Jewish World Review Jan. 12, 2004 / 18 Teves, 5764
John Leo
More immigration folly
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Politicians from both parties think President
Bush's immigration plan is unusually deft,
mostly because nearly every constituency
seems to get something. Big business is
assured an unending supply of cheap labor.
Unions get the bonanza of millions more
workers to organize. Bush's credentials as a
"compassionate conservative" are more
plausible than ever, and Republican plans to
put forward more Latino candidates for political office will now look much less
cynical. Republicans are seen as reaching out, not just to Latinos but to
moderate white voters Bush will need in the fall. These are people whose
voting patterns reflect a feelings-based liberalism and a conviction that
Republicans are almost always too harsh and negative. Conservatives get
assurance, however vague, that some sort of checks against illegal
immigration will take hold and that Bush's amnestylike guest-worker plan is
not really another amnesty.
Major newspapers
quickly stressed that
the only loose end is
that Bush now has to
"placate" his
conservative base. The
implication is that those
opposed to massive
illegal immigration are a
small and backward
minority. This is not the
case. Polls show
lopsided majorities of
Americans want
immigration reform and
want illegal immigration
controlled. A 2002
Zogby poll showed that 68 percent of Americans are so anxious about illegal
immigration that they want to deploy troops along the border. But on
hot-button social issues, Bush has a history of ignoring majorities and
abandoning his base, and of backing the position of small but powerful and
largely Democratic elites.
Obviously, the White House thinks there is more hay to be made by adopting
the elite position that illegals must be "normalized" and treated like legal
immigrants who played by the rules and waited their turn. Writing in the
Washington Times, Stephen Dinan points out that 60 percent of Americans
believe current immigration levels are a "critical threat to the vital interests of
the United States," while only 14 percent of government officials, business
leaders, and journalists think so.
The elite consensus makes it unlikely that the negative effects of
guest-worker normalization will get much press attention. This is particularly
so because the White House has left so much of Bush's plan vague. The
president gets credit for reaching out to protect a vulnerable group now, but
the details and costs will appear much later.
We can start to estimate costs now. Despite the White House's careful
aversion to the "A" word, granting legal status to millions of illegal immigrants
is a form of amnesty. It will further corrode faith in government by granting
special concessions to those who broke the law to get here. And it will send
the same message as previous amnesties: If you can make it over the
border, you will eventually be granted legal recognition.
Pay cuts. Another byproduct will be lower wages for unskilled workers, both
immigrants and natives. American-born blacks will pay a high price for the
lowering of wages due to the regularization of illegal immigrants. So will many
immigrants. Harvard's George Borjas, himself an immigrant, reports that in
1970, foreign-born workers earned as much as American-born workers, but
by 1998 male immigrants typically earned only 77 percent of what natives
earned, making the gap between immigrants and native stock three times as
large as it was in 1910. What will be the gap after the Bush immigration
package sails through?
Writing when Bush first proposed his
Mexican initiative in 2001, sociologist
Christopher Jencks said the highest price
might be paid by children of the new Latino
immigrants, who will very likely earn little
more than their parents, perhaps become
disillusioned with their new homeland, and
harden into a sizable underclass. He raises
the specter of a possible
Latin-American-style gap in the United States between the rich and the poor.
At some point, the
influx of unskilled labor
has to be limited to
protect fair wages and
decent working
conditions for all. In the
elite view, it is
uncompassionate and
maybe racist to talk
about limiting
immigration. But this is
a huge, continuous
immigration with no end
in sight. In 2001, the
Mexican Ministry of the
Interior reported that
even with falling
birthrates and increased economic development, mass immigration from
Mexico to the United States will continue for at least 30 years. The ministry's
estimate, nearly 400,000 immigrants per year, is likely much too low and
takes no account of a guest-worker program.
Government has made a series of awful decisions on immigration and
apparently is ready to do it once again, this time with short-term,
election-year gains in mind. Letting this plan breeze through Congress would
be a drastic mistake.
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