The immigration con

A smuggler's Jeep found stuck on the border fence near Yuma in 2012.

As I write, here are some of the latest headlines: "Looming Budget Fight Could Doom Immigration Reform"; "Cecilia Munoz: Quarterback of Obama's Immigration Reform Efforts," and "Immigration Reform Supporters Ask for Help From Businesses."

Does any serious person believe there was ever a chance for "sweeping immigration reform," as it was called with a repetition of a bubblegum rock station playlist? I know, I know: This was how the GOP would save itself from extinction as demographic trends appear to shift against old, bitter, suburban and rural white people. Thus, at least in the minds of the oblivious D.C. pundits depicted with such savage accuracy in the new book This Town, wealthy Republican Sen. John Sidney McCain III would reclaim his mantle as a statesman, a maverick, and herd his party to a deal with President Obama.

But this failed the smell test from the start. Even McCain, who at certain points in his career had favored immigration reform (when he didn't and vice versa), kept prattling on about "a secure border" being the foundational element of any deal. After an amendment to the so-called Gang of Eight's immigration bill in the Senate, McCain said, "We'll be the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall." It says something about today's pretzel of a Republican Party that the once despised symbol of oppression ("Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall!") is now offered as reassurance against an invasion of Brown People. And all that to get a deal that would somehow raise Republican favorables among voting Brown People. Next step: President Rubio!

This was never going to work.

First, the problem of illegal immigration is highly complex, but is inextricably tied to our appetites for cheap, exploitable labor. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated that this population in 2011 numbered about 11 million. These people are here, even though deportations rose substantially under St. Janet (who also prioritized criminal deportations, supported the DREAM act for students and improved conditions at detention centers). And the demand remains, including organized efforts by American businesses to bring illegal workers. Why would any of these actors support an onerous "path to citizenship" or "guest worker program"? Both would have to be relatively easy and transparent, or the black market would continue.

Second, when I was younger, the border was nearly as porous as it had been since the Gadsden Purchase finally settled the line between Mexico and the United States. The newcomers, who want Des Moines in the Desert, have no understanding of the history that came before they arrived. Now, it is heavily militarized. Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent. This has been good money for defense contractors and other companies. But for what? The cheap labor and drugs keep flowing one way, and the arms and cash flow the other. Really slowing this cycle on the illegal labor front would require going after the employers, with hard prison time for the chief executives of, say, prominent food processors. But that's never going to happen. So the "secure border" seems to be about ensuring Military Keynesianism for favored companies and, as McCain's Berlin Wall comments imply, reassuring the Krackpot base.

Third, that hardcore base is running the House of Representatives and there's no chance an immigration bill can pass. Speaker Boehner won't bring forward a bill without a majority of the Republican caucus behind it. And I doubt even the most punitive bill would collect enough votes from GOP members — and the more harsh it becomes, the less likely Democrats will be to support it, or for the final dog's breakfast to survive the conference with the Senate. The hardcore base does not care if Lindsey Graham worries about the future of a party that received only 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 presidential election. It is not willing to listen to big Republican business donors that want immigration rules changed to further drive down wages. This is a base of belief, and one of those beliefs is that illegal immigrants, especially Hispanics, are the most heinous of lawbreakers, living off welfare, bringing drugs and crime in train. That any change in their status would be "amnesty." "What part of illegal don't you understand?" Many older Anglos are afraid, longing for a certain past. The more alert members on the right are working hard to limit the franchise, to perpetuate Anglo political control in the states of the New Confederacy with large Hispanic populations. They may be Kooks and even bigots, but they are highly disciplined and true believers. Plus, they have never forgotten how SB 1070 was very good politics in Arizona (and, gosh, they tell us the economy there is one of the best in the country!). The immigration plan is DOA.

We face so many serious problems in this country, including 12 million officially unemployed and millions more stuck in part-time and dead-end jobs while the ranks of the working poor keep rising. The nation's total immigrant population, legal and illegal, reached a record 40 million in 2011. And it's not as if we have the growing economy or the will to fund education to intelligently and humanely (dare I say it) assimilate and offer opportunity for the poorest and least skilled of this cohort. I won't even get into the whole "citizenship" thing — the meth-addled laid-off Anglo garment worker in the South who hates "Mexicans" knows little of citizenship. Meanwhile, we have a cross-border economy, sociology and ecology with Mexico — but now a wall runs through it. On top of that, climate change and other world problems will drive desperate people to developed countries. Have the "debates" of the past several months over "sweeping immigration reform" even attempted to shed light on these issues and questions?

