Posted on 05/17/2006 4:51:59 AM PDT by uncitizen
Clear Thinking on Immigration
by Andrew M. Yuengert
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.)
My preferred "immigrant" is a person with at least a Master's degree from a certified institution of learning who's willing to pick beans in the fields for at least 3 years before moving into the main part of the economy.
At the moment the US immigration law is biased against educated people. In fact, the US Senate yesterday saw fit only to limit those categories of immigrants who could read and write.
The deal ought to be that you can come here to live if there's a reasonable expectation that you can contribute to the improvement of the condition of the nation.
Is sorely lacking these days, especially among Senate Republicans.
L
If this is not an invasion, then what is?
It's true. Why aren't we allowing the Indians (from India) to immigrate in higher numbers? Rhetorical question. They work cheaper when they're still in India.
In fact, the US Senate yesterday saw fit only to limit those categories of immigrants who could read and write.
How does that affect the Mexicans? Are they in the category that is exempt from the literacy req'mts? Or are the Mexicans themselves divided into categories?
The Mexicans would, for the most part, be exempt from any of the limitations imposed on educated, literate workers.
No kidding! They have their minds closed (nothing new there). They don't want to hear any logic. They don't care to understand the implications. There are "other" things upon which their stance on Illegals is made. And it has nothing to do with what their constituency wants.
Disgusting!
The author makes only a passing distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Most of his argument centers on "We need immigrants". Very few people argue that we should completely seal the border to legal and illegal immigration. The few that do are seen as the fringe.
In this debate we need to keep the phrasing right. The debate is about illegals that are migrating en masse over the southern border. It's as much about legal immigration as it is about the Canadian border. The bills being discussed reportedly talk about both but that is not their main thrust, and is only cursory to the real debate.
I hope folks have noticed that.
The "Already Here" category amounts to the sort of racial and ethnic bias in US immigration law that was thought to have been abolished in the reforms passed under Lyndon Johnson.
Under these new rules the folks from India and Pakistan are going to continue to have to be highly educated to have a shot at anything less than a 35 year waiting period.
Because if we allowed them to immigrate then John Kerry could not whine and complain about outsourcing.
I'd like to know what this pinhead's definition of 'generosity' is. Making a demand for generosity is like robbing your birthday party guests at gumpoint.
I have to wonder why it is ok to say "We want your poor so we have a worker class". They keep using that disgusting phrase "Doing the jobs Americans won't do", or some variation on it.
Are they saying that in one or two generations we will have to import another 12-15 million from somewhere to do the jobs the 3rd or 4th generation Mexicans won't do?
Stick 'em up! ;-)
"A claim on the generosity of a generous people."
We've been too generous for too long. At this point we're being taken advantage of, our own right are being stepped on, protested against, called racists..enough already! Claim denied! [stamp]
Exactly. I'm more than generous- on my own timetable, and in a way that reflects my obedience to God. Having it legislated by the government, while having insinuations of greed and racism leveled at me for justification, is an old Democrat trick that the GOP seems to be adopting.
That may be so. But "already here" is like a grandfather clause applying to legal immigrants, isn't it?
That being said, those Illegals who are already here don't have an interest in becoming educated. They don't have an education ethic in their home country and they don't grow one when they get here.
Yep. They've stolen the RAT playbook. They don't think they'll see much consequence for this in November. But i think they will.
...yet the Bots here will accuse us of being trolls. Sad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.