Labor issues excuse to open borders

Violet Gray, Santa Barbara, CAPS’ Membership Coordinator

Linda Chavez’s column on immigration and progressivism is a misdirection of attention. The modern immigration-control movement is not a modern incarnation of the 20th century eugenics movement.

This is an effort to taint the movement while avoiding key issues that drive the immigration-control movement: sustainability and sovereignty. We can’t be a nation of laws without the rule of law, and we can’t maintain sovereignty if everyone’s a citizen. Ms. Chavez mocks the idea of reducing the U.S. population, but doesn’t acknowledge our current use of resources is unsustainable.

The real issues around immigration have nothing to do with labor policy. Labor issues are used as an excuse to open the borders and drive wages down; providing workers for employers isn’t a function of government.

If the labor market in the U.S. is closed at the borders, employers will either raise wages to attract workers or find more efficient ways to get work done. With 10 percent unemployment, it is hard to believe foreign labor is needed at all.

Why should employers not act as immigration officers? They already drug screen, tax collect, and conduct state-mandated surveillance of Americans. It seems if they can be IRS agents and DEA officers, it shouldn’t be too much to ask them to help close the border in the workplace.