The Why of Illegal Immigration

Blogger David Sirota tackles this in a piece appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle, notably:

This is the supply-and-demand reality that no amount of emotional rhetoric can change -- and in that reality we can find the way to address illegal immigration: by stopping the demand instead of trying to block the supply. The Academy Award-winning movie, "Traffic," highlighted the perils of waging a drug war that only focuses on trying to block the supply of narcotics, rather than on eliminating the demand for them.

These same lessons can be applied to illegal immigration. The best way to stop illegal entry into our country from Mexico is to tamp down the demand by Mexicans to enter this country illegally. After all, no wall, no fence, no border security measure can be as effective as reducing the demand for entry. This means reforming our trade policy to include serious wage, workplace and human-rights provisions so that cross-border commerce actually improves the lives of Mexican workers to the point where they no longer feel the dire economic need to break our immigration laws.

Think about it this way: Had NAFTA lifted 19 million Mexicans out of poverty as promised instead of helping to drive 19 million Mexicans into poverty, you can bet the flood of illegal immigrants across our southern border would be a trickle instead of the flood it is today. To be sure, politicians are talking about amnesty or guest-worker programs to give workers some kind of legal status. But if those proposals do not come hand-in-hand with a reform of America's trade policies, they are destined to be what they have been in the past -- merely short-term, stopgap measures, not real solutions.

Until America's political leaders start making trade policy address the imbalance between the demand for good jobs and the supply of good jobs in Mexico, illegal immigration will continue to be a major problem right here at home.