A "merit-based" immigration policy ignores economic realities, not to mention racially-motivated

The public discourse in regard to immigration reform has taken a sinister new turn, if The Seattle Times is any example. We may recall that talk of immigration policy was “relatively” dormant for two decades until 2006, when it resurfaced with a vengeance as Republicans used it as a wedge issue to minimize their imminent (and temporary) loss of both houses of Congress. Not surprisingly, “Mexicans”—who actually represent less than half of the illegal immigrant population—were virtually the sole focus of the media’s attention and the public’s scorn. Other groups—Asians in particular, who according to the Pew Foundation constitute 13 percent of all illegal immigrants—were excluded from the debate and thus the public ire.

But today there has been as significant change. Not in that Latin American immigrants are seen in a less negative light, quite the contrary. What has happened is that now that immigration reform seems to progressing (albeit slowly), the media and Republicans are seeking ways to re-marginalize Latinos while puffing-up other races and ethnicities, particularly those of the Pacific Rim and India. Take for instance the story in this Sunday’s Times. Its intent is to “justify” not just the biased work visa program that created the Latino immigration “problem” in the first place, but to justify a “change” in immigration philosophy from economically and politically oppressed people seeking to better their lives, to essentially giving foreign workers who are not deprived in their own home countries—in fact represent the “elite” classes—to come to this country and deprive “natives” of the spoils of their own education and experience.

In its story, The Times engages in blatant and contemptible class and racial distinctions to further its argument, and has little rationality. There may be a higher percentage of Asian immigrants who have high-tech education, but arguments for “merit-based” immigration and “what is good for the country” demonstrate deliberate ignorance about the way the economy works. Throughout the history of this country, it has relied on the growth of the working class labor pool for the economy to grow; someone always has to do the “dirty work,” or else the whole edifice will fall apart; the country might as well hand over its entire economic structure to the Chinese. 

Things haven't changed today, particularly in an economy increasingly dependent on "service" and low-wage industrial park jobs in order to compete with lower-cost countries. The argument for "skilled" and "high-tech" immigrant labor creates its own problems, because it allows companies to further their “international” business goals by hiring foreign high-tech workers, while maintaining the pretense that they can’t “find” native workers for the same jobs.  It also creates a problem in public perception and defining the parameters of discrimination; the need for a “high-tech” labor pool is far smaller than that for common labor; the argument that we need “more” of them and fewer of other classes of immigrant labor itself has no “merit” and does little “good” for the country. 

Latinos are the most underrepresented demographic in the American journalism business, and The Times is worse than most; it has no Latinos in its newsroom. Thus it is perfectly “understandable” that this latest story says nothing about the real issue here: The atmosphere of bigotry against Latinos that has been cultivated in large part to inflame the hate of right-wing constituencies and pacify certain left-wing constituencies seeking scapegoats for their "problems." Instead of addressing the built-in bias against Latino workers in the work visa program, it ignores the fact that the scope of illegal immigration is the direct result of it (throughout the history of this country, "Mexicans" were "permitted" to work here in times of labor shortages, and during economic downturns anyone who lived in a barrio was simply rounded-up and tossed across the border; in this way, it is estimated that anywhere from 300,000 to 1.2 million U.S. citizens of Mexican descent were "repatriated"—that is to say dumped—across the border with  little more than what they could carry during the 1930s). 

Instead of confronting the ugly truth, the paper attempts to persuade readers to change the rules of the game and make this a "merit" and "what's good for the country" issue. The Times is so intent on pigeon-holing Latin American immigrants on a subhuman plane that it even suggests that a teacher and a doctor have less “merit” or “value” to society than a computer programmer from India. Some people ought to know that deciding what group is "good" and which is "bad" is a game they don't want to play. It is interesting to note that an African-American and Asian reporter tag-teamed on the story; don’t they realize that the “merit” and “what is good for the country” should—based on their own arguments—also exclude immigrants from the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia, the latter of whom are disdained by the Japanese and Chinese because they are “short” and dark-skinned, and usually employed in “working class” jobs, just like “Mexicans”? 

As I’ve stated before, this country needs common sense immigration reform—and that means refraining from discriminating against “Mexican” workers as the H1-B program has been administered; the problem with the program—which is meant to address any “native” labor shortfall, not just “high-tech” jobs—is not that it allows too many “low-skilled” immigrants into the country, but too few. This bias, as stated before, merely encourages illegal immigration, and causes frustrated employers not to look very hard at legal status. While immigrants with “high-tech” skills would appear to be more favorable candidates, they represent a mere smidgeon of the labor requirements of this country. More than “low-wage” immigrant workers in industrial and service jobs, they contribute to the stagnation of the living standards of native workers by supplanting them in higher-wage jobs