GOP, You Are Warned

AEI ^ | 29 dec 04 | David Frum

[white trash redneck]

No issue, not one, threatens to do more damage to the Republican coalition than immigration. There's no issue where the beliefs and interests of the party rank-and-file diverge more radically from the beliefs and interests of the party's leaders. Immigration for Republicans in 2005 is what crime was for Democrats in 1965 or abortion in 1975: a vulnerable point at which a strong-minded opponent could drive a wedge that would shatter the GOP.

President Bush won reelection because he won 10 million more votes in 2004 than he did in 2000. Who were these people? According to Ruy Teixeira--a shrewd Democratic analyst of voting trends--Bush scored his largest proportional gains among white voters who didn't complete college, especially women. These voters rallied to the president for two principal reasons: because they respected him as a man who lived by their treasured values of work, family, honesty, and faith; and because they trusted him to keep the country safe.

Yet Bush is already signaling that he intends to revive the amnesty/guestworker immigration plan he introduced a year ago--and hastily dropped after it ignited a firestorm of opposition. This plan dangerously divides the Republican party and affronts crucial segments of the Republican vote.

The plan is not usually described as an "amnesty" because it does not immediately legalize illegal workers in this country. Instead, it offers illegals a three-year temporary work permit. But this temporary permit would be indefinitely renewable and would allow illegals a route to permanent residency, so it is reasonably predictable that almost all of those illegals who obtain the permit will end up settling permanently in the United States. The plan also recreates the guestworker program of the 1950s--allowing employers who cannot find labor at the wages they wish to pay to advertise for workers outside the country. Those workers would likewise begin with a theoretically temporary status; but they too would probably end up settling permanently.

This is a remarkably relaxed approach to a serious border-security and labor-market problem. Employers who use illegal labor have systematically distorted the American labor market by reducing wages and evading taxes in violation of the rules that others follow. The president's plans ratify this gaming of the system and encourage more of it. It invites entry by an ever-expanding number of low-skilled workers, threatening the livelihoods of low-skilled Americans--the very same ones who turned out for the president in November.

National Review has historically favored greater restrictions on legal as well as illegal immigration. But you don't have to travel all the way down the NR highway to be troubled by the prospect of huge increases in immigration, with the greatest increases likely to occur among the least skilled.

The president's permissive approach has emboldened senators and mayors (such as New York's Michael Bloomberg) to oppose almost all enforcement actions against illegals. In September 2003, for example, Bloomberg signed an executive order forbidding New York police to share information on immigration offenses with the Immigration Service, except when the illegal broke some other law or was suspected of terrorist activity. And only last month, a House-Senate conference stripped from the intelligence-overhaul bill almost all the border-security measures recommended by the 9/11 commission.

The president's coalition is already fracturing from the tension between his approach to immigration and that favored by voters across the country. Sixty-seven House Republicans--almost one-third of the caucus--voted against the final version of the intelligence overhaul. And I can testify firsthand to the unpopularity of the amnesty/guestworker idea: I was on the conservative talk-radio circuit promoting a book when the president's plan was first proposed last January. Everywhere I went, the phones lit up with calls from outraged listeners who wanted to talk about little else. Every host I asked agreed: They had not seen such a sudden, spontaneous, and unanimous explosion of wrath from their callers in years.

Five years ago, Candidate George W. Bush founded his approach to immigration issues on a powerful and important insight: The illegal-immigration problem cannot be solved by the United States alone. Two-thirds of the estimated 9 million illegals in the U.S. are from Mexico. Mexico is also the largest source of legal immigration to the United States. What caused this vast migration? Between 1940 and 1970, the population of Mexico more than doubled, from 20 million to 54 million. In those years, there was almost no migration to the United States from Mexico at all. Since 1970, however, some 65 million more Mexicans have been born--and about 20 million of them have migrated northward, with most of that migration occurring after 1980.

Obviously, the 30 years from 1940 to 1970 are different in many ways from the 30 years after 1970s. But here's one factor that surely contributed to the Mexican exodus: In the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, the Mexican economy grew at an average rate of almost 7 percent a year. Thanks to the oil boom, the Mexican economy continued to grow rapidly through the troubled 1970s. But since 1980, Mexico has averaged barely 2 percent growth. The average Mexican was actually poorer in 1998 than he had been in 1981. You'd move too if that happened to you.

