EDITORIAL: It comes down to economics: Reforms to immigration legislation should start with more guest workers

Posted: Sunday, December 14, 2014 2:30 am

This is the fourth in a series of editorials about the challenges of immigration.

On a dusty, mesquite-filled ranch in San Manuel, 20 miles north of the Edinburg courthouse, rancher Arcadio Rafael “Felo” Guerra, 67, shows strangers where he has had to replace sections of his 7-foot-high game-proof wire fence throughout his vast property due to a surge of immigrants crossing illegally on his lands.

A lifelong resident here, he’s never had to lock his doors before. But this past year, he said, more and more people have trespassed on his ranch lands and have even entered his offices west of Highway 281. He points to numerous sections of fence he’s fixed at $500 to $2,000 a pop; where human traffickers, known as coyotes, and immigrants have scaled and rammed fencing with cars and where they’ve abandoned vehicles while being chased on foot by law enforcement in what are called “bail outs.” He gestures to an area where a private plane recently crash-landed on his property and another spot where one morning he found five unaccompanied teenage boys and girls, part of the nearly 265,000 immigrants who have crossed into South Texas this year in an unprecedented surge.

His family has owned land here and in Starr County since his grandfather, Arcadio Guerra, bought his first 5,000 acres in 1898. The elder Guerra came here as a boy in 1876 from Mexico. A private man who won’t disclose his family’s total acreage, Guerra says he and his brothers make a living raising Brahman and renting out their lands to paying hunters. They don’t cotton to trespassers or those illegally crossing through their lands, — or into our country — without proper documents.

“I don’t want to come across as a hard-nosed S.O.B. We’re all Christian and sympathetic to those who want to come here, but we need law and order,” Guerra said. “For the most part, the illegals don’t cause any problems. It’s the people who are bringing them in — the human traffickers. It’s all because of failed immigration policies.”

The strife of this family with deep Texas roots represents the present day complexities of reforming immigration while still guaranteeing what our Founding Fathers established for every American, like Guerra: the right to protect their property.

It’s a delicate balancing act that we look to lawmakers in Washington to resolve. But, so far, they have disappointed us by choosing instead to bicker and to chastise one another, rather than find permanent, workable solutions to reform this immigration crisis where South Texas is Ground Zero.

The untold secret is that as massive a task as reforming immigration might appear to be, we believe it is doable because lawmakers are a lot closer on issues than the rhetoric from Washington would have one think. In fact, we believe it could be accomplished when the 114th Congress convenes in January by expanding upon several temporary ideas proposed by President Barack Obama last month — the key of which is economics.

Unfortunately, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the incoming majority leader, said in a Dec. 5 interview with Roll Call that reforming immigration is not a priority item on his agenda, although he admitted that “there is much wrong with the way things are going now on this issue and need to be corrected.”

To him and others, we say don’t dismiss this so quickly. A legislative solution is achievable. In fact, a study of several proposed and failed bills, shows that lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, for the most part, share several common goals. These include:

• Improving border security efforts.

• Humanely treating and judiciously processing through our court system those who have come here illegally.

• Immediate deportation of those who pose a national security threat, such as members of gangs and terrorist organizations.

• And establishing a matrix system for tracking those who are illegally here.

Generally, lawmakers most disagree on: the level of law enforcement along the border; whether to allow deferred action of those who are here illegally; and how best to stop human traffickers who are fueling this immigration surge.

By far, the most divisive issue is whether to allow amnesty for those who have entered our country illegally.

We agree that all of these issues are worthy of debates within the halls of Congress. But as ranchers, like Guerra, struggle to protect their livelihood and hundreds of thousands of others attempt dangerous journeys north, and as our national security interests are threatened by those with nefarious criminal intentions, we argue that we do not have unlimited time to fix this problem. Congress must act and must make immigration reform a priority.

Therefore, we appeal to lawmakers to depart from micromanaging this issue, and instead, take a macroview of this issue. If they were to do this, we believe, they would discover that simple economics is the key to beginning to solve this immigration crisis. And it starts by issuing more temporary work visas.

Allocating more temporary guest-worker visas would bring more highly-skilled workers and laborers — such as engineers at one end and farm workers at the other — to boost our country’s economy and that of the Rio Grande Valley. We believe it could be the trigger to tip this issue in the right direction — particularly as demographers point to a declining birth rate in this country and warn of a looming labor shortage in the future.

