What's so insidiously effective about the ethno-racist rants of people like Lou Dobbs is the fact that the bigotry is embedded within legitimate complaints about how corporations are permitted to exploit labor.
The function of people like Lou Dobbs is to direct working peoples' frustration away from the biggest perpetrators and beneficiaries of our union-busting, labor-shafting system, and onto the most vulnerable and desperate people caught in the grinder.
Meanwhile, corporate shills like John McCain pretend to be the friend of immigrants, and even levy charges of "racism" themselves to silence progressive pro-labor concerns.
It's a clever little Good Cop/Bad Cop game they have going, wherein both "competing" interests work from opposite-seeming sides of the same scheme to deliver falsehoods and muddy the waters about the true causes of and problems with our current corporate hiring system.
Too often we fall for it, turning on each other without realizing that big corporations--and the politicians and pundits owned by them--WANT workers (right and left, white and brown, citizen and noncitizen) fighting amongst ourselves, so that we will never make common cause and turn our collective energies upon the true exploiters, and demand justice for all.
It's time we pushed back against some of the most pervasive myths and talking points that serve the trans-border corporatocracy, and help those with ears to hear to siphon out the truth.
Below are some of the most persistent Good Cop/Bad Cop immigration talking points I've run across. I've also offered some possible responses. (Please feel free to suggest your own.)
Building a big fence, or shooting people at the border, or separating families and deporting people is the only surefire way to stop illegal immigration.
Response: False. Undocumented immigration occurs because big corporations and industries actively recruit undocumented labor. Plenty of meatpacking, Big Ag, construction, hotel, restaurant and retail chains (among others) have found that illegal hiring is one of the easiest ways to bust unions and keep new ones from forming. They also avoid having to pay a fair market price for labor, or follow wage, hour, safety and anti-harassment laws. (Other businesses hire undocumented migrant labor just to be able to compete in the market with the former.) These interests sometimes help to "coyote" people across the border by various means (on foot only being one of them).
Harsher immigration laws just make workers more fearful and more likely to succumb to exploitative conditions without organizing.
Solution: Punish the corporations that exploit the desperation of migrants in order to skirt labor laws. Do not punish the workers themselves.
Latin Americans come to this country because their own nations can't get their economic sh*t together.
Response: False. Actually, our foreign economic policies have a direct impact on the ability of peasant laborers in Mexico and Latin America to sustain themselves. For example, the US dumps heavily subsidized corn on the Mexican markets, making it impossible for local growers of maize to sell competitively to their own neighbors. US policy in Latin America has for decades been notorious for exploiting peasant farmers and appropriating their land and profits for companies like United Fruit, Del Monte, and Big Coffee. Also, American-owned sweatshops abound in Latin America.
Solution: If we want to plug the "desperation niche" that undocumented labor is filling, we need to stop contributing to worker desperation. Demand, support and buy Fair Trade rather than "free trade," lobby our government to end exploitative policies, support sustainable local ownership of resources, and pressure foreign heads of state to care for their people.
Illegal immigrants from Mexico are to blame for the fact that the blue collar and manual labor market in the US has been decimated.
Response: False on many counts. First, we can hardly blame people for wanting to work and eat. It's what the first immigrants to this country came here for the opportunity to do. (Though there are plenty of worthwhile Native American objections to that practice.) It is the "demand" of corporations that hire illegally that is driving the "supply" of undocumented workers. End the demand, the supply will dry up.
Second, NAFTA, CAFTA, and the globalization movement have allowed US corporations to relocate hundreds of thousands of manufacturing plants overseas and south of the border. "Free Trade" has allowed corporations to outsource critical manual, technological and telecom labor, and to import cheaply made foreign products and parts that used to be made right here. Corporations are also "onshoring" cheap IT, legal and service labor from South Asia, Eastern Europe and other places, under legal labor policies. Latino immigrants have nothing to do with these blows to the domestic labor sector.
Solution: Demand an end to NAFTA and CAFTA. Demand laws that tax offshoring to the point where it is unprofitable. Demand tax incentives for corporations that hire locally and that buy products from domestic sources. Demand that stimulus money stay in the US, even if that means building new manufacturing plants. Buy products made in the US, and products produced under Fair Trade and planet-friendly conditions.
Illegal immigrants (from Mexico) are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violent crime and drug-dealing in the US. They also refuse to assimilate or speak English, have too many kids, and are taxing our health care, education and corrections systems without paying into them (except for the sales taxes they pay).
Response: This is an incendiary distraction from the fact that US corporations deliberately recruit and seek undocumented labor for their own selfish ends, and the fact that US foreign economic policies contribute to the squalor that leaves people little choice but to brave the border.
