americans will do the low skill labor. Kids won't do it because either their parents are too wealthy and give them everything or we insist on sending everybody to college... at taxpayer expense... when they would be better off developing some basic work skills.
Americans are getting older. We need help with the manual labor. We need to import it but our government won't let us. But it comes anyway, and will continue to come. Building a wall and sending troops is expensive and crazy and counterproductive. Anybody who plays golf or eats at a restaurant or gets their yard mowed is benefiting from "illegal" labor. Right now, the 11 million non-citizens working here are afraid to go home because of the cost and difficulty of getting back in. Thus, we cut them off from home and their roots and culture forcing them to be "Americans". We should sign them up to work and let them come freely back and forth the border. They would pay the government to get in instead of paying a "coyote". Citizenship would only be available to those who serve in the military or complete tens years of "on the books", trouble free labor. Law-breakers would lose the work permit.
One problem now is that most of the people crossing the border are good folks just looking for a job. Hidden among them are really bad-news druggies. Start issuing work permits and suddenly, legitimate workers are crossing at legal checkpoints and the ones running across ranches in the dark are almost all the bad guys. That would make enforcement a hell of a lot easier.
The better solution is to just end the welfare state in the USA. Then, lacking a handout, lots of Americans already here will be glad to mow your yard and cook your dinner. In the process, they may develop some skills and improve their lot in life and we taxpayers could save the $20,000 a year we spend per poor person to fight poverty. What a concept.
