Make Them Legal [warning: projectilogenic]

New York Sun ^ | 12/19/02 | New York Sun editorial board

[firebrand]

EDITORIALS & OPINION
Make Them Legal

Thousands of Mexicans watched and cheered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral last week as runners arrived with a torch bearing a flame that had come unextinguished from Mexico City, as part of the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The flame, as Tamar Jacoby reported in our columns, was brought to New York City as “a seamless blend of devotion and protest designed to draw the White House’s attention to the plight of illegal immigrants.” Hard as it may be to imagine, here’s a constituency that actually is aching for the chance to pay more taxes. Right now, the city provides services to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants — teaching them in schools, treating them in hospital emergency rooms, putting out fires in their apartments. But the illegal immigrants don’t repay the city — or the state or federal government, for that matter — for the services. It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s just that the government won’t issue a Social Security number to someone who snuck into the country without permission. And it’s hard to pay either payroll taxes or income taxes without a Social Security number.

President Bush has been talking with President Fox of Mexico about ways to normalize the status of the millions of illegal immigrants living within American borders. Those efforts stalled following the September 11 terrorist attacks, which gave an unwarranted boost to those who want to pull up the drawbridge to America.

None of the September 11 hijackers was Mexican. It seems ridiculous to punish them. The best argument against normalizing illegal immigrants in America is that it rewards the lawbreakers and punishes those who have obeyed our immigration rules and who have been waiting patiently outside our borders for entry visas. But if the status of those already here were adjusted hand-in-hand with reforms dramatically raising the quotas of those allowed into America legally from abroad, then the injustice would be less. It might even be worth it to require those in America illegally to exit and then reenter under the newly relaxed entry rules, under which they’d be treated the same as those who have been obeying the laws and waiting outside.

The other argument made against increased levels of legal immigration is that it costs the taxpayers more in welfare to support such immigrants than the immigrants pay in taxes. If such claims were correct, they’d be an argument for welfare reform, not for less immigration.

New York is a city of immigrants, and New York’s mayor has often been a national leader in the debate on immigration issues. Mayor Bloomberg and the rest of the city’s politicians are ready to deal with the city’s budget problems by raising taxes on the existing taxpayers. With a little leaning on Washington, the city could tap the hundreds of thousands of workers eager to help share the burden. Instead of raising tax rates, the city could broaden the base. We realize this doesn’t count as a budget “cut” in the traditional sense, but it’s a waste for the city, and the nation, to refuse income from perfectly eager potential taxpayers.

Advocates for immigrant rights estimate the number of illegal immigrants in New York City to be about 500,000. A more precise count was made in a March 2002 study from the Urban Institute, which found that there were about 275,000 illegal immigrants between the ages of 18 and 64 living in New York City. The study further found that 80% of these immigrants were participating in the labor force.

Figure an average of $20,000 a year in income for these immigrants — the Urban Institute study finds that most immigrants have an income in this range. At that level, New York would collect $110 million in city income tax revenue by registering labor force-active immigrants, legitimizing their status as members of American society, and making them legal wage-earners and taxpayers.

[Sabertooth]

Logic never goes very far with those consumed in the search for False Dilemmas. America can protect the borders of other countries quite effectively but somehow when it comes to protecting our own borders the task suddenly becomes "too expensive" or "impossible". It's amazing how some peoples' agenda will warp their ability to reason.

And my agenda is what, exactly?

Before you accuse others of false dilemmas, you might consider avoiding false analogies. For example: our troops overseas guard against military threats, not against Illegal Aliens. Before you consider using the DMZ of the Korean peninsula as a model, you have to acknowledge that such a barrier would necessarily have to cut across the Rocky Mountains. They would not serve as a natural barrier to Illegals, as 4Freedom had suggested. They are more passable than the mountains of Afghanistan, and we know how porous a barrier those are..

I frankly don't understand your troops fetish, and why you prefer to pursue such a bad, unviable idea, rather than getting productive measures enacted.

A re-examination of your own agendas might be in order. If you're really against rampant Illegal colonization, let's get something done, rather than bluster ineffectually about the problem.

[4Freedom]

Sabertooth, 5,000 to 10,000 illegal immigrants are going to be able to pass through the Rocky Mountains undetected each day or will illegal immigration slow to a trickle?

[Poohbah]

Ah, but you didn't say we wouldn't make any money at all. So, how much do you believe we would make?

Wildly optimistic projection? About $50,000,000 a year.

Would the advertising cover half the cost?

Nope.

What was the projected cost of the MX ICBM project back in 1978 - '81?

The figures from 1981 are directly from "MX Missile Basing," a study performed by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) in 1981 (I will call it "the OTA study"), and are given in constant 1980 dollars (the benchmark used in the OTA study). Where I have interpolated 2001 dollar values, they are based on the Inflation Calculator at this link.

