A woman arrested by Portage County deputies March 10 following an all-night manhunt has been deported, according to a jail official in Mahoning County, where she was being held.
Jorge Gonzalez Alvarado, 31, and Ana Maria Contreras Jimenez, 33, did not possess a valid drivers license when Portage County deputies pulled over their vehicle on Interstate 76 on March 9...
Read moreThis story raises the all too familiar issue of immigration reform. It is unclear how long Ana Maria Contreras Jimenez had been in the USA. But she has now been deported and, it would appear, the legality of her presence in the USA has now been established. There is no reporting that I could find that Jimenez was separated from family or that she had been a valuable contributor to a local “underground” economy. But for purposes of this comment, let’s assume that she was one of those contributing “undocumented” members of a local community. Who is to blame for this loss?
If both political parties agree that immigration reform is desperately needed, what’s the problem? Without a doubt, “we” are not talking about the same thing when we talk about “immigration reform.”
Steven Volk, Emeritus Professor History at Oberlin College, who has worked as an advocate for immigrant rights for more than 20 years chimed in via the Ohio Capital Journal to provide his perspective. I invite readers to follow the link for his full comments.
My own grandparents came to the United States in the late 19th century, fleeing persecution in Russia.
They didn’t stand in line because there was no line.
And while they faced many challenges, not the least because they were Jewish, they were still able to flourish and contribute to their new country.
Milton Friedman commented famously on the difference between the implications of free immigration before 1914 and after 1914. Simply: “It is one thing to have free immigration to jobs; it is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both.” He commented further about a paradox that actually existed at the time (the 1970s?) that allowed for the conclusion that illegal immigration was actually a good thing…as long as it remained fully illegal. Because illegal immigrants could not qualify for any assistance then it had to be true that they were migrating to jobs and not migrating to welfare. And in that case, everybody wins because everybody would be better off. Wink, wink. Nod, nod.
But that give and take no longer exists. Apparently, because we also cannot agree on what another term means. There is a great divide in the country on what the term “asylum” means. Think about when the phrase “asylum seekers” first started hitting the streets. According to some sources the phrase hit peak prominence only recently, beginning around 2015.
I know that history (the subject area of our Emeritus Professor Volk) is not economics. But the two are not so far apart that a history professor at Oberlin could not do the basic math to understand the implications of “free immigration to welfare.” And flinging the doors wide open to anyone that is savvy enough to claim to be seeking asylum when they are actually seeking welfare is a recipe for unintended consequences. Unless, of course, ripping society apart was the intended consequence.
Perhaps the fact that Professor Volk is an Emeritus Professor of History at Oberlin explains everything. Maybe,… just maybe, our Emeritus Professor Volk was one of the ones here in this country, because he’s “shmaht” (like Fredo Corleone was shmaht in The Godfather) and who has spent the last 20 years working as an advocate for immigrant rights, that he helped to devise the “asylum seeker” strategy? Or, that at least he recognized it when introduced by others and then he promoted it. That would explain how it is possible that he could make the comparison to his grandparents immigrating in the late 1800s and ipso facto there should be free immigration to welfare now all without a hint of the problem described by Friedman. Could he be that sneaky shmaht?
Maybe Ms. Jimenez’s supporters should look to Oberlin Emeritus Professor of History Steven Volk to express their outrage for mucking up both her life and the lives of members of her adopted community that had come to depend on her?
