In today’s Friday interview the John Locke Foundation’s Donna Martinez discusses illegal immigration with two people who have opposing views on the subject, Ron Woodard, with the advocacy group North Carolina Listen, and Rick Martinez, contributing columnist to the opinion page of the Raleigh News & Observer. The interview aired on Carolina Journal Radio (click here to find the station near you).
Donna: Let’s talk, first of all, about the bills in Congress right now. There are a number of them, but in the senate there are at least — there are a couple of major ones: one by [Senators] Cornyn and Kyl, and one by [Senators] McCain and Kennedy. What I’d like to start with is to ask each of you to let me know which one of those bills you prefer and. Ron Woodard, why don’t we start with you?
Ron: We prefer the House bill. We prefer none of the legislation in the Senate, because we think we need to get control of our borders before we start talking about any kind of guest worker program. We believe we already have a guest worker program — it’s called illegal immigration. Until we stop that, there’s no point in having any other kind of a program.
Donna: Rick Martinez? [Ed: Rick Martinez is Donna Martinez’s husband.]
Rick: Well, I initially favored the McCain-Kennedy bill, simply because it has the most workable plan for a guest worker program. Unfortunately the whole debate has gotten very emotional, and there’s been various amendments and so forth. There’s the Hagel/Martinez bill — Senator Hagel and Senator Martinez from Florida — and, unfortunately, I don’t think that in Washington there’s been a lot of — a reasoned debate…but frankly, I’m not very optimistic.
Donna: Ron Woodard, are you optimistic that at some point in the next few months, say, we will have some sort of a federal bill out of Congress?
Ron: We’re not optimistic, because we think one or two things is going to happen. We think either nothing will happen, which is what Rick said, or we think bad legislation, from my point of view, would come out, in which we would give some kind of amnesty to people who have broken the law to come here. I think we know why people want to come here — to make their life better — but in many cases they’re making poor Americans’ lives worse. And we have to expect people to obey the law when they come here, and I think to give them amnesty, at this point, would be doing nothing more than repeating the mistakes we made in 1986 when we gave an amnesty at that point.
Donna: Let’s talk about some of the major issues that are very much debated on illegal immigration. First of all, the issue of taxes and whether or not illegal immigrants pay taxes. Rick Martinez, let’s start with you.
Rick: Well, illegal immigrants pay taxes…quite a lot of them. And here in North Carolina, you’re looking at around $800 million in various taxes that they pay. Illegals pay taxes as everyone else, and in the cases that they don’t, it’s usually at the behest of an employer who would prefer to hire an illegal off the books. And that employer is probably not only paying off the books, but he’s probably also not providing all of the protections that the worker normally would have. But I think, you know, study after study [shows] illegal immigrants pay the vast majority of taxes. In fact, I suspect, I wouldn’t be surprised, if the percentage of illegals who pay taxes on the federal level is greater than the percentage of Americans who pay taxes on the federal level. There is a group out of Washington that stated that almost 30 percent of Americans, through various tax credits and exemptions and so forth, don’t pay taxes on the federal level. So I think this whole thing about taxation is somewhat of a red herring because illegal aliens do pay taxes.
Donna: Ron Woodard with NC Listen, do you believe that illegal immigrants pay taxes?
Ron: I agree with Rick in part that, sure, they pay taxes. I think, as he so eloquently said, unscrupulous employers are the biggest problem in many cases when they don’t. I think the issue though is not whether they pay taxes. If you’re in the country illegally, just because you pay taxes and know how to parallel park a car doesn’t mean you should be a U.S. citizen, and I think that’s really at the crux of the whole matter. And the other part of it is, because many of the illegals are overwhelmingly poor, they’re not paying that much [in] taxes because their wages are so low, and employers are taking advantage of them there. And then, in addition to that issue, they’re trying to send money back to their homeland — which I can understand why they want to do that — but oftentimes they don’t pay any healthcare because they’re trying to send more money home. And that’s really wrong to be doing that, because there are many Americans who are poor who would love to send their grandmother more money but they have to pay their healthcare.
Donna: Ron, let’s continue with something that you mentioned in your answer, and that has to do with the issue of employers who are hiring illegal immigrants. I understand that you believe that there should be enforcement, because that is against the law. What should be happening to employers who do this hiring?
Ron: This is one area [on] which Rick Martinez and I agree, I think, I can say, 100 percent. Because employers who knowingly hire illegals are, in essence, just taking advantage of them for cheap labor purposes, and they want to shift the cost. We call it subsidized labor, because they want to shift the cost to the taxpayer. And so, we would very much go after them. As a matter of fact, one of the complaints that’s been in past, is that there was no database for employers to use, but there now is a program called a safe system that’s been in existence for over a year in which any employer can voluntarily — now, the House bill requires them to do it, but right now it’s voluntary — for them to check the worker eligibility through this database and they would have a record that they’ve done that. And if they got audited and if there was a mistake, then they’re not going to be fined. But if they haven’t been doing it and have been knowingly hiring illegals, we think they should be fined $4,000 to $5,000 per person.
Donna: Rick Martinez, would you fine an employer $4,000 to $5,000 per illegal immigrant that they hired?
Rick: Well, you know, enforcement is the key. And in fact, I think enforcement is absolutely critical on any type of comprehensive reform. I do believe that you have to have a guest worker program, but that’s only half the answer, and going after employers is only half the answer. In addition to that, you need to enforce the laws — the traffic laws, the driver’s license laws — and in essence, get to the point where everyone enforces illegal immigration law. A lot of people like to look at — actually look down at the illegal immigrant and say, “What part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand? Why don’t you respect the law?” But that’s only half the story. In order to respect the law, you also have to enforce it. And, unfortunately, the United States of America has not enforced its laws, has not enforced its border, and now we are to the point that has to be addressed, where you have approximately 10 to 12 million people who are here illegally. And we have to provide them a pathway so that they can do one of two things: either become a citizen of the United States or go back to their country of origin.
Donna: Ron Woodard of NC Listen, it does seem that perhaps you and Rick agree on this, that the federal government is not enforcing immigration laws.
Ron: Well, absolutely. We haven’t for about 20 years, in ways that should be enforced. However, on the one hand, it’s not a complete easy street for the illegal to say that because we don’t enforce our laws, they shouldn’t obey them. I mean, a friend doesn’t steal your car just because you leave the keys in it, you know? And so, anyway, I think that’s one of the things we need to do. Secondly, in addition to driver’s licenses and worker enforcement, we need border control and we need to get local law enforcement involved in a sensible way.
Donna: If you’d like more information about Ron Woodard’s group, you can check out his website. It’s www.nclisten.com, and if you’d like to read more of Rick Martinez, you can find his columns at www.newsobserver.com.