Posted on 08/13/2007 1:34:22 PM PDT by Delacon
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
This Mencken sentiment appears to be the guiding idea behind the administration’s announcement Friday of stepped-up immigration enforcement. After its relentless six-year campaign for amnesty crashed and burned in June at the hands of the common people, the White House has come up with a new plan: to start enforcing some of the laws they should have been enforcing all along, and so thoroughly scare the public with the consequences that there will be a popular groundswell for amnesty that will finally vindicate the administration position. You can almost hear the president thinking, “be careful what you wish for.”
Or as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff put it, “There will be some unhappy consequences for the economy out of doing this.”
But just as the administration completely misread public sentiment on immigration — the president appears to have genuinely believed his “I’ll see you at the bill signing” bravado — they’re now misreading the likely reaction to increased enforcement. Because despite the hysterical exaggerations we can look forward to from some farmers and other employers of illegal aliens, the produce department of your local supermarket won’t be shutting down any time soon.
The only reason the White House thinks this gamble might pay off is that some of the measures announced last week really can make a difference. The complete fact sheet is here, and since it’s a p.r. document, it should come as no surprise that there’s a good deal of padding. Some of the measures included are just continuations of current policy (completion of about half the border fencing by the end of next year, for instance) or not likely to have major impacts (expanding the number of foreign criminal gangs whose members are ineligible for visas). These efforts are welcome, but should be routine.
However, there are several novel elements (well, not so novel, since you could have read about them in NR), that must be part of any comprehensive attrition strategy to reduce the illegal population. Most important is the final rule on Social Security “no-match” letters. These are letters sent by the Social Security Administration to employers who’ve submitted W-2 forms for employees whose names and numbers don’t match the agency’s records. Some instances, of course, are the result of clerical mistakes or unreported name changes, but the majority are illegal aliens using fake or stolen Social Security numbers to gain employment.
This matters because more than half of illegal immigrants with jobs aren’t living “in the shadows” but instead are working on the books. In the past, no-match letters were sent only to employers with the largest number of problem files, and created no obligation to follow up. In fact, one version of the letter advised employers that “You should not use this letter to take any adverse action against an employee just because his or her Social Security number appears on the list, such as laying off, suspending, firing, or discriminating against that individual. Doing so could, in fact, violate state or federal law and subject you to legal consequences.”
As you can imagine, after that caveat most letters were just thrown away.
The new rule sets out common-sense steps an employer must take upon receiving a no-match letter to ensure that he won’t be held liable if the worker turns out to be an illegal alien. Social Security is now sending out these letters to employers with more than ten mismatches that make up more than one half of one percent of its workforce — covering about 80 percent of all mismatches. Most employers are likely to follow through the process and, if necessary, fire those workers who turn out to be illegals (most of whom will likely have left anyway by that point); while some may re-hire the workers off the books, “An employer who does that,” as Secretary Chertoff points out, “is making a deliberate decision to compound their legal difficulties by committing tax crimes as well as immigration crimes.” (In other words, “You may not think much of my department, but the IRS isn’t fooling around.”)
The underlying rationale for ensuring that no-match letters are acted on by employers is to turn off the magnet of jobs that attracts — and keeps — illegal aliens here. As it becomes harder to get a job, and as the jobs illegals can get are less stable, sneaking across the border or overstaying a visa will become less and less attractive, and illegals already here — especially those with fewer attachments — will start deporting themselves.
Along the same lines is another, less-noticed measure in last week’s announcement. The administration says it will begin to draft a new rule to require all federal contractors to use the online system, redubbed E-Verify, that enables employers to check if new hires are authorized to work in the United States. This probably won’t identify a large number of illegal workers, but it will change the environment, representing an important step toward internalizing legal status as a labor standard.
Lobbyists for farmers and roofing contractors and others will soon be screaming bloody murder. But Congress and the media would do well not to take at face value the squealing of firms losing their cheap-labor subsidy. When the end of the last big guestworker program was being debated in the early 1960s, California farmers claimed that “the use of braceros [Mexican guestworkers] is absolutely essential to the survival of the tomato industry.” Instead, termination of the program prompted mechanization which caused a quintupling of production for tomatoes grown for processing, an 89-percent drop in demand for harvest labor, and a fall in real prices.
The same sort of thing happened half a century earlier, when the textile industry predicted disaster if child labor were ended. At a Senate hearing in 1916, one mill owner said that limiting child labor would “stop my machines”; another said “investors would never receive another dividend”; while a third said that ending child labor would “paralyze the country.”
We’re going to hear a lot more of this sort of thing — the White House is counting on it. Standing up to the coming lobbyist onslaught will be the final stage of the battle against amnesty. _
Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and an NRO contributor.
ping
The cost for the Bush administration getting a seat at the table is still building the fence first.
