The Key: An Answer to the Illegal Immigration to U.S.

By Mario Carbajal

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 7, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453580585

Mario Carbajal

My name is Mario Carbajal Gracias. I am originally from the municipality of El Paisnal, Department of San Salvador, El Salvador. I worked as a volunteer with the Christian communities sponsored by elements of the Catholic Church from 1973 through 1977, the year in which Father Rutilio Grande García was assassinated on March 12th. I collaborated with agricultural workers’ organizations, including FECCAS ( Christian Federation for Salvadorian Farm Workers) and UTC (Farm Worker’s Union), which struggled for workers’ rights and claimed benefits, from 1977 through 1980, the year in which the atrocity against Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez occurred, on Monday, March 24th. From 1980 to 1984, I joined the workers’ movement to ensure that the rights of people were not violated, therefore fought for the civil rights of all citizens. I have resided in the United States with my wife and children since 1985. I love to compose songs, although I have not gotten around to publishing any of them. I have also written another book which has yet to be published, called “Dumb Stones”, a biographical work, which I plan to complete and publish shortly.

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Copyright © 2010 by Mario Carbajal.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010913993

ISBN: Hardcover  978-1-4535-8057-8

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4535-8056-1

ISBN: Ebook           978-1-4535-8058-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Registered in the archives administered by Law with regard to the

Intellectual Property of El Salvador.

TRANSLATED BY STEPHEN KIOUSSIS

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Prologue

Introduction

I.    The American Dream

II.    Great Americans

III.    Undocumented Workers: Their Allies and Enemies

IV.    Migratory Discrimination

V.    Visas

VI.    Nothing New Under the Sun

VII.    Caught On Camera

VIII.    Cut-off at the Knees

IX.    After 15 Years, Who’s Your Daddy?

X.    Illegal and Home Free

XI.    Third-class Citizens

XII.    Remittance and Remorse

XIII.    Expatriates

XIV.    Militarism

XV.    Latin America’s Foreign Debt

XVI.    The Rearguard of the U.S

XVII.    The Key to Halting Illegal Immigration to the U.S

A Universal Benefits Package For The Americas

Conclusions

Contemplations

Final Remarks

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PROLOGUE

The problem of illegal Latin-American migration to the United States has only just begun to attract the level of concern it deserves. The fact is present-day socio-economic conditions in the Americas make it likely that hundreds of thousands of additional workers will be compelled to spill across our borders, aggravating an already tense situation on our American continent.

The proposal outlined in The Key is not necessarily the result of this frightening foretold escalation in illegal immigration. Rather, it is the logical outcome of the long-standing, institutionalized indifference shown to displaced peoples, scattered by political and socio-economic strife intrinsic to the Americas. To counter the well-publicized delusion of a guaranteed better life designed to lure low-wage workers to American jobsites, insight provided by The Key represents a simple and practical approach to effectively halt illegal immigration to the United States of America.

The book optimistically demonstrates that the migratory chaos characterize by a tidal wave of undocumented workers to the United States does in fact have a realistic solution. If the free market took the bold initiative to reform trade legislation, for example, we would find that the resulting fair commercial practices would provide a preferred alternative to what up until now could only be characterized as a neo-liberal experiment. With fair trade, the tide of low-wage workers would be channeled legally through an extensive network of continental economic estuaries.

We must face the bleak reality that while the consumer market model has taken root in the Americas, average citizens lack the financial means to spend at the levels necessary to sustain such a system. The only possible future for an unsustainable consumer financial system, then, is mounting poverty, marginalization and spiraling illegal immigration toward more prosperous northern latitudes.

This situation is exemplified in the Central American nation of El Salvador, where its people have been subjected to living under a consumerist neoliberal system for the past 17 years. Since the U.S. dollar was adopted as its currency in 2001, it has incurred one of the highest costs of living in the region, yet its workers’ salaries are too paltry to even begin to justify the logic of adopting such a drastic socio-economic transformation.

To demonstrate this, consider that it costs $4.00 to produce a gallon of milk, and a hamburger in Burger King would cost you around $5.00; compare this to the $4.67 daily wage of a minimum wage worker’s salary. Worse yet, many workers will tell you that their daily pay in the private sector amounts to less than $4.00. If you do the math, you’ll quickly come to know that the cost of living does not correlate to salaries. Salvadorans will tell you that they are still paid in virtually worthless Colones (the unit of currency used before the dollar’s advent), yet they spend in U.S. dollars.