The MX MPS program was designed to create a survivable ICBM system. The idea was to build 200 MX missiles and 200 missile base complexes in the Great Basin region of Nevada and Utah. Each base complex would have consisted of 23 shelters along a linear dirt road; the missile would be moved from shelter to shelter in a random manner. It was, in essence, a high-tech shell game. Full Operational Capability (FOC) was planned for 1990.

In constant 2001 dollars...the optimistic estimate (i.e., zero cost overrun) was about $103,000,000,000. (The estimate from the OTA study was $44,000,000,000.) The project would have taken about eight years. Most of the cost (about 75%) was associated with grading 8,000 miles of dirt roads (the missile transporters would not have used paved roads) and the shelters themselves. The missiles, along with the vehicles to move it and the command and control facilities, were a rather small fraction of the total cost (about 25%). Building MX MPS without the weapon system components would cost $33,000,000,000 in 1980 dollars; that converts to $77,000,000,000 in 2001 dollars.

Additionally, historical experience shows that cost overruns on public works construction will range from 26% to 114% of the optimistic figure. Taking the median of the two gives us a likely overrun figure of 70%; this is a reasonably optimistic figure given some of the engineering and logistics challenges that we would face. That suggests a total price tag of roughly $131,000,000,000 in 2001 dollars for a project of similar scale.

A quick perusal of the OTA report on the MX program suggests that the amount of concrete used to build a 2,100 mile wall would be about 3 times greater than that used on the MX MPS. The road construction requirement would be roughly the same--you will need to grade, at a miniumum, lots of dirt roads to connect the work sites with the overall US road network. In large portions of these areas, you will need to regrade the roads periodically due to thunderstorm damage and the pounding they'd take from getting large amounts of heavy machinery moving on them.

Construction costs can be expected to scale roughly with the overall amount of concrete poured. Assume a minimum delivery price tag of $400,000,000,000, especially if you want it delivered in a reasonable amount of time.

BTW, there is a problem with mixing that much concrete in the Southwest--there isn't enough water available to do it unless you import it, because all available water has already been allocated. (Water-related issues were a major cost driver in the MX MPS program, because the Air Force simply ASSUMED that the water would be available for their use when they originally planned the program. Also, the local residents did NOT want the MX construction program competing with them for scarce water.) My figures do not include water-driven cost escalation, but those costs will be prodigious.

With the walls providing protection and security, more people might be motivated to live near the border.

Actually, more security would not make the American Southwest more habitable than it is now. The area was never densely settled because of the rather acute shortage of water in the region (that is why so many illegal aliens die of thirst in the desert). To get significantly more people to live there, you need to bring in LOTS of potable water. There ain't any more water available there.

[Poohbah]

Why in the world world we need to build walls over the Rocky Mountains? Wouldn't they be barrier enough?

Only to Americans suffering from advanced couch potatoitis. If you examine the map, the elevations are from 1,000 meters to 1,500 meters. Not enough to stop anyone from walking through, but more than enough to make construction costs skyrocket.

The Rockies are a far less formidable barrier than the mountains of Afghanistan. And neither the Mujihaddeen or the Taliban ever found the mountains of Central Asia to be any sort of significant barrier to their movement.

[Barnacle]

Hey, check out these topographical maps of the Rocky Mountains, where they cross the border into Mexico. It's gonna take a bit of grading to put a wall across those.

Grading? Who needs grading?

[Poohbah]

Sabertooth, 5,000 to 10,000 illegal immigrants are going to be able to pass through the Rocky Mountains undetected each day or will illegal immigration slow to a trickle?

The Sangre de Cristo range is ridiculously easy going compared to the Central Rockies around Pike's Peak.

[Poohbah]

So we'd have to import millions of Chinese coolies (or illegal immigrants) to build the damn wall?

[WRhine]

Sabertooth, 5,000 to 10,000 illegal immigrants are going to be able to pass through the Rocky Mountains undetected each day or will illegal immigration slow to a trickle?

No, you see if just 10 get through, according to SaberPooh reasoning it's proof that border protection is an impossible task and reason enough to leave our borders wide open.

[rmlew]

The NY Sun is a neo-con paper. However, most neocons understand the need to oppose illegal immigration and support assimilation.
Tamar Jacoby is an utter leftist on these issues. Worse, she is on the President's commission for civil rights as a Republican appointee!

Ron
PS. How is it that there are three neo-con editorial pages in NYC (Sun, Post, WSJ?)

[Poohbah]

Saber, WTF is going on here? Seems 4Freedom and WRhine have turned nasty on you.

[WRhine]

I frankly don't understand your troops fetish, and why you prefer to pursue such a bad, unviable idea, rather than getting productive measures enacted.