Instead, it's been another confidence game by dSi. And a profitable one for the politicians, their consultants, the lobbyists for big business and the "border security" contractors with their hefty contributions to the pols. Nothing has been accomplished for the public good or the national interest. The federal government is lawlessly spying on citizens to a degree unheard-of during the worst of J. Edgar's abuses. Endless and undeclared war continues. Billions flushed into Afghanistan and now Syria — who needs teachers or Amtrak. So you're working two jobs and still need food stamps? Too bad, loser, we need that money as farm subsidies for giant corporations and some gentlemen farmers who are also members of Congress. Wall Street keeps making billions while a company's announcement of a few thousand low-wage jobs makes big news. Destroy evidence about a catastrophic oil spill — get a slap on the wrist. Get caught manipulating the energy market, have your settlement teed up. As immigration reform goes away, new shiny things will be needed to distract the proles as the Republican state legislatures do their will and money never sleeps. Otherwise, people might begin to wonder if the republic is being run by a criminal class.

[UPDATE: Among the comments, be sure to check out Emil's excellent examination of E-Verify and the identification issue.]

 

Comments

[cal Lash]

I cannot add a thing, Jon.
This is the whole enchilada.

[Petro]

Nice.

[cal Lash]

This guy will help solve the immigration problem?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/jul/30/fbi-director-james-comey

Who is new FBI director James Comey?

The former US deputy attorney general has experience in arms sales, hedge funds and banking. Does that make him qualified for the job?

[Drifter]

You're under arrest for being illegally parked in Maricopa County.

What? You're out of your mind.

"What part of illegal don't you understand?"

[headless]

"When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken." Che Guevara

In case anyone is interested in what an actual communist had to say about the conditions currently extant in the U.S.

[morecleanair]

Seems increasingly evident that we now have 3 major but pathetic political parties . . Dems, Reps and Teas. The latter has made the House ungovernable. The old hard right conservatives may be dying off but the Teas have an even more distorted view of reality. Is there a Way Forward our of the wilderness here?

[cal Lash]

Wilderness?
Its being Fracked.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Great writing, Rogue!

"...more than 70 percent of Republicans, or 169 out of 234 GOP members, represent districts where voting-age Hispanics make up less than 10 percent of the population."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130722house-republicans-latino-pressure.html

There is still a possibility that if the House passes a bill -- any immigration bill -- it will get to a House/Senate Conference Committee, the Republican members of which may be more progressive. The result will still have to pass a House vote, but the question is how many House Republicans are actively opposed (for political or personal reasons) to the Gang of Eight led Senate plans. If a Senate-like version of the final bill gets a floor vote in the House the combination of progressive (or at least, not rabidly nativist) Republicans and minority Democrats might permit passage. Immigration conservatives are worried about this:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/23/Goodlatte-still-open-to-saving-Senate-immigration-bill-via-conference

[Emil Pulsifer]

I was going to submit this as a Guest Column, but since the subject of immigration reform has come up, I'll post a modified form as a comment:

One feature likely to be included in any legislation, because it is supported by everyone from President Obama to the Gang of Eight to the usual suspects among the anti-immigration lobby, is a national requirement for mandatory use of E-Verify by employers to screen new hires.

Currently, use of E-Verify is voluntary, with only a handful of states requiring private employers to use it. Nationally, the percentage of employers that have signed up for it remains extremely low, roughly seven percent.

Nevertheless, those employers account for a disproportionate number of new hires. According to the Migration Policy Institute's backgrounder on E-Verify, "overall use of the program increased eight-fold between 2006 and 2010, from 1.7 million to 13.4 million queries, covering about one out of four people hired in the United States in 2010."

http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/display.cfm?ID=846

Many proponents argue that a federal mandate making the use of E-Verify a national requirement would virtually eliminate illegal immigration. Typical of this view are recent comments by Arizona Republic opinion writer Robert Robb:

"Congress could largely shut down illegal immigration by requiring that all employers use E-Verify, which is currently voluntary, and instructing Social Security and immigration officials to share information on dodgy work accounts and deport those who cheat."

http://www.azcentral.com/opinions/articles/20130131robb-immigration-proposal-flawed.html

This view is not only wrongheaded, but actually dangerous, because the unintended consequences of such a policy would be an explosion of identity theft, while failing the stated goal of stopping illegal immigration, particularly if the final, Republican approved legislation fails to increase the immigration quota for ordinary Mexican laborers, so that most of those who want work here can get it through legal immigration.