Recognizing the connection between Mexican prosperity and American border security, the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations all worked hard to promote Mexican growth. The Reagan and Clinton administrations bailed out Mexican banks in 1982 and 1995; the first Bush administration negotiated, and Clinton passed, NAFTA. George W. Bush came to office in 2001 envisioning another round of market opening with the newly elected government of his friend Vicente Fox, this time focusing on Mexico's protected, obsolete, economically wasteful, and environmentally backward energy industry.

Bush's hopes have been bitterly disappointed. The Fox government has actually done less to restore Mexican growth than the PRI governments of the 1990s. And so Bush has been pushed away from his grand vision and has instead accepted Fox's demand that the two countries concentrate on one issue: raising the status of Mexican illegals in the United States. But this won't work. Just as the U.S. cannot solve the problem by unilateral policing, so it also cannot solve it through unilateral concession. Bush had it right the first time.

Some of the president's approach to immigration remains right and wise. He is right to show a welcoming face to Hispanics legally resident in the United States. He is right to try to smooth the way to citizenship for legal permanent residents. He is right--more controversially--to give all who have contributed to Social Security, whatever their legal status, access to benefits from the Social Security account.

But he is wrong, terribly wrong, to subordinate border security to his desire for an amnesty deal--and still more wrong to make amnesty the centerpiece of his immigration strategy.

Right now, of course, the president does not have to worry much about political competition on the immigration issue. But Republicans shouldn't count on their opponents' ignoring such an opportunity election after election. "I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigrants," Hillary Clinton told a New York radio station in November. And later: "People have to stop employing illegal immigrants. I mean, come up to Westchester, go to Suffolk and Nassau counties, stand on the street corners in Brooklyn or the Bronx. You're going to see loads of people waiting to get picked up to go do yard work and construction work and domestic work." Okay, so maybe Hillary will never pick up many votes in Red State America. But there are Democratic politicians who could.

Republicans need a new and better approach--one that holds their constituency together and puts security first.

First, Republicans should develop and practice a new way of speaking about immigration, one that makes clear that enforcement of the immigration laws is not anti-immigrant or anti-Mexican: It is anti-bad employer. Illegal immigration is like any other illegal business practice: a way for unscrupulous people to exploit others to gain an advantage over their law-abiding competitors.

Second, Republicans can no longer deny the truth underscored by the 9/11 commission: Immigration policy is part of homeland-security policy. Non-enforcement of the immigration laws is non-protection of Americans against those who would do them harm.

Third, Republicans have to begin taking enforcement seriously. It's ridiculous and demoralizing to toss aside cabinet nominees like Linda Chavez over alleged immigration violations while winking at massive law-breaking by private industry--or to regard immigration violations as so trivial that they can be used as a face-saving excuse for the dismissal of a nominee damaged by other allegations.

Fourth, skills shortages in the high-technology and health-care industries are genuine problems that have to be addressed--but they should not be used as an excuse to void immigration enforcement. Republicans can say yes to using immigration law to attract global talent, while saying no to companies that systematically violate immigration law to gain an advantage over their more scrupulous rivals.

Fifth, Mexico should not be allowed to sever the migration issue from trade and investment issues. Mexican political stability is a vital national-security issue of the United States--and just for that reason, Americans should not allow Mexican governments to use migration as a way to shirk the work of economic and social reform.

Finally--and most important--Republicans need to recognize that they have a political vulnerability and must take action to protect themselves. An election victory as big as 2004 can look inevitable in retrospect. But it wasn't, not at all. The Democrats could have won--and could still win in 2006 and 2008--by taking better advantage of Republican mistakes and making fewer of their own. And no mistake offers them a greater opportunity than the one-sidedness of the Bush immigration policy. The GOP is a party dedicated to national security, conservative social values, and free-market economics. The president's policy on immigration risks making it look instead like an employers' lobby group. That's the weak point at which the edge of the wedge could enter--and some smart Democratic politician is sharpening it right now.

[shellshocked]

"How well did that confiscation trick work for the War on Drugs?"

We never targeted businesses, did we? Nope. Drug runners made illegal money such that they lost what they never were to have in the first place. Legitimate businesses have greater concerns.

[Vision]

Yes. Many Americans woke up this first morning of the year with their hangovers and cursing the illegal immigrants just like you every morning day after day and year after year. Sad news Vision...I looks like this is gonna be very bad year for you again.

A country as beautiful as ours allows anyone to believe whatever they wish. However, in respect to whatever joys you wish to accomplish in your life, you'll only hold yourself back thinking you're the sharpest tool in the shed.

[muawiyah]

Latin America has many different people from many different places. There are even Hindus from India, and Moslems from Pakistan.

