Miguel Chavez
Prof. Boeck
RWS 92B
To the Editor of USA Today:
The debate over illegal immigration is as old as this country. This country is made up of many ethnicities and was built by them. Today, the debate goes on, but now more specifically about Mexican immigrants coming to this country and taking over jobs, leaving the American people without jobs. There has been an even more controversial issue regarding illegal immigration. President Bush ‘s proposal is to allow millions of foreign workers legal status in the United States for three years. After those three years are over, they would have to reapply and request another three years, but only if they can prove they have been working and paying taxes. The anti-immigrant people disagree because they feel the illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from the American citizens.
I'm a first generation Mexican-American in this country, and I feel very strongly about illegal immigrants coming to the United Sates and working. My father was an illegal immigrant for five years in the late 70s' until he gained legal residency through his employer. He came to this country when he was nineteen years old. He had to walk three days with a 20 once bottle of water and a ham sandwich from the borders of Tijuana to Los Angeles. His purpose was to work and help his mother and three siblings have a better life. They lived in Michuacan, Mexico (central part of Mexico) in poor conditions with no electricity and no running water. They had to walk about a mile down the hill to fill their buckets with water from a natural spring.
When my father immigrated to this country, he started working on the farm fields of Turlock California, about one hour south of San Francisco. He picked lettuce for twelve-hours with a half hour break. Unfortunately, while he was visiting his aunt in Los Angeles he was caught by the border patrol and was deported back to Mexico. Two weeks later he was back in Los Angeles where he found a job working construction and has been working for over twenty-five years.
I think my father is generally an example of why the majority of immigrants from Mexico come to this country. They don't come to this country for a vacation; they come to this country to work. In the article, “USA just wouldn't work without immigrant labor,” Mexican illegal immigrants work in jobs that other Americans don't want to do, such as meatpackers, hotel maids, hamburger flippers, waiters, gardeners, seamstresses, fruit and vegetable pickers, and construction workers. In fact, Margaret Catillaz, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said in the article “We've got more jobs than we've got capable people to do them, even with the bust that's going on.” That means that most of the people, including politicians, which disagree about allowing immigrants to come and work in this country don't know that it can economically hurt our country if we don't have cheap labor.
There are an estimated 8.5 million illegal immigrants in the Unites States today according to Laura Parker in the article “USA JustWouldn't Work Without Immigrant Labor.” In her article she quotes Greg Siskind, an immigration lawyer in Memphis: “If the anti-immigrant folks ever got what they wanted, and if all these illegal immigrants disappeared from this country, the economy would collapse,” and it makes sense to me. If all the immigrants were deported, then the price for a pound of tomatos would be three times as much as it is today. The employer would have to pay a legal worker about 10 to 15 dollars an hour with ten hours of work plus benefits. On the other hand, they just pay an illegal worker 4 to 6 dollars an hour for twelve hours of work, and with “ no benefits.” The difference is enormous when you combine all businesses in the country. The importance of having cheap labor in this country not only benefits the consumer but the worker. Even though the labor is being done by the immigrant is underpaid, they still get more pay in this country compared to their own. Next time an anti-immigrant decides to criticize the immigration work force, should think twice before taking a bite of a tomato.