Published: August 07, 2008 09:15 pm            

Stan Champer: How does economy impact illegals?

What an interesting concept! The economy tanks. The Land of Plenty becomes Plenty-less. So illegal aliens, weary of having to scrape, line up to get out of Dodge.

Alfred Hitchcock himself would’ve been hard-pressed to serve up a picture of comparable irony. If it weren’t for the awful flip side, we could all relax and watch the script unfold.

It’s a scenario many of us have seen play out, although typically at a much simpler level. We had a gem of an example within our own family circle.

Ralph wasn’t particularly close, as cousins go, perhaps because he’d spent his growing-up years so far away. But every now and then, he’d blow in from Chicago and bless everyone with his company for weeks on end.

This guy was no dummy. He always opted to set up headquarters at my uncle’s house where he could enjoy his leisure in the fashion that best served his special status.

The house was nicer than others in the family. My uncle was well respected, had done well financially and was surrounded by amenities of the sort that left Ralph licking his chops.

This extended even to a smoking jacket, which Windy City always commandeered as evening dress for the duration of his stay.

The smoking jacket disappeared sometime after the Crash of ’29, no doubt tucked away in a box destined for a rummage sale. That was a time of great change in the country.

It also was the last time anyone heard from Ralph.

Fast forward to the present and we find a debate over whether a motivation similar to Ralph’s is having an effect on the illegal population of the U.S., causing some among this great influx to pack their bags and go home.

The question follows the July 30 release of a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a Washington-based think tank.

The report pointed to a decline in the illegal immigrant population — as suggested by an analysis of U.S. census data — and said the lower numbers result largely from stepped-up enforcement along the border and in the workplace.

The Immigration Policy Center took issue with the report, contending that it’s next to impossible to accurately measure an illegal population. The Census Bureau, it seems, doesn’t count illegal immigrants living in the U.S., or make estimates of that number.

If there’s a decline, according to the IPC, it more likely results from economic conditions than enforcement measures. There are prior studies, the IPC says, which support the economic argument.

We’re left with a couple of big Ifs. IF CIS is right about dwindling numbers and IF IPC’s position better explains the reason … well, stir gingerly and serve cold, because therein lies the recipe for irony.

In great numbers, these people swarmed into the U.S., defying laws along the way, aided and abetted at times by employers looking for lower labor costs, and availed themselves of what was then plentiful. Now, the bounty has greatly diminished.

There’s nothing left to do but go home. It’s nice they have someplace to go.

For all those others — all those people across this great land who’ve played by the rules and believed with all their heart that hard work would earn them the American dream — there is no going home. This IS home.

That’s the flip side — the people we really owe. And that’s the truly sad part of the story.

STAN CHAMPER can be reached at schamper@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2640.

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.