The idea of having "dodgy work accounts" investigated assumes that employee payroll records, which are submitted to the Social Security Administration so that it can calculate benefits, contain duplicate Social Security numbers, and that the discovery of such duplications will allow government agents to swoop in, identifying the real and the bogus users of a given Social Security number and deporting or arresting the unauthorized.

However, as reported by a Carnegie Mellon study of 40,000 participants, children are 51 times more likely than adults to be the victims of ID theft. Their victim rate in the study is over 10 percent. Obviously, the submission of a toddler's Social Security number in a job application is a red flag, but the submission of a high-schooler's is not, since they not uncommonly take part-time jobs. In fact, 43 percent of the child ID theft uncovered by Carnegie Mellon involves children in the 15-18 age range. Because unemployment is a normal condition for minors, even in an age group whose members sometimes work, duplication of Social Security numbers in workplace documents need not occur for years; and when they eventually do, it is the legitimate owner of the SSN who creates the duplicate submission.

http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/files/pdfs/reports/2011/child-identity-theft.pdf

Making the use of E-Verify a legal requirement for every employer in the United States would vastly increase the demand for (and cash value of) such stolen information (the names, SSNs and matching dates of birth necessary to fool E-Verify). E-Verify, even under its existing limitations, has already prompted many illegals to abandon the compartively harmless practice of inventing a fictional Social Security number for job application paperwork. Further incentivizing this by offering organized crime (ID theft rings) huge new markets and inflated profits is a bad idea.

Proponents of E-Verify point to its 96 percent accuracy rate, but the rate is high only because 94 percent of the job applicants it screens are legal to begin with. Since the real purpose of E-Verify is to screen out those not legally employable, the real question is how well it works with job applicants who aren't authorized to work in the United States.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which runs E-Verify, hired the consulting company Westat to provide an independent evaluation of the program. Westat's evaluation showed that slightly over half of those who were legally unauthorized to work and were screened by E-Verify were erroneously approved by E-Verify as authorized to work. As Westat puts it in its report, released in December 2009: "This finding is not surprising, given that since the inception of E-Verify it has been clear that many unauthorized workers obtain employment by committing identity fraud that cannot be detected by E-Verify." See Exhibit 2 in the Executive Summary section:

http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/E-Verify/E-Verify/Final%20E-Verify%20Report%2012-16-09_2.pdf

What happens when the other half of unauthorized job applicants, through necessity, catch up to their more savvy brethren? And remember, these are only the applicants screened by E-Verify, currently, when participation is voluntary and roughly only five percent of the country's employers make use of it. What happens when the participation rate goes to near 100 percent because of a federal mandate? Where do the stolen IDs necessary to fool E-Verify come from, and what will the consequences be? This is a train wreck in the making.

True, Arizona has seen its ranking among states in ID thefts decline, even as the number of Arizona employers using E-verify has increased. However, a great deal of this is attributable to two shifts in illegal immigration: first, an economically related national decrease in the number of illegal immigrants entering the country (and many analysts believe the total number of illegal residents has decreased nationally, as a result of increased deportations and decreased immigration). Second, a change in immigration patterns into and through Arizona, as Texas' Rio Grande Sector has replaced the Tucson Sector as the area with the highest number of illegal crossings.

http://www.hstoday.us/single-article/border-patrol-apprehensions-now-highest-in-texas-rio-grande-valley/fc0043e64a8153d190c518f9821a5f00.html

As for the practicality of investigating and deporting those with "dodgy work accounts", theft of a Social Security number is a federal criminal offense, but one not limited to illegal immigrants, since legal residents who are felons may steal identities to evade background checks involved in job applications, and job applications using stolen SSNs may also be elements of financial fraud or theft of benefits schemes.

So, "immigration authorities" would not be the ones to initiate such an investigation.

The Social Security Administration does have an Office of Investigations, but the investigations in question would have to take place in person, since companies and individuals cannot be expected to provide personal information and background over the telephone to a voice claiming to be a government investigator looking into duplicate SSNs.

