Shortly after posting my last blog post, I came across this comment (at bottom of page) criticizing the anti-HR4437 marches as a bunch of “illegal aliens” whining about no longer being allowed to break the law. I wrote the following up, but then started to second guess the details. I think all my readers have views pretty similar to my own, but I thought I would share this with you all anyway, partly because it fleshes out more of my thinking about law-breaking, and partly because these fairly rough thoughts, and the resources I’ve linked to below, might be of use to you folks in talking to people like “Skylark”.

I too am a big fan of the rule of law. But part of that package is a requirement to keep our laws just, protecting the rights of people, not necessarily the interests of businesses or any other organization. “The trust and stability that come from an expectation of honesty and fairness” comes not from enforcement alone, but from the enforcement of just and humane laws. Further militarizing the border and penalizing humanitarian activities doesn’t do that.

We’ve known for many years now that the primary victims of increased (illegal or legal) immigration are other immigrants. Are the legal immigrants pushing this kind of legislation? No, legal immigrants and descendents of legal immigrants are marching in solidarity with the undocumented. What does this indicate to you? I think that should indicate this is more about rejecting anti-immigrant attitudes than the legal issue.

The primary beneficiaries of illegal immigration are the businesses that employ undocumented workers. The total cost of education and medical care for undocumented workers is much less than the taxes they pay, and their per-capita GDP is less than their wages. The rest of society is also benefitting from them. Undocumented workers are not asking us to leave the bank vault open, but to acknowledge that they are an integral part of our society, and that they are not a ‘criminal element’ to be evicted at all costs.

Enforcement policies alone do very little to stem illegal immigration. In the years from 2000 to 2005, 85% of immigration from Mexico was unauthorized, in spite of the increase in border enforcement during the last decade.

Immigration and migration are social phenomena caused by economic factors. In this same period that border enforcement and unauthorized immigration have increased, the economic disparity between here and the other side of the border has also increased, in spite of NAFTA, which was supposed to narrow the gap. Treating unauthorized immigration as simply an issue of law enforcement is overlooking the root causes, and ignoring the human issues.

I know I should match up the stats with the sources, but that’s too much work. Everything here is found somewhere in the documents in this list (I think): http://del.icio.us/serapio/immigration