ICEy Labor Situation

Ghost Writer remains your standard bearer while Marti continues her tequila tourist adventures. In an attempt to provide you the Marti experience, I read her favorite paper and found a thought-provoking article.

In the Wall Street Journal is an article about ICE. For those of you not familiar with ICE, it is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement component of Homeland Security, not the status of Marti's drink. Under the Obama Administration, ICE audits employer records for evidence of illegal laborers in the work force. If illegals are found, ICE fines the company as opposed to the Bush Administration's practice of employer fines and deportation for the laborer.

The article says, "But it has become increasingly clear that the policy is pushing undocumented workers deeper underground, delivering them to the hands of unscrupulous employers, depressing wages and depriving federal, state and local coffers of taxes, according to unions, companies and immigrant advocates." Is this another Easter Bunny government program? We're being "nice" and not deporting, but we're condoning a problem, creating a problem, and failing to address the root cause.

This article left me feeling conflicted. One, there is the very real human pain of those doing real work and earning real money until an audit removes them from those jobs and leaves them looking even further on the periphery for work. However, those people are here illegally. They are breaking the law and should be sent back to wherever they came from without a second thought. Yet, I do a lot of work in Mexico. I know I wouldn't want to live there, and to make a gross understatement, it's a bad place. Why else would people fight so hard to be here and stay here, even illegally?

As the old adage goes, "A problem well-stated is half solved." (Or as Marti is saying right now, "My only problem is not enough sun screen.") The problem here is an impoverished, corrupt nation bordering a very rich nation with jobs available. Yes, in spite of the dire words of the evening news, there are jobs for these people. They are working, or they wouldn't be illegally employed. Right?

So how do we fix a poor nation next to a rich nation? Can't really pick up and move to a better neighborhood can we? The U.S. provides hundreds of millions in aid annually to Mexico, and that's not helping. We spend hundreds of millions to ineffectively patrol the border. Neither nation-building Mexico into prosperity nor isolationism are the answers.

So what is? A means to employ them, have them pay taxes and join the rest of us in this great nation. Let's just accept that we live in a great nation and share it.