Since the threshhold for initiating an investigation must be crossed before one can be undertaken, it is important to consider what might constitute "suspicious" in this context.

Because legal residents and others authorized to work routinely change addresses, change jobs, and take multiple jobs (including part-time jobs) with different employers, as well as leave and reenter the job market completely at various times, the only "standout" cases would involve duplicate SSNs submitted by employers in widely separated (not commutable) cities, where wage records continue to be submitted to the SSA from multiple sources simultaneously over a period of a month or more.

Even in cases where duplicate SSNs exist and constitute red-flags sufficient to satisfy legal threshhold requirements for the initiation of an investigation, the sheer number of cases means that the odds are firmly on the side of the ID thieves (thus reducing the deterrent effect).

Previously, the Social Security Administration's Inspector General has indicated that his office had the staff to open investigations on only about seven percent of the fraud allegations (including SSN misuse) received on its fraud hotline, or about 4,600 cases a year; and ID theft has grown enormously in the subsequent decade:

http://www.gao.gov/assets/240/234960.html

But let's assume that, as part of comprehensive immigration reform, Congress opens the funding spigot. Let's furthermore assume a probably unrealistically optimistic clearance rate. Finally, let's assume that, despite the absence of duplication in employer paperwork in most cases where minor's IDs are stolen (making them the preferred targets), government agents are somehow able to get wind of the fraud.

If 1,000 full-time dedicated investigators were assigned to investigate only cases of suspicious SSN duplication in employer paperwork, and each investigator managed to clear an average of three cases a week for 50 weeks a year (meeting legal and agency requirements for terminating a case or referring it to a prosecutor or immigration authorities for action), that is 150,000 cases cleared per year.

Between 2000 and 2006 an average of 500,000 illegal immigrants per year successfully entered the United States, according to a Department of Homeland Security report:

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2009.pdf

This suggests that under similar future circumstances, considering only new cases (and only cases involving illegal immigrants), investigators would fall behind each year by 350,000 cases. After 10 years there could be as many as 3.5 million new, outstanding cases of identity theft, of which the annual 150,000 investigations is only four percent; and with each additional year investigators would fall an additional 350,000 cases behind.

Nor does this take into account already existing cases. The U.S. civilian labor force numbers roughly 155 million. How many stolen SSNs (not all of them used by the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be currently in the country) are submitted in payroll tax withholding paperwork by employers, is difficult to estimate. But even with an immigration amnesty not all pre-existing cases would be eliminated.

The new meme is that the days of heavy illegal immigration numbers are over, with a "growing and prosperous Mexico that creates more jobs and opportunities for young people" (per President Obama) making illegal immigration less attractive as an option. But as the Associated Press reports, "Mexico's economy grew by about 1 percent in the first three months of the year and the country isn't creating anywhere near the million jobs annually it needs to employ all the young people entering its workforce. . . While Mexico's economy has grown, it has yet to trickle down to average workers. Huge poverty rates held steady between late 2006 and 2010, the most recent year for which government statistics are available. Between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population of 112 million Mexicans live in poverty, earning less than $100 a month."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/obama_says_us_mexico_ruN52rV9zJmWOujAez3PAN/0

Even considering that the cost of living is higher in the U.S. than in Mexico, an income of $12,000 (or more), with access to credit and automotive loans, is so much more appealing than an income of $1,200 a year (or less). Illegal immigration is likely to restart once the U.S. economy fully recovers.

Some media outlets have reported that the Senate bill will "require non-citizens to show a biometric work-authorization card, or green card, featuring photos that would be stored in the E-verify system".

http://www.azcentral.com/business/news/articles/20130417states-business-agriculture-leaders-back-immigration-bill.html

This sounds great until you realize that it has absolutely no effect on those using information theft to steal the identities of citizens. Only non-citizens would have to submit a biometic photo ID in this version of the bill, which means that anyone falsely claiming to be a citizen is checked through standard E-Verify. Requiring a biometric national ID card for all workers including U.S. citizens is likely to be rejected as too costly and as a poison pill in legislation that must satisfy the concerns of civil liberties and privacy proponents on both sides of the aisle, according to the New York Times.

http://www.discourse.net/2013/03/senators-reject-biometric-worker-id-card/

Even biometric cards fail to address the underlying problem of breeder documents. In order to be issued a biometric ID card applicants would have to provide copies of other documents, such as birth certificates, driver's licenses, or green cards, that prove they are entitled to work in the United States. These other documents, known as breeder documents, are much more easily forged, bought or traded, or stolen, however. Biometric ID cards are only as secure as the breeder documents submitted to obtain them.