The deal is the original American Indian populations encountered by Columbus, et al, looked much more like Chinese than anybody else. Today few American Indian populations have more than a passing resemblance to the Chinese.

The statuary tells the story.

[n-tres-ted]

I called Hugh Hewitt's radio talk show two weeks ago to express my whole-hearted support for President Bush's plan to regularize workers coming into this country from Mexico. I did so, not because I am a Hewitt acolyte or a W-clone, but because I have given my own thought to the subject. I have considered myself in the conservative camp since reading "Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater before the 1964 campaign, and I cast my first presidential vote for that Arizona senator. I like one of the current Arizona senators (Kyl) but not the other (you know who) due to his disrespect for the Constitution on just about every level. Below is a follow-up email I sent to HH after my call:

I support the President's proposal for regularizing the flow of Mexican workers in and out of the country. [My reasons] are:

(1) Demographics. World population will double by 2050 [from six to 12 billion]. The US is maintaining domestic population [at about 300 million], but not growing. With the growth worldwide coming in potentially hostile (muslim) populations, we need friendly immigrants who share our principles to maintain our position in the world. Witness the numerous non-citizen immigrants presently fighting in our armed forces in Iraq. By contrast, Europe is losing domestic population and has primarily muslim immigration.

(2) Peace and Stability. We do not want violent revolution on our southern border. Emigration to the US is a beneficial safety valve for stagnant economic growth in Mexico. Yes, economic reform in Mexico would be desireable, but that will eventually by pressed upon them by global competition (China is beating their pants off by using capitalist means, while Mexico remains too mired in socialist politics).

(3) Social Security and Economic Growth. The SS problems of a growing number of retirees compared with our working population will be eased somewhat by additional workers from Mexico, required to be on the payroll under the president's program.

(4) No Troops on the Border! Although Hilary and Bill O'Reilly may not have noticed, our troops actually do have something to do already. So they cannot be placed along the Mexican border just to help them pass their time of day. Equally importantly, we do not want armed troops using automatic weapons to keep peaceful families from coming into our country. The president is entirely right in stating that family values and human worth do not stop at the Rio Grande. We should embrace the Mexican people who come here with an industrious outlook.

President Bush is also right in saying it is simply the right thing to do.

I could go on, but I know you're busy. It is important that Republicans begin to understand these important points. ****

[ChicagoHebrew]

The poeple in Bolivia and Peru look Asiatic, but not Chinese -- and they are descended almost entirely from Indians. They look more Mongolian than Chinese.

[Southack]

"We never targeted businesses, did we? Nope. Drug runners made illegal money such that they lost what they never were to have in the first place. Legitimate businesses have greater concerns."

We targeted countless nightclubs, i.e. legitimate businesses. We shut down numerous bars. We confiscated entire office complexes, apartment buildings, and houses. We shut down airports, confiscated jets, and seized so many cars that it started an entirely new auction industry.

Yet all of that conifscation failed for both Prohibition as well as for the war on drugs.

Still, I'm not too surprised that their are neophytes around who want to repeat such failed tactics for illegal immmigration. Every generation has to re-learn old mistakes firsthand, after all.

[muawiyah]

The Chinese and Mongolians are essentially the same group except the Mongols might, on the whole, have rounder heads, but certainly not rounder than many European populations.

The big difference comes with the Japanese. There you find that 40% of them have the same teeth as are found in the original Jomon population. The earliest Americans seem to have had those teeth as well.

We don't know what happened, but today's American Indian population seems to be made up of people descended primarily from East Asians, but with substantial African and European admixture provided quite recently.

[muawiyah]

Uh, fella's, the "best people" came here on their own boats prior to 1754 FUR SHUR.

[Once-Ler]

The GOP base despises Hillary. But that is 40% and concentrated in the reddest of states. Those were the states whose congressmen supported impeachment. Most of the country, as you apparently have not noticed, did NOT support impeachment. That's the blue states and most of the West.

I agree the GOP made a tactical error in pushing impeachment. Dubya has not compounded that error although the right base has criticized him for not pursuing the previous administration. Although Bubba Clinton won re-election with a plurality I wouldn't correlate his success with Hillary. Bubba had charisma and a sense of humor. Hillary has nothing to attract moderate voters.

[Once-Ler]

FR is overloaded with sheeple who think that whatever the RNC says must come from the bible and they bow their heads as they follow the spoken word.

It could be they have listened to the very vocal Old Right and have found their logic faulty. I know that is why I disagree with you.

