Open borders to labor

Our politicians’ newest crusade is to protect us from illegal immigrants. Most all of us are either immigrants or are descended from immigrants, and many of our ancestors, including some of my own, were of questionable legality.

Since people immigrate here primarily for economic reasons, any new immigration policy must be consistent with economic policy. Many politicians from both parties support what they call “free” trade. Our borders are generally freely open for money and ownership, but they are restricted for the other half of the economic equation: labor.

In fact, the immigration “problem” consists largely of laborers who have managed to evade those restrictions. If we want “free” trade we should open our borders to labor to the same extent we open them for capital. Only then will we realize that the most important policy to push in this regard is a uniform, enforced international right for labor to organize to improve wages and working conditions.

In the long run, that will be a much more effective and hu-mane policy than a wall built by Halliburton, probably with immigrant labor.

I realize many people are concerned about short-term problems, such as our schools having to educate a significant number of students who don’t speak our native language. I am personally in favor of enforced bilingual education for everyone. I think that after we all learn Passamaquoddy or Penobscot, languages that are actually native to our state, we should then have to learn English or French or Spanish or another foreign language of our choice.

Judson Esty-Kendall

Orono