January 13, 2004
Bush's conservative immigration policy
Over the last several days, I have heard a lot of complaining from the right about Bush’s new immigration policy. Some of it has been quite shrill and I daresay anti-immigrant. I think it is good conservative policy. I will explain below.There are several arguments from the right against this policy, but I will attempt to sum them up. First, it is amnesty, despite what the President says, and will encourage a new wave of illegal immigration. Second, counter to what most people think, we don’t need this cheap labor and it drives down the wages and takes jobs away from hard working Americans. Third, telling a bunch of foreigners, “Y’All come!” is counterproductive to our security efforts along the border. Fourth, Vicente Fox has hardly been in our corner lately, so why should we do him any favors? Finally, it’s not good politically for Republicans or for Bush.
It is true that saying this is something other than amnesty is a bit of a stretch, but it is substantially different than the amnesty program of 1986 in that it is combined with other sweeping reform. Amnesty is criticised because it rewards those that broke the law and invites those that have not broken the law to do so. If you can just stay in the country long enough, the reasoning goes, you will eventually be legal, no matter how you got here.
But criticizing the amnesty aspect out of the context of the guest-worker program is nonsense. If the guest-worker program is OK, then anything other than amnesty would be ridiculous. Take this analogy. Suppose we were to legalize marijuana. Let's not argue the merits of that, but just take it as a fact on the ground. There would be millions of people in this country who had smoked marijuana and gotten away with it. They would have a de facto amnesty. We probably could legally still prosecute those that had smoked marijuana while it was legal, but would this server the interest of justice? Hardly.
Similarly, if we create a law that says basically that you can come to this country legally as long as you have a job, would it be any great travesty if we simply gave the same opportunity to those who were already here?
The second part of this complaint is that it encourages others to break the law, but again this has to be taken in context. There are some legitimate reasons for foreigners to be here: Family (married to an American), tourism (including visiting family and such), conducting legitimate business, education, and work. All of these things can be used to legally enter the country for nefarious purposes, but what of the reverse? Do people sneak into the country to get married? Of course not. I can't imagine any problem being absolutely zero, but I would have to guess that illegal tourism is pretty close. The same goes for people illegally entering the country to conduct otherwise legitimate business. It is very hard for a student to actually attend university without a legitimate student visa. That leaves work.
Millions enter the country illegally to work. Work is the demand on the illegal immigrant supply. To suggest that an amnesty will encourage others to break the law implies that it would be more desireable to break the law than it was before. In fact, it will be less desireable, since the guest-worker program does not apply only to those that are already here, but to anyone who wants to enter. If you want to come to America to work, there would be an easy and legal way to do it. How would that drive up illegal immigration?
One can argue that it will drive up immigration in general, but it will drive up the number of productive immigrants. I say, the more productive people in the country, the better.
We Don't Need 'Em
Mark Krikorian at National Review says that all this talk about jobs that Americans won't do is a bunch of hooey. He claims, "there is simply no economic reason to import foreign workers," and he makes some points that don't sound very conservative to me. If, for some reason, the cheap illegal immigrants all disappeared, we would make due. Americans would do those jobs if only the wages were higher and it would spur innovation to allow us to produce more efficiently.
I have long agreed that Americans would do the jobs that illegal immigrants do if the wages were higher. There is nothing inherently 'Mexican' or 'un-American' about manual unskilled labor. However, I don't agree with his point about what a non-issue those higher wages would be. "Agricultural economist Philip Martin has pointed out that labor accounts for only about ten percent of the retail price of a head of lettuce, for instance, so even doubling the wages of pickers would have little noticeable effect on consumers." I guess that's true if you would not notice the price going up by ten percent. (If wages count for 10 cents of the dollar you spend, and they go up to twenty cents, that would drive the price up to $1.10.) Now, on a head of iceburg lettuce, it's true that most people would not miss the extra dime, but this is exactly the argument for raising sales tax another percent or raising your income tax "just a little". If you spend $200 a week on groceries for your family, you very well might notice the missing $80/month. All of this assumes that wages would only double, which is not clear to me.
