Clear Thinking on Immigration

Amid the heated rhetoric and dubious claims made on both sides of the immigration debate – that any concerns about immigration are evidence of racism, that immigrants are ruining the economy – we should all take a deep breath and call to mind the following points: There is a right to immigrate, but it is not absolute.

Immigrants are people of great dignity, most of them are very poor, and we should not exclude their interests from our discussions about immigration policy. They have a claim on the generosity of a generous people. Their claim is not absolute, however, if they impose large burdens on U.S. natives, who are also people of great dignity, some of whom are also poor. Even a generous nation may restrict immigration if it becomes too great a burden. The recent debate has focused on the nature and size of those burdens. The economic stakes of immigration are small.

Immigration benefits employers who hire cheaper labor, and consumers who buy products made with that labor. The benefits are small, though – less than one half of one percent of national income. Neither are the education and healthcare burdens on states and cities particularly large -$10 billion, compared to state and local budgets of $1.5 trillion – but they are unfairly concentrated on a handful of states and localities.

The argument that the U.S economy will grind to a halt without immigration is simply not true. Neither is the argument that immigration is ruining the economy. Although it does put modest downward pressure on unskilled wages, the numbers are too small (3-4 percent over 20 years) to require a policy response. If immigration ceased tomorrow, some of the jobs immigrants do would disappear – farmers and businesses would find ways to produce without cheap labor, and more homeowners would mow their own lawns (or pay my kids to do it!). Some of the jobs would be taken by native workers, at modestly higher wages. Anyone looking for burdens from immigration will have to look outside of the economy. Illegal immigration is the real issue.

One in 25 people in the United States (12 million) are here in violation of our laws. Such widespread flouting of immigration law is understandably disquieting; it strikes at U.S. sovereignty. We should either enforce our immigration quotas, or repeal them. The presence of so many illegals corrupts our law enforcement, our politics, and our economy, and it undermines our ability to protect ourselves from terrorists. This corruption is the biggest threat from illegal immigration.

We can address this problem by increasing the number of legal immigrants or by enforcing current quotas. The small economic stakes argue for a moderate increase in the number of immigrants we allow in legally. Enforcement is crucial, even if we increase legal immigration.

The 1986 immigration reforms tied amnesty for illegal immigrants to a stricter enforcement regime, but the enforcement never materialized. As a result, we now have more illegal immigrants than ever. We won’t solve this problem until we start making sure that employers are hiring legal immigrants. And for all the talk of “border enforcement,” we’ll have to do more than build high fences – high fences without internal enforcement leads to permanent illegal immigration, because no one wants to jump the fence a second time. Internal enforcement without a fence will work much better than a fence without internal enforcement.

The sheer size of immigration flows, and their increasing illegal nature, make Americans feel as if we can’t afford to be generous to the world’s poor at our doorstep. A clear view of the issues contradicts this assessment. The biggest burdens from immigration are not economic – they are the turmoil caused by the large numbers of illegal immigrants. Most Americans are rightly concerned about the chaos that illegal immigration brings to our politics and our legal system. Addressing the problem of illegal immigrants will solve most of our immigration problems, and will allow Americans to give fuller rein to their generous impulses toward immigrants.

(Andrew Yuengert is the John and Francis Duggan chair of economics at Seaver College, Pepperdine University. He is the author of Inhabiting the Land – The Case for the Right to Migrate, a study on immigration published in 2003 by the Acton Institute.)

- We could get a program like this going in less than 1 year, probably by January 1st.

Yeah. We could do all the things you mentioned. But our politicians don't have the will and/or guts to do it. Unless we are out there protesting in the streets like the Illegals did, they will not understand that we are serious and will take appropriate action in November. And the sorry situation is that most Americans are too lazy and/or scared to get off their butts and protest. Or they may think that their politicians are really going to do they things the "talk" about doing.

One image I will never be able to shake from my memory is the image of a terrified little boy named Elian Gonzalez, cornered in a closet by federal agents who just kicked down his door, assault rifles at the fire position. A predawn raid which had its horrible pictures on every TV screen around the globe. A raid ordered by the scourge of Waco, Janet Reno. What a very sad and disappointing day for America that was.
I remember reading the comments on Freerepublic back then, and hearing the commentary from notable conservatives pundits like Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage. I don’t remember any conservative thinkers approving of this action of the Clinton administration, and the image of America it portrayed. But now many of these same conservatives including Hannity and Savage are demanding we do the same thing. “Bust down doors and round up all of the 12 million illegal aliens right now Mr. Bush if you want us back as your supporters”, is what I hear them and some of you say.

