Kaus amusingly dissects some particularly stupid arguments against "the fence."

7. "[E]fforts to protect pronghorn sheep and encourage the jaguar to return to the United States could be seriously affected." We can patrol the whole border with high-tech cameras and "ground-based radar," yet we can't cut some holes for pronghorn sheep and patrol just them with cameras and "ground-based radar"? That would be something for the unionized border guards to do! But I guess we might have to give up the jaguar.... Oh wait, we don't have jaguars. We might have to give up re-acquiring the jaguar. OK. Which will it be: No new jaguars or no new illegal immigrants. Let's vote!

I grew up in El Paso, which, for most of my life, had a fence and the river separating the two countries. El Paso has also had the highest concentration of Border Patrol agents on the border. Neither the fence nor the river slowed anyone down. Fences can be cut, climbed and burrowed under. They don't work.

An effective force of agents patrolling the border can have an impact, but I believe you would need four to ten times the number of agents we have now to have a real impact. The existing force can lock down certain finite stretches of the border for finite periods of time. But then the illegals cross somewhere else; and the border patrol shifts resources to that area, and on and on, whack a mole style.

The only way to stop illegal immigration is to cut the demand. That means we have to fire all the landscapers, all the construction laborers, all the dry cleaner laborers, all the busboys and dishwashers, all the agricultural laborers and all the maids and nannies. If we did that there would be no incentive for anyone to come here. Personally, I would prefer keep them employed in those occupations. Since without them our economy would shut down.

This sounds like a job for trial lawyers.

Suppose that unemployed folks with a legal right to work in the US could sue employers who employed folks who didn't have a legal right to work.

Of course, we'd restrict such suits to folks who had the relevant qualifications and were willing to work at said jobs, but I'd guess that we'd quickly find that Americans and legal residents are willing to do them.

Where are these "Americans and legal residents" who are willing to do the jobs I mentioned above? Out of a total U.S. workforce of 190 million workers there are between twelve and twenty million illegals doing the jobs I mentiond above. With an unemployment rate of around five percent where will you find enough bodies to do the work?

Introduce enough Jaguars, and maybe you won't need the fence...

Landscapers are a choice, not a necessity, and they affect the lives of the wealthy not ordinary people.

Dry cleaning is a choice not a necessity. We have plenty of fabrics that don't demand dry cleaning.

Busboys and dishwashers were 90% teenagers when I was a teenager. Employment of teenagers has dropped radically since they began competing with adult illegals.

Most food production is highly mechanized and doesn't depend on large numbers of low-wage immigrants. The few sectors that really need this are optional. Further, although it would certainly take time, there's every reason to believe that these sectors also could be mechanized if the resources were put in it.

Maids are a luxury item for the wealthy. They are also not necessary and the wealthy are not remotely paying for the true cost of these maids.

That leaves two sectors were we'd have difficulty replacing illegal or legal minimum wage immigrants.

Construction labor. Nannies.

Again, it's not middle-income americans that have nannies. Unlike maids, nannies though serve a for more constructive purpose even if it is for the very few.

That leaves the construction business. This is the only real problem and I find it hard to believe that we don't have enough native unemployed to fill this, even though it would certainly be at higher cost. It also seems to me that the construction industry is overdue for mechanization. Long overdue, and that given a little incentive this could easily happen.

> Where are these "Americans and legal residents"
> who are willing to do the jobs I mentioned above?

Allow folks to sue as Andy suggests and there would be coming out of the woodwork claiming to be willing to do these jobs. Thus the point of his post (which you clearly missed entirely).

> Landscapers are a choice, not a necessity, and they affect the lives
> of the wealthy not ordinary people.

> Dry cleaning is a choice not a necessity. We have plenty of fabrics
> that don't demand dry cleaning.

Yes, this is the solution to every problem. Punish the wealthy (those who work for a living) for the sake of ordinary Americans (those who live off the government dole).

Not to mention those horrible immigrants, who have an alarming tendency to become wealthy. So, let's give up our landscaping, dry-cleaning, and other luxuries that benefit the wealthy so we can all be equal. (Except for politicians, for whom such luxuries are bona fide job requirements.)

Equality, of course, does not include anyone who wasn't born here, but that's okay. Once we're all equally poor, immigrants will no longer want to come here. Problem solved.

Hillary,

Jardinero1 claims curbing illegal immigration would "shut down"
our economy. I'm pointing out that it would do no such thing;
and asserting that to a significant degree the economic output
of illegal immigrants is luxury services, especially for the rich.

What I'm also asserting is that employers of illegal immigrants
are not paying the true costs of these immigrants. Illegal immigrants
become legal immigrants. Once this has happened and even before
we, as a society, are more or less committed to paying for that
person's retirement and medical care. And possibly for the relatives
of this person also.