As for "securing the border" by means of walls, the notion is increasingly laughable. According to the best estimates, a third to one-half of all illegal immigrants currently in the country entered legally using tourist (or other) visas then simply overstayed, starting new lives using new identities. It really doesn't matter if you take their names coming in, if they can melt away, using false IDs and new addresses. The more secure the border gets, the more attractive this method of illegal entry will become, both for immigrants and for organized crime. Whole new cottage industries will spring up to provide (very expensive) false backgrounds and references to allow laborers to qualify for tourist, student, and business visas. It really isn't that difficult to get a short-term tourist visa to visit the United States; Mexican tourists spend about $10 billion a year here, and the government wants to encourage more. In fact, according to the U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission, "In order to facilitate travel to the United States, in Mexico interviews for most people renewing a visa are no longer required."

http://mexico.usembassy.gov/eng/ebio_dcm/speeches/deputy-chief-of-mission-laura-f-dogu-at-the-panel-on-enhancing-tourism-between-mexico--the-united-states.html

As for interviews of those obtaining first-time tourist visas (as opposed to renewing them), when you have 13 million annual visitors from Mexico, there simply aren't enough consular personnel to perform individual interviews. You do the math: that's nearly 36,000 legal Mexican visitors per day, every day, on average. Individual interviews? Background checks? Don't make me laugh!

Even from a strictly physical border security standpoint, walls and border guards simply don't prevent the determined from eventually getting in. Government and academic studies show that between 75 and 90 percent of those who keep trying get in, despite being caught and deported or turned away. According to a recent Arizona Republic article, 50% of those apprehended had already been apprehended one or more times before. Nearly 40% are apprehended 2-5 times, with another 12% being caught six or more times. In one academic survey conducted January of this year, about 85 percent of those who try to cross are getting across. And the Border Patrol deliberately withholds data in an attempt to obscure the gaps, weaknesses and flaws in its security metrics.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130715border-security-poor-analysis.html

Instead of incentivizing ID theft by professional crime rings with E-Verify, an alternative is to set immigration quotas at realistic levels and allow the economy to dictate work-related migration levels. Legal immigrants are also much less exploitable and much more likely to demand their rights under the law; but to avoid downward pressures on American wages and the de facto normalization of unpaid overtime, an expansion of immigration quotas could be coupled with an increased federal minimum wage indexed to inflation, an empowered National Labor Relations Board with an expanded budget for investigations of workplace violations, and easier unionization for workers (e.g., "card check").

Or, Congress and the President can keep doing what doesn't work, only on a vastly larger scale, and hope that the results will somehow be different.

[mike]

People do not realize how big and desolate that border is. Building a fence and placing troops there is only a fuzzy dream. I know. People will donate money to build a fence! Just kidding! How about a workers program? There used to be neighborhoods along the tracks that started out as homes for workers during WWIi. Small lots with no water or sewer until well into the 60's. Many of the homes still had dirt floors. Most have been bought and razed for noise control. Big business still likes the cheap cash labor with little penalty if they get caught, but they don't get caught. Just the poor worker gets caught and jailed.

[cal Lash]

Not much intetest in immigration in DC or on this blog.

[Rogue Columnist]

To be fair, readership has been very high. But not many people weighing in. I so wish that more people on the right would have the guts to comment.

[cal Lash]

To be Honest, many on the right are unable to put together a logical thought provoking comment beyond " what is it you dont understand about illegal"

[AzReb, R. Perez]

Cal has mentioned this many, many times.

Humanity went off the rails hundreds of thousands of years ago when they converted from Hunter-gatherers to raising crops and "owning" the land.

Since that time, every type of wall imaginable has been tried to hang on to the land. Walls don't work.

Having a discussion hundreds of years TOO LATE is......well, too late.

[cal Lash]

Agriculture, "the beginning of the decline of man"I think Jared Diamond may be coming to Changing Hands.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/business/1145351-cleveland-plain-dealer-lays-off-50-a-third-of-its-newsroom-staff

Who needs reporters?

