Everything is Connected: A Look at Immigration

A month or so back, as I watched news coverage of the child immigration crisis, I heard a reference to a book by Sonia Nazario, Enrique's Journey.  The book is based on a Los Angeles Times newspaper series that won two Pulitzer Prizes.  It is the story of a poverty stricken Honduran mother who leaves her two small children to immigrate illegally to the United States.  After ten years of empty promises that she would return to Honduras, her now teenage son, Enrique, sets out for the United States.  He was captured by Mexican immigration officials and returned to Mexican/Guatemalan border seven or eight times, only to start the trip over.  Along the way he was robbed and beaten repeatedly by bandits, gang members and corrupt police officers.  His mother in North Carolina finally hired a smuggler, who through a series of bribes and payoffs, delivered Enrique to her home.

This was a difficult and disturbing book to read so I spread it out over several weeks – I could only take it in small doses.

 Me going to the river for water - 2002

The book brought up memories of a trip I made to Honduras with a church group in 2002.  The people there were very friendly, but extremely poor.  Couple the poverty with an overwhelming amount of violence and it was easy to see why someone would want to escape to the U.S.  Many news sources now refer to these immigrants as refugees because of the conditions in their home country.

Homicide rates

The cackle about immigration wears me out.  I’m not sure that anyone in our government truly wants to tackle the reform issue.  The agriculture, construction, landscaping, domestic services, etc. industries have come to rely the low cost labor of illegals.  While I lived in Raleigh I heard a speaker at a Farm Bureau (my insurance company) meeting give the percentage of farm laborers who were undocumented.  The number shocked me (over 50%).

US backed  Contras in training - 1989
www.theguardian.com

Another possibility for the reluctance to tackle the issue is the concern of where the problem truly originates.  Can any of the current lawlessness and violence in Central America be traced back to the U.S. government backing the Contras in Nicaragua and other rightwing groups throughout the region in the 1980s even when we knew they were raising funds through drug smuggling?  Do we fuel the rise in gang activities by deporting Mara Salvatrucha and other gang members from the U.S. to El Salvador and other Central American countries?  Did the North American Free Trade Agreement negatively impact rural Mexicans and lead to the rise of the leftist Zapatistas?  Does the United States fear that we may have to payup on the china shop rule – if you break it you bought it?  Regardless of who dropped the coffee cup, it is definitely broken.

On the other hand, our brothers and sisters with the Texas Parks and Wildlife, are dealing with true life and death struggles with smugglers, and ranchers all along the border are faced with a multitude of problems associated with illegal immigrants.  Here in North Carolina, illegals compete for low paying jobs that many under-educated citizens would normally fill.  There is no denying that there is a serious problem.

Texas Game wardens on the border - Note the 50 caliber rifle

As is usually the case, our politicians chose to takes actions that garner votes.  They steer away from confronting the core issues – poverty, the breakdown of the family unit, low paying jobs, criminal activity and associated extreme violence - in Central American countries.  Texas governor and potential presidential candidate, Rick Perry recently vowed to send National Guard troops to the border area at a cost of $12 million per month.  He terms it a “stop gap measure.”

It spite of news coverage that would lead us to think differently, the U.S. Border Patrol reports that apprehension of illegals crossing the border have dropped by more than half over the past decade.  Those figures likely reflect depressed economic conditions in the United States and an increased border presence by the Border Patrol.

The cynic in me has to ask whether we truly want to address the problem of illegal immigrants.  Some estimate that low pay for illegals reduce the cost of goods in the United States by 5%.  Do we want the price of food, the cost of construction, and the pay for nannies to increase?  Do those who employ illegals and pay them “under the table” want to pay the taxes and other employment fees, and overtime pay?  It isn't a stretch to assume the answer to those questions is "no."

And is it beneficial for us living in the United States to have poverty in Central America?  Garment workers in Central America make approximately $200 per month manufacturing low cost clothing for us.  If those workers have an increase in salary, we pay for it here.

Everything is connected.