It's quite telling that you think border protection to halt a million plus invasion of illegal aliens into America every year, year after year, is a "bad", "unviable idea". Given that, I have to question your sincerity when you say that you want to see employer sanctions on employers of illegal aliens. Perhaps you do, as long as the ensuing political heat is isn't outside your narrow feline comfort zone.

A re-examination of your own agendas might be in order. If you're really against rampant Illegal colonization, let's get something done, rather than bluster ineffectually about the problem.

You should take your own advice on blustering ineffectually about the problem yourself. I happen to be for a range of solutions to turn back illegal immigration...not just one.

[WRhine]

heh heh heh. Nice Picture Barnacle.

[Barnacle]

So we'd have to import millions of Chinese coolies (or illegal immigrants) to build the damn wall?

Brilliant idea! You don't even need to “import” illegal immigrants, simply put them to work as they try to sneak across. (Just make sure they’re on the south side of the wall when it’s done.)

You know Poohbah, you and I might have more in common than we thought.

Navigating the treacherous
waters of a liberal culture.

[Poohbah]

Brilliant idea! You don't even need to “import” illegal immigrants, simply put them to work as they try to sneak across. (Just make sure they’re on the south side of the wall when it’s done.)

Fine. Move the completion date on the wall out to about 2150 or so. That still acceptable to you?

[raybbr]

...New York City to be about 500,000. A more precise count was made in a March 2002 study from the Urban Institute, which found that there were about 275,000 illegal immigrants between the ages of 18 and 64 living in New York City.

So, they are not even counting the chil'ren who are not in the work force and probably receive a greater proportion of the welfare doled out. God! Here we go again. Lie to us and expect us to just say, "Darn, make those people leagal. You're right! They don't drain our resources and dilute our society."

I am so sick of being treated like I'm stupid.

[montag813]

It’s not that they don’t want to. It’s just that the government won’t issue a Social Security number to someone who snuck into the country without permission.

This line truly represents a new low point in the history of the Neo-Cons.

If an 8-year old said it, it might be funny. I am not laughing.

[Sabertooth]

It's quite telling that you think border protection to halt a million plus invasion of illegal aliens into America every year, year after year, is a "bad", "unviable idea".

The troops on the border fantasy is what's unviable. It can't be finished and won't ever get started, yet you guys talk like it's a temporary fix. You're talking about an undertaking of a greater scale than the Great Wall of China.

Given that, I have to question your sincerity when you say that you want to see employer sanctions on employers of illegal aliens. Perhaps you do, as long as the ensuing political heat is isn't outside your narrow feline comfort zone.

Oh, I'm certain that's it.

Or, to turn your reasoning to a mirror, what's to stop one from concluding that you'd rather rage about a pipe dream than actually get something done?

You weren't happy that Trent Lott got a well-deserved boot. Why not?

He was soft on Illegals before, he got James Ziglar the INS job., and his one "troops on the borders" statement was all gas: his office said there was no plan to push such legislation. After his Dixiecrat screw-up and BET grovelfest, do you think Lott was ever going to get anything done on Illegals in the face of the race-baiters? Their ring would have been permanently through his nose. Nothing would have happened.

Is there a guarantee with Frist? Nope, it'll be uphill all the way. At least there's a chance of getting some legislation through him, particularly if conservatives stop wishing the press would do the dirty work on the Dems for them and take the PC racists head-on.

Self-destructors like Trent Lott, however, are liabilities and will be left behind.

All I'm saying, all I've ever said, is that we need to choose our battles wisely to win this war.

[4Freedom]

"Only Americans suffering from advanced couch potatoitis."

Yeah right, spend a day at the local supermarket and tell me what kind of physical condition the folks that can't or refuse to speak a single word of English and are buying their groceries with foodstamps are in?

They look like they'd be great mountain climbers to me.

At least they could camouflage themselves as larger than average boulders. /sarcasm

[Barnacle]

Fine. Move the completion date on the wall out to about 2150 or so. That still acceptable to you?

What ever, the sooner the better. You know the Roman Empire may have survived had it got started on a wall of their own.

But then again, maybe not. The Romans were also facing serious problems with crooked politicians, general moral decadence, excessive reliance on foreigners for good and services, and a military scattered to distant territories instead of protecting their homeland.

Navigating the treacherous
waters of a liberal culture.

[4Freedom]

"Saber, WTF is going on here? Seems 4Freedom and WRhine have turned nasty on you."

That's exactly what we're wondering, Poohbah. WTF is going on here?

Before Thanksgiving Saber was his normal "They Will Deport Themselves" self. After Thanksgiving he starts sounding like you in respect to the borders.

He actually somehow restrains himself even in the face of your absolutely ludicrous, off-the-wall (pun intended), $400 billion dollar, projection of the cost of building walls along the borders.

That's not the Sabertooth we knew.

We're not sure WTF happened to Saber over Thanksgiving, but somehow we know you're involved.

LOL!