Grumpa Joe's Place

There are way too many people in America who obsess about open borders and free-flowing migrations. They envision people wandering from place to place like herds of buffalo. The mass migration from the Mideast into Europe resembled that exactly. Except the buffalo were smarter, they wandered to places they were in before, and knew there was a food supply waiting for them. They would eat the grasses, and when the grass ran out they would migrate to a new place. Eventually, they were back where they started and the grass was plentiful again. People don’t seem to operate that way. They migrate to a place they find better than where they lived, and stay at the new place regardless if it is better or not. I have never heard of any Mideastern natives who wandered back to their homeland from the heaven they moved to.

What bothers me is why do people so desperately  need to migrate from the land of their birth?  As an engineer, I was taught to look for the root cause of problems in order to solve them. The problem of people fleeing their homeland to another seemingly better country has to have solvable answers. What makes it so bad that a person will leave without thinking about the ramifications of entering another country without a valid passport or VISA?

One answer is WAR. There is something about bombs landing on your house that makes one think about leaving for a safer place. The root cause of war is way to complicated to solve in the USA. Most of it is the result of poor government, religion, or just plain stupidity.

In order to enter the USA legally, one must have a VISA. If you want to immigrate to the USA permanently, you must first get a valid green card. Basically, a green card is issued if a person meets various qualifications set up by law. Most of the requirements are based on the type of workers needed in the country. People with education in sciences and math are highly acceptable. There are five grades of skills each one with lower expectations. There are generous acceptance criteria for relatives of immigrants already living here.

The criteria for granting green cards is one of the root causes for people ignoring the law. There is no criteria for people who don’t meet the primary criteria, i.e. a job skill needed in the USA. That is what our politicians are referring to when they tell us the system is broken. Without a skill you are not needed, therefore not wanted.

Getting a green card is not the root cause, however. Why does that person want to leave his country? Most will say they can’t make a decent living. Why not?  Probably because there are too many uneducated people who don’t meet the home country’s needs. So why don’t they need more of their own people? Well, the economy is not as strong as it is in the USA. Mexico doesn’t have as much grass to cut, or dishes to wash as the USA. But, we have people in the USA who can cut grass and wash dishes who were born here, why do we need to import this help? One reason is that it is too easy for our people to live off of the government through one of our social programs. But that is just dodging the real question of why doesn’t Mexico have jobs that will pay enough to support its citizens?

Some of the answer lies in their one party system of government. That is a system that is being ported for the USA by Progressives. The Mexican government tends to pass laws that favor the wealthy. Combine that with corrupt government at all levels and as much as 30% of money earmarked for development goes to lining the pockets of officials. There is a complaint of an unequal distribution of wealth (where have we heard that one before?) Supposedly, ten percent of the wealthiest own forty-two percent of the wealth, and the lowest ten percent own 1.3 percent. Central American immigrants can’t be coming to the US to become rich because the income distribution is similar in these countries. You will be leaving poverty to live in poverty. Except, that poverty is defined differently. In Mexico, for instance, people in poverty live on less than five dollars a day. The poverty level is defined as a family of four  living on $65.75 per day. Wow! If I were deciding to leave my poor country for the U.S. I’d be looking at making 13 times more per day as I am at home. Let’s leave now. What is not immediately obvious is the cost of living differences. If I were accustomed to living on five bucks a day, and I was now getting sixty-five bucks, I’d be sending money home. Imagine what someone would be like as your new neighbor if he were to be making ends meet on that meager amount.

Problems with income distribution exist in every country of the globe, so I am not buying that as Mexico’s largest problem. I am buying into their government not doing as well as they should with investing in the country in the form of infrastructure, and by over regulating business in favor of the wealthy.

Since we can’t solve Mexico’s corruption problems the USA have to solve their own illegal immigration problem?  For one thing, we must re-familiarize ourselves with current laws. Second, we will have to secure the border to send a message to the many who want to come here that the door is now closed. I believe that our largest problem is trying to accept too many new immigrants much too fast. We have to stop the stampede of buffalos from running roughshod over our land. we cannot assimilate as many people as the world would like us to in so short a time. We can take many more than we think if we give the process  time. That means we have to make some people unhappy along the way. If they are really interested in getting in they will patiently wait for their turn.

Some of the people we will have to make unhappy are those US citizens who will not work at all. They need to be weaned (CUT OFF) off the generous social programs that force us to raise the minimum wage higher, and higher just so we can say it pays more to have job. Right now, a person working for minimum wage makes less than someone receiving welfare.

In the mean time, we have to create work for people who are untrained to do anything, but to make tacos. I would like to have at least one person to wait on me, to clean my house, to cook my meals, take care of my kids, to drive me around, etc.(I think I just got myself in trouble here, that sounds like my wife). If every working family opted to hire at least one worker our lives would be so much easier, and some of the immigration problem would be solved. Imagine having a worker who would do all that on five bucks a day. (Isn’t that what we fought the civil war about?) The problem with my plan is that most families are working two jobs just to make ends meet.

That idea to have a  chauffeur really sounds good. That would be the same as having one of those driverless cars, but probably much safer. I’ll have to work on that.

Filed under: economy, Immigration, Sarcasm | Tagged: Immigration, Mexicans, Mideasterners, slavery | 2 Comments »