His second point is that this scarcity in labor would result in greater worker productivity and innovation. "By holding down natural wage growth in labor-intensive industries, immigration serves as a subsidy for low-wage, low-productivity ways of doing business, retarding technological progress and productivity growth." But who is managing the economy here? No one is "holding down natural wage growth." On the contrary, a strict enforcement of existing immigration policy would prop up wages to an unnaturally high level. Conservatives (that includes me) are always making the argument that minimum wage laws create unemployment by holding the wages unnaturally high, forcing employers to get by with fewer workers. A completely open guest-worker program (which is neither proposed by the President nor endorsed here) would have wages at their "natural" level.
He is, as a conservative, actually arguing in favor of keeping willing employees and employers from finding each other as a way of holding up wages and spurring innovation. This sounds like old-fashioned protectionism to me and it isn't much different, at least in principle, to closed union shops. I'm aware that economic considerations are not the only considerations when it comes to immigration, but it seems to me that on economic grounds, the guest-worker program is more conservative than a hard-line anti-immigration policy.
Security
Conservatives are concerned that this will present a way for our enemies to enter the country legally, as long as they have jobs, and make us all less safe. On the contrary, this policy will enhance security. While some enemies surely will enter the country illegally, they will have identities in INS and FBI databases, rather than just anonymous strangers. They will have fingerprints registered in our databases.
Plus they will have jobs, which makes it harder to move about the country without being noticed. There will be only two new ways to enter this country legally as our enemy. First, they get a legitimate job and do their nefarious stuff in the off hours. That means their employer is probably one of the good guys, and since he is acting legally, he does not need to fear the INS if he reports that the bad guy has gone missing from work. The second way is not really legal, but might look legal. They get a job with a shell company that is a front for a terrorist group. This is ominous, but again, they would be registered and so would the company. It would be much easier to spot a shell company involved in terrorist plotting than it would be to spot 20 loosely connected men with no American identities.
That leaves enemies entering the old fashioned way - by coming in on fake visas or sneaking across the border or otherwise coming in outside the system. The volume of enemies entering this way may not go down under the new policy, but as a portion of all illegal immigration, it would skyrocket, making enforcement that much easier.
There seems to be some assumption that it would actually be possible to enforce existing immigration law. This is not possible both because of the sheer volume of violators (which would decrease dramatically under the new plan) and because of political will. One could argue that if we had truly harsh enforcement of the law, that would serve as a deterrent and reduce the amount of immigration to a manageable level. But as long as the vast majority of illegal immigrants are entering the country simply to work, there can be no draconian enforcement of immigration law. Under the new policy, the vast majority of people entering the country illegally would be here to do us harm and they lose their political clout and popular sympathy. Rigorous enforcement of the law would not only become possible, but also lose its stigma.
Fox Is Not Our Friend
Anyone who claims that Mexico did not treat us well during our run up to the Iraq war has a point. They sided with France instead of their friends to the North. The magnitude of their betrayal, however, was not near the magnitude of our European friends. While Mexico did not support us, I would not call them obstructionist on the matter.
But my point is not to be an apologist for the Mexican position on the war. My point is that this is in our own interest. We should not look at this as doing President Fox a favor. We are doing ourselves a favor.
Now, to be strictly free trade about the whole thing, reciprocation would be required, and I hope it is offered. That is, it should also be easy for Americans to work in Mexico. This would only be fair, but have little effect on actual immigration. I don't expect to see a flood of American workers taking Mexican jobs.
Politics
I hope that President Bush is doing this because he believes it is the right thing to do, not because he thinks it is politically advantageous. However, that doesn't mean I don't care if he's really stepped in it. Certainly the BlogsForBush mailing list was abuzz with wailing when it was announced, but given his political savvy so far, I doubt think this is political suicide. Contrary to what his critics say, he is no dummy, especially when it comes to politics. If you don't buy that, you must think he passes everything through Karl Rove, who is also no dummy.