The disparity between what the employers of an illegal immigrant
pays and the long-range committment made by the rest of american society
is enormous.

It's a completely different situation if someone hires a person
born in this country. It that case we are already committed to
the future care of that person. That job is a positive-sum game and
the employer is not free-loading on the rest of society.

The main benefit that an illegal immigrant brings is his children,
which are a short run cost but a long-range resource. But this bet
only works out if the average such child contributes more than
roughly the mean of what other children contribute. Unfortunately we
have a big problem with our schools churning out squadrons of graduates
who aren't equipped with the skills and attitudes needed to support
themselves let alone doing something positive for the world.

There's also the danger that along with latin american immigrants
we're importing left and right-wing latin american political attitudes.

"Most food production is highly mechanized and doesn't depend on large numbers of low-wage immigrants."

Solution: convert illegal immigrants to food. Soylent Green, Mexican style.

Mark, you are so right. Those immigrants and others who (ugh!) work in the private sector only want to become rich off the backs of politicians, lawyers, civil servants, and other ordinary Americans. While we struggle to get by, they actually want to keep some of the money they earn. Let us use hate, envy, and class/race warfare to turn the forces of reaction against one another. First the Mecksikans, then the Republicans, then all the rest of them!

The bourgeous reactionists certainly don't need maids. Why don't they just order their Secret Service agents to make the beds when they check into a hotel, like Bill and I do? If people can't figure that out, we don't want them in our country, do we?

Dear Hillary,

I'm having a difficult time following your thoughts.

Perhaps Bill could explain?

For just a moment, let's forget about whether or not we need the illegals(Although, I, for one, will state categorically, that I can't live without them). Anyway, how about we go back to whether or not fences work and whether there is any way of preventing illegal immigration. Based on my experience of twenty years on the border I say there's nothing we can do. Can anyone with similar experience claim otherwise?

Based on my experience of twenty years on the border I say there's nothing we can do.

Then don't do anything. But stay out of everyone else's way, hmmm?

"It also seems to me that the construction industry is overdue for mechanization. Long overdue, and that given a little incentive this could easily happen."

The cover story of this month's Popular Science talks about the idea of applying the Open Source concept to house building. Worth a look.

Jardinero: Do you accept the Wall Street Journal editoral (July 4th, 1984) calling for a five word constitutional amendment that reads "there shall be open borders.", and if not how should we as a country rationally decide whom we should admit and whom we shouldn't?

I never read the editorial so I won't address it.

Here's what I believe: We already have open borders, de facto. I believe that we should recognize that fact, de jure, with a realistic guest worker policy.

These people come here because we, as consumers, demand they be here. Let's move them out of the shadows, identify them, document them and get them paying taxes.

"Let's move them out of the shadows, identify them, document them and get them paying taxes."

In other words: let the market handle it properly and stop wasting money on a fence that probably won't work all that well.

A lot of people in the UK are up in arms about legal Polish workers in the UK. How dare these well educated, skilled people come to our country, work hard and do the jobs that honest Brits don't want to do.

The illegals bring a net benefit to the economy. Legalising them would only improve matters.

Besides, eventually Mexico is going to catch up enough economically that they won't want to come as much, and then people will be complaining.

Gentlemen: a free market economist would argue that there are no jobs that Americans won't do, there are merely jobs that Americans won't do at the wages being offered.
If you insist on retorting that this would cause the produce to become too expensive. Consider how much we are paying now for "cheap" produce when the cost of free emergency room care for non-insured workers is inevitably paid for by us in the form of higher health insurance premiums or lower wages if we get our insurance through our job. Or the intangible costs of politicians complaining about the millions of uninsured "Americans" necessitating a HillaryCare health system.

> the cost of free emergency room care for non-insured workers is inevitably paid for by us

Free health care and other Welfare goodies are not "inevitable."

They exist because US voters (almost all native-born Americans) voted themselves those goodies.

The basic argument against immigration is that we can't afford both Freedom and the Welfare State.

Even if that's true, it doesn't follow that our only option is to give up our basic Freedoms in order to save the Wrlfare State.

We could choose to give up those Welfare programs to save Freedom. If your answer is that you aren't willing to do that, don't blame the immigrants for using a small fraction of that Welfare. Blame the man in the mirror, who voted for it.

> jobs Americans just won't do

I live in Atlanta, but I was in New Hampshire last week. The difference in the service sector is astonishing. NO Mexicans, NO blacks, NO Asians. But the restaurant dishes get washed, the lawns get mowed, and the potholes get patched.

I don't believe there are any jobs Americans won't do. I believe that cheap labor drives out more expensive labor, but that's a completely different statement.