It’s delicious. It’s a staple that can feed a small village in rural Mexico and the roasting of it in an underground pit is cause enough for a celebration. To Mexicans, the goat isn’t simply an animal from which high-priced cheese can be derived or a funny caricature with horns that eats cans. No, to many Mexicans goat meat is as natural as beef or chicken in the American diet.

While you won’t normally see goat on the menu at too many restaurants in America, make no mistake we in this country enjoy a particular breed of Mexican goat as much or more as we do any other delicacy.

We in America cannot get enough of the Mexican scapegoat.

As Americans talk of walls, deportation and legalization amongst Congress, at the job site and at dinner tables across the country (both affected by illegal immigration and not), citizens are taking sides, drawing a proverbial line in the sand.

But in this case, the line is real — and is made up partly by the Rio Grande. “They take jobs!”

“They don’t pay taxes!”

All rhetoric spouted by those who seek to dispel Mexicans from the United States and all are fundamentally weak arguments when considering the economic trends outlined in the July 9 article in The New York Times Magazine titled “The Immigration Equation.”

In the article, writer Roger Lowenstein speaks with several economists from both sides of the debate who weigh in on some of the very assertions created by those who fear an open or lax border with Mexico. To those who say that immigrants take jobs, Lowenstein argues back with the point that “21 million immigrants, about 15 percent of the labor force, hold jobs in the U.S., but the country has nothing close to that many unemployed … The majority of immigrants can’t literally have taken jobs; they must be doing jobs that wouldn’t have existed had the immigrants not been here.” Wait a second! Mexicans create jobs? That doesn’t go along with preconceived notions concerning Mexicans as a drag on the economy who steal the bread out of American children’s mouths. David Card, a Berkeley professor, points out in Lowenstein’s article that as illegal immigrants come into the country and “take jobs” they are at the same time consuming products and services, which creates more jobs.

Lowenstein also outlines in the article that Mexicans not only create jobs by consuming goods and services, they also create new jobs by supplying goods and services that previously were unavailable or unavailable at a cost most American consumers could afford.

Case in point, child care.

Most families with an illegal immigrant caregiver could not afford an American equal and thus would not have one.

As far as taxes paid by illegal immigrants, the Lowenstein article also shows this claim as either false or grossly exaggerated. Illegal immigrants do in fact pay taxes. They pay sales tax and property taxes for the homes they rent, which are comparable to any low income family in America.

The majority of illegal immigrants from Mexico are law-abiding, hard-working, courteous and industrious people who are simply looking for a better life for themselves, their families and their relatives in Mexico. They deflate the cost of many common items like produce by working for a smaller wage than American workers and perform the jobs many Americans do not want to do.

The fear of Mexicans boils down to a xenophobic hypocrisy created by stereotypes and a fear of change. Those who cannot stand to see signs painted in English and Spanish or wading through automated messages that require them to push a button for English would be better to consider themselves un-American rather than patriotic.

Unless of course, they are American Indians, no one in this country has the right to claim that they have more of a stake in the American dream than anyone else. Most of our ancestors came here from another country seeking the same thing Mexicans are doing now, and this country wouldn’t be the same without them.

The immigrants pouring through Ellis Island in the 19th and 20th century are no different from the Mexican wading through the rivers that make up our border. However they aren’t welcomed by the glorious Statue of Liberty, but rather persecution and fear.

The truth is if we continue to use uneducated excuses for disliking Mexicans we are only making excuses for ourselves. If we say “I can’t find a job because a Mexican took it,” we are stemming away from the will and determination that are supposedly the cornerstones of American society.

Contact Greg at viewpoint@technicianonline.com.