[Chris Thomas]

Personally I think that people who are willing to risk death to come to America and work are precisely the sort of people we should make citizens, pronto. A ten year path to citizenship is a joke. If something is to happen on immigration, it will have to be something that's acceptable to both the business community and the nativist wing of the GOP. It's hard to see that anything can thread that needle, if the gang of eight proposal that both legalized exploitable labor and delayed citizenship is deemed too generous.

Perhaps the right would be content to adopt the system in the Gulf states, where Thai maids and Pakistani laborers are allowed temporary entrance to work, so long as they let their employers hold their passports and keep their mouths shut.

One of the observable phenomena In today's stagnant economy is the decision to maintain the fiction of prosperity for the entrenched by creating an underclass -- whether it's Walmart greeters kept just below full-time or staff attorneys at big law firms (thankfully, not mine). There will be a resolution to the immigration issue, but it will be consistent with that depressing trend.

Let's discuss another day the looming convergence of that trend - citizenship based on corporate fealty - with the completion of the surveillance state. Or, perhaps, maybe we shouldn't.

[morecleanair]

Re conservatives' AWOL role in this discussion: hard to be constructive when the prejudice and ignorance is so close to the surface. When they try to step into the discussion, they tend to find that their ideological has already left the station.

[cal Lash]

"trend - citizenship based on corporate fealty - with the completion of the surveillance state."

5000 bankers
Baron run city states?
Gee that could lend to some real tribal wars. I want your land and your slaves.
I think this subject can be found in Blade Runner, but its Mad Max to the rescue.

[morecleanair]

Oops! Make that "ideological train", which has left the station when it comes to conservatives ability to make a logical case to keep the illegals from earning eventual citizenship. In this case, McCain is on the right track and I wish him well with this crusade.

[terese dudas]

Re: Conservative commentary on this board - why enter a discussion with people who only insult & denigrate. Some of the regulars don't even make sense or sound coherent.

[Tim]

"...including organized efforts by American businesses to bring illegal workers."

Can I get an example of this, something concrete?

[Rogue Columnist]

Here's one example, Tim:

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/wealth-poverty/special-report-raiteros/major-american-companies-benefit-undocumented-workers

[cal Lash]

Good example Jon.

I really enjoy this blog, its the only one I participate in. And I have no desire to make sense or sound coherent.
I will leave that to terese dudas and other sensible, coherent, logical and occasionally boring folks.

[cal Lash]

OOPS, terese dudas. I forgot to mention I am a demented 73 year old republican.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Just to try to distill the main point from a (very) long comment:

(1) E-Verify doesn't catch illegal immigrants. It catches individuals whose name, Social Security number, and date of birth, as submitted by an employer, don't match. Illegal immigrants submitting matching data will be passed just as if they were citizens. This gives a huge incentive for ID theft, both to illegal immigrants and to organized data thieves and criminal syndicates. Already, half of all illegal immigrant job applicants currently submitted through E-Verify are passed because they are using someone else's ID data.
If E-Verify is made mandatory for all businesses nationally, the only choice for illegal immigrants will be between staying in Mexico and using stolen ID data.

(2) There are (and will continue to be) far too many cases of duplicated SSNs for an effective law-enforcement response, and there are no plans even for any attempt at systematic detection or investigation of this sort, since it is commonly assumed that E-Verify screens out illegal immigrants. Also, future generations of young Mexican laborers will have an incentive to use stolen youth IDs (i.e., older teenage Americans and university students) since in many cases no SSN workplace duplication will appear for years, and when it does, it is the legitimate ID holder who will create the duplication.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Chris Thomas wrote:

"A ten year path to citizenship is a joke."

Chris is talking about the Senate immigration reform bill. In current law, waits of 20 years are not uncommon for many Mexicans waiting, not for citizenship, but merely for an immigration visa.

Furthermore, the days where families and individuals decided to come to America to start a new life are gone. With few exceptions, immigrants must now be sponsored by legal residents or citizens (family members already legally here) or by employers.

I recently mentioned a book called Under Cover by John Roy Carlson. Carlson was the pen-name of an Armenian whose family left Europe and arrived in America around 1920, just before the first general immigration quota was passed into law.

Carlson's description includes his father and uncle visiting the local courthouse "to register their intent to become American citizens". He enrolled in school and other family members got jobs. Five years later, he and the others were citizens. Very simple.

So, when nativists talk about the way their forebears did it legally, they are really talking about a completely different (and much simpler and quicker) process.