Is the image of little Elian Gonzalez times 50, 000 what you really want? That is about the number of young boys and girls that will be ripped from their new American homes, and believe me cameras will be rolling.

No I say Bush’s plan has merit and thought, and we need to rally around him if you do not want Republicans locked out of the Whitehouse for decades to come.
• Secure the borders first
• find out who is here and why
• Send back undesirables. And believe me there are tens of thousands of them. Case being, of the 21 Most Wanted on the Washington State Patrol, 17 of them are Illegal Mexicans wanted for various different crimes.
• Install a guest worker program using a means of identification that can’t be counterfeited, and then hold businesses heavily accountable if they do not abide by the laws. And we should demand that these be the so called “jobs Americans won’t do”. That should not include hanging drywall, installing new roofs, changing tires, painting homes, delivering your new dishwasher, etc. That should “dry up the job market for illegals”.
• Put in place a path to citizenship proposed by Bush. And assimilate, assimilate, assimilate.

[Neither are the education and healthcare burdens on states and cities particularly large -$10 billion,...]

Where on Earth did he get that figure ?? There are at least 2 million illegal aliens in the public schools, and K-12 public education is now costing close to $10,000 per child. That's $20 billion right there. Health insurance costs a minimum of $3,000 per person per year, and you know Emergency Room medical care is the most expensive there is, so that's at least another $36 billion. Now add in free school lunch programs -- heavily used by those children of illegals. Also add the higher auto insurance rates everybody else pays because illegals don't. Also add the wear and tear on infrastructure, the cost of new roads to accomodate the huge population increases in CA, AZ, TX, NM, etc. Add the cost of the prison system for all those inmates. Add the cost of the extra police to handle the increased crime rate. Etc., etc.

And don't think for a minute that the local sales and property taxes paid by illegals compensate for this. Illegals pack 2 or 3 times as many people into a house as typical Americans. That means their rents contribute very little property taxes per person. They also spend the bulk of their income on rent, food, and utilities -- none of which are usually subject to sales tax, so contribute nothing via that tax.

If ALL of the true costs of illegal aliens were tallied, I'd be surprised if it wasn't AT LEAST $100 billion, and sucking up 25% of the state and local resources for those states most affected.

>>If a person has a place to go, who are you to say they cannot go there via the public roads and public conveyances? If for example, a farmer wants to host 100 Mexicans to pick his crop on his land, why can you tell him, "Not Happening"? Do you have the right to tell people where they are and are not allowed to move and journey, and what a farmer may or may not do on his farm, and who he may or may not employ and host at his farmstead?<<

Why? Hmmm, I don't know... Maybe because they don't have a visa? A work permit card? Because they aren't paying income tax? Aren't paying into Social Security? Are using our public thoroughfares without paying the taxes needed to build them? Haven't been vetted by Immigration Services regarding their possible criminal record, infection with communicable disease. Etc. etc. They are foreigners, and yes: We do have the right to tell them where they may go. You'll be hard pressed to find ANY OTHER country in the world where it's viewed/handled differently.

Illegal [Immigration benefits employers who hire cheaper labor...]

I also take exception to this commonly held belief. I think employers are fooling themselves that they are saving a lot of money by hiring illegals.

I don't know what the wage difference is between legal and illegal workers, but let's play 'what if':

Suppose a construction contractor can hire illegals for $100/day or legal workers for $150/day.

With taxes, the legal workers costs him $161.50 after including the employer-side SS/M.

The employer pays income taxes on the profits from his business. He can deduct the cost of the legal worker as a business expense, but not the cost of the illegal worker. That means the $100/day he is paying the illegal will look like an extra $100 profit and he must pay taxes on it. If this income is at the marginal corporate rate for both federal and state income taxes, then he could be paying more than 40% taxes on that $100. So he has just lost $40 of the $61.50 he thought he was saving compared to hiring a legal worker. He does not benefit nearly as much from hiring the illegal worker as just comparing the wages would make it appear.

The only way a business benefits by the full amount of the difference in wage rates, is if they are not a direct employer. They can hire people as "independent sub-contractors" and 1099 them, then they get to deduct that as a business expense. They can't simply employ illegals directly, however, and benefit as much as they think they will.