Rush Limbaugh speculates that he is triangulating on the Democrats, since this policy will require Congressional action. If the Democrats stall on this, they lose. If they pass it, they give the issue to the Republicans. The question remains whether or not this is an issue the Republicans want to have, but Bush is betting that even the Republicans who hate this policy are not going to stay at home or vote for Pat Buchanan if they have the prospect of a Howard Dean or Wesley Clark staring them in the face.
The bottom line on the political aspect: Bush is a salesman. His base will come around once he's had their ear for a while.
As always, the devil is in the details and details are scarce at this point. It's entirely possible that once everything is made clear I will say, "Oh my God! That is the worst policy ever!" I just think it is a mistake for conservatives to jump to that conclusion, particularly when there is a core of good conservative policy here.
Posted by at January 13, 2004 12:03 AM
Jason, this was an enjoyable read. Well laid out. If I may, I would like to differ on your perspective regarding Mexico and other nations who did not support our invasion of Iraq.
My point of contention is with the concept that if someone does not agree with us, they are against us. Vincente Fox is, and will remain, an ally of the U.S. He has every legitimate legal and moral right to disagree with one or more of our policies. In disagreeing with our Iraq policy, you deem their action one of “betrayal”. I just don’t see it. There is no obligation or responsibility whatsoever, for Fox or any other head of nation to support our nations instigation of war.
Now if Iraq had lobbed a bomb at the U.S., or Iraq had planned and supplied the manpower for the 9/11 attacks, then we could make the case based on treaties, that our allies have an obligation to work with us on defense of such an attack. But, Fox has no more obligation to support us in Invading Iraq than we would of supporting Fox if he decided to go to war with Angola or Saudi Arabia.
For a betrayal to occur, there has to be an implied or explicit promise to perform, which is failed. We did not have a single treaty in the world that obligated other nations to stand by us if we chose to instigate war without first being attacked.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 13, 2004 10:09 AMSo according to Rush, this is not about humanitarian or security issues, but is actually a Machiavellian scheme to boost the GOP. Interesting…
If Bush wants to portrays the Dems as obstructionists, it will be hard to do it before the election. Congress would have to move at a breakneck pace to get these reforms through in ten months, especially in an election year. The GOP controls both houses of Congress, but this is a complicated problem and they will be facing opposition within the party.
Posted by: Woody Mena at January 13, 2004 11:45 AMDean,
The Iraq issue was more than a simple disagreement among friends. It was obviously very important to us and Bush thought it was important to our national security. To refuse help or even sanction on that issue is quite different than, say, a difference on a trade agreement.
Still, the point of that section was not to emphasize the “betrayal” but to point out that we should be able to get over it. If you change the word “betrayal” to “disagreement”, my point still stands.
Jason, yes and Bush’s thinking on the importance of of invading Iraq for our national security has proved faulty thinking in the extreme.
I agree dissent by other nations to our invasion was more than just a disagreement. They view it as a breach of trust. And indeed, that is more than a simple disagreement. Bush couldn’t get large international support now for invading Syria, Yemen, or almost anywhere else, now. He has proven our intelligence is only as good as Bush’s honesty, and that has been thoroughly trashed around the world. Even Blair is now stating the door is open to the possibility he was wrong on his Iraq assessment. Blair is making the attempt to restore his credibility by admitting he is human and fallible and may have been wrong. I doubt anything like that will come from our President’s lips, it takes courage and integrity to admit a mistake or acknowledge one is capable of mistakes.
Dictators we know are infallible in their own opinion. Which is what makes them such monsters capable of wasting human life for personal agendas.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 13, 2004 06:14 PMDean,
This is quite off the topic of the original post, but so be it. You say, “Bush’s thinking on the importance of invading Iraq for our national security has proved faulty thinking in the extreme.” Proved you say? Is there any doubt that terrorist groups have found common cause with the Saddam loyalists? Is there any doubt that Saddam would have reconstituted his weapons programs as soon as sanctions were lifted?
If the U.S. had allowed inspections to continue until everyone were satisfied that he “only” had weapons programs and “only” violated UN resolutions, but didn’t really have stockpiles, what would have been the result? Lifting of sanctions, of course. Then we could wait until Saddam Hussein DID have stockpiles and start the whole process again.