The issuance of more guest worker visas would allow those who are able and willing to perform jobs that other Americans can’t, or won’t, to lawfully come and contribute to our society. Such an expansion of visas would especially benefit our maquiladora industries in the Rio Grande Valley by enabling workers, from highly-skilled executives to factory-level line employees, to cross the Rio Grande at will to work and pay taxes here. They would thus contribute to society and be tracked and properly identified by our federal government, regional economic leaders tell us.

To those who argue that this would take away from unemployed Americans looking for work, we ask that they consider our country’s historical past and how our nation has fared by allowing the addition of foreign workers.

Take, for instance, the Bracero Program, which from 1942 to 1964 allowed an estimated 4.6 million Mexican men to come into the United States as guest workers on short-term, primarily agricultural labor contracts. This occurred at a time when growers feared World War II would bring labor shortages to low-paying farm worker jobs. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1942 created the program by signing an executive order, much like President Obama’s recent controversial executive actions last month when he announced several temporary reforms to current immigration policies.

There is no question that our nation can only benefit from productive and talented workers who fill employment voids. Therefore, we fully support President Obama’s Nov. 20 announcement to expand temporary work visas for highly-skilled workers and we ask that Congress expand upon this and make it permanent.

Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson wrote in a Nov. 20 memo this will “support our country’s high-skilled businesses and workers by better enabling U.S. businesses to hire and retain highly skilled foreign-born workers while providing these workers with increased flexibility to make natural advancements with their current employers or seek similar opportunities elsewhere. This increased mobility will also ensure a more-level playing field for U.S. workers. Finally, these measures should increase agency efficiencies and save resources.”

We also ask that temporary work visas be made available for hundreds of thousands of additional laborers, such as migrant workers, construction workers and service industry employees, so they may legally be employed here, pay taxes and help boost our economy.

And we believe that additional taxes derived from guest workers should be put back into helping fund border security, federal immigration courts and other immigration-related services.

In addition, we suggest that Congress write into such a guest- worker bill language that, in the future, would allow for the evaluation of these workers and that if they prove worthy to our economy and if they meet certain criteria — such as no criminal records, no back taxes and the proof of educational degrees — that they could at that time apply for permanent legal status here.

We realize this concept likely will be the hardest for many to accept. We are not asking that they become American citizens; but as Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, suggested to us, we are requesting the ability for them to some day “legalize” and be allowed to stay and work in our country.

Such an incentive would provide the motivation needed to entice the best of workers to our country. It also would demonstrate to the children who came here illegally and who are here on deferred action — also known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA — that if they study, work hard and contribute to society, that they also might one day be able to apply to legally stay.

We agree with President Obama’s recent temporary expansion of DACA to include older youth and to allow them to stay for three, instead of two years. We also support his declaration for deferred action for millions of parents of legal U.S. citizens, called DAPA, which is to be granted on a case by case basis via prosecutorial discretion. We believe keeping families together is important and strengthens our country’s economic and social fabric.

The Pew Research Center estimates that about 2 million people are eligible to apply for DACA currently under the new expanded parameters. But many don’t apply because they are fearful of giving up their information to federal authorities and being deported.

Millions more parents are expected to be eligible under DAPA. Just think if all were motivated to properly register for these programs and proved their contributions to society. Then our economy would benefit and there would be in place a system for tracking these people. Currently we have no solid numbers on how many immigrants are here illegally.

It is thought that there are about 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally. In Texas alone, there are an estimated 1.6 million unauthorized immigrants.

Yet “Congress only appropriates sufficient funds to deport 400,000 per year,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a member of the House Judiciary Committee disclosed during a Dec. 2 hearing on Capitol Hill entitled “President Obama’s Executive Overreach on Immigration.”

That very figure should be proof enough that our current system cannot fund mass deportations — as some congressional leaders have called for — nor does it properly track those who are here. Likewise, the current system of massive apprehensions detract from Border Patrol agents being able to seek out the most dangerous criminals.

In fiscal 2013, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is under the Department of Homeland Security, conducted a total of 368,644 deportations; 59 percent, or 216,810, of which had been previously convicted of a crime, according to data obtained by The Monitor.

