Immigration Reform and Drug Cartels
By Amy Rebeiro
In the state of California immigration reform is a key issue of importance, as it is in many border states. In a state that has a vast agricultural community, immigrant workers keep farms functioning. Rarely do American citizens apply for these jobs. Interestingly enough, many of these workers travel to the United States during the crop season, moving from farm to farm to make money for their families. Some of these people move back to their home country, while others stay and send money back to their families.
Concerns are rising now regarding the safety of our borders, but not from immigrants that are looking for a better life for themselves taking American jobs, but those people turning to other sources to care for their families. The growth of drug trafficking and the violence it has brought into the United States has replaced the fear of job stealing. The concerned with our Mexican border as it pertains to people coming here to work needs to be addressed, but there is a larger concerned with the drug cartels and their exploitation of poor families and former soldiers in the Mexican Armed Forces. What the issue comes down to now, more than ever, is safety, which I don’t think the US has done a very good job of ensuring. Border patrol agents are afraid to patrol because of fear of death.
How are Americans to feel safe when our own agents of safety can’t effectively watch our borders? People are being killed in the United States because these cartels have infiltrated so deeply into the US that they now have hired hands living here. Shockingly, many of these people are Americans.
About 4 years ago, when the topic of Immigration Reform was of greater debate, the issue of drug cartels was not discussed as a major concern and reason for building the wall between the US and Mexico ( a wall that is easily scaled and a complete waste of money) but, the US focused on jobs in America, felons coming into the US (child molesters/abusers, etc.) and, border safety because of Al Qaeda (the majority of Al Qaeda or terrorists as a whole, were caught trying to enter the US entering from Canada, not Mexico).
To detain immigrants crossing the border is of higher cost to Americans. And the cost for deportation is higher still. The study, “Deporting the Undocumented: A Cost Assessment,” scheduled for release today by the Center for American Progress, is billed by its authors as the first-ever estimate of costs associated with arresting, detaining, prosecuting and removing immigrants who have entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas. The total cost would be $206 billion to $230 billion over five years, depending on how many of the immigrants leave voluntarily, according to the study.” Washington Post, 2005. We can’t just build a fence and expect the problem to go away.
The United States does deport some immigrants, and what the US is finding is that many of them just cross back over again. I really don’t think that many Americans would be willing to do the hard labor of farm labor for the income of many of these immigrant families. Many Americans complain about getting paid minimum wage for standing around doing nothing. I have found that many labors make roughly minimum wage.
If the United States had a better relationship with Mexico, like it does with Canada, this issue would be for not. But that would mean Mexico would have to be more like Canada. Mexico is in dire need of assistance financially, and it needs a new system of government. It is so corrupt and dangerous people leave because they have no choice.
Building a relationship of worker visas, give people the right to work in a more available way, and have them pay taxes, that is something to move this issue forward. But, as I was trying to point out, it is the issue of lack of work and money that has driven us to the situation we are in right now with drug cartels. And this has been an issue since the Clinton administration. A task force was created to combat the drug cartels moving into the United States from Mexico. Cocaine is one of the biggest imported items from Mexico into the United States. We have intelligence in Afghanistan and Iraq or wherever combating Al Qaeda, but I would say that the largest threat to Americans right now is the violence from these cartels just south of our border.
Would people turn to death and violence to provide for their families if an alternative were available to them? Who has the right to be an American? Who has the right to be in America? This topic, while not at the forefront of American Political debate, is a key issue that needs to be addressed during the Obama Administration. There have been many arguments regarding immigration reform. Some believe a complete revamp of our system is in order, that our nation cannot afford to deport all undocumented individuals living in the US. Others believe that immigrants have taken jobs away from Americans.
Fear is not the basis of this argument, but raising awareness needs to be addressed. What our government has done to create safety is not working. The US hasn’t made any strides in immigration reform, and Americans have stopped asking!
Mexico is a failing country, the government having little to no control of its population. Corruption and greed are so deeply embedded the government that the cartels are basically running the show. Americans are being told to limit their travel to Mexico, Mexican Americans are afraid to visit their families, and American are being killed and kidnapped. We have much to reform in the United States. We created a new bureaucracy to manage our safety, but what have they done? Things are still getting worse, not better.
4 years have gone by and now something that was not a large concern is now what I believe the reason we should focus on Immigration Reform. I’m not advocating the closure of our borders, do not misunderstand me. We are a nation of immigrant and should never close our doors. We need a better system, one that is not controlled by outside sources. I think the US needs to open their eyes and realize that by ignoring Mexico, by not involving our government in what is going on in that country, it’s only exacerbating the problems in the US.
Amy Lisa Rebeiro
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