Stand firm and keep the phone handy. It’s not over.
If you go to Whitehouse.gov, there is a link in the upper lefthand corner that says En Espanol. Now that is sad.
Bring it, by God, on!
And remember the frikkin fence while you are at it!
Just abolish Welfare and they’ll be lining up for those jobs “ that Americans won’t do”
bump
The problem with the fence is that it will work, that’s why they fear it. Bush’s crowd enjoys the short term profits of depressed wage rates and diminishing the “American lifestyle.” If the wall didn’t work they’d gladly give it to appease us “yahoos.”
I’ll miss the Rovian circumlocutions about how an amnesty is not an amnesty.
Great article, Mark. He nails it. The WH is cracking down to apply pressure on Congress by employers to pass some sort of comprehensive immigration reform by doing what the law requires. What a novel approach!!!
The cost for the Bush administration getting a seat at the table is still building the fence first.
::::::
This is far from over. Bush is crazy on this subject...an arrogant, globalist elitist that loves Mexicans to the point of stabbing his own people in the back over them.
Keep his AWAY from the table. And build the fence.
Predictable.
“Or as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff put it, “There will be some unhappy consequences for the economy out of doing this.””
Uhhhhhh - earth to Chertoff - there are already devastating consequences to our economy and way of life. Where did you park your squad care, dude?
“The cost for the Bush administration getting a seat at the table is still building the fence first.”
AGREE!
Currently he is in the doghouse.
bttt
I have no regard whatsoever for 750 miles of fence.
We have roughly 4000 miles of border and thousands more miles of coast.
I want it totally controlled.
On the other hand, it may energize the repub base in time for ‘08.
Interesting timing though. Just as the long-awaited subprime meltdown sets off the long-awaited economic downturn, steps are being taken to reduce the excess labor pool that would inevitably emerge.
If The USA needs a large number of uneducated and unskilled workers who can’t speak English, we should establish a quota for uneducated and unskilled workers who can’t speak English, and allow them in legally. Somehow, I think this would be a very small number.
Since they're the ones that are benefiting...getting all the 'free' money from withholding taxes, etc., don't expect the letters to go out anytime soon.
And before that it had something to do with picking cotton! Pack'em up send'em home.
As far as I am concerned, this is OK. We probably do need to hire some Mexicans here in the US, but let’s do it legally, with no special path to citizenship, or welfare and other special benefits.
I agree. Read my tag line.
There gonna get their way.
The non-English speaking economy.
Gosh, the Government is thinking about actually enforcing Laws that they created?
Oh we’ll all be sorry now.
As far as the SS BS is concerned, if you have a spouse and try to jointly electronically file Federal taxes and the spouse has not reported the name change (assuming there was one) then guess what...the IRS will not accept your return.
That is a fact.
Does this mean us white guys might start getting more construction work again?
This Mencken sentiment appears to be the guiding idea behind the administration’s announcement Friday of stepped-up immigration enforcement. After its relentless six-year campaign for amnesty crashed and burned in June at the hands of the common people, the White House has come up with a new plan: to start enforcing some of the laws they should have been enforcing all along, and so thoroughly scare the public with the consequences that there will be a popular groundswell for amnesty that will finally vindicate the administration position. You can almost hear the president thinking, “be careful what you wish for.”
This explanation strikes me as a bit Machiavellian for this administration, which has generally seemed rather principled.
Still, the immigration debate may be an exception. The Bush Administration has appeared more concerned with the rapidly growing Hispanic vote than with matters of principle, as concerning this particular issue.
So maybe Krikorian is onto something, after all...
Finally, someone has had the courage to get to the bottom of the entire, disgusting mess. If we tell the dregs of society that the Gravey Train just derailed, we may all be very surprised at the number of jobs Americans will suddenly want to do.
We have spawned an entire sub-culture (perhaps sub-species would be more precise) of lazy bums in this country who now think they are “entitled” to live off of the rest of us and wring their bread from the sweat of our brows. It’s time to tell them to work, or die — before they finish sucking us dry!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1880477/posts
bttt
lets be serious too.
Many of these letters will mean nothing because much of the illegal alien work is done by service companies. Lawn care, day labor, or painters hired by homeowners do not hit this radar.
This effort is sleazy and will only backfire when the base understands the reason for it. They are NOT going after the illegal aliens who are committing felonies by killing people. They are not focusing on gangs or terrorists. A triage approach is required.
I think Rove’s departure is going to be very bad on this.
