America is a land of immigrants ….. both legal and illegal
by Howie Katz
The inscription on the Statue of Liberty in part reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
But history has shown that those words did not apply to many people desiring to come to America. For many years after they had completed furnishing the cheap labor to build America’s transcontinental railroads, Asians were refused entry into the U.S. The Irish were refused entry during the ‘Potato Famine.’ And unless they could find a sponsor, Jews were refused entry during the Holocaust.
In 1939, Cuba, Canada and the United states all turned back 900 Jewish refugees on board the German ship MS St. Louis. The ship’s captain then managed to find several European countries to accept the refugees. Unfortunately, some of those countries were subsequently overrun by the German Wehrmacht, and it is estimated that approximately a quarter of the 900 refugees died in Nazi death camps
My father, mother and I came to the United States as Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1936. We were among the fortunate few who had a distant American relative who agreed to sponsor us and be financially responsible for us. God only know how many Jews perished in the Nazi gas chambers because they were refused entry into the U.S.
My father had a management position in Braunschweig with Karstadt, a big German department store chain. He was also the shoe buyer for the whole chain. I believe it was in 1934 that Nazi authorities ordered Karstadt to fire all Jews, including my father. We moved to Magdeburg where my father obtained a job as a shoe salesman. Unlike many German Jews, my father saw the handwriting on the wall and sought a new life for us in America.
America is a land of Immigrants. I too am an immigrant. I am very lucky and I love America with all my heart and soul!
America is also a land of both legal and illegal immigrants. Immigration authorities and the media keep throwing around eleven million as the number of illegals in this country. I believe the number is closer to 20 million.
Eleven million or 20 million, we cannot deport them all, which is what a lot of Americans seem to want. We’re having a hard time deporting just the criminals among the illegals, and when we do, they manage to slip back into this country within a few weeks after they were thrown out.
There are those who claim that the illegals are taking jobs from Americans. Not True! The illegals are taking unskilled or low-skilled, backbreaking jobs at rock-bottom wages, jobs Americans are loath to do even if they paid more.
I remember back in the ’60s, some black ministers in Los Angeles tried to bring about an end to the bloody warfare between the Bloods and the Crips. They managed to call a truce meeting attended by the leaders of the two gangs. Also present were city officials, LAPD brass and line officers, social workers as well as ministers from various black churches. The meeting was closed to the public and media. After several hours the meeting broke up and as the gang leaders came out of the building they were met by a horde of reporters.
What the media got out of the meeting was that everyone agreed jobs were the solution to the daily gangbanging. If young African-Americans would only find work, the shootings and other illegal gang activities would stop. But a leader of the Bloods told reporters: “We don’t want no minimum wage jobs, we want $25-an-hour jobs.”
Teachers and cops didn’t make $25-an-hour back in the ’60s. It just goes to show that illegal immigrants don’t take jobs from Americans.
So, what shall we do about the illegal immigrants in our country? First of all, we need to get rid of the dope dealers, rapists, robbers and other dangerous criminals among them. I used to take my students on field trips to the federal prison in Bastrop. Over half the inmates in that prison were illegal immigrants. Deporting them after they are released from prison does little good if they can slip back in to continue preying on law abiding members of the public.
We need to build a wall on our southern border similar to the Berlin Wall or to the combination wall and security fence Israel built to keep out Palestinian terrorists. That would keep deported criminals from returning and would keep new immigrants from sneaking in. What we have now is a joke. Almost anyone can climb over, squeeze through or tunnel under our present security barrier.
As for the other illegals, it is easy to say that if they want to become American citizens, they should return to their native lands, apply for entry into the United States and await their turn before returning. The matter of fact is that once they’ve returned to their country of origin, they’ll croak before their turn for reentry comes up.
Here is my radical suggestion, one for which I will surely get a lot of flack. Why not just legalize the illegals who have been working hard to support their families and who have not committed any crimes other than being here illegally? We can easily absorb these folks … as a matter of fact we have already absorbed them with no harm done to us.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether the people that mow my lawn, clean my house, repair my roof, put down some new flooring, etc. are documented or not as long as they do a good job at a price I can afford. I do believe that deporting millions of illegals will disrupt our economy.
As a former narcotics enforcement officer, it makes more sense to me to legalize illegal immigration than to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. A hard working immigrant will be a contributing member of society, a stoner will be a drag on it.
Howie Katz is a former law enforcement officer and retired criminal justice professor. In 1969 he founded the Texas Narcotic Officers Association. He currently resides in Houston, Texas. You can see more of his writing at http://barkgrowlbite.blogspot.com and http://theunconventionalgazette.blogspot.com.
I have one question for you, under Ronald Reagan we had a blanket amnesty for illegal aliens, if we complete a second amnesty, why would anyone wishing to immigrate to this country in the future comply with our immigration laws?
They would realize if they came to this country illegally, all they have to do is wait it out. Eventually there will be a third amnesty.
Fred, I’m not inviting people to enter this country illegally. I’m just trying to deal with the reality of millions of illegals that are already here.
Building a Berlin Wall or Israeli-type barrier along our southern border and patrolling it with Border Patrol officers will keep future illegals out. Until such barriers are constructed, the problem will continue no matter how many illegals we deport.
