Immigration reform uncertainty most important news of week

The Supreme Court ruling yesterday on the controversial Arizona Immigration Law is the most important news event of the past week because it essentially changes nothing with regard to illegal immigration - and that's good news for Americans and our economy.

Usually when the Supreme Court issues a ruling that plays fiddle-faddle with a law, leaving some parts in while striking down others, I get upset because the net result is nothing is decided. Rulings like this one reported by The New York Times show America's great weakness, collaboration and inclusion for all. When everyone wins, usually no one does at all.

However, I am beginning to see a muddled future for immigration reform as a positive for the American economy in light of the systemic world economic failures.

Word is leaking lately of serious economic downturns in the east, as reported here by Bloomberg yesterday.  China is swallowing the same poison pill Europe and America already has by lowering intrabank borrowing rates to facilitate a stronger borrowing wave, which they hope will in turn spark consumer spending.

Why on earth would they think that? Quite literally, it has failed everywhere else.

India is slowing down as well. So, the nations with the two largest populations are starting to see the tide of unemployment swell.

The rub for America is this: when the tide reaches full crest in a year or two, or five for these eastern nations, and manufacturing imports to and from America lessen even more, it will be helpful if we haven't completely closed off ourselves from our North American neighbors, north or south.

People seem to forget that if America sends 12 million people home, they aren't all going to go to Mexico. According to the Department of Homeland Security's Annual Flow Report published in April, yes, many of the legal immigrants to America from 2009-2011 did in fact come from Mexico, 14 percent actually. But Asia sent over a third of all immigrants to America during the same time period, dwarfing our southern brethren's import significantly.

Canada, too, is an important and often forgotten part of the border equation. We share the worlds largest geographical country-to-country border with the maple syrup crowd, an important fact when coupled with the fact that over seventy-five percent of the Canadian population live within a hundred miles of our border. (Come to think of it, if the American dream is alive and well - even if the Dream Act isn't - why aren't we being swallowed whole by Canadian defectors on a daily basis? Only 12K Canadian citizens immigrated to America over the same time period that Mexico sent 140K.)

I know, it's the economy stupid. It sure as hell can't be the health benefits, right?

For all the lip service journalists have given the war/oil/Middle East love triangle, it should come as a shock to come find out that we import 20 percent of our oil from our northern neighbors; that's more than twice the amount we receive from Saudi Arabia on annual basis, who by the way, also lags our second favorite oil exporter - Mexico!

The point is, when the swell of trade dies in parts of the world where it's always been more profitable to open factories based on numbers (quantity, and not quality), I'm guessing many companies will throw in the towel on the whole social quality of life for developing nations (wink, wink) thing rubbed in our nose when NAFTA was signed nearly twenty years ago, and American companies begin making things again in, well, America.

And when that happens, it sure will be nice not to have built up our riverbanks so high that neither workers, nor products, can pass through from Mexico and Canada.

Yes, we need to get the books straight about who is here, doing what, and why. And I know we have enough of our own citizens out of work who would gladly line up for Black anyday, like it was Christmas in July for gainful employment.

But shuttering the borders now, and the relationships with our neighboring governments ahead of worldwide economic uncertainty would be a mistake. It would shut us in and leave us out of the game at precisely the moment America should be wanting to play again.