[eleni121]

I find it hard to comprehend why anyone would even consider voting for this witch Hillary for any political office.

The fact that she got elected in NYS - the basketcase state in the union - should be enough for everyone to run scared for their lives while she is alive.

[JustAnotherSavage]

"I believe a large segment of the zero immigration crowd doesn't vote anyways."

Zero immigration? I've never heard Zero immigration ever mentioned on Free Republic. Can you point that out please?

[Once-Ler]

Is your faith in the free-market forces of capitalism really so weak?

SS, unemployment insurance, Medicare payments, OSHA, tariffs and bloated government regulations are not a free market.

[exhaustedmomma]

You want the status quo. You don't want anything to change. You don't really want the illegal immigration problem to be solved. It must just be a convenient hammer for you to bash away at Bush on by claiming that our borders are out of control...because you are opposing the very registration that would help bring back control of our borders.

If your “theory”, (*those of us who oppose Bush’s immigration proposal are no more than rigidly holding onto the "status quo"*) held any credibility, then why are we the ones demanding "change?" "Status quo" has allowed millions of lawbreakers to enter this country and wreck havoc for several decades. How is it that a "new law" will fix "status quo"??? For that matter, is it not "status quo" that is determining which "laws" are inforced or not? Is it not the duty of our government to protect her citizens; not to protect illegal invaders?

President Bush's plan registers illegals and their employers.
How do you explain these "illegals" nervously exiting by the thousands into Canada? Canada Cracks Down on Asylum Seekers

Please note, they are not being called "illegals" anymore... they are now "refugees." SOURCE

[Sam the Sham]

No, I am talking more of the Aztecs who had dense urban populations. They were not scattered bands like the Plains Indians or have sparse settlements like the Woodlands Indians.

[Sam the Sham]

I take back nothing.

You want to bankrupt this nation and subvert its laws so you can turn America into something like Franco Spain. You preach of "freedom" and generously offer anyone who disagrees with you a headstart to the border. Your basically authoritarian tendencies shine forth in your refusal to accept democratic consent of the governed and the rule of law.

[Sam the Sham]

Immigration a loser issue ?

Loser issues don't get over 500 posts in three days. Issues that push people's red buttons do.

[Once-Ler]

Like I said, she's got 183 by default. Did you SEE this year's electoral map?

Dubya and Rove could have won this election by a larger margin but it would have caused the rats to pull money from Kerry and invest it in Senate races. Reagan won 49 states in 84 but even that remarkable success had no coattails. Reagan couldn't get legislation past the Senate in his 2nd term. Bush's election strategery was brilliant. The Senator up for election in 06 will be wary of being Daschled and "lame duck" Dubya will pass lots of legislation while you get worked up about inconsequential things like electoral votes.

Republicans have won majorities in Congress every year for 10 years. Even during the Clinton impeachment. In 2002 and 2004 Dubya added Senators, and in 2004 Dubya won 98 of the 100 fastest growing counties in America. When Dubya signed CFR I opposed it on Constitutional grounds but it is hard to argue with success. CFR has certainly hurt the rats. I too was concerned that Governor Bush, the strong supporter of RKBA in Texas did nothing to reverse Clinton's AWB. Now I see the brilliance in not fighting a battle that wasn't needed. Time and again he has been misunderestimated.

I believe Dubya, a reformed alcoholic, prays for the serenity to accept the things he cannot change, the courage to change the things he can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I believe he is guided by the Holy Spirit. I hear it in his words and see it in his smile and good nature.

He is flawed like all men, but I do not believe he is greedy or lazy. Dubya has taken the responsibility that fate has handed him. I very much doubt that Dubya and Rove stopped planning at 2008. Dubya is doing a fantastic job and I couldn't be prouder of my vote to reelect him.

[Once-Ler]

Of course, the President won't do it because he's been convinced by someone that keeping this nation's borders wide open in time of war is a good thing.

Do you not understand that while we bicker amongst ourselves, Sauron's power grows?! None can escape it! You'll all be destroyed!

[StAnDeliver]

C'mon, you boo-birds, get real. You are way too eager to bite on MSM stinkbait about "Hillary Moves to the Right on Immigration".

"Clearly, we have to make some tough decisions as a country, and one of them ought to be coming up with a much better entry-and-exit system so that if we're going to let people in for the work that otherwise would not be done, let's have a system that keeps track of them." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton

What difference is there between her guest worker system and his guest worker system? They aren't leaving under her plan or his plan.