Home > Insight

Missouri finds missing link
By Geof Wollerman
gwollerm@mscd.edu

A recent report from a Republican-led special immigration committee of the Missouri state House links two of today’s most polarizing political issues, creating an incendiary über-issue that could potentially inflame the entire nation.

That is, if anyone takes it seriously.

The report, which all six Democrats on the committee refused to sign, begins with this premise: An increasing shortage of American workers encourages illegal immigrants to come to the United States in search of work.

Quantifying this shortage is almost impossible, let alone attributing it to any specific cause, but the committee managed to do just that.

According to the report, a diminished traditional work ethic combined with “expanding liberal social welfare policies have produced a shortage of workers and a lack of incentive for those who can work.” But the report’s most audacious assertion is this: The shortage can be blamed in large part on the tens of millions of abortions that have been performed in this country since 1973.

For far-right conservatives, this linking of illegal immigration and abortion is a political Holy Grail – like discovering evidence proving Michael Moore orchestrated Sept. 11.

But why stop with abortion? Lawmakers should take a look at all this country’s lost employees – such as the hundreds of thousands of people the Bureau of Justice imprisons every year. Unlike aborted fetuses, there might actually be something we could do to tap into these hordes of prospective laborers.

According to Bureau of Justice statistics, more than 600,000 new inmates were admitted to federal and state prisons in 1998, a number that has been rising steadily since 1977. Taxpayers spend about $25,000 per year per inmate to keep criminals locked up, which means prison housing costs them more than $15 billion annually. Strangely enough, this number is roughly what some analysts estimate is the annual cost of illegal immigration.

So here’s my plan: The United States should create a work release program for prison inmates, putting them to work at the jobs our own welfare-encumbered workers lack the drive to perform. The number of American workers will increase, and the attractive job market that draws immigrants across our borders will be eliminated. And in special cases we could employ notorious foreigners. For instance, instead of hanging Saddam Hussein in his homeland, we could force him to work the rest of his life in the dish pit of a Dave and Buster’s.

It’s true that in the last five years the number of abortions being performed has been on the decline. While this might signal a new direction in our nation’s worker-elimination practices, there is no guarantee that this potential future boon of new citizens will actually produce a viable workforce. After making it to adulthood, these potential employees may find the siren’s song of welfare programs too enticing to ignore.

So let’s not forget our growing prison population. We have at our disposal a seemingly inexhaustible supply of workers who need no motivation other than that they’re lucky to be dunking french fries in vats of hot oil instead of stuck in the dead-end career of an incarcerated criminal.

When dealing with a pressing problem like illegal immigration, immediate solutions are all we should settle for. Missouri was on the right track with the abortion revelation, but other lawmakers should take it one step further. Let’s give our country’s criminals – and our country – a second chance. And let’s show Saddam some real American justice: the opportunity to work for minimum wage.