-- The Immigration Issue

I couldn't say this better myself. The following is a letter sent to the editor of The Nation magazine in the August 8/September 4 issue dealing with the topic of immigration. Philip Kellerman runs the Harvest of Hope Foundation in Gainesville, Florida. He wrote:

Recently the City Council of Avon Park, Florida, narrowly defeated an ordinance that would have fined landlords who rent to undocumented people and punished businesses who employ them. Other states and cities are considering similar punitive initiatives.

For seventeen years I have been an advocate for migrant farmworkers and have responded to their calls for aid from Harvest of Hope (www. harvestofhope.net), my nonprofit foundation. Mostly our immigrant workers are humble, hardworking and family oriented. Yes, many are not here legally, but since 1996 there have been almost no legal mechanisms to change one's status--especially if you are poor and from Mexico or Central America. Agriculture, housing construction, hotels, housekeeping, landscaping, meat processing and restaurants are heavily dependent on immigrant labor.

We are all beginning to feel the impact of the crackdown. Florida may not be able to harvest all its citrus due to a lack of workers. Georgia has an outrageous new policy denying medical providers reimbursement for undocumented patients with chronic illnesses such as cancer or kidney failure. I know of a 10-year-old boy who has leukemia, but no Georgia health facility will provide follow-up treatment. Nonprofits like ours, private organizations and churches are being stretched beyond our limits trying to close the gaps in service.

Contrary to popular belief, migrant and immigrant workers contribute a lot of money to our economy. Many pay taxes. Companies turn a blind eye to false Social Security cards and put a percentage of wages into our pension system, but those undocumented workers will never see any of the billions they have contributed. Furthermore, these workers' hard-earned dollars are often spent at local businesses.

Doesn't it make sense to have an immigration policy that allows undocumented people who are working and staying out of trouble the opportunity to come out of the shadows and become citizens? We can't have it both ways--depending on their labor while doing everything we can to make their lives miserable and then trying to deport them.

When I get a call at night from a Texas migrant family whose car has broken down while traveling to Michigan to work the fields, I don't ask them their legal status. To deny them assistance because they might be undocumented would be inhumane. To me, no human being is illegal.

I thought this letter was brilliant because it addresses one aspect of this issue that most people have completely ignored, that these people are paying taxes. Many of the undocumented immigrants use false Social Security numbers in order to get employment. Because they have a number, they also have Social Security taxes withheld from their pay. This money goes into the fund that is used to pay current retirees. When the immigrants reach retirement age, they get nothing, because as undocumented workers, they are not eligible to receive these funds, even though they paid into them. Also, if they do become legal at a future time, they will get their own Social Security number and the funds they have already paid are still out of their reach.

On top of that, the workers, whether earning wages above or below the table, spend much of their money in their local communities. This means that they are paying sales tax on the items they purchase, which also adds to our economy. Gas, cigarettes, food, clothing, and other items are taxable, depending on the state where the purchase is made. These items are purchased daily by illegal immigrants, and that adds to our coffers.

Lastly, and most importantly, these people are not terrorists, they are here to work. They provide services that Americans simply don't want to peform. Many of the jobs they hold were held by high school students years ago, but today's students would rather work at McDonald's or Starbucks or the local movie theater. They don't want to work in the fields in the hot sun, or the pouring rain, picking fruit and hauling heavy baskets of produce. To say that our young people can take these jobs is simply not accurate. The students don't want these jobs. No one here does, but the immigrants are willing to do the work.

I agree that they should be allowed to come in to this country, and so long as they prove themselves to be hard working and keeping their records clean (i.e., no arrests), there should be a mechanism in place to assist them in becoming legal. Added to that, we (the United States) should also be working with the governments of Central and South America to help them create jobs in their own countries that would encourage the majority of their citizens to stay in their homeland and not have a desire to move to the United States.

The current system, simply does not work.