James Baker apparently is one of the proponents on this illegal alien amnesty. (per a comment on FNC today)
“This explanation strikes me as a bit Machiavellian for this administration, which has generally seemed rather principled”
Well the Bush administration has had its conniving moments even with its base. Do you recall how they passed the campaign finance reform bill in the middle of the night? How about even how they tried to push through the amnesty bill. Honestly though, when reports first started coming out about the intended crackdown, I thought it was just Bush finally waking up and smelling the coffee. But something didn’t sit well. I mean I could see Bush doing a bunch of half measures. But doing a 180 degree turn? It didnt make since. All the while he and Chertoff have been whining about the lost reform bill. This article makes much more sense as to Bush’s motives in my opinion.
Holy cow ! My poblano peppers will got to $.25 pound...eye yi-yi !
Amen to that.
This has been orchestrated all along.
Mechanize. It’s cheaper in the long run.
Iâ??ve spoken to a grower about how the ag industry could get around this.
If the â??no-matchâ? comes up with a name and SS number conflict that must be resolved 30 days, then the growers will fire the illegal on the 3Oth day and hire him again the next day under a new phony name and SS number. As this will eventually prompt another no-match the same worker will get yet another name and SS number.
“as DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff put it, “There will be some unhappy consequences for the economy out of doing this.”
Do your friggin’ job and quit whining. We are watching.
My ancestors were greeted at Ellis Island where they were asked to sign their X next to the name the government official thought he heard. There are no ports of entry along the Mexican border, wouldn’t that be the first step? Wouldn’t it be better if we registered each immigrant as they sought to come in rather than rounding them up to deport them, thereby threatening the well-being of our industries? We have full employment with 13 million illegal immigrants, the government goofed but no one is being held accountable.
Somebody is paying attention !
Wonder if this has any bearing on the Iraqi ‘refugees’ he’s sending for , [ last rumored at least 100,000 ] ? We will have to cough up the money for more foot baths and schools rooms, rugs and prison mosques if this is true .
If that the correct description, whatever you call it, it is caused by falling demand for housing.
If you combine one million legal plus one half million illegal immigrants per year, for quite a number of years, that has been the underlying driver on housing demand. As the level of illegal immigration has dwindled over the last year, housing demand has fallen. And if there is an exodus of illegals, there will be further dwindling of housing demand.
In Kerkorian's original essay on attrition theory, in 2005, he explained that physically removing the illegals would crash the economy. How the illegals are removed is irrelevant. Whether they are deported or self-deport, losing what they produce and consume will have negative effect on the economy. Especially in CA, TX, FL, IL, and AZ.
P.S. The first one on here that says Bush can issue an EO for this is going to get slapped upside the head with a Civics 101 textbook.
“I think Rove’s departure is going to be very bad on this.
James Baker apparently is one of the proponents on this illegal alien amnesty. (per a comment on FNC today)”
I doubt Rove’s departure is related to this issue. He’s been one of the (maybe THE) main proponents of pandering to Hispanics, and the belief the the future of the Republican party lies in attracting more Hispanic voters or the party will be a long term minority party.
Then many others, including me, believe that is the worst possible strategy, and that their amnesty scheme would have assured a long term Dem majority with all the new Hispanic voters.
Since the big “now we’ll enforce the law” announcement, I’ve suspected exactly what the NR article lays out. We’ll soon hear incessant whining and moaning from employers and the administration about how crops are rotting in the fields and the economy is being terribly harmed. - I say let ‘em whine and moan, and let employers make the market adjustments they should have made years ago.
And call our Reps. and Senators even more often than while defeating the Shamnesty Act.
That’s not really a significant driver of the subprime meltdown. Most of these mortgages are on properties purchased by US citizens who couldn’t really afford them. The individual mortgages were time-bombs to begin with, and when sliced and diced into complex mortgage-backed securities and purchased by hedge funds using significant amounts of leverage, the fuse was lit on the whole pile.
None of this stuff that the Administration is now doing is worth a didly-squat without THE FENCE -— and they know it.
“In Kerkorian’s original essay on attrition theory, in 2005, he explained that physically removing the illegals would crash the economy. How the illegals are removed is irrelevant. Whether they are deported or self-deport, losing what they produce and consume will have negative effect on the economy. Especially in CA, TX, FL, IL, and AZ.”
All the more reason to get tough and enforce the law now, something we should have been doing for years. And the states you name have been the economic beneficiaries (at least the hirers of illegals) of illegal alien employees, and they should pay the biggest price as adjustments are made.
Otherwise, the problems now in those states will be in more and more states, and eventually the entire nation. It’s like cancer surgery, tough, but necessary for longer term benefit.
Like one racist latino group bragged, ‘ the whites are old and dying, they are not having babies,the population will soon be in our control , the white man is shitting in his pants ‘.
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