Equal opportunity amnesty

The bipartisan immigration bill has gone down in flames, crippled by a bipartisan hail of flak. The sticking point, at least on the conservative side, is “amnesty.” The 12 million undocumented workers in the U.S. violated federal law when they sneaked across the border. So, the argument goes, any process that allows them to become either properly documented or actual citizens without serving time in prison or being deported is an amnesty.

I agree. I also could not care less. It’s not a question of lawlessness for me. As I have written in another post, we are a nation of petty criminals. Why should we demand higher standards from immigrants?

By way of illustration, let’s have a virtual show of hands – how many of you have exceeded the posted speed limit? Ok, so now all of us who have ever held a driver’s license are holding up our hands. And you are saying, “So what? Big deal. It’s speeding, not heroin dealing.”

No, it’s not heroin dealing, it’s far more deadly than that. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2005 speeding contributed to 13,113 deaths and cost our society 40.4 billion dollars. That is 36 deaths a day and $4.6 million an hour. “Well, I take it easy on the highway. You won’t see me zooming by at 85.” Great, but the NHTSA reports that 86% of speeding-related fatalities were not on the interstate.

An article in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety placed the number of deaths in 2002 due to heroin overdose at 1,061. There is a rising trend in all drug related deaths, but not to the point where heroin competes with speeding.

Speeding is a socially acceptable, universally practiced petty crime with at least ten times the death toll of heroin use.

How much excess mortality did this country endure last year due to the picking of fruit and vegetables for sub-minimum wage by undocumented workers? Or the mowing of lawns, the serving of food, and other such tasks?

We seem to be willing to give ourselves an ongoing amnesty for the everyday carnage on our roads. It makes the self righteous anger directed towards immigrants look overblown and hypocritical. Their crime is one of paperwork, not of murder, physical injury or theft. Their undocumented status makes them vulnerable to exploitation, which depresses wages and hurts worker’s rights for U.S. citizens. We can help ourselves by helping them.

If we really wanted to stem illegal immigration, we’d roll back our huge agribusiness subsidies that put third world farmers out of business. But that’s another article.

Here’s to equal opportunity amnesty.