EDITORIAL Cheap labors hidden costs are injustice and harm
Some of us are illegal and
some are not wanted Our work contracts out and we have to move on Six
hundred miles to that Mexican border They chase us like outlaws, like
rustlers, like thieves
We died in your hills, we died in your
deserts We died in your valleys and died on your plains We died
neath your trees and we died in your bushes Both sides of the river,
we died just the same
Some things havent changed much since the late Woodie
Guthrie, the legendary American songwriter, penned the words to the song
Deportee, about Mexican farm workers of another era.
The Mexican border remains a violent place for immigrants, and
that song of decades ago remains eerily relevant. Too many Mexican immigrants
die -- more than 1,600 since 1994 -- trying to make it into the states. On Feb.
2, we published a story that told of a vicious cycle of death along the border
where immigrants often die of exposure to heat or cold in the desert or
mountains while crossing into the United States seeking jobs that few others
will do.
Some significant changes could take place, however, if legislative
proposals currently making their way through Congress, as well as recent
negotiations between Mexico and the United States on migration policy, make any
headway.
Mexicos new president, Vicente Fox, already has met with
President George W. Bush and pressed for new policies that would make it easier
for Mexican workers to enter the United States and to stay on without fear of
deportation. How interested Bush is in reform is unknown, but he has allowed
talks to continue.
Legislative proposals that would expand current guest
worker programs, proposals that would have been unthinkable not too long
ago, are being taken seriously. For many reasons, a shift in attitude is
underway.
For one thing, as our story indicated, even some Immigration and
Naturalization Service employees have tired of trying to square the grisly
charade of attempting to seal the borders -- a tactic that never worked and
only resulted in increasing deaths of immigrants -- with the reality that
Mexican workers are needed and welcomed by U.S. industries.
As Isabel Garcia, a Tucson attorney and border rights advocate,
succinctly put it: There wouldnt be any border-crosser deaths or a
need for border patrol rescues if the United States had a fair and
equitable immigration policy that actually recognized we [Americans] are
dependent on Mexican workers. The construction, hotel, meat packing and
agriculture industries wouldnt be able to keep operating if they were not
able to employ cheap Mexican labor.
So why are we forcing people to run a deadly obstacle course
to find employment in U.S. industries which are begging for them?
The realization that U.S. business depends on foreign labor, the
growing ties between Mexico and the United States and the growing repugnance at
the deaths of immigrants are among factors that could make change possible.
Change that benefits the workers as well as provide a convenience
for business will depend on an acknowledgement of the dignity of foreign
workers that we have refused to make in the past.
It is a curious irony that the people without whom we would not
have much of our food are among the lowest paid, most easily ignored workers in
the country. A recent indication of the kind of regard we have as a culture for
those who work in such industries was the Bush administrations decision
to reverse some federal regulations that would have protected workers in the
event of injury. Few complained, because those workers have no power or voice.
There is a simple bottom line to the matter: If farm workers and
others received just wages, our food and other commodities would be more
expensive.
Advocates for migrant workers are wary of the new initiatives to
increase the number of seasonal farm workers allowed into the United States as
well as initiatives that would extend use of foreign workers to other areas of
the economy such as construction, tourism and retail. Unless the regulations
are accompanied by requirements for decent wages and living conditions and the
right to organize, the United States might be simply making it easier for
people to become enslaved.
The movement is in the right direction. People who ultimately are
integral to American enterprise should not be subjected to the threat of death
on the way to getting their jobs. Eliminating that threat is just part of our
responsibility. We must view immigrant workers as more than pieces in an
economic machine.
And then maybe we can get out from under the weight of the
songwriters disturbing questions:
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards? Is this
the best way we can grow our good fruit? To fall like dry leaves to rot on
my topsoil And be called by no name except deportees?
National Catholic Reporter, April 13,
2001
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