Howie, over half of the illegal immigrants in this country over stayed their visas. They did not enter through the southern border and the wall will do nothing to prevent the same behavior in the future.
Two important points, first we have already tried the solution you suggest. Rather than solving the problem, it is actually four to five times worse today.
Secondly, we are either a nation of laws or we are not. By legalizing illegal aliens, you are rewarding people who cheated and broke the law. What about the millions of people all over the world who are waiting patiently to come to this country legally?
It is a terrible idea to legitimize illegal behavior.
Incidentally I agree with you on securing the southern border.
Fred has a great point. Sounds like you are burned out. You can’t put someone with a hereditary bias and expect it not to show.
So advocating to break the law is ok, but what happens in 10-20 years when this reoccurs? What about the TB, measles, mumps, chickenpox?
Foolme, thank you for your psychological diagnosis – hereditary bias.
Where did you get the idea I’m advocating that anyone should break the law? This old burn out did no such thing and would never do any such thing, And what about the TB, measles, mumps and chickenpox?
When you can’t agree on how to punish the employers, let us appease the anti-immigrant crowd by putting more money on securing the border.
Short history from the Reagan “Amnesty”
The law criminalized the act of engaging in a “pattern or practice” of knowingly hiring an “unauthorized alien”[3] and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal immigrants under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce undocumented immigration. Regulations promulgated under the Act introduced the I-9 form to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility to accept employment in the United States.[4]
These sanctions would apply only to employers that had more than three employees and did not make a sufficient effort to determine the legal status of their workers.
The first Simpson–Mazzoli Bill was reported out of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. The bill failed to be received by the House, but civil rights advocates were concerned over the potential for abuse and discrimination against Hispanics, growers’ groups rallied for additional provisions for foreign labor, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce persistently opposed sanctions against employers.
The second Simpson–Mazzoli Bill finally passed both chambers in 1985, but it came apart in the conference committee over the issue of cost. The year marked an important turning point for the reform effort. Employer opposition to employer sanctions began to subside, partly because of the “affirmative defense” clause in the law that explicitly released employers from any obligation to check the authenticity of workers’ documents.
Also, agricultural employers shifted their focus from opposition to employer sanctions to a concerted campaign to secure alternative sources of foreign labor. As opposition to employer sanctions waned and growers’ lobbying efforts for extensive temporary worker programs intensified, agricultural worker programs began to outrank employer sanctions component as the most controversial element of reform.
Employers seem to like them, wonder why?
“The illegals are taking unskilled or low-skilled, backbreaking jobs at rock-bottom wages, jobs Americans are loath to do even if they paid more.”
This. Is. Bovine. Excrement.
In 1980 I was a house framer. I owned a company that employed at times up to a dozen people including two of my brothers. I was 22 years old and had been doing that since high school.
After two jobs putting up tract houses in Mission Bend I switched exclusively to custom houses. I also installed the initial forms because we quickly learned if the concrete was not square and level it made the structure a challenge to produce level and square. I was paid $2.85/square foot to dry in a structure, which meant framing it, decking it, installing windows and exterior doors, siding and exterior insulation and papering he roof with 30lb asphalt felt. So a 5,000 sf house paid us about $17,000 after adding the basic forms. My projects were in Memorial, Quail Valley, Greenwood Forest, Champions and a few other neighborhoods. We also did some smaller patio homes in Sharpstown and Clear Lake.
In about mid 1981 we saw Hispanic crews moving in and taking over the projects we had been doing. Our builders began hiring us to ‘punch-out’ houses, which basically meant we came in behind the Mexicans and remodeled the structures so the cabinet makers could install their work. Because things weren’t square and level. While that was happening the native husband and wife roofers were replaced by Hispanics. The mostly first and second generation east European cabinet makers were replaced by Hispanics. The blacks that dominated concrete placement and bricking were replaced.
I do not know the pricing for the other trades but I did discover the framing I was doing for $2.85 was going to them for $1.40. If my crew had 6 guys taking 3 weeks to finish a house, they had 12 that did it in a week and half. I was paying an 18 year old guy $18/hr because he could run a crew. I paid Workmans Comp taxes to Bob Bullock. I even paid for dental insurance (it was really cheap back then). I paid taxes.
I got the heck out of that and tried installing A/Cs in the new houses I used to build. That eventually went the same route. To this day I can frame a house without plans and install an air conditioner that works.
But what gets lost is we knew as kids there were no old carpenters. We did that work as bridges to what we became later in life. Accountants, engineers, people in sales, insurance agents, etc. And our kids never got the chance to start in those entry level jobs because they were exclusive to the cheap labor that was pouring over the border. That we subsidize to this day.
I know a lot of illegals that are working here and I don’t blame them for getting what they can from a country that allows it to happen. What I can’t understand is why we let it happen. I know what opened the door wide in December 1980 when a Carter appointed judge declared anybody in the country was guaranteed the same rights and benefits as citizens. I know 6 years later Reagan had a mess on hands he tried to settle that the others in office ignored. But no party is innocent here. Only the lowly law abiding citizen is impacted and I don’t believe the impact is minor.