Plus, charaterizing this as “Bush’s thinking” seems to imply that there was something especially ‘Bushian’ about thinking that Iraq had WMD (or more sinister, that he knew they didn’t but said they did anyway). Well perhaps your short term memory fails you, but EVERYBODY thought that, including the countries that would not go along with us. No matter, because there is fresh news to remind you. Clinton believed Saddam had WMD and said so recently to the Portugal PM: “When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime,” he said in an interview with Portuguese cable news channel SIC Noticias.
Also, the newly minted liberal hero Paul O’Neill is pointing out that a policy of regime change in Iraq was a continuation of Clinton policy. “People are trying to say that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration. Actually there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be a regime change in Iraq.”
This is not to mention the Iraqi Liberation Act passed with near unanimous support in 1998, three years before Bush took office. This is hardly the stuff of a “personal agenda”.
And the lack of potential support for invading Syria or Yemen or anywhere else is no great loss. First, who says we are going to need to invade those countries? Second, if we could not get a particular country’s support for Iraq, we certainly could not get their support for Syria or Yemen whether we gave Iraq a pass or not. The countries that did go along with us are not embarrassed by it. We could count on most of them again if it was time to go to the mattresses again.
It is curious that when Blair says that he may have been wrong in his assessment that Iraq had WMD, you take him at his word, but you are convinced that Bush was not wrong but rather “lied”. Why the double standard?
And admitting that you were wrong about the existence of WMD does not amount to an admission that you were wrong about going into Iraq in the first place, especially since Saddam apparently tried to trick the Western world into thinking it had WMD. If you say that Blair is close to making some kind of apology for going into Iraq, I would be very curious to see a link or some other reference.
Posted by: Jason Erickson at January 13, 2004 06:55 PMThere is a vast difference between belief and evidenciary proof. The Bush administration offered what it called convincing evidence, both to the U.N. and the American people.
Powell has spoken on how convincing the evidence was. And he is not being fired by the President for misspeaking.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 13, 2004 09:24 PMSo are you suggesting that the evidence that President Clinton saw was not convincing? How was it that he is convinced, then? Further, are you conceding that Bush, like Clinton, honestly believed that Saddam Hussein had these weapons? That makes it hard to make the case that “Bush Lied”, since there is a vast difference between being mistaken and lying.
Posted by: Jason Erickson at January 13, 2004 09:32 PMIn answer to “So are you suggesting that the evidence that President Clinton saw was not convincing?”, Yes! Absolutely.
It was insufficient as proof to justify the U.N. coming on board for an invasion, and it was insufficient proof to warrant unilateral invasion and the expenditures that would entail. Look, fact is Clinton did not invade. Bush did. They both had access to the same evidence. Bush took it as sufficient and was proved wrong, Clinton took it as insufficient, and has been proved right. It is darned hard to fight facts like these.
Clinton was convinced, but could not prove the case. Bush could not prove the case (which is why the U.N. nations balked) and said to hell with it, I am convinced so here we go to war. Big difference between having a personal opinion and proving a case to skeptics. When it comes to unprovoked invasion and war, the proof had best be sufficient to prove skeptics wrong. Clinton, good judgement - Bush, bad judgement and the aftermath proves the point.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 14, 2004 07:27 PM*sigh* So much for discussing immigration policy. Anyway, you say that the evidence that President Clinton saw was not convincing. You then say, “Clinton was convinced.” What does “convincing” mean? I’m confused.
You want a kind of mathematical proof, which is not possible in intelligence, so I’ll just drop the point here and move on.
On the other question, are you conceding that Bush honestly believed that Saddam Hussein had these weapons? Was it bad judgement, as you say in the last comment, or are you questioning Bush’s honesty as you did in your second comment? When you say, “He has proven our intelligence is only as good as Bush’s honesty,” to what are you referring?
Posted by: Jason Erickson at January 14, 2004 08:03 PMJason said, “It is curious that when Blair says that he may have been wrong in his assessment that Iraq had WMD, you take him at his word, but you are convinced that Bush was not wrong but rather “lied”. Why the double standard?”
