When I was fresh out of the USN and went into graduate school I taught a couple of courses at a major electrical engineering school. One was Engineering Economics. The course was about the economics of building production environments in company factories. We spent a lot of time speaking and making empirical studies concerned with investing capital in new machinery and quality control procedures. The financial aspects of capital investments consumed a lot of time and we had to make room for studying the MAKING of MISTAKES in purchases and installations. A couple of key words that were used to get to gut tactical and strategic decisions were "SUNK COSTS". Those words meant that if equipment purchasing mistakes were made, we should pay the price for errors, and get on with the task of doing the necessary things. Don't linger and waste time debating what might have been, or how we might do this and that to save face and restore the system that can't be restored. "Cut bait" and "accept the error as a done deal" and go on from there. Absorb the "SUNK COST".
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a Gather article titled "IMMIGRATION: JUSTICE AND LAW ISSUES". In it I argued that for decades now the Congress, the Presidencies, and the Employers in the USA had been ignoring the discernible impacts of "immigration" over our North and the South borders. BLAME could be put in many, many places. I argued that that indifference might have meant that no officials really gave much of a damn about illegal immigration then (AND even now?). Is this whole situation a tempest in a tea pot? In some ways 'yes', I think!
It seems to be based on an idea that the jobs that illegal immigrants have NOW are robbing USA citizens of desirable jobs. There seems to be precious little hard evidence that that logic holds. Sure the immigrants here entered 'illegally' but no one really acted in the past to button-up the flows. Certainly the Congress and the Presidents in the past few decades knew about the problems, but ignored them and did not perform corrective oversight. Worst of all, the USA businesses kept hiring the 'illegals' because it might have been necessary in a tight USA labor market and was probably 'good business' profit-wise. So I see and saw a lot of hypocrisy dotting the stage as discussions proceeded in the past few months. Our government groups would likely be called 'negligent' at least ; businesses might be called as being involved in 'illegal practices (although I am not familiar enough with labor law to know if that label can be attached to them ; and certainly many immigrants are in the USA illegally. Mistakes and greed and and oversight and bad will are all over the place. What might acceptance of the "SUNK COST" engineering logic do to repair the damage with some hard nosed correction suggestions?
1. Congress should be roundly chastised for permitting this situation to develop. Oversight should have been better. Our system of government makes it difficult to say that Congress is culpable but it was and is! They are charged in our cherished CONSTITUTION with writing LAWS and with FUNDING the actions intended. Who will really pay the piper? The illegal immigrants, of course. Most of our senators and representatives may feel no sting at all. Should they? The BLAME goes back in time for multi-decades!
2. Then there are the Presidents, past and present who overlooked the problem in the past. Its not only Bush. He, at least, is trying to solve the problems. What to do about them? Probably nothing at all. Again? Who pays? The illegal immigrants!
3. The various branches of the USA Press. TV, Radio, Magazines, Bloggers, Book Publishers, etc. etc. are at fault too. Why didn't they raise WE THE PEOPLE's collective consciousness! Why wasn't there more investigative inquiry?
4. WE THE PEOPLE ARE CULPABLE TOO! WE MAY BE GETTING READY TO IMPACT LIVES AND POSSIBLY DESTROY THE LIVES too of many innocent and unwise immigrants and their families, because of OUR 'oversights'. Our lack of concern and understanding!
5. The BIG error-generators however are the USA EMPLOYERS. They are the major cause-makers. Some, I am certain did so for humane reasons; others for economic gain in a free enterprise system that presently seems to permit what has been going on via LAWS that are not being enforced. Here is the HEART of the matter. Significant attention to remedies should be applied HERE!
6. Finally, there are the illegal immigrants themselves. They did wrong. But how many of us fortunate American Citizens would have done the same thing IF we had been in their shoes? Can we criticize them if in our own hearts and minds we know what we might have done if the shoe was on the other foot? They too want 'good lives' and opportunities for their kinfolk and children. Yes they all probably want a good life, and the blessings of economic liberty. They probably want to live just live and work and enjoy 'freedom' in this great country of ours that they probably pray for and wish was theirs -- but they were not born here. Their intent was not based on contrived deception!
