Comments on New Pew Hispanic Center Report
From http://marccooper.com/reality-check/
As some of you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently reporting on the border and overall immigration policy (I have pieces on this issue soon appearing in the The Atlantic, The Nation and on
.
So I was particularly interested in the
immigration report released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center
. The findings are not surprising for anybody familiar with the subject. But they starkly reconfirm the central fact that undocumented workers — or if you prefer illegal aliens– are an ever greater and more integral part of the American labor force.
The simple fact is that these folks are going to be here — are already here– and we can decide as a society to either keep them “illegal” or finally acknowledge their existence and grant them sort of human status.
The key finding in the Pew report is that a decade’s worth of tighter border enforcement has resulted only in forcing those who make it here safely to stay here longer (as it’s too dangerous and too expensive to move back and forth across the border). Meanwhile:
– The pace of illegal immigration has only accelerated with about half-million more people joining the resident undocumented population every year.
– The resident undocumented population in the U.S now probably tops 12 million.
– The undocumented now perform one of every four ag jobs, one in six cleaning jobs, one in seven construction jobs and one in every eight restaurant jobs.
The good news is that this month, after twenty years of denial and demagogy, the U.S. Senate is finally taking up comprehensive reform. The
is that real reform might be D.O.A.
Both parties have miserably failed on this matter. After proposing such reform (to his credit), President Bush lost his nerve and has pretty much ceded the debate to the Minuteman wing of his own party. As to the Democrats…well…Ted Kennedy is the only one of national stature that has had the courage to unfailingly champion this cause.
KJ