Editor,
It is the employers of “illegals” who are acting illegally themselves. But we argue only over whether undocumented workers – whose only crime is looking to work and feed their families – should be deported or allowed to stay under a reform of our immigration policy. Everybody and their uncle, so long as they are American, has some say on it, a lot of us not working ourselves but playing political football with the lives of these exceptionally hard-working, uncomplaining, non-worker’s comp-gathering, sturdy folk who would not hurt a fly. A lot of us get a special kick from these arguments, knowing that we are in effect deciding the lives of these kind folk – indeed to those of us who are lazy bums and drop-outs in our own society, this gives us a rare sense of power. But the solution stares us right in the face. Hint: it is the employers of these “illegals” who are not being punished enough. These are often small business owners, contractors that may be like a gardener I know who hired just one helper – a stocky Nepali. These employers want the undocumented labor pool to remain in the US so that they can hire them! And they want them to remain undocumented, because that way they will have to pay them low wages. Higher wages they can either not afford, or, if they are a medium business, they can become rich off the backs of these silent folk. Under the table is how payment is made, because a lot of these employers are not telling the IRS, and that serves a lot of these employers who live in a purely cash economy with dark money. Solution: Let such employers be given mandatory jail time, say one day in jail for every day they have hired the undocumented. Then watch illegal immigration plummet.
Arun Ahuja
UNM student