They may save money in other ways -- such as not providing the working conditions that legal workers would require, or not providing workman's comp and other required insurance, etc. but the wages alone can't be saving them all that much.

illegal aliens who murder 4,400 Americans

I don't know the exact number of illegal aliens who commit murder. But I do know this:

The vast majority of murders and other violent crime by illegal Mexican aliens is against other illegal aliens, not against Americans ... usually when drunk and against their drinking buddy, best friend or cousin in a heated drunken argument over something stupid.

Their 2d most common violent crime situation is probably drug involvement by professional criminals against other professional criminals... rival gang violence. They also are not Americans that need our concern.

There is a hgher rate of criminal violence against Americans from Russian and other European immigrants than from Mexican immigrants. Traffic crashes (usually DUI) is a legitimate concern. In the 60s-80s young men came here without family and had a high rate of stupid drunken acts. In the last 15 years they have increasingly brought their wives and other family members with them. Women have a civilizing affect on young men, especially in chauvinist cultures.

As my suburb has gone increasingly immigrant, the crime rate for every type of crime, domestic violence rate, DUI and vehicle crash rate, mortgage foreclosure rate, unemployment rate and every negative index has gone down. The only thing that has gone up is housing prices, which made it possible for the whites with higher crime propensity to sell and move to exurbia.

Likewise as Chicago becomes increasingly immigrant Hispanic and non-Black citizens have left, crime has gone down... especially in those neighborhoods shifting heavily Hispanic. The areas of Chicago where violence has gone up are the gentrifying white areas and especially "Boys Town".

(The Chicago Black community has had no siginficant change up or down in many years.)

I don't know the exact number of illegal aliens who commit murder. But I do know this: The vast majority of murders and other violent crime by illegal Mexican aliens is against other illegal aliens, not against Americans ... usually when drunk and against their drinking buddy, best friend or cousin in a heated drunken argument over something stupid.

I'm just echoing what Rep. Steve King stated on 1 May. He used the terms "U.S. Citizens", "Americans", and "American children" when describing the victims.

There are at least 2 million illegal aliens in the public schools, and K-12 public education is now costing close to $10,000 per child. That's $20 billion right there. Health insurance costs a minimum of $3,000 per person per year, and you know Emergency Room medical care is the most expensive there is, so that's at least another $36 billion. Now add in free school lunch programs -- heavily used by those children of illegals. Also add the higher auto insurance rates everybody else pays because illegals don't. Also add the wear and tear on infrastructure, the cost of new roads to accomodate the huge population increases in CA, AZ, TX, NM, etc. Add the cost of the prison system for all those inmates. Add the cost of the extra police to handle the increased crime rate. Etc., etc.

And those are just the costs that you can assign a dollar value to. There are also inumerable opportunity costs. The traffic congestion alone, here in California, is one example.

Even though its politics are far LEFT WING WHACKO, there's usually an interesting article on current culture in the New York Times. Today there was an ad by C-SPAN regarding their StudentCam project. The 1st Place video was submitted by a student who presented the issues of ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION.

What's striking in that video how you can see the DEPTH OF FEELINGS BY EVERYDAY VOTERS -- the depth of how they feel BETRAYED by the new political class that won't do anything to prosecute the laws that are already on the books.

We're not talking about wild-eyed, over-testosteroned gun-toting males, but simple, quiet, law-abiding, tax-paying VOTERS.

All those who supported illegal immigration were the ususal suspects: sympathetic Hispanics (legal and illegal themselves), government workers who want their organizations to grow, and companies (Hormel in this case) who want a cheap supply of (under-priced) labor to make their more competitive (let someone else pay the social costs).

The video presents both sides of the debate: uphold the law, ignore the laws. Here's the link to "Anywhere, USA":

http://www.studentcam.org/winners.asp

On the video by the student, I forgot to say that you should look at the eyes of the VOTERS being interviewed, listen to the sound of their voices, and then ask yourself if they are going to to fall for Bush's latest immigration subterfuge.

Listen to the anger in the voices of these mild-mannered citizens. Then ask yourself: How could the GOP leadership rely on these betrayed voters to vote for any kind of a RINO in the future?

Bush, Rove, RINO Senators have cast aside the rule of law to prove (once again) Plato's observation that Democracy turns into Anarchy (which later turns into Dictatorship, etc.).

• Secure the borders first
• find out who is here and why
• Send back undesirables.

I'm with you this far at this point.

But, i might as well drop out of this Illegal debate anyway because i don't have confidence that most of our government officials really have any intention of correcting this problem. And those that do are in such a small minority that there is little hope of their succeeding unless and until we Americans stand up and protest and show that we are dead serious about this.

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