I'll end with two suggestions -- possibly for the new executive actions that should likely take place to be fair, just and efficient:
1. Let employers know that the 'game' is up! No more hiring of 'illegal immigrants'. That will help dry up the inflows quickly, iI suspect when the word gets out in Canada and Mexico. Every present illegal employee in the USA now should be backed up by legal documentation which makes that illegal immigrant a subject of careful scrutiny. There should be some sort of plan to permit them to become LEGAL citizens. or else lose their jobs and be ineligible for other jobs in the USA. The employers should be held to be in contempt of the law if this process is violated in any way. This clearly demands that proper identification systems and information systems be developed to implement these legal and to be enforced intentions.
The 'SUNK COST' concept (i.e. past errors can be should be ignored in light of the need for JUSTICE and PRAGMATISM) demands that the systems must be just, compassionate, and progressive. The systems must be designed to recognize that human lives are involved here and the USA must accept the burden that WE THE PEOPLE (governments, employers, the 4th Estate, and the people) and the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are ALL culpable. (The WORLD is watching this great democracy.)
2. The Borders (North and South) should be sealed with the hope that when things settle down, there will be a decreased need to be harsh. At this time I think our craving for 'safety' in the climate of 'terrorism' is driving us to actions that are somewhat dysfunctional. What good is safety if at the same time we destroy our humanity? The National Guard should really NOT be used at all, but due to present exigencies, that intent should be compromised!
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Comments: 9
I live in a rural agriculture county. Illegal immigration has seriously eroded pay and benefits in the construction industry. As for farm workers. Illegal immigrants equal a farm subsidy. Tax payers pay the education and medical costs. The Farmer, (usually a very large agribusiness) gets cheap, fearful and docile workers.
There are other job issues directly linked to illegal immigration. Why sould a pizza parlor or restaurant hire a college student and worry about scheduling work around classes when the employer can hire an illegal immigrant for less and the worker does not have schedule problems. So the days when one could put oneself through college doing labor are over.
I am quite sick of the lie that illegals are only taking jobs U. S. Citizens don't want.
As far as I have noticed Bush did not mention any employer sanctions or any intention of enforcing the existing laws.
When I scanned through news today, I found no distinction between illegal and legal immigration. The issue is referred to as immigration.
I am not feeling rational about this issue. I have two letters one each from one of my California Senators, and My local U.S. Rep. Both mentioning the need for agriculture workers.
This is a lie.
My son farms, and does off farm work as well. He was working for one of the local big guys, pay check every two weeks. EVERY paycheck had an error, he had to go to the Farmers house/office each payday to wait around for a new check. What was he doing, operating and repairing some of the large equipment. Do you think the illegal immigrant workers got their pay check errors fixed each payday. Yes, of course my son quit, so the farmer can now claim he can't get a citizen employee.
I applaud your appeal for reason, but there is not much of an honest look at what is really happening in the U.S. labor market. Not to mention that the newest immigrants do not have jobs and are starting up their own free lance businesses, food preparation in uninspected kitchens, direct hire labor, retailing from anywhere a place to stand and display product can be found. All of this is done outside any laws and regulations.
So to keep saying this is necessary labor is pure deception.
Education is very expensive. If the schools in our county did not have illegal immigrant children and the born here children of illegal immigrants at least half of them would close. Health care for poor U.S. citizens, well they have to stand in line with illegal immigrants, and not much is left, it is spread too thin. The budgets are inadequate.
There are laws now, have any employers been fined in the last two weeks?
YEP!!
DICK
I made the point of helping Mexico to help to solve their problem witrh their citizens in the first article. I thought it might complicate a PRESENT solution by having to argue the NAFTA issue away.
I simply keep thinking of the 'torn apart' immigrant people and families. Worse, I see the 'holier than thou attitude' sitting around in the blissful ignorance of congressional folk, brandishing their own good luck to be USA citizens while castiagating the less fortunate 'ILLEGAL' immigrants -- when all that BLAME that can easily be linked to them, should sober them up VALUE-WISE. WE THE PEOPLE need WISDOM in charge, NOT 'hardness of heart and mind'.
'Send the illegals home!" "They shouldn't be here!" -- sickens me! So simple-minded and unkind! And they are our 'leaders'? Our wise men ? No matter our country overseas is being looked at as nearly 'uncivilized'. Are WE?
Dick
I am quite dumfounded at your attitude. The illegal immigrants are causing real economic harm to U.S. citizens.
I am furious with the government because employer sanctions are ignored.
