Reverse Osmosis

For everyone that pines for the days of the 1950's, when America was overwhelmingly white (you know, the blacks knew their place and the only Mexicans we knew of picked fruit and vegetables on the West Coast), I have good news. There's a reverse Exodus from America by the Latino. With a severe recession upon us, construction at a standstill, the travel industry imploding with the result of empty hotels and vacant restaurants at dinner time, the work for the undocumented worker is drying up. With it, employment opportunities for the unskilled and semi-skilled laborer are scarce.

Insofar as the draw to America for most Latino immigrants in the first place was that they could make money here and send it back to Latin America for their family's support, they have gone home, in droves. My Latino construction workers tell me that no less than half of their workers have gone back to their home country. The dynamic of our money going south at first raises the specter of someone "stealing" our currency. The reality is, this practice has helped stabilize the economies of our neighbors in Latin America to the extent that while Mexico, for instance, struggles to push its economy into the 21st century, the influx of dollars into the Mexican economy reduced the poverty of its citizenry thus providing more time and cushion for political remedies to take effect. This cushion is now gone. The global recession south of the border in most countries will be far more severe than we will suffer.

From many, the exodus of Latinos will raise cheers. These might be the same people who use the "n" word to describe African-Americans. True, these might also be patriots who seek the same modicum of security that most of our allies in the West enjoy. Who knows the hearts of our friends and neighbors? For those of us that depend on Latino labor, it is chilling. What most people who don't run a business fail to realize is that the American worker has long since abandoned the residential construction trades due to the Hispanic workers. Long ago, the labor necessary to run the food and travel industry became almost exclusively foreign. There are simply not very many legal Americans left to do this type of work. More disheartening, in truth, Americans simply do not want to do menial labor. Despite the influx of East Europeans and South Africans into the industry, the available labor shortfall, upon any restoration of a normal economy, will be dire.

I am not promoting illegal immigration, but taking the pragmatic view that if we, as Americans, are serious about sealing our borders, then we must be prepared to see the prices associated with home building rise, even as home values continue to drift. Paying 20% to 30% more for the same home built today, tomorrow, will not be a pleasant side-effect of closing off the Rio Grand River. With rising commodity prices, coupled with a significant increase in labor costs, we will see new home prices surge, complicating the solutions to a battered housing industry. If builders aren't selling $300k homes now, how will they, in a depressed market, be able to sell the same home for $375k? Will we rejoice when a hotel room costs $50. more per night when we travel? There are literally hundreds of examples of how this labor shortage will affect the price of everything we buy.

I hear many friends concede, grudgingly, that they will have to pay more in taxes to help dig ourselves out of the current economic malaise. I wonder if they will understand what is behind paying so much more for their new houses or hotel rooms during a severe recession? I suspect every American wants the ideal of the secure border. I like that concept if for no other reason than it makes sense in a dangerous world to know who is in your neighborhood. While there is no easy answer, I do have faith that in an era when everything is on the table politically, we can find the right mix of patriotism, security and generosity. I heard an awful comment the other day that when GM goes bankrupt, maybe we could retrain automotive workers to swing a hammer or change sheets. Not really that funny, is it?