Was this economic policy designed for economic growth, or is it inherently condemned to cause depression and hunger? Or, perhaps, it was engineered to create a climate of economic instability in which there is no other alternative but to flee the country in search of better financial possibilities, despite the costs, which include abandonment of family and country.

The Salvadoran people are at the end of their rope; for them it’s not a matter of understanding complex market strategies or abstract terms and technical buzzwords. For the working class of El Salvador, it simply means no jobs, no money and, therefore, no buying power. How can you continue to live in a consumer society if you can’t afford anything?

The logic driving economic policies which whet the appetite for neoliberal-type consumption fail to consider aspects of social character and the policies’ impact. For so-called democratic countries such as El Salvador, continuing these economic models brings nothing but misery to the vast majority. The governments themselves, meanwhile, view it as a contract executed with the engineers of a new world order in exchange for which the countries’ leaders secure unchallenged authority at home.

It is nothing less than a crime to keep these citizens in abject poverty, dying of hunger, with unemployment driving unparalleled levels of criminal activity, measured in high numbers of casualties resulting from the escalating murder rate. In El Salvador, there are twelve crimes committed daily per capita, more than in Colombia where full-scale civil war has been waged for decades. This is not science fiction: it is genocide committed by multinational conglomerates and economic politics which lobby corrupt politicians to sell out their constituents to line their own pockets, of which the United Nations is all too aware, yet systematically fails to address.

Mass displacement of a desperate Latin American working class in search of respite from the misery in their homelands is the dramatic result of such genocidal policies, where entire generations flee in search of solution to their economic strife. The resulting wide-scale migration brings about political and social upheaval for the nations upon which the refugees converge.

How about viable alternatives or remedial measures to correct the course of failed strategies, as opposed to revolutionary movements which, incidentally, have gained significant momentum of late in source countries, even though in practice such movements have failed to take hold, in many cases reportedly due to electoral fraud and acts of repression?

The affected majority seeks at all costs to overcome marginalization through legal means; however, for the world oligarchy, even migratory displacement in search of highly-coveted low wage employment has been deemed a criminal act. These working masses may even be more aware of the causes of their suffering than we give them credit for, but maybe it’s just simpler and less hazardous to be labeled criminals by seeking work in other countries, than to be condemned as subversives by bucking the establishment in their own.

On the other hand, these migrants are well aware that the odyssey of fleeing their own homes for a chance to cross the U.S.-Mexican border into the U.S.A. is hard and perilous. They understand the risk of losing their lives in the attempt to change their situation, but this short-lived fear of potentially dying en route pales in comparison to the life-sentence of suffering and misery which inevitably leads to certain death if they don’t.

I urge all governments, organizations which struggle in the defense of immigrants’ rights, and all levels of our society to wake up and take note of what is happening in migrant communities throughout our America.

Though you’ll never hear about it in the media, it is a sad reality that throughout the Latin American landscape you can find internally displaced peoples as well. There are literally entire communities which have fled their dwellings due to internal strife, forced to live in concentration camps for war refugees.

The U.S. has declared war on the illegal invasion, and has sent reinforcements to all fronts. Direct action combat against undocumented workers on the border, capturing and deporting them to their countries of origin; organized harassment at all businesses and work sites to cast the infamous illegal immigration dragnets.

Surveillance is now being conducted 24 hours a day along the U.S. southern border, where wider and longer steel and concrete fences have sprung up. Businessmen found guilty of employing undocumented workers are being fined $10,000 for the first offense, up to $100,000 for the second, and they risk a prison term and even the loss of their operating license for a third.

So now the question is, Who am I to even dare to attempt this literary work? Well, let me introduce myself. In the first place, I’m a person who wants to feel useful in contributing to the good of society and to all human beings, especially to the Latin community, whose existence is threatened by our countries’ economic, political, and social experiments. Secondly, I’m a United States citizen, born in El Salvador and, like many of my compatriots; I emigrated to this country more than 20 years ago to flee armed conflict. As an immigrant in this country, my greatest hope is that everyone in our American continent enjoys the same opportunities that we have in the U.S. In intellectual terms, I have not even had minimal academic education in writing techniques, the slightest idea how to do so, nor even anyone ready to help me. To date, I have literally had no support from any kind of professional and I have lacked the means, primarily financial, to perhaps even publish this project. The reason, the powerful driving force which led me to dedicate so much time and effort to this