Letter to the Editor: About Immigration

August 25, 2019

We have vastly different ideas about immigration in America. This might depend on where you get your news.

When my German ancestors came in the 1850’s, there were no laws about it. Immigrants came and built up the country. Germans who came to Manchester were resented by some others who were already here. They were numerous enough that many did not learn much if any English, a point of contention with some New Englanders who’d arrived first. Does any of this sound familiar?

Here are a few facts, drawn from varied reputable sources–you know, sources whose job is to tell the verifiable truth.

• Immigrants of all kinds do pay federal income taxes. Yet the assumption persists: that undocumented people who work for someone either steal a social security number or work under the table. The reality is, about half of them want to and do pay income taxes because that record could help them gain legal status. They file for an IRS “Individual Taxpayer Identification Number”, or ITIN. With that, they pay payroll taxes that go into Social Security and Medicare although they can’t draw from either program. That money goes into the system as a net gain. For workers who gave an employer a false SS number, if that number doesn’t match anyone on file, the federal government collects that payroll tax and adds it to the pot for older Americans. According to the Social Security Administration, in 2013 the undocumented paid $13 Billion into our retirement trust fund. They did not draw any of it out. Also, immigrants legal or not buy homes and goods, and pay property and sales taxes that contribute to local schools and government services.
• The large majority of people who are here illegally just overstay their legal visa. Enforcement of that issue is lax for Asians, and there are way more immigrants here from Asia than from south of the border.
• Most Central Americans endure an expensive and arduous journey with great risk. They do it because they love our country and think they will be saved.
• We have a labor shortage here, especially in jobs that Americans refuse or can’t do. Worldwide economic forces have created our immigration problem and our laws have not kept up. It’s not without trying. George W. Bush spent a lot of political capitol trying to get his immigration reform package through congress. It failed.
• Our prior Democratic administration set up programs in Central America to address poverty and gang-war issues which are the root cause of so many coming north. The current administration cancelled these programs.
• The financial costs that keep people in detention are astronomical, reaching into the multi-billions. One estimate said keeping one person in detention costs US taxpayers over $700 per day. That’s a low estimate.

I am disturbed by these facts: Separating a child from its parent, even for a few days, causes trauma. The longer they are without someone familiar and caring creates lasting trauma. It’s cruel. It creates PTSD.

Assuming and then treating people as criminal, because they acted on their legal right to seek asylum is against international law. If they flee violence, oppression and entrenched poverty, they are refugees.

The recent proposal of keeping families together in detention until their case is solved is going to skyrocket costs and make a lot of money for for-profit prison companies that are contracted to run some detention centers, some of whom support the current administration with campaign money. People are warehoused in unsanitary and overcrowded facilities and the government plans to NOT vaccinate them for flu, disregarding doctors’ insistence. That is horrible, short-sighted policy that will affect us all when diseases break out.

The fear of immigrants that causes chaos, huge expenses, and human harm and oppression is not limited to my country. It flails it ugly head all over the world right now. This easily-created and useful fear gives power to politicians who use it to their own ends. Meanwhile it is self-destructive to societies that can’t see the costs and the facts, and therefore the solutions.

Using human understanding, love for the people, and even for those who deserve the blame for perpetuating it, as well as addressing the facts, might show us a way out of this crisis.

Kathleen Graddy
Sharon Township

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by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.