Saturday, July 04, 2015

On Illegal Immigrants

Illegal immigration from Mexico is a controversial issue, and that is because there are many sides to it.

On one hand, the Republicans are right to say these people broke the law in order to come to America. On another hand, they have been major contributors to America's construction and agricultural sectors, and American business, for which Republicans claim to stand, benefits from them handsomely.

A Kansas farmer ran an experiment. He invited American citizens to work on his farm under the conditions that the Mexican illegal immigrants work and for the price that they get paid. Nobody stayed longer than a week. This means that the claim that the illegal immigrants take the jobs away from hard-working Americans is not fully correct. They take the jobs that Americans do not want.

When the economy is doing well, the people who want to do hard manual labor for a pittance are welcome. When the economy is not doing as well, these people are less welcome. The economic conditions are beginning to improve, and there will be less agitation for deporting these people.

That's a part of the story – the American part of the story. But there is also a Mexican part of the story. And this is as follows: If Mexico's most hard-working people come to America, then who will be there to make Mexico a better place? If the conditions in Mexico improve, there will be less reason for people to come to America. I see no reason at all why Mexico needs to remain poor. They need to get their political and economic house in order, then they can boom.

How would they do that? Through the attention of the same people who come to America. They are willing to work hard in America, they should be willing to work hard in Mexico as well. The Mexican leadership needs to convince these people to stay in the country so that they can improve the country. It needs to tell them that they should be more patriotic and that they should work to enrich Mexico.

I am an American patriot; but I am not a jingoist. I want America to do well; I also want the rest of the world to do well. I seek win-win scenarios, much in the manner of Bill Clinton who cared about all sectors of society and was looking for solutions to benefit them all.

This requires making an effort to understand where people are coming from and where they are going. For now, the Mexican illegal immigrants are contributing, and business benefits from their attention. Ultimately however the solution to this situation is for Mexico to improve. And from that standpoint, the Mexican leadership should convince these people to be more patriotic and work on making their own country a better place.

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