The Hairless Cat Espresso Lounge

The link above will take you to an article on the newly proposed Mexican border wall. The idea here is to increase national security, and cut down on illegal aliens (stop saying illegal immagrants, there's no such thing) by erecting a twelve foot wall at the cost of $2 billiion across the border with Mexico. I'm here to tell you that this idea will not work because it does not take into account the very industrious people we are dealing with here. These are a people that are intelligent, inventive, and determined to see this fail.

These people are the American employers who employ the illegal aliens. They will find a way to get people across the border. Why? Because we make it necessary for them to do so. What do I mean necessary? Because of our refusal to pay higher costs for many products in the U.S. (for example, a chili dog), we put business owners, who are simply trying to feed their families, in the position to keep their costs extremely low. You say that a chili dog shouldn't cost more than $3.50, right? Well, remember that this is approxiamatley what it would cost you to make the same chili dog at home, and you don't have to pay the tremendous overhead which includes the very costly American worker. I use this example because I actually know people that work in the many strip mall restaurants around the South Coast Plaza area here in the O.C., and I have discussed with them the illegal workers employed therein. We also all know that many illegals do the farmwork involved in producing the food for our tables. So what do I propose?

Let's address the problem and start an aggressive series of fines for businesses that employ illegal aliens. We'll give them some lead time to adjust, like a two year period, and then start enforcement. The fines should be restrictive. I suggest $25,000 per illegal employee to start. Obviously this will cause ripples throughout our economy. There are ways to address this. We could start employing our unemployed, (maybe they could get jobs making chili dogs, for example) and raise our poor class up through this program we would call, jobs. The increased spending of a larger working class could increase our economy. I used to manage a Starbucks where a group of homeless unemployed men would gather each day to sit. A few of them were very employable.

there would also be a residual effect in Mexico. I contest that when a people under the thumb of a corrupt government are forced to deal with their own governement for employment, we may see some changes to that government. Oh, and it might not hurt if it inspires some creative entrepreneurs in America to move to Mexico and create some industries down there where the labor costs will of course be lower. This may raise the economy in Mexico up. This may over the long term create a safer border on it's own as well.

You may suggest that it's not humanitarian of me to put people through the suffering that is almost unavoidable in the early stages of my proposition. Mexicans and other nationalities that cannot come here to work will invariably suffer through unemployment and hunger where they live. To this suggestion, I ask, is it humanitarian for us to keep ourselves uninspired to employ and train these people and our own unemployed, legally. Imagine the drive we would have to create job programs to employ people at the minimum wage, instead of say $3 an hour or worse, and give these same people the dignity of a real job. You see, it would only be logical to create a program to bring in aliens legally for work.

Lastly, let me add that having talked to a good many homeless people, there are actually no jobs that "Americans don't want". So, please leave that argument at home.