As published in the

Pasadena Star-News - April 5, 2006

San Gabriel Valley Tribune - April 5, 2006

Whittier Daily News - April 5, 2006

Immigration - It's not only about gardeners

and nannies

by

Gerald Plessner

April 5, 2006 - Too many Americans think that today's illegal immigration is all about gardeners and housekeepers, but it's a lot more complex than that.

America has always needed low-skilled labor and immigrants have been the preferred source for that. New arrivals have always worked hard, been paid less and been easily discharged when the job was done.

None of that has changed, but the economy and the society certainly have. The American economy is now part of the world economy with its free trade and outsourcing. Those companies which must keep manufacturing near their raw materials and markets, such as slaughter houses and food processing plants, face international competition to hold down labor costs.

Many of these operations are located in smaller cities in the Midwest and South, where the native labor force is limited or shrinking and young people go to college and never return to live there.

A number of towns in Iowa, the Carolinas and elsewhere are seeing the growth of a Latin American population. In the first half of the twentieth century, these jobs might have been filled by Eastern European immigrants but today they are eagerly filled by Mexicans and others from Central America.

How can local communities encourage their own young people to take such jobs?

Large scale agriculture, much nearer to our Southern border, has always been dependent on Mexican immigrants, illegal and otherwise. In Calexico in California across the border from Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, each morning two or three thousand legal day workers show their Green Card and cross over into the United States to work on farms as far as 50 miles from the border. (I have a business that serves Calexico.)

The Green Card workers are paid taxable wages each day, with deductions for income tax, Social Security and Medicare. They make a good wage based on the Mexicali cost of living, but it would buy a lot less in American markets.

Because of tightened security and longer lines at the border, the farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to hire enough people to pick their crops. They are losing produce that rots in the field and losing business to international competition.

Should the Border Patrol step up surveillance of such legal entry, perhaps as a result of security concerns, making it more difficult for farmers to hire workers both competent for the job and willing to work at their wages? (Don't be mislead. Farm labor is not unskilled labor.)

At the same time, and just a few miles away, a Coyote(smuggler) who was paid as much as $1,500 per person, is leading a group of illegal immigrants crossing a line in the sand that is the border between the United States and Mexico. Identified by signposts and guarded by hundreds of Border Patrol agents in just that area, this particular arroyo, or dry creek bed, is the most dangerous path across the border, taking hours to walk miles in the night to meet a pickup truck on the highway less than a mile North.

They may end up in Los Angeles with a family member, in the Midwest at a packing plant, or in a cell at the Border Patrol station, where they will be processed for return to Mexico the next day.

A number of immigrants die each year in this area from dehydration.

Areas like this are guarded by underground seismic devices that hear every footstep on the sand. The Border Patrol does an exceptional job guarding this area in spite of the obstacles. They are a compassionate and disciplined group, dedicated to their assigned task.

Should the United States build a 2,000 mile fence to stop this kind of traffic? Or should the United States find some way to help jumpstart the development of jobs in the smaller cities in Mexico, creating a counterbalance to the draw of good wages in the United States? Or might the United States do both?

My wife and I live in a small condominium. On the lot next door, a three unit condo is nearing completion. We have watched and heard its construction for about a year.

As the issue of illegal immigration heated up in the last few days, it dawned on me that every single worker on that project is Hispanic except the superintendent, who is an Anglo. His boss, the contractor, is Chinese.

The home building trades in Southern California are made up almost entirely of Latinos. I am told that such is the case in many American cities.

Many people who work in those trades start at the bottom, as a bricklayer's or drywall contractor's helper. They learn the trade through a form of apprenticeship and as they show what they can do, they get the better job and a permanent relationship with a contractor. Some start their own businesses and hire and train men like themselves.

But why aren't middle class white men represented in that work force?

And why aren't we training African American young men for jobs like those? The least employed and most likely to fall into trouble, they are our most neglected minority.

Couldn't the United States diminish the need for illegal immigrant labor by mounting a real program to train American citizens for jobs in construction?

Or should we just pay for a big fence and continue to build more prison cells?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gerald Plessner is a Southern California businessman who writes regularly on issues of politics and culture. He would be pleased to hear from you and may be contacted at gerald@geraldplessner.com.