Precisely, Jason, why the double standard? Blair and Bush shared intelligence and were bosom buddies when all this started. Why is Blair no longer sure, but, Bush is? They both shared the same set of “facts” as far as we know.
With regard to Iraq, we now know that Bush had very little more intelligence than Clinton. As for Bush exercising bad judgement or questioning Bush’s honesty, I believe both are true. I believe he inflated the evidence to misrepresent the threat Iraq posed, and he exercised bad judgement in invading without the U.N.’s participation. Participation he couldn’t get because they saw his evidence for what it was, lacking proof, and a ruse and pretext for an agenda which was not in the best interest of the world at large.
As for the immigration policy, close the southern Border. If we can build a space station, we can build a 1200 mile electronic sensor fence capable of detecting illegal penetration. Deport the illegals for violating our laws and underbidding American workers for the same jobs. (Amazing to me we will bust pot smokers and crowd out rapists and murderers from our prisons in order to put them in, but grant amnesty to foreigners who steal what would be living wage jobs from American workers.)
Closing the Southern Border would also be one of the biggest and best down payments we could make to safeguard the American people against illegally entering terrorists.
Posted by: David R. Remer at January 15, 2004 02:24 PMThis is only a cheap attempt by Bush to buy the hispanic vote and to bring in even more workers in an attempt to depress wages for his corporate friends.
Posted by: Toronto Tenants at January 17, 2004 12:21 PMThis Blog HAS NOTHING to do with the situation with Iraq, Bush’s nor Clinton’s policy, but should be dedicated only to the topic at hand.
I’d like to input something that I find to be genuinely rare and unheard in most news issues—a neutral opinion. Closing the border, as was suggested above, would not stop flow of illegal immigrants. The immigrants that come into the US need to come here for opportunity. They are looking for the things that we take for granted—more jobs, better wages, and (for them, slightly) better working conditions. Stopping the flow of immigrants, as proposed by some liberals and democrats, is ultimately unrealistic, as these forces will bring them in regardless.
Bush’s policy embraces this reality but twists it by allowing them to work temporarily and then return to Mexico; therefore, they are supporting their families with American income while limiting the number of people who take up jobs and boost population. The discrepancies with this are that by allowing this policy to go through, working conditions for these workers will become terrible and it will turn into, practically, a kind of legalized slavery. This is likely to happen, as historically imported Mexican workers, sometimes referred to as “Braceros” are treated badly.
AS A COMPROMISE, we must not close the borders or tightly limit Mexican immigration since that will most likely, as hit has been, not work. If we do go through with Bush’s policy, it may severely worsen conditions for the allowed workers. THE KEY TO THE ISSUE, perhaps, is to allow the Mexican workers to enter for short amounts of time, as proposed by Bush, but instead of simply using their working abilities and disposing with them, we can allow them to enter and, include in this policy, education along with decent working conditions. Then, upon return, the allowed workers will bring home income as well as entrepreneurial ideas, boosting local business and job opportunities, and improving Mexico’s local economy. In essence, this type of action will allow Mexico and various Mexican’s to use a small portion of our job market as well as our educational opportunities to then return to Mexico and boost their economy. This would satisfy both sides of the argument, it would strengthen our political relations with Mexico, and through improving Mexico’s local economy, slow the flow of illegal Mexican immigrants to the US.
Posted by: Michael Herman at January 17, 2004 04:53 PMAs I see it, this is part of the Third-World-ization of the United states. Impressed by the direct power of law enforcement on one side, and the cheaper workers on the other, many conservatives hav been trying to force government policy in those directions.
They don’t see the problems that the depression of wages and heavy-handed law enforcement creates.
The phrase “These people take the jobs nobody else takes.” should be be amended with the words “at that wage.” The truth is, companies and individuals are trying to lowball people on dangerous, and distasteful work. Adam Smith would say that people naturally demand a higher wage for such work. He has a whole section in The Wealth of Nations where he points that out as the natural order of things.
Bush has rewarded the cheapskates at the expense of the exploited workers, and at the expense of documented immigrants who are following the laws and bearing the scrutiny.
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty at January 18, 2004 12:07 PM
