Fisking another slick malefactor of American culture

I'll admit the piece below is cleverly worded. On the surface it appeared a bit dicey to poke holes in...until I got to the end. Then the method Peirce employed became clear: liberal use of logical fallacies. Rather than chop this up and only provide portions, I feel it best to Fisk this entire piece.

Chron.com | Beyond hand-wringing: CEO's immigration solution

Neal Peirce, Houston Chronicle

We seem faced by stark alternatives: One is to despair of effective controls, to grant blanket amnesty for the 11 million or so immigrants who broke the law by entering the United States illegally. After all, they wouldn't be here if we weren't taking advantage of their ultralow-cost labor - from maids to farm workers, gardeners to dishwashers - in benefit-bereft jobs most Americans now spurn.

I'll begin with a reminder that we have no real idea about how many illegal aliens are actually here already, but taking Bear Stearns' estimates that there are probably more than 20 million is a better bet than the typically quoted 11 million. And those "benefit bereft" jobs were not so prior to the 1965 immigration reform. That was the catalyst for the race to the bottom in total compensation, not just wages.

Indeed, if every undocumented worker disappeared from the country tomorrow, big sections of the U.S. agriculture machine, unable to compete in the global commodity market without cheap labor, would collapse. We'd become as dangerously reliant on food imports as we are on oil imports today.

This is simply a straw man argument. There is no way in which these illegal aliens would "disappear tomorrow." Rather, there will be some rate of attrition which will be dictated by market forces, just as leaving the door open for so long created economic conditions that led to a false belief that we "need" illegal aliens to do the "jobs that Americans won't do."

But wait a moment, say others: These folks broke the law to enter America. They're swelling the costs for our schools, they're putting big burdens on health care and criminal justice systems. We want them gone.

Yes, we do. Neal should have ended this drivel here.

The U.S. House under its Republican leadership feels that way: In December it passed a bill requiring deportation for every undocumented worker caught, big fines for employers who give illegal immigrants jobs, and a stunning $2.2 billion to construct double-layer border fences in Arizona and California - America's 21st century version of the Berlin Wall. Senate action is expected this month.

This "Berlin Wall" crap is a classic appeal to ridicule. And a $2.2 billion one-time expenditure is "stunning?" Then how should we view the $15 billion that Mexico siphons off our economy each year by aiding and abetting the criminal enterprise of illegal immigration?

Can there be a middle ground here?

Neal seems to enjoy logical fallacies.

It's tough. One senses a certain hatefulness, 21st-century xenophobia, in the anti-immigrant camp. Check the individual illegal immigrant and you often find a worker from a pitifully poor rural village, desperate for a better life, sending money back to family. He or she lives in constant fear of arrest and deportation, subject to raw exploitation by employers. Yet this so-called "illegal" may be more hard-working and responsible to family than many affluent, take-it-all-for-granted middle-class Americans.

One senses a certain biased agenda on the part of this columnist. Here's another logical fallacy: ad hominem attack.

Amazingly, we grant only 5,000 permanent visas for low-skilled workers annually. And no matter how many walls and laws we erect, borders remain tough to seal. Recent crackdowns - doubling our border patrol forces to 10,000, spending billions in added enforcement - have backfired seriously by discouraging undocumented workers from returning to their home countries, because re-entering the United States can be so dangerous.

Had we actually been enforcing our existing laws, this crisis...and Neal's arguments...would be moot.

President Bush and Sens. John McCain and Edward Kennedy, among others, have proposed guest worker programs as middle ground - only to see House Republican leaders swear total opposition. Maybe a political shift in Congress will have to come first.

But a Republican businessman from Fresno, Calif., is proposing a truly thoughtful formula we might start debating. He's Peter Weber, himself an immigrant from Lima, Peru, in 1959. Now retired from CEO-level positions in several major corporations, Weber has plunged into civic leadership roles in Fresno - a city especially heavily impacted by immigration.

Weber's plan includes a guest worker program, but one specifically offering the prospect for long-term U.S. residency, even citizenship, for workers who demonstrate a serious, long-term track record of job-holding and responsibility.

Wouldn't it have been more honest of Neal to disclose that it is likely Mr. Weber's career path would lead him to advocate positions that would benefit large corporations, especially globalist ones? He may well be a Republican, but Mr. Weber probably empathizes with the GOP's corporatist wing, which opposes the House bill.

First step - all undocumented immigrant workers would be given four months to make a choice: Sign up for the new guest worker program, leave the U.S., or risk deportation and lifelong ineligibility for residence. Those electing to sign up would be offered tamper-proof identity cards and told they can stay for up to three years, or six more years with renewals, with a big "if" - if they can show they have a specific "guest worker contract" with an employer or labor contractor.

Employers would have to assure some type of health benefits for all guest workers. Fines would triple for any that then hire illegal immigrants.

Pretty language, but I see another large bureaucracy looming here. Before we run off and build new programs to assist illegal aliens, we should first make our government prove it can manage the enforcement side.

Second, there'd be a "step-up" for guest workers - to permanent U.S. residency. But they'd first have to be a guest worker at least 30 months, demonstrate English proficiency, pass a "residency exam" on the basics of U.S. governance, and have a clean police record. They could also apply for citizenship - but only after they leave, and then re-enter the country legally.

You do the hokey-pokey and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about.

Third, the country would continue to protect its borders as vigorously as it can, especially in view of post-9/11 security considerations.

Why this complex "carrot and stick" approach? It's because, says Weber, "we have created 'castes' in our society like never before, breeding discrimination on one side and resentment on the other." Just check France, he suggests, for the consequences when a society fails to integrate a major contingent of foreign workers from another culture.

The word is "assimilate," and Mr. Weber does not recognize it. And neither he or Neal seem to be willing to use it. It appears that they assume that we have all agreed to be multicultural. We have not.

None of the national guest worker bills now pending, says Weber, makes the critical differentiation between residency and citizenship. They're short on positive inducements that benefit both the workers and the nation. America's demand for security and for low-cost labor can't be ignored, he says. But it's also essential our approaches "be based on the fundamental American values of fairness and compassion."

A debate based on realism and values? Should we settle for anything less?

Notice how it appears Mr. Weber avoids concern for American "citizens?" America has no "demand for low-cost labor." Some companies, like those with whom Mr. Weber has been associated do demand it. It is indeed ironic that Mr. Weber cries for fairness for illegal aliens with no apparent qualms about instances in which artifically lowered wages caused by importing an instant caste system are far less than fair to American citizens. Approaches to immigration reform that do not begin with enforcement and the elimination of illegal aliens from our work force are neither fair, nor compassionate to American workers, particularly those with lesser skills and our youngest citizens seeking crucial "first job" experience.

Mr. Peirce has been neither realistic, nor careful with our values. Instead, he has served up logical fallacies to support current memes that are to his liking.

Technorati tags: illegal immigration, illegal aliens