THE BORDER WAR

Some immigration experts counter that any guest-worker plan that lacks a mechanism for immigrants to eventually legalize their status would be a nonstarter, both for the migrants and their U.S. employers, who need a steady and reliable work force. Many and perhaps most Mexican illegal aliens already hold jobs in service and manufacturing industries that are by their very nature permanent employment as opposed to temporary, seasonal work in agriculture. "What this would do is rotate temporary workers through permanent jobs," argues Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. "That is an invitation to massive noncompliance with the terms of the program."

What everyone can agree upon is that the current system isn't working. A massive increase in Border Patrol personnel and budgets in recent years has manifestly failed to lower the number of illegal aliens living in the United States. In a study conducted by Princeton sociology professor Douglas Massey, the 2,000 officers working for the Border Patrol in 1986 arrested 1.8 million undocumented workers. By 2003 the number of Border Patrol agents had risen sixfold, yet the number of arrests had fallen to 1 million, and the total population of illegal immigrants in the United States has continued to soar. Massey and others maintain that the immigrant who has managed to enter the United States and find work is less likely these days to undertake an occasional trip home, in part because of stricter border-enforcement practices that lessen the odds he will be able to re-enter the country. "We've got more monetary power and more equipment than at any time in our history," says Massey. "It's all been counterproductive. You don't deter them from coming in, you deter them from going home."

Change may be impossible as long as the huge gap between wages in the United States and points south persists. "We don't have a choice anymore," says Jorge Osorio Perez, a 38-year-old Mexican who was arrested in the Arizona desert along with 23 other immigrants earlier this month. "We know this is illegal, but it's the only option we have left." Both the United States and Mexico would be well advised to create more options, and soon.

© 2005