Immigration, both documented and undocumented, is a large policy issue facing the United States of America today. Documented immigrants are immigrants who have come to the United States legally, with the proper paperwork, and the appropriate visa for their situation (Khor and Winegarden 1991). For some, documentation may come through a job offer; for others, documentation may be granted based on a familial or spousal relationship to an American citizen (Khor and Winegarden 1991). Documented immigrants are immigrants who are, in essence, in the country legally; undocumented immigrants, then, are immigrants who are in the United States illegally. The bulk of the discussion about immigration and much of the discourse that goes on in the political sphere in the United States is concerned with illegal immigration, rather than legal and documented immigration.
Many solutions have been offered to the problem of illegal or unauthorized immigration, and the solutions have varied from the overly optimistic and inclusive to the downright racist and xenophobic. One such solution, implemented in Arizona, criminalized the failure to carry documents proving one’s immigration status; this law was decried as highly unconstitutional and illegal because it encouraged-- even demanded-- racial profiling on the part of law enforcement officials (Bardes, Schmidt and Shelley 2013). However, when challenged in court, the courts failed to rule on the content on the law, stating instead that the law was unconstitutional because immigration, according to the Constitution, is the purview of the federal government, not the state governments (Bardes, Schmidt and Shelley 2013).
Because the courts of the United States have affirmed time and again that immigration as a whole is under the jurisdiction of the federal government, solving the problem of unauthorized immigration becomes simultaneously easier and broader in scope. Most sources suggest that those individuals who enter the country illegally and participate in low-end or menial jobs are not, in fact, causing harm to the economy; according to Davidson (2013) from The New York Times:
Illegal immigration does have some undeniably negative economic effects. Similarly skilled native-born workers are faced with a choice of either accepting lower pay or not working in the field at all. Labor economists have concluded that undocumented workers have lowered the wages of U.S. adults without a high-school diploma — 25 million of them — by anywhere between 0.4 to 7.4 percent.
The impact on everyone else, though, is surprisingly positive. Giovanni Peri has written a series of influential papers comparing the labor markets in states with high immigration levels to those with low ones. He concluded that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers — instead, they complement them. (Davidson 2013)
In short, while illegal or undocumented workers working menial jobs in the United States do harm some Americans, the negative impacts of illegal or undocumented immigration is actually offset by the ways in which illegal immigrants boost the economy and help the average American to succeed in the marketplace.
Accepting that the individuals who make up the majority of the undocumented or unauthorized immigrant population have a positive effect on the economy does not absolve them of the fact that they are committing a crime by entering the United States illegally. However, it does seem to imply that the best solution to illegal immigration is not the “build a wall” approach that many border states have taken-- instead, there must be a solution that allows the good of illegal or undocumented immigration to happen, while minimizing the negative aspects of illegal immigration.
One potential solution is to impose harsher punishments upon those who are caught in the country working illegally, or those who have stayed in the country after their visas have expired. However, a crackdown on illegal immigration is an expensive process: law enforcement officials must be trained and their resourced diverted from other activities, laws must be passed and then tested in various levels of the American justice system, and the economy overall could potentially suffer if the program is successful (Davidson 2013). Davidson (2013) quotes an economist from the Economist Policy Institute who says: “‘That [illegal immigration is positive] is not controversial there is a consensus that, on average, the incomes of families in this country are increased by a small, but clearly positive amount, because of immigration’” (Davidson 2013). Funneling more resources into halting illegal immigration seems to be contrary to the other goals of the American government, such as boosting the economy.
Instead, one potential solution to the undocumented or unauthorized immigration problem is one that many politicians do not want to approach: changing America’s immigration policies. Some may feel as though changing America’s immigration policies is conceding defeat, and rewarding bad behavior; however, in reality, America’s immigration policies as they stand today are nearly always prohibitively expensive and lengthy (Daniels 2004). Daniels (2004) writes that the current immigration requirements are so stringent that even spouses may spend years living apart-- even if one spouse is legally an American citizen. It is nearly impossible for a poorly-educated worker who crosses the border to do menial work to navigate the American immigration system (Daniels 2004). Immigration to the United States almost always requires a lawyer who specializes in immigration law; this is an incredibly expensive and long process, which can easily take more than a decade to complete (Daniels 2004).
Allowing for a more permeable border will take some of the pressure off the already-stressed immigration system. A guest worker program, which issues a government identification card and number--not unlike a driver’s license and social security number-- would allow individuals to cross the border or even stay for a predetermined length of time to work in the United States. A guest worker program would benefit the United States’ agricultural industry, as many of the laborers working in the agricultural industry in California are undocumented immigrants who follow the harvests through Baja California, into Southern California, and up the coast (Daniels 2004). A guest worker program would allow these individuals to continue working as they do-- traveling and following the harvests-- without worrying that they will be caught and deported for doing work that few Americans are willing to do.
In addition, many undocumented workers face the problem of being unable to obtain fair wages or benefits from their work because of their status as undocumented immigrants (Daniels 2004). This is sometimes the fault of abusive employers, who employ undocumented immigrants to keep costs low; however, it is also sometimes merely a side effect of the system of immigration that is currently in place in the United States. The guest worker program would allow individuals agency that they do not currently have; it would also force employers to pay the proper level of taxes to the state and federal governments, as employers will often fail to pay income tax on wages that they are paying under the table to undocumented or unauthorized immigrants (Davidson 2013).
Implementing a guest worker program will also begin to alleviate some of the strain that hospitals feel in areas that are heavily populated by undocumented immigrants (Davidson 2013). Undocumented immigrants frequently are not provided with health insurance or cannot obtain health insurance due to their legal status; however, if they must use medical services, then the American taxpayers must foot the bill, because hospitals cannot turn away an individual in need of medical attention (Davidson 2013).
A guest worker program will not, of course, solve all the problems associated with illegal or undocumented immigration, nor will it guarantee that the United States is free from terrorist threats from illegal immigrants who have overstayed their tourist visas. However, it is a more progressive solution to the problem of immigration in the United States than the Arizona solution and futile attempt to crack down on illegal immigration (Bardes, Schmidt, and Shelley 2013). The guest worker program would allow individuals who have legitimate reasons to work in the United States to pass undeterred over the border, while still maintaining the stringent standards for citizenship that the federal government has deemed necessary.
Xenophobia and blatant racism sometimes play an unfortunate role in the discussion of illegal or undocumented immigration. These two issues can cloud the discussion, and can slow or even halt policy decisions that are being proposed by responsible lawmakers. It is important to try to divorce the politics of the discussion from the policy of the discussion: a knee-jerk negative reaction to a potential solution is often not the most well-educated or logical reaction that an individual can have.
References
Bardes, Barbara A., Schmidt, Steffen W., and Shelley, Mack C. 2013. American Government and Politics Today, Brief Ed. Wadsworth, Australia: Cengage Learning.
Daniels, Roger. Guarding the golden door. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004. Print.
Davidson, Adam. 2013. “Do illegal immigrants actually hurt the US economy?” The New York Times, February.
Khor, Lay Boon and Winegarden, C.R. 1991. “Undocumented Immigration and Unemployment of U.S. Youth and Minority Workers: Econometric Evidence.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 73,1:105-112.