Human traffickers are well aware of the relatively few deportations. They gamble on their winning odds in this game of cat and mouse between limited Border Patrol agents and the thousands of immigrants trying to illegally cross the Rio Grande.

In fiscal 2014, there were over 453,000 apprehensions of those trying to cross illegally, most of which occurred in the Rio Grande sector. In August, there were 17,200 apprehensions in the Rio Grande sector, including 2,100 unaccompanied minors — the highest of any sector in the United States.

By opening up a vast guest- worker program, immigrants who qualify could lawfully “come out of the shadows,” as President Obama said.We agree that forcing these people out of the shadows is key to everyone’s success. It’s key to our economic gains, to their safety and to our relationship with businesses and industries worldwide.

But rather than focus on the positives and craft a solution, all we have heard from Washington since Obama’s Nov. 20 announcement have been admonitions from Republican leaders about overreach. In addition, 20 states, including Texas, have filed federal lawsuits challenging Obama’s executive actions, arguing that he violated his constitutional duty to enforce the laws and illegally placed new burdens on state budgets.

On Dec. 2, two congressional hearings were held by the House Judiciary Committee and the House Homeland Security Committee regarding immigration. But after hours of testimony and questioning, lawmakers basically examined whether Obama had broken U.S. laws or had exceeded his legal authority. There were no specifics discussed on ways to improve border security, reimburse local jurisdictions affected by the surge, add worker visas or more quickly adjudicate immigration cases.

We agree with state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, who said: “We need to de-politicize this issue. Quit talking about the National Guard. Let’s maximize our resources and focus on cartels, drug runners and human traffickers and the guns and weapons that are going South.”

And the best way to maximize our resources, we believe, is to add more money to our national treasury — through more taxpayers and legal workers. Like a row of dominos, it is from this basic economic standpoint that we believe the other pieces of immigration policy will eventually fall in place. But we need to start the tumble quickly.

“A solid guest-worker plan will help this issue,” Rep. Cuellar, a member of the House Committee on Appropriations and House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, told us. “The bottom line is that we don’t have all the workers to handle some of the jobs that have to be done, so therefore the smart thing to do would be to have a guest worker plan that addresses the needs. If the Americans don’t want to do these jobs then allow others here. And then we can track them when they come and go. If you keep it to an efficient guest worker plan that allows people to come in and do what they need to do, then the Border Patrol can focus on the bad guys.”

Realize that economics is what is driving these people here: a lack of jobs and opportunities in their homelands, and a criminal element that is benefitting from their illegal entry, along with that of illegal drugs and contraband.

Let’s stop the monetary incentives of illegal immigration that invite organized crimes because of its profitability.

Let’s increase the wealth of our citizenry by allowing others here to temporarily legally stay and work and pay taxes, and in doing so we will also humanely elevate and assist these people in elevating their stations, as has been the heritage of our country since its founding.

Last year, U.S. trade with Mexico reached $500 billion and impacted every U.S. state, according to U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, co-chair of the Congressional Border Caucus. It only makes sense that further expanding trade with Mexico and other countries to our south will benefit our region, as goods, services and labor will most likely pass through here.

It’s a concept that the McAllen Economic Development Corp. and the City of McAllen along with other EDC’s in our Valley region share. McAllen Mayor Jim Darling tells us that they are working with Congressman Vela on legislation that would form a Bi-National Economic Development Region between Mexico and South Texas and would include Reynosa, Matamoros, McAllen, Brownsville and Harlingen. If approved, it would allow workers to cross the river at all these places and to live and work on either side of the border, which would especially benefit the maquiladora industry here.

It would economically connect us as one region and show the world our unity, Darling said.

“The idea is to recognize we’re a region that is connected. We just happen to have a common border,” Darling said. “When you talk about 825,000 people in Hidalgo County, how can you leave out Reynosa and the impact that it has on our area? We need to recognize the impact.”

Our local and business leaders are astute to realize this. We only hope that lawmakers in Washington will understand how such a guest worker program could create momentum.

We realize this won’t solve the entire immigration issue and that there still are many issues to work out, but this would be a smart, sensible, proactive, pro-business and pro-American start.

http://www.themonitor.com/opinion/editorial-it-comes-down-to-economics-reforms-to-immigration-legislation/article_8b63ee26-8252-11e4-8075-4398c644c014.html