Most US citizens are disturbed to some degree by the rate of immigration from Latin America. What are the ethical and practical implications of this socioeconomic stressor?
One might ask why so many are so desperate to leave their home countries. Is it overpopulation in relation to agricultural resources, lack of innovation-based industry, aristocratic/plutocratic/oligarchic control of power, means and wealth? If so, why is it so, how did it get that way, what could be done to make the source countries more hospitable to their peoples? Then behind those explanations more underlying whys & hows. Where is the US in this spectrum or evolution?
One might ask why so many jobs in the US are filled by illegal aliens. In essence, it is because they come and because employers find that they will work harder than available US citizens for lower wages. This process is self augmenting, in that, no employer can compete without adopting the practices of those who use the hardest-working lowest earning laborers. Beyond a critical point a job or trade can become culturally unwelcoming to non-latinos.
Clearly, this labor force, like outsourcing, keeps consumer prices down, presumably a benefit to consumers. But, also like outsourcing, it displaces US laborers from jobs. How should this affect our thinking? Does a government owe its citizens some job protection at the expense of non-citizens?
What about: 1) potential ethnic hostility, 2) the fact that the US stole its southwestern territories from Mexico, 3) overpopulation of several US regions, 4) effect of remittances on trade balance, 5) life in US without aliens, how the jobs would get done with education/culture teaching away from labor, 6) unsustainability of importing labor especially with amnesty, 7) unsustainability of economic growth on a limited earth, 8) the role of our welfare system on employment demographics, 9) etc???