[Emil Pulsifer]

"Three times in the past month, Paloma Flores Lopez has been caught by the Border Patrol crossing into the U.S. illegally. She’s spent $8,000 on “coyotes,” or guides, to take her across. Now Flores, 26, has to decide: Will she try again?"

http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20130715border-security-poor-analysis.html

That's a cost of over $2,500 in coyote fees for each trip. This raises an interesting point when connected to other information:

"Between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population of 112 million Mexicans live in poverty, earning less than $100 a month."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/obama_says_us_mexico_ruN52rV9zJmWOujAez3PAN/0

An income of $100 a month (apparently the official Mexican poverty threshold) is a subsistence income. Even if someone miraculously managed to save $25 a month, it would take over 8 years to accumulate $2,500 (much less the $8,000 spent in just ONE MONTH by the individual named above).

Since most of the relatives of such persons in Mexico would be in the same boat, the question arises, where does the money for millions of coyote guided trips at $2,500 a pop come from? (I say millions, because in addition to hundreds of thousands of interdictions per year, there are many who get through without being interdicted and many who make multiple attempts before either being caught or getting through.)

One obvious idea is that relatives already living and working in the U.S. provide loans.

Some coyotes are involved in drug smuggling and some coerce border crossers to porter drugs for them; but the coyotes have the power in these arrangements and as a consequence, I suspect payments are always from immigrant to coyote (not the other way around), and that a cash payment to the coyotes is necessary and any porterage is on top of that. Also, very few interdicted illegal border crossers (as a percentage) are caught with drugs on them, so quid pro quo arrangements must be rare.

That leaves one other possibility: black- or grey- market banking or loan institutions in Mexico. These would make high-interest loans in exchange for a portion of the future income stream of immigrants. I don't know if this is a realistic business model, but if anyone knows whether such a financial sector exists (and its name -- perhaps a Spanish slang term) I'd like to know.

Don't forget that in addition to coyote fees (as well as additional extortion once immigrants reach drop houses), immigrants also need the working capital to survive in the United States until they find work (unless they're being supported by friends or family after they arrive).

If anyone knows how most of these expenses are financed for the typical illegal immigrant from Mexico, I'd be interested to know. Please include your source (e.g., Internet link, reference to friends or contacts in law enforcement, etc.).

[cal Lash]

talk about not making sense, that would be the kooks take on immigration.

I heard a story about an old man that came to the US as a child about 1946 with his father from China. The father paid money to get here illegally. Once in NY the father paid someone to change his name from a long Chinese name to a four letter American sounding name. I heard that the family has grown and prospered to the point they are wealthy.

I have maintained from the get go that Homeland Defense is a joke and E-verify is an even bigger joke. But not to worry the Northern European white "patriots" are going to sink the immigration legislation. Now they got to figure out what to do about that liberal McCain. The answer Jan Brewer.

Consequently I have kept my word and downsized to a tow-able Honda Fit. Hooking soon to my motor home and moving south.

[cal Lash]

http://main.aol.com/2013/08/01/how-hollywood-bowed-to-hi_n_3688884.html?1375367736&ncid=webmail21

Emil, U probably saw this?

[Emil Pulsifer]

Rogue wrote:

"I so wish that more people on the right would have the guts to comment."

The Heritage Foundation argument is that Mexican immigrants, if allowed to obtain citizenship, will be qualified for all federal and state healthcare, retirement, and welfare programs, as well as tax incentives (e.g., the earned-income tax credit) and education subsidies; and that they will receive more in benefits than they will pay in taxes.

That's likely true, but only because it's true for the native (citizen) population in general: most working-class individuals don't make enough to owe federal income tax, for example though (as also for most illegals) payroll taxes are automatically deducted and sales taxes are compulsory.

That said, Mexican immigrants are generally less likely to have the educational background associated with high income jobs (and the tax liability associated with them):

In 2006, 60.2 percent of the 8.9 million Mexican-born adults age 25 and older had no high school diploma or the equivalent general education diploma (GED), compared to 32.0 percent among the 30.9 million foreign-born adults.

On the other end of the education continuum, only 5.0 percent of Mexican immigrants had a bachelor's or higher degree, compared to 26.7 percent among all foreign-born adults.

http://www.migrationinformation.org/feature/display.cfm?ID=679#10

So, to the extent that Heritage's argument is true, it's about as true for legal Mexican immigrants who become citizens as it is for illegal Mexican immigrants who are amnestied and become citizens. It's also true for many (perhaps a majority) of the native born U.S. population.

