Immigration Analogies

My cousin Ron posted the following email to his blog

A lady wrote the best letter in the Editorials in ages!! It explains things better than all the baloney you hear on TV.Recently large demonstrations have taken place across the country protesting the fact that congress is finally addressing the issue of illegal immigration. Certain people are angry that the U.S. might protect its own borders, might make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely. Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these protests.Let's say I break into your house. Let's say that when you discover me in your house, you insist that I leave. But I say, "I've made all the beds and washed the dishes and did the laundry and swept the floors; I've done all the things you don't like to do. I'm hard-working and honest (except for when I broke into your house).According to the protesters, not only must you let me stay, you must add me to your family's insurance plan, educate my kids, and provide other benefits to me and to my family. My husband will do your yard work because he too is hard-working and honest (except for that breaking in part).If you try to call the police or force me out, I will call my friends who will picket your house carrying signs that proclaim my right to be there. It's only fair, after all, because you have a nicer house than I do, and I'm just trying to better myself. I'm hard-working and honest, except for, well, you know, the breaking in part.And what a deal it is for me!! I live in your house, contributing only a fraction of the cost of my keep, and there is nothing you can do about it without being accused of selfishness, prejudice, and being an anti-housebreaker.Oh yeah, and I want you to learn my language so you can communicate with me.”Why can't people see how ridiculous this is?! Only in America ....if you agree, pass it on (in English). Share it if you see the value of it as a good simile. If not blow it off along with your future Social Security funds.

You can read about my cousin’s response here but I want to address it as well.

I’ll start with my own analagy: let’s say I break into your house. Let’s say that when you discover me in your house, you don’t insist that I leave. You agree to share. Not only that, you agree to show me how to use many of the tools and appliances in your house that enable me to survive there. In turn, I don’t do any work—I don’t make the beds or wash the dishes or do the laundry. In fact, I insist that you start living without those things on account of your need to act more like me—more civilized and more Christian. After establishing myself in your house, thanks to your assistance, I then decide that you have to leave, so I can make room for my other family members who are immigrating on the next boat over. In other words, I take your house and send you to live elsewhere—in a far smaller and inferior house. Years later, when someone tries to move into the house I’ve claimed as my own and bequethed to my children, I label them as criminal and create stupid analagies showing how ridiculous it is for them to expect me to share.

(And remember, we didn’t just steal from the Indians; we stole from the Mexicans, too. Ironic that we now accuse them of being the criminals.)

Or here’s another analogy: Let’s say that I own some property, and I want to use that property to make a living for myself and my family. Since the soil I live on is the best in the world for growing corn, I decide to become a farmer. The decision makes sense not only because I have good soil but because I know a lot about farming and I enjoy it. Moreover, farming allows me to stay at home and be close to my family. After all, the last thing in the world I want to do is leave my homeland, where I feel connected and secure and where I can live the lifestyle that I find suitable to my needs and interests.
Unfortunately, though, when I take my extremely tasty and healthy corn to market, I find that another vendor is selling corn for less than it costs to make it. So my corn won’t sell. I decide to grow fruit instead, but I face the same difficulties; large corporations who often benefit from government subsidies can sell produce at a far lower cost than I can—so I can’t compete.
And since the only marketable skill I have is farming and since I can’t afford to pay for an education and since they aren’t currently hiring at the multinational corporation that recently opened up across town, I realize that I can’t make a secure living for me and my family unless I decide to move. So when my uncle tells me of an opportunity to work for $6.00 an hour picking grapes in California, I decide to take it, even though it means risking my life in an illegal border crossing and even though it means a too-long separation from the family and homeland that I love.

Of course, that’s not really an analogy. It’s what actually happens in Mexico. But God forbid we point the finger at our own government when it’s so much easier to point it at a good-for-nothing, freeloading Wetback who has few means of defending himself. God forbid we admit that our “nicer houses” are built by Third World labor and resources that we’ve coerced, plundered, and stolen.

My cousin rightly points out in his blog
that we need to look at the root cause of the problem—“lack of good jobs and economic mobility in Mexico”. It’s true those are essential problems, but the actual root of the problem is the United States’ and European trade practices. Our economic policies—the policies of the IMF and World Bank, for example—and our Imperial tradition have created the economic necessity for Mexicans to come here illegally. Athough America built its economy by practicing isolationist and protectionist trade so our industries could develop independent of longer established industries abroad, we now deny that same strategy to be put into practice by the Third World. We do so because we need Third World goods and markets to preserve our way of life. If the Third World isn’t impoverished—if Third World people become self reliant or all migrate to the US—then we can’t plunder Third World resources to maintain our luxury. And that’s the real source of the problem. But God forbid we blame ourselves. God forbid we acknowledge that we—the Americans with the “nicer houses”—are the real parasites.