Austin, Texas, custom builder Lucy Katz has taken the matter to Capitol Hill herself, as a member of an NAHB lobbying delegation. “We were requesting that the labor force not be stopped,” Katz says, “that the flow of immigrant labor not be stifled, but that a clear and defined process be established.” The goal, she says, should be to regulate the flow of labor and secure U.S. borders “in a humane fashion, and do it in such a way that both countries will benefit.” Katz has heard others claim that illegal immigrants are gaming the American system, soaking up social services while contributing nothing. “There are people who are going to abuse any system,” she responds, “but I think the majority don’t. I think the majority are scared to death to go into a hospital or to get any other service,” lest they be found out and deported. She also notes that those working under a false Social Security number still pay FICA taxes, “So I think they are paying into our system—many, many who will never benefit from it.”
Katz found her senators and representatives generally sympathetic to the builder’s point of view, though some rank border security and the threat of terrorism higher on their list of priorities than the labor supply. One plan being discussed at the time of her visit would have required guest workers to return home after 10 months in the U.S. and reapply before entering the country again. “I’m definitely for a work program,” Katz says, “but I am definitely opposed to the 10-month cycle.” Losing employees for two months every year, she explained to her Congress members and senators, would be “extremely costly to the people who employ them. Ideally, I think, there should be a clearinghouse to make sure they are working for that company, some kind of registration system, to make sure they are contributing members of our society.”
Matt Oliver says his Latino workers contribute as much or more than their north-of-the-border co-workers. “They work harder, they work happier, and if you set the expectation, the product is better,” he says. “The guys I work with are naturalized citizens or have their green card,” he adds, but even workers who are undocumented “add more to the economy than they drain by any services that they take. They pay all the taxes that any citizen would. When they rent [a home] they pay property taxes, and in my opinion, that gives them a right to send their kids to school.” That is a generous position to take toward people who have entered your country illegally, but Oliver considers it entirely in keeping with our national character. “The true heart of the American spirit is very giving,” he says. And Oliver, like many custom builders, does not have the luxury of weighing the immigration issue in the abstract. His Sheetrock man, who is in this country legally, lost a brother who was trying to enter illegally. “The guy died in the river trying to get across,” he says. “[The Mexican authorities] finally fished the body out after 10 days.” Oliver is not for opening the border completely, but the story clearly pains him. “We have to work out something that gains them a work visa,” he maintains. “It’s real important for us to recognize the strength they are and not treat them like criminals. It’s all about dignity. You’ve got to give people dignity.”