The economic argument offered by the political Right -- that Mexicans will take jobs from Americans -- isn't very convincing. Consider the fact that in 2005 when 1 million illegal border crossers were apprehended, most of them in the Tucson Sector, Arizona's unemployment rate was about 4.5% and in the years following, the rate decreased still further, reaching a low of 3.5% in 2007 before the recession threw a monkey-wrench into the economy.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LASST04000003

In general, border apprehensions were very high in the Reagan and Clinton eras, during both of which the United States saw some of its highest sustained rates of post-war economic growth and unemployment rates were low.

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois-apprehensions-fs-2005-2010.pdf

Illegal immigrants slow crossing rates when the economy is slow (as it is in the U.S. now) since their motive for immigration is economic. The number of illegals in the U.S. generally (and Arizona specifically) has actually declined over the last several years, though Texas has seen increased settlement by illegal immigrants (Texas creates a lot of low wage jobs and semi-officially winks at illegal immigration despite occasionally heated rhetoric).

When the economy is good, more consumers (which immigrant workers also are) means more consumer spending and more tax collections, so the general effect is one of increased demand and increased hiring/expansion to meet that demand.

[Emil Pulsifer]

Cal wrote:

"Talk about not making sense, that would be the kooks take on immigration."

What would?

Cal, do any of your law enforcement buddies have any information on how $2,500 a pop coyote fees are typically financed? Is it through loans from relatives already living in the U.S.? Or through some sort of shadow banking system in Mexico?

[Emil Pulsifer]

P.S. Figure 1 in the DHS Fact Sheet I linked to is a graph showing apprehension numbers from 1970 to 2010 (despite the fact that the bulk of the article deals with the period 2005-2010).

[terese dudas]

OOPS - Cal, As I've said before, I'm a 72-yr-old Conservative INDEPENDENT. And, a straight, married female.

[Chris Thomas]

Terese:

My apologies for the community here if you feel you unwelcome, , especially if I have contributed to that. But let's focus on the merits. I suspect all of us share similar views on some of our challenges - say, the collapse of the middle class. This is off tic, but we've clearly since that the global economy has produced greater wealth disparity than historic norms. Well, the free market does what it does, and I don't propose to change it. But we shouldn't exacerbate the effects of that natural economic cycle by simultaneously moving the burden of funding governing from high earners to poor (by cutting marginal income tax rates) and from those with inherited wealth to those without (by reducing or eliminating the estate tax). I'd love to debate policy choices, and not grievances. I look forward to engaging on the policy merits!

[cal Lash]

Terese I think you know I was just being my usual crazy self. No offense meant. I save those for AZREBEL.

Thanks Chris but I can handle my on apologies, dont need a lawyer to do it for me. I like everyone in this community and I enjoy the stuff most when it dosent get to boring and is somewhat lite and humorous. After all we here are not going to make the world anew.

[cal Lash]

Emil, I retired 22 years ago so dont know a lot of cops that are up on what U asked. My reading suggest most is family sponsored money. I suggest you contact a friend of mine Molly Molloy a professor in New Mexico via FRONTERA lIST. A mexican news organization. That site should provide you a lot of intel on your question.

[cal Lash]

A Halliburton Christmas gift.
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20130628-our-farblondzhet-senators.
Now maybe the GOP will pass an immigration bill.

[cal Lash]

Not immigration but good news.

http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/93606/nations-drug-czar-to-address-arkansas-group

The director of the nation's drug policy office says treatment and education are the most effective tools to combat drug abuse.

[cal Lash]

Arizona's McCain problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/john-mccain-obama_n_3694435.html?ref=topbar
Here comes Jan.

[eclecticdog]

It's hard to get excited about immigration. We knew it would fail before the latest effort got started. Too bad. I would really like to see the Dream Act passed. I don't like making the children pay for the errors of their parents. But that won't happen either because the Kooks know these kids won't vote for the party that has oppressed and demonized them for political positioning.

[Chris Thomas]

Cal:

Nonsense. Everyone always needs a lawyer, at all times. That will be $10,000.

[100 Octane]

This mornings AZ Republic has a story on a lack of skilled labor for building new homes.
I wonder why? God forbid home construction slows down.