Rosa has spent the last decade caring for elderly Americans in Utah who are no longer able to safely take care of themselves. One of them is my feisty step-grandma, who lives in the stormy darkness of advanced Alzheimer’s disease.
Rosa came from Mexico to work in the United States, eventually becoming a certified nurse assistant. She now often pulls 16-hour double shifts and regularly contends with getting smacked or scratched by the dementia patients she lovingly tends to.
Last week the president of the United States ordered my country to wall itself off from Mexico. He did not mention any new, lawful channel for Mexicans to do the essential work that Rosa and millions like her do now — some with authorization, some without it. That means that many American families in the future who need care like Rosa’s will face the bitter reality of life without it.
There are reasonable people who support the president’s order, because there is a serious and very real problem with migration between the U.S. and Mexico. But the problem is the illegality, not the migration itself. The black market that has dominated U.S.-Mexico migration for decades has harmed both country’s workers, drained public coffers and bred threats to national security.
The president’s order rests on the idea that solutions to this problem are more unilateral coercion, more expensive militarization and more affronts to our neighbors’ dignity. This is a costly path that will not work. First, the order will oblige U.S. taxpayers to spend anywhere from $15–25 billion to $38 billion up front, and unspecified billions in later maintenance.
Then come the more serious costs. The wall will likely leave the black market largely intact, and will funnel cash to organized criminals by raising smuggling revenues. The very proposal of a wall has already ruptured bilateral relations, and could poison U.S.-Mexico cooperation to stem illegal migration from Central America. A wall will likely reduce somewhat the flows of labor across the border. That would choke off the fuel of Mexican labor to the U.S. economic engine, making American firms less productive and cutting both jobs and wages for U.S. workers.
There is an entirely different and enormously better way to address the same problem. To see why, look closer at Rosa.
She has been a godsend to my family. But the benefits of Rosa’s work ripple across the entire Salt Lake Valley and across the nation. Without Rosa’s labor, which American workers are not available to replace, there would be no jobs for the American staff alongside her in the memory-care facility: the administrators, the social workers, the physical plant operator and others who have technical and language skills that Rosa doesn’t. Rosa lives and spends her earnings in Utah, stimulating the local economy. Rosa’s work frees up my family to do work they are better suited for than care work. Rosa’s work raises the value of Americans’ shares in the national chain that runs the facility. Read this twice: Rosa creates jobs for Americans every morning.
In other words, Rosa exemplifies the colossal opportunity for exchange between two neighboring countries. Both the U.S. and Mexico benefit much more when that exchange happens through well-regulated channels. Walls throw away those opportunities in favor of impoverishment and crime.
There is a specific alternative to the wall. I worked to craft that alternative together with a bipartisan, binational group of top experts led by Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico, and Carlos Gutierrez, the U.S. secretary of commerce under George W. Bush. Our group represents Americans and Mexicans, Republicans and Democrats, labor and employers, diplomats and lawyers, economists and national security officials — speaking with one voice. This is the first specific model for regulating U.S.-Mexico labor mobility endorsed by a group this authoritative and diverse. We set out the details in a report called Shared Border, Shared Future: A Blueprint to Regulate U.S.-Mexico Labor Mobility.
Our vision ends unlawful migration between two neighbors with a bilateral agreement to carefully regulate low-skill migration for work across the border. That vision rests on history, cooperation, and innovation — and it is specifically designed to protect workers in both countries.
The last major immigration reform, in 1986, was billed as a once-and-for-all solution to the black market. But it dealt only with migrants already here, and created no serious channel for lawful, mutually-beneficial labor flows. So the black market quickly resurged, and just four years later it was bigger than before the reform. Mexican migration is not a temporary phenomenon. It has been vital to the U.S. economy since the 1920s, and it will continue for our lifetimes. In recent years an average of 174,000 Mexicans have crossed the border from south to north, and about that many from north to south.
Our vision rests on cooperation. There can be no solution to bilateral problems from the suspicious glares of two enemies through a rusting fence. The U.S. and Mexico have cooperated to regulate labor mobility before, in 1910, 1919-1921 and 1942-1965. Those agreements were successful in quelling the black market, and they can do so again. We propose several innovations to fix the problems with past agreements, including a fee system to protect U.S. worker priority for jobs, a visa cap that can respond to changing conditions and a system to quash unscrupulous recruiters.
While the president formulates his plans, Rosa keeps showing up at six each morning, working with her American colleagues to care for her American patients, helping make this country great.
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Why Walling the U.S. Off From Mexico Won?t Work originally appeared on usnews.com
