The Fight Against Inequality Starts at the Border

Two subjects have been dominating the narratives of the Washington D.C. political class these past several weeks.  First, President Obama made inequality a centerpiece of his State of the Union address, stating that “Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better.  But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled. The cold, hard fact is that even in the midst of recovery, too many Americans are working more than ever just to get by — let alone get ahead. And too many still aren’t working at all.”

Then several days later, House Speaker John Boehner put immigration reform at the forefront of our national discourse, when at the Republican congressional delegation’s annual retreat, he unveiled the “GOP principles” that will guide immigration reform negotiations.  Boehner says that action on immigration now “is about jobs and economic growth,” and that the principles laid out represent “a fair, principled way to solve the issue.” While both Speaker Boehner and President Obama may be well intentioned, they are talking past each other, and each is failing the explore the linkages between these two critical issues.

Here is what the politicians won’t tell you about our current immigration policy: For all the talk of reform, the current laws are working exactly as designed.  On one hand the current system illegalizes some Hispanics and stigmatizes all of them, but on the other hand it freely enables them to enter the country by keeping border and workplace enforcement weak.  Corporate America and the 1% benefit from this because the system operates to suppress wages of all working class people in two ways:  first, by creating an artificially high supply of labor, and second, by allowing employers to use the immigration status of its workforce to undermine worker’s bargaining power.

Politicians also benefit from the status quo.  Red-state Republicans get to continue scaring up votes among conservatives with anti-immigration oratory, and blue-state Democrats get to do the same with their constituencies by depicting Republicans as nativists in favor of mass deportation.  Big business is content to let the politicians spew their inflammatory rhetoric, so long as they don’t actually do anything to disrupt the flow of cheap labor into the country – and they line the pockets of both parties with millions of dollars in campaign funding to ensure that the status quo is maintained.  Everything about the immigration debate is political theater, with politicians putting on a grand show while special interests pull the strings behind the curtain.