Hypocrisy’s high price

TIMES STAFF WRITER Richard Marosi’s front-page story on Sunday should be compulsory reading for all members of Congress and White House staffers. Too many people in Washington act as if there is no urgency in resolving this nation’s dysfunctional approach to illegal immigration, but no one who reads the poignant account of Cesareo Dominguez’s search for his daughter Lucresia’s remains in the Arizona desert could ever again question the urgency to overhaul federal immigration laws.

People are dying. We talk about abstractions such as the labor market and the rule of law when talking immigration, but Marosi’s story reminded us of this simple fact: People are dying out there in the desert.

American businesses want to hire people like Lucresia’s husband -- and many industries heavily rely on illegal labor -- but we are in denial about this as a society. So we wink at the hiring of illegal immigrants but make it harder for them to cross the border, forcing millions to run the gantlet of the Arizona desert.

Lucresia hadn’t seen her husband in two years because the crackdown along the border makes it harder for illegal immigrants to visit their relatives, so she entrusted herself and her two children to smugglers to guide them across the desert. Within days, her son, Jesus, 15, was forced to leave his mother’s side to seek more water, long after they had been left behind by the coyotes. Lucresia’s senseless death was hardly uncommon -- father Cesareo stumbled upon several other corpses in the desert while searching for Lucresia, one of 65 illegal immigrants believed to have been consumed by the desert in July in just one Arizona county.

Both sides of the immigration debate should be united in moral condemnation of the status quo. Washington needs to create a legal framework for the flow of labor, or alter the labor market dynamics to shut down the flow. Whether you believe the United States should take down the “No Trespassing” sign from its southern border, or the “Help Wanted: Inquire Within” sign, we can all agree that the country cannot continue to have it both ways, relying on workers it pretends to keep out. This game needs to end. People are dying in the desert.