Today, the New York Times editorial board lauded Hillary Clinton's stances on immigration, saying that they were much more progressive than Obama's, who deported millions of immigrants. While the NYT editorial board rightly says that Hillary is taking the lead on this issue and her stances are better than the status quo, an article from their own paper shows the shortcomings of her plan. "The Price of Nice Nails" shows the failure of our immigration policies to either control the flow of illegal immigration or to allow people who come here to work for a living wage. Their first piece published today. They plan to publish another piece tomorrow.
In New York City, numerous Asian immigrants come here and are hired to polish peoples' fingernails. This underground industry has sprung up in New York like wildfire; while there are other cities in which this industry operates, New York City is ground zero. Workers are frequently expected to pay a $100 application fee just for the privilege of getting their foot in the door; they have to work several weeks before they get any pay. $20-30 a day is a median salary for this industry. In addition, employees are frequently docked pay for such misdemeanors as dropping nail polish, displaying a negative attitude, or sloppy work.
In spite of this, the State of New York, let alone the feds, refuse to enforce wage laws. The state only started asking questions after the NYT reporters contacted them regarding their story.
Last year, the New York State Labor Department, in conjunction with several other agencies, conducted its first nail salon sweep ever — about a month after The Times sent officials there an inquiry regarding their enforcement record with the industry. Investigators inspected 29 salons and found 116 wage violations.
Among the more than 100 workers interviewed by The Times, only about a quarter said they were paid an amount that was the equivalent of New York State’s minimum hourly wage. All but three workers, however, had wages withheld in other ways that would be considered illegal, such as never getting overtime.
You can read the NYT Editorial Board's assessment of Hillary's recent speech on immigration
here. Hillary would go farther to protect immigrants from deportation than Obama based on their ties to family and work. She promised to improve conditions at detention facilities, which were in the news last year. She would support a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million people under the shadows.
But as the Editorial Board itself notes, Hillary has "set no timetable for action," and that it would be difficult for her to protect immigrants with minor convictions and allow them to stay here. And as today's story in their own paper shows, Hillary Clinton has not sufficiently addressed the issues involving immigration. For instance, in her recent speech, Hillary did not offer any kind of plan involving the enforcement of our labor laws that is causing a lot of our immigration problems.
The problem is that when you pass prohibition laws of any kind, you create a black market. When we prohibited alcohol following World War I, we created a massive black market for that. When we tried to prohibit same-sex couples from functioning in society, we created another black market. Before Roe vs. Wade, we had a lot of doctors performing illegal abortions and women dying as a result. When we passed laws prohibiting pot and other drugs, we simply created a worldwide black market for people to sell drugs to the public.
And this is what is happening in New York City today. Thanks to our overly restrictive laws on immigration, we have a thriving black market dealing in immigrants in which the nail polish industry is just a small fraction. Many of these laws were passed by the same people who brought us Plessy vs. Ferguson and who made Jim Crow the law of the land and who created a gigantic ugly mess of corporate monopolies.
Before the "Yellow Scare," we had a policy of open borders, as did the Native Americans who came before us. We are all immigrants unless you're a Native American. The Founding Fathers supported the value of immigration and a pathway to citizenship. Even former tories were allowed to become citizens of this country even though they had just taken up arms in support of God and King.
While it is not be practical to recreate open borders, we can and should make it as easy as possible to allow immigrants to come here legally. We grew and thrived as a nation because we were a melting pot society. As early as the 1860's, France felt threatened by the US, which they saw as a rising economic power; a divided America was much more in their interests. That is part of the reason why they seized Mexico and sought to help the Confederates in the Civil War. Cinco de Mayo helped put an end to those ambitions. So, if you're thankful for our freedoms, thank a veteran -- and thank a Mexican. We would not be where we are today without them.
Right now, there are over 90 million people and counting who corporate America considers to be "unemployable." Allowing more immigrants into this country will help alleviate this problems since immigrants create jobs. A strong immigration plan should treat each immigration as a potential job creator, not someone to be exploited for low wages and cheap labor.