Wetback wealth

People create wealth. And so a wealth creating system (economy) needs more people if it is to continue to grow.

There are three ways of accomplishing "more people". First: encourage more baby-making (France and Italy offer cash payments for women who venture into the valley of the shadow of motherhood). Second: shift production overseas so the economy expands to include other countries populations; and third: encourage people to cross your borders to increase your population.

This last option has encouraged some 300 million new people into the USA – all either immigrants or their descendants. All the DNA on Planet America originated on some other continent and almost all of it has arrived over the past 200 years. So it can hardly be concluded that immigrants have hurt the American economy.

In a similar vein, take a look at this map of the world produced by Sheffield University with countries resized accorded to their net "legal" immigration. On it you'll see an inflated USA, UK, and Western Europe alongside a pathetically-shrunken South America and Africa.

Consider for a moment which way that the cycle works. Do rich countries attract immigrants or do immigrants build rich countries? Do the best and boldest leave their homes and improve ours?

This list of celebrity immigrants to the US might suggest the latter. To which we could add Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has admitted to overstaying his visa but has gone on to become governor of California - the world's 8th largest economy.

In many of the most popular legal (and illegal) destinations, public opinion is generally hostile towards immigration. One poll (New York Times/CBS, 2007) of 1125 adults found that 92 per cent believe that the US could be doing more to stop those pesky immigrants, 81 per cent feel it's a very or somewhat serious issue, 70 per cent believe that illegal immigrants weaken the economy while a (quite frankly loony) minority feel that immigration (the origin of the nation) will make society worse.

And yet studies show the reverse. Some 94 per cent of illegal immigrants in the USA are employed and tend to take jobs that US workers do not generally want – that's why 70 per cent of all agricultural workers are illegal immigrants.

What's more, according to a report by University of California-Los Angeles, they contribute some $800 billion to the US economy, revitalize abandoned towns, renovate bottom-rung property and increase economic links between the US and the rest of the world.

Sure, illegal immigration is imperfect – think of all the income tax that goes unpaid (can't really 'fess up if you're an 'illegal') - while working and living conditions are made worse by being labelled "illegal", but that doesn't mean that it the immigrant is not valuable or necessary.

Recognition of this reality has led to efforts to engineer what would amount to an amnesty aimed at legalizing many of the estimated 15 million illegal immigrants currently living in the USA. Since attempts to keep people out cost $9 billion a year, why not start collecting tax revenues and keeping hold of workers that America can ill afford to do without.

But unable to cut a deal in the partisan, them-and-us, sticks-and-stones, Capitol Hill climate, the government has instead begun a crackdown against employers who dare to generate profits by sharing them with people from other countries.

Announcing the campaign in August, Homeland Security (Don't you hate that term?) Secretary, Michael Chertoff said: "obviously there are employers who deliberately violate the law, and A href="http://www.workingimmigrants.com/2007/08/new_crack_down_on_illegal_work.html" target="_new">we will come down on them like a ton of bricks."

All of which is somewhat reminiscent of the 1954 Operation Wetback, in which President Eisenhower ordered the deportation of 80,000 Mexican illegals. This led, inevitably, to perhaps 780,000 people crossing back to Mexico until the Operation ended amid public criticism of its "police state" methods.

Chertoff, meanwhile, accepts that "families will be disrupted" which can be "distressing", and that business will struggle when faced with a shortfall of up to 12 million workers.

Or, as the legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau put it: "either you obey the law and you watch your crop rot in the fields or you attempt to try to get the crop out and run the risk of being hit by the federal government."

So instead of celebrating our luck in attracting those with a desire to work, a belief in the economic dream and a willingness to take risks that reinvigorates our entrepreneurial core, we have allowed fear of the unknown, petty narrow-mindedness and the instincts of the playground bully to create an irrational distrust – even hatred - of those who create our wealth.

The latter-day minute-men on the Arizona/Mexican border are the descendants of immigrants in an immigrant democracy who - if they could stop hunting hard workers like rabbits or jackals long enough to think about it – ought to be thanking each new arrival for showing the initiative to help make America a better place.

In fact, we should all be a little more grateful to each of the billions of people who do the work that supports our lives of luxury. Remember - innovation is difference – and people create wealth.