Congressmen Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, will tell anyone who will listen about an old Mexican legend that he says is coming true. The myth that supposedly dates back to the days of when Spain ruled Mexico, says that when unable to battle invaders through military means, the citizens of Latin America will fight back by stealth'infiltrating the soul of the enemy.
Tancredo claims that the descendents of Santa Anna are avenging his loss in the US-Mexican War, by slowly taking over the soul of our country. Anyone who pays attention to Tancredo, who is rumored to be a dark horse candidate for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, shouldn't be surprised.
Tancredo made his way to the House on the backs of illegal immigrants, exploiting nativist hysteria for campaign checks and camera time. But for most of his tenure in the House, he has been a lone and loud voice of anti-immigrant rhetoric, but now many of his colleagues have rallied 'round the ole xenophobic flag.
Tancredo's influence is perhaps most profoundly demonstrated by the recent actions of his most avid GOP adversary, President Bush. A few years ago, after roundly criticizing President Bush's immigration reform plan, Tancredo received a phone call from an irate Karl Rove, who informed Tancredo that he would never 'darken the doorstep of the White House again.' Rove feared that Tancredo's unflinching anti-immigrant rhetoric would jeopardize the president's favorability with Latino voters.
Tancredo also heard it from the RNC and the GOP House leadership, who made Tancredo a pariah of sorts. That was before the White House resembled a triage ward in a Milwaukee hospital, and could have its way with any Republican in Washington. Fast forward to 2005, and while President Bush's immigration reform plan is the same one Tancredo attacked, it is being sold to the public in terms Tancredo would find familiar.
As the New Republic reported, when President Bush was in El Paso, Texas to reintroduce his 'Guest Worker' program, instead of emphasizing the plan's 'fairness' like he did two years ago, he focused on its role in fighting illegal immigration. 'A temporary-worker program,' he said, 'would take pressure off our border.'
The 'Tancredo effect' can be felt less subtly among his colleagues in the House. Virgil Goode, R-Virginia, proposed a bill that would build, ala Israel and the West Bank, a $5-7 billion fence along the border, while others in the House want to empower state and law enforcement officers to arrest illegal immigrants.
But throwing money at a giant fence or beefing up the border patrol is not going to solve anything. Since 1986, funding for border security has more than doubled, but the border remains as porous as ever. Even if we could wave a magic wand and stop immigration, illegal or otherwise, it would not be in our interest to do so.
The plain truth of the matter is that our economy needs the cheap labor that only immigration provides. The economy is set to add 7.7 million low-skilled, low-wage jobs between 2000 and 2010, and these are jobs that appeal to an increasingly small number of Americans. It's a simple exercise of the laws of supply and demand.
That our way of life depends on migrant labor can best be proved through the famous model of the five-dollar hamburger. The idea is that without access to cheap migrant labor, a Big Mac hamburger from McDonald's which currently costs about $3 would be around $5. This is because migrant labor literally makes our Big Macs.
Take your lettuce, tomatoes and other veggies'migrant fieldworkers who get less than minimum wage picked the vast majority of them. The same holds true for the hamburger, which is processed at the huge meatpacking plants of the Midwest almost exclusively by illegal immigrants because no one else in their right minds would work in such an unpleasant environment. And who do you think puts those sesame seeds on the buns? Well, migrants of course.
The point of the hamburger model is not to encourage patrons to refrain from eating at McDonalds, but rather provide an example of one of the millions of ubiquitous products that are made affordable through unrestricted access to immigrant labor.
Nor is the answer to simply pursue a laissez-faire approach to immigrant labor. Like all labor markets, it needs to be the subject of regulation that will at a very minimum ensure the basic rights of immigrants. But on the other hand, those seeking bigger fences and a militarization of the border need to be reminded of the fundamental benefits that migrant labor provides to our economy. In all likelihood any real changes in immigration policy will come only when America is ready to pay more than $3 for our Big Macs. So in other words, not any time soon.
