Immigration Reform, A Colorado Perspective

A recent poll of voter attitudes toward immigration reform in Colorado reported by the Wall Street Journal today indicates that 61% of Colorado voters favor an Arizona-type immigration law. Non-tax paying immigrants who are a drain on our social services, our emergency rooms, and our prisons are overrunning our state. This kind of social stress cannot be allowed to escalate. On the other hand, these poor people cannot get jobs to support their families, and they are having stress over that problem, personally. Their situations are very sad; and we owe it to them to help them as any Christian should be able to understand. As a worker in this population of immigrants, it is obvious to me that there is a triad of problems that absolutely prevent employment, i.e., no immigration papers, no transportation, and no ability to speak English—these three things often occur together; and they completely block any attempt to obtain employment.

Mexicans have been coming into this area of America for centuries—even before the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they have considered this area their property. Unfortunately, the area of arable land in Mexico is not sufficient to produce food adequate for the burgeoning population of that country. What arable land they have is often used for cash crops such as roses (especially in the Cuernavaca area southwest of Mexico City). Mexican jobs are scarce, and crime is rampant. Can any of us blame Mexicans for trying to escape such living conditions?

The economics of the situation indicates that southwestern farmers need cheap farm labor to handle their crops. It is also a fact that Mexican and Central American laborers send $15-20 billion back home each year in remittances to their relatives.

It seems to me, that the answer to this immigration dilemma faced by our society today would be to build an impermeable fence across the Mexican border and patrol it effectively to prevent illegal entry into the United States. Then, we should establish a legal temporary immigration program to allow a certain number of Mexicans into the country to work in needed jobs, mostly in agriculture and allow them to send however much money they wish to send back to Mexico. The next step would be to severely penalize anyone who hires illegals without a permit. And, lastly, we should subtract however much money the legal workers send home from $20 billion and give that money to Mexico for agricultural and educational use—of course, that money given to Mexico should be closely supervised and administrated by American managers, because the rampant corruption in Mexico would prevent effective and efficient use of the money if given to Mexican administrators.