Are Americans Hypocritical? The Problem of Undocumented Immigration

In a widely read Opinion Editorial that appeared in newspapers across the US, Gregory Rodriquez argued that basically all Americans are hypocrits when it comes to the issue of illegal immigration.

What does he mean that we are all hypocrits?

When it comes to illegal immigration, nobody seems to take responsibility, and we are all, through action or inaction, complicit.

It should be no surprise that illegal immigration is one of the primary means by which the U.S. economy gains access to low-skilled, low-cost labor. As the share of low-skilled native-born Americans falls – in 1960 half of U.S.-born working-age adults had not completed high school, compared with 8 percent today – employers have become ever more dependent on illegal immigration as a steady source of cheap labor.

According to a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center study, 40 percent of the nation's brick masons, 37 percent of drywall installers, 28 percent of dishwashers, 27 percent of maids and housekeepers and 21 percent of parking-lot attendants are undocumented. In California, those percentages are likely to be higher. A 2006 U.S. Department of Labor survey estimates that most California farm workers have no papers.

So whatever your feelings about illegal immigration, if you eat vegetables, enjoy restaurants, reside in a house built in the last 30 years or ever let a valet park your car, the chances are you're implicated in the hypocritical politics that allows 7 million to 8 million people to work illegally in the country....

And the more we blamed those awful illegals for coming to this country, the less willing we became to claim any responsibility for their being here – or for treating them decently. As illegal immigrants were increasingly cast as a threat, Americans cast themselves as victims.

What do you think? Are American's hypocrits on the issue of illegal immigration? Are American employers who are seeking out cheap labor partly responsible for the immigration problem? Are American consumers partly responsible for the problem of illegal immigration? In more personal terms: Are you willing to pay more for vegetables so that better paid, legal, American labor will pick and package the vegetables? Are you willing to pay more for your new home because it was built by better paid, legal, American labor? Or, is there no hypocracy here? Are American employers and consumers not at all responsible for illegal immigrants? Should Americans expect to have their cake and eat it too? That is, should Americans expect cheaper vegetables and houses, better wages for Americans to pick the vegetables and build the houses, and no undocumented immigrants? Whatever your response, explain yourself. Tell me why or why not you believe what you do?

Is the US a Neocolonial Power?

Compared to any other country, the US maintains a lot of military bases around the world.

According to the Pentagon's own list PDF, the answer is around 865, but if you include the new bases in Iraq and Afghanistan it is over a thousand. These thousand bases constitute 95 percent of all the military bases any country in the world maintains on any other country's territory.

What do these military bases mean to different people around the world?

Many people, especially many Americans, see these bases as playing an important part in maintaining US national security.

Other people, especially those people in foreign countries impacted by US military bases, see these installations differently. For sure, some people see the US military bases as important for their country's national security, but certainly not everyone sees the US bases in that light. Others see the US military bases in their country in less positive terms. For instance, many of the people living in Vieques, Puerto Rico were unhappy with the use of their island as a bombing range by the US Navy. There have been protests in Seoul, South Korea outside US military installations against US involvement in North-South Korean relations. Japanese citizens living in Okinawa have reservations about US Navel and Marine bases. In Ghana, Kwame Nikrumah, an important African politician and anticolonial intellectual, argued that:

Foremost among the neo-colonialists is the United States, which has long exercised its power in Latin America. Fumblingly at first she turned towards Europe, and then with more certainty after world war two when most countries of that continent were indebted to her. Since then, with methodical thoroughness and touching attention to detail, the Pentagon set about consolidating its ascendancy, evidence of which can be seen all around the world.

Who really rules in such places as Great Britain, West Germany, Japan, Spain, Portugal or Italy? If General de Gaulle is ‘defecting’ from U.S. monopoly control, what interpretation can be placed on his ‘experiments’ in the Sahara desert, his paratroopers in Gabon, or his trips to Cambodia and Latin America?

Lurking behind such questions are the extended tentacles of the Wall Street octopus. And its suction cups and muscular strength are provided by a phenomenon dubbed ‘The Invisible Government’, arising from Wall Street’s connection with the Pentagon and various intelligence services. I quote:

‘The Invisible Government ... is a loose amorphous grouping of individuals and agencies drawn from many parts of the visible government. It is not limited to the Central Intelligence Agency, although the CIA is at its heart. Nor is it confined to the nine other agencies which comprise what is known as the intelligence community: the National Security Council, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, Army Intelligence, Navy Intelligence and Research, the Atomic Energy Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

‘The Invisible Government includes also many other units and agencies, as well as individuals, that appear outwardly to be a normal part of the conventional government. It even encompasses business firms and institutions that are seemingly private.

‘To an extent that is only beginning to be perceived, this shadow government is shaping the lives of 190,000,000 Americans. An informed citizen might come to suspect that the foreign policy of the United States often works publicly in one direction and secretly through the Invisible Government in just the opposite direction.

‘This Invisible Government is a relatively new institution. It came into being as a result of two related factors: the rise of the United States after World War II to a position of pre-eminent world power, and the challenge to that power by Soviet Communism...

‘By 1964 the intelligence network had grown into a massive hidden apparatus, secretly employing about 200,000 persons and spending billions of dollars a year. [The Invisible Government, David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, Random House, New York, 1964.]

What do you think? Do you think that it is legitimate to call the US a neocolonial power? Why or why not? Can you see how foreigners may dislike US military installations in their country? Or, can you not really see it? Do you think that arguments like this are bogus? Is it more the case that US military bases are more a benefit to the locals and their national security? Should the US be concerned with what locals think about its military installations? Are US national security interests too important to consider local peoples' concerns about the military bases?