Immigration and the Law of Unintended Consequences

Two articles in todays NY Times served as good reminders of the unintended consequences of immigration policy.  One story, by Julia Preston, reported on the labor shortage that plagued many California farms this summer.  The story is here.

These two paragraph from the Preston story caught my eye:

This year’s shortages are compounding a flight from the fields by Mexican workers already in the United States. As it has become harder to get into this country, many illegal immigrants have been reluctant to return to Mexico in the off-season. Remaining here year-round, they have gravitated toward more stable jobs.

“When you’re having to pay housing costs, it’s very difficult to survive and wait for the next agricultural season to come around,” said Jack King, head of national affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation.

This suggests that border militarization, in conjunction with an ineffective H-2A program has caused many migrants who would prefer to do seasonal agricultural work and return home in the off-season to stay in the U.S., hunker down and seek more permanent jobs that allow them to stay put.  Maybe that picture ought to inform the reading of CIS’s recently released – and contested – study indicating that undocumented workers supplant teenage and young adult American workers (discussed in a separate story in the Times, linked here)?

-jmc