Suburban Illegal Immigrant Hysteria?

By Pepper of the Daily Pepper, who has OD'd on Miers and needs a palate cleanser

If it's one thing I've noticed about the New York Times, it's that once a problem begins to hit the suburbs, it's all of a sudden a VERY BIG DEAL. Class stratification hits the 'burbs? Write up a whole series. Girls who make it to Yale declaring they'd rather be stay-at-home moms? Front page it, baby!

The latest problem to strike the 'burbs - and the NYT - is illegal immigration. On Thursday, Paul Vitello profiled suburban areas who are treating an influx of immigrants like a zombie plague:

Steve Levy, the Democratic county executive in Suffolk County, sent police officers to help shut down single-family houses crammed with 40 and 50 immigrant workers in Farmingville, a hamlet that has become synonymous with the conflict between day laborers and suburban homeowners. His move rankled many Hispanics, some of whom have labeled him as racist, but his popularity in mostly white Suffolk County has risen.

Plenty more after the jump!

Some towns described in the article have compromised, opening up a hiring hall for day laborers so the laborers can get jobs and the offended suburbanites don't have to see day laborers dirtying up their streets. Many other communities are cracking down on immigrants for overcrowding houses, thereby forcing them to move to another place.

So people don't like to see day-laborers dirtying up their neighborhoods. Yet not a one of these geniuses has asked themselves the question: "Why are they here?"

The answer is delightfully simple: "Because someone is hiring them."

The immigrant comes to the United States in search of opportunity. The immigrant gets punished and ostracized, yet no one thinks to go after the people hiring the immigrants. Folks, they come here because they can get jobs. Somebody is hiring them.

If those against immigration went after those who hire, they would have to look at themselves. People vote for tougher immigration laws, yet the workers landscaping their yards and taking care of their kids and picking their fruits are illegal. (At least in California - feel free to offer your own regional perspective.) The people hiring the immigrants are those who don't want to pay people fairly for their hard work.

Vitello makes this point later in the article:

The reasons for the perceived paralysis of national immigration policy are many, experts say: post-9/11 antiterror politics; deep conflicts within the ranks of both the Republican and Democratic Parties; and, not least, ambivalence among the general public, which opposes illegal immigration in principle but generally benefits from the low-cost services of those illegal workers - who mow lawns, clear tables, pack meat and dig holes for swimming pools.

This ambivalence is a major problem. The majority of Americans enjoy the fruits of the labor of illegal immigrants. Literally - check out this article in the San Francisco Chronicle on how the raisin industry relies on illegal immigrants to pick grapes.

I think immigrants should be rewarded with services and citizenship because they have earned it. Those who lash out against illegal immigrants should take a hard look at their own labor practices. You want them out? Fine. Get ready to pay a whole lot more for your raisins. Suburbanites, get ready to pay more for your pools and lawns. Get ready to start supporting better labor practices in general.