The "disproportionate crime rate" claim is thin on evidence. A number of studies indicate that people born outside the US are less likely to wind up in a county jail or state prison. However, additional stress and cost to the public services network is inevitable, since the lack of support and services endemic to "illegal" status has to impact peoples' health and family stability. It is also hard to expect people hiding on the margins to invest in and connect to a community (i.e., "assimilate") when that community rejects them as "illegal."
Solution: Deal with domestic and foreign corporate and trade policies, the labor issues will resolve themselves. When people have greater justice at home, and when US corporations are not permitted to target undocumented immigrants as a means to skirt labor laws, immigration will occur under far healthier circumstances.
Undocumented immigrants do work that citizens and legal immigrants won't do. Also, if we crack down on illegal hiring, prices will skyrocket and it will be hard to buy essential things.
Response: False. There is NO work that citizens and legal immigrants (of all backgrounds) won't do, provided that they can demand a fair market price for their labor. It may be true that citizens can't afford to work under the reprehensible conditions that too many migrant laborers are compelled to live under, but that doesn't mean that anyone should have to sleep six to a barrack, or breathe pesticides, or work for 20 hours in blistering heat without breaks, or endure sexual abuse, get locked in overnight at work, or go without workman's comp or social security or health care or a livable wage in order to work.
Further, the "low prices" associated with cheap labor come at a high cost. Much of the cost difference lines CEO pockets and is not passed on to the consumer. And, low prices don't help when they mean people are paying with food stamps and unemployment checks, or when labor salaries have been driven into the cellar thanks to companies that hire illegally to avoid paying fair wages. Higher prices are easier to pay when people actually have jobs and can earn decent money.
Solution: Demand strict enforcement all existing labor laws on corporations, and lobby for the passage of even stronger laws that make it harder for corporations to, for example, employ people at "just under" fulltime to deprive them of benefits. Lobby hard for a single-payer healthcare system that takes the burden of healthcare off of domestic businesses, so they can compete internationally. End conditions under which workers of different immigration and citizenship status can be treated differently (this includes "guest worker" programs). Allow workers to organize and to demand a fair market price for their labor.
It's not fair to blame or punish employers who indulge in illegal hiring practices because they can't always know when forged documentation is fake.
Response: False. This is a convenient excuse that no longer holds water (if it ever did), because e-verification technology exists to track the uses of social security numbers. Further, as mentioned, most undocumented hiring practices are absolutely deliberate.
Solution: Give employers all the resources they need to hire within the law, and punish the daylights out of the ones that break the law.
We owe jobs to undocumented Latino immigrants. We've appropriated land that was historically theirs (California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas). Also, they add rich cultural diversity that blesses and enriches our nation. Hiring undocumented immigrants is an act of kinship and generosity.
Response: This is one of many excellent arguments for why we should treat undocumented immigrants that are already here with civility, respect and compassion. (Plus, corporations lured them here with the promise of work.) Yes, immigrants from all corners of the globe add valuable cultural diversity that enriches our nation. Without question. And citizens would do well to learn several languages, and to mandate that their children do the same.
Morally, we probably do owe a living to Latino immigrants. We also probably owe a home and job to every single displaced, kidnapped, bombed or orphaned Iraqi, Afghani, and Pakistani, not to mention every Vietnamese person and Laotian. And by that standard, we absolutely owe a living to every last Native American. We probably also owe a home and living to the tribes of Africa that our heavy metal and jewel corporations have exploited and displaced, and that our gun companies have maimed and murdered. "Morally," we probably should just pack the fuck up and go back to Europe or wherever the hell our ancestors came from.
But practically, the hiring of undocumented immigrants is not about kinship or generosity. It's about paying people crap, under crappy work conditions, treating them like crap, and making them too scared to protest. It's also about destroying labor gains fought for by heroes like Ceasar Chavez, who was vehemently against illegal hiring for exactly the above reasons.
Solution: Celebrate diversity. Welcome people of all ethnicities. Champion foreign economic and local immigration policies that do not create suffering elsewhere or exploit suffering here. Target and lead campaigns against corporations and politicians that add to the misery of workers.
Join our voices to worldwide labor movements pushing for just treatment and sustainable nodes of local prosperity and local ownership across borders. Demand a nation and a culture that respects and rewards labor.
Again, promote Fair Trade policies, and buy Fair Trade products. Reject the false god of "Free Trade."
Most importantly: Know there is no problem we cannot love and innovate our way out of, when we work together. We do not need to compromise our values or our respect for each other, our planet, or the ability of any person to make a decent living, if that is our goal.
Si, se puede.