Bob Giaquinta for Congress

Immigration

Unless you a full blooded American Indian, one of your ancestors was an immigrant. This country was founded on immigration. Poor people will always immigrate to an area that provides opportunity. My grandparents worked at menial jobs, and their fortitude resulted in their children, grandchildren, and great-grand children becoming productive members of society.

Our present problem of undocumented immigration is mostly focused on Mexicans. Let's take a look at what some of the causes of this problem. Cheap, unskilled labor is always sought after. US citizens are angry that they are loosing jobs. This can be attributed to several things. For many years industry has been outsourcing manufacturing jobs to South America, Indonesia, and the Far East, paying workers one or two dollars a day. It is cheaper to send the raw materials, have the items produced, and ship the products to the US, than to have the products made here. This concept is economically feasible for big business, but has not been to kind to the environment, or the overseas workers. Also, in the fast communications of this time, many jobs are being outsourced via the internet . India is the greatest beneficiary of this outsourcing. Tech help, and reservations of all types are being handled there. Services that you would not suspect, such as physicians reading radiographs, accounting, and anything else that can be sent digitally is being diverted there. The US is becoming a service-based society because of the loss of manufacturing, and white-collar jobs.

For decades the US has relied on cheap Mexican labor for agriculture, construction laborers, maids, gardeners, etc. Some of the reasons for the new influx of undocumented aliens can be traced back to NAFTA, and our insane ethanol subsidies. NAFTA allows US corporations to take advantage of the low wages in Mexico, while helpinf to pollute the environment due to laxer pollution standards. So what the Mexicans get are nice factories, shanty-towns to live in, and more polluted air and water. No wonder they coming north. About 150, 000 agricultural jobs were lost due to the subsidies given to corn growers that produce ethanol in the US (read ethanol section in the Environment essay). The Mexicans cannot compete, and there are food shortages, corn is their staple diet.

Many US citizens feel that the undocumented aliens are taking advantage of our educational and medical facilities, and rightly so. But we must consider that when they have a job that is "on the books" they are paying Social Security, Medicare, and Federal taxes. Most of those who do not have legitimate social security numbers never file returns, there fore all that tax money stays in the coffer, helping to offset the other costs. The bigger problem are the people who work for cash, they are getting a free ride.

A system should be devised which puts some of the onus of the problem on the employers. Various penalties should be imposed on employers who hire undocumented aliens. This should be combined with a program of work permits to aliens for a period lasting a few years, so that the jobs not wanted by US citizens can be filled, strengthening our economy.

It's an emotional and economic problem that should and could be resolved.

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