I hate knowing that the illegal immigrants work for very poor pay, in unsafe conditions, and live in wretched conditions. I find it disgusting that this is planned and deliberate, allowing so many to come here.
I am amazed that you seem to care nothing about what this doing to U. S. citizens and legal immigrants, some made legal as recent as the 1980 immigration reform bill.
I don't think the U.S. should be supporting Mexico. Mexico is a country with fabulous resources.
Why should the ordinary citizens of a nation be considered uncivilized and unkind because we want the immigration laws, now in place upheld?
Please believe me when I say that I deeply sympathize with the 'illegal immigrants'. I -- ALSO -- have never said or suggested that USA citizens should not be taken into consideration when policy decisions are made by our Government.
I guess I am really convinced that IF our government agencies and executives in the PAST (President and Congress) had acted more responsibly and wisely, and our business executives had done the same in staffing their operations, the 'illegals' (who probably never thought of themselves as 'illegals') would probably not be here. But they are in the USA due in major part to OUR past negligence. Our great country would not be in the 'mess' it is in now if WE had acted more responsibly.
I simply want there to be an awareness that OUR (USA folk) actions have contributed tto THEIR (IMMIGRANT folk) despair. Blame is all over the place. How do we act responsibly and fairly to such other persons who we may have hurt by OUR past indifference and misdeeds, recognizing that they (the immigrants) too share some of the responsibility? That's my philosophical, legal, and religious concern. To be downright serious: what is the MORAL thing to do? Not the 'seeming' legal thing to do? What would Christ, or Moses, Buddha, Confucius, or Lao Tse done? WHAT ARE THE 'JUST' SOLUTIONS to this awful human situation where families and children will be impacted and are being impacted? Citizens and 'illegal' IMMIGRANTS wishing and hping that they might be citizens of our great country -- SOME DAY?
Dick
There is a profound issue at the root of this debate about 'illegal' immigration. It has to do with the meaning of being a 'child of God' and/or a 'cirizen of some nation state or other.' It also has to do with being a 'WORLD CITIZEN' and a 'USA CITIZEN'.
When i was graduate student back after WWII, I came into contact with a man who eventually became a Nobel Laureate and who, at the time, was a senior professor in the Statistics Department where I was a young instructor. His area of excellence was (empirical) theory of economic development. One of his basic beliefs was that the LONG-TERM needs of the WORLD were based upon (1) Free Trade of Goods and Products, and (2) Free Flows of persons from and to any 'nation state' on Earth. [In economic theory, PERSONS are NEVER 'commodities' but must be treated differently from the FREE TRADE argument. I agreed then and I agree now.]Simon Kuznets and his family were immigrants from the Bolshevik Russian State, and he in later life certainly knew about the gains to be had by one's self by living in a 'free environment' , and also -- indirectly -- the gains to be had by the nation state that understood the benefits to be had by attracting energetic and ambitious persons from all over the WORLD. As the jargon goes: "We are a nation of immigrants." Does that say something important?
Now enter the politics of fear and uncertainty. "Jobs are being taken from legitimate citizens logic." Perhaps nonsense? Think about what the situation might be if we NEEDED the immigrants (legal or not) BECAUSE economic activity in the USA was so robust and for progress we really needed the arms and minds and skills and hearts of foreigners! . Would there be this present 'concern for legality'. Perhaps! But I think that one of the reasons that this issue has been ignored for so many decades is almost precisely THAT POINT. The policy makers in our USA did not care because 'times were good'. 'IIllegal' immigrants have never seemed like a threat before, and NOW -- for some inexplicable reason they have turned into a dire threat. I think that in the minds of many of us (in high and low places) today there is a 'compound' error going on: the illegal work issue has been intellectually and emotionally LINKED to the TERRORIST idea. UNFIORTUNATELY!
I favor the rational, legitimate, legal road to CITIZENSHIP. BUT in this present situation, I think that our USA's past negligence cannot and should not be dismissed as unrelated to the question of HUMAN JUSTICE. That's why I introduced the idea of 'SUNK COSTS'. We've made errors, so have the 'illegals'. Lets NOT totally 'forgive and forget' but for the love of ETHICS and MORALITY -- and the idea of UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD -- lets get off the pot and dispense proper JUSTICE! Think families, children and WORLD attitudes about us!
Dick