Immigration Is a Useful Tool for Trump, a Member of the Elite Class Kanishk Tharoor - Hindustan Times
go to original September 5, 2016

A Day Without a Mexican - Trailer (XenonPictures)

Twelve years ago, a feature film called "A Day Without a Mexican" envisioned what would happen in California if all its Mexican residents – many of them undocumented or so-called “illegal” immigrants – suddenly vanished. Tongue-in-cheek, it depicted an apocalyptic breakdown in basic services. With farm laborers gone, food production screeches to a halt. Restaurants shut after losing their kitchen and waiting staff. Middle class families panic without their cleaners and gardeners. State officials urge the Mexicans to return. In the end, when the missing Mexicans rematerialize, US border guards celebrate their arrival, hugging migrants who are trying to enter the United States unlawfully.

The film isn’t particularly funny or well made, but it makes an important point often overlooked in the ongoing American discussion of immigration. The structure of so much of modern American life rests on the bedrock of hard-working, vulnerable, and poorly paid undocumented migrants. There are upwards of 11 million such people in the country, many from Mexico and other Central American countries. More of these undocumented workers than US-born workers fill roles in industries like farming, fishing, and forestry; construction and extraction; transportation and material moving; manufacturing; production, installation, and repair; and in service professions like the cleaning of houses and gardening.

Their labor literally moves, feeds, and sustains America. At a time when unemployment is relatively low – less than 5% – it is difficult to make the case that undocumented migrants are significantly depriving Americans of jobs. Studies also suggest that removing undocumented migrants from the workforce would hit the economy hard and actually raise unemployment among low-skilled Americans by 1.13%.

And yet the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made cracking down on immigrants the central plank of his campaign. His speech on immigration last Wednesday was remarkable in the depth of its inhumanity, in its snarling vitriol for people who form a major part of American society.

Read the rest at Hindustan Times

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