a) It won't be; and
b) It can't be.
The way I think about the issue is this:
- It's highly undesirable to have 11-12 million people in this country who are living in the shadows. Nor is there any practical way to remove these people from the country.
- It seems likely to me that most immigrants, legal or illegal, are here because of economic opportunity and the freedom that we enjoy, not for nefarious reasons.
- There are some who are here for nefarious reasons and they need to be dealt with.
- The War on Drugs complicates everything we do.
- Mexico, especially northern Mexico, is pretty close to a failed state. In large measure, this is because of the narcotraficantes, who operate with impunity because they have more firepower than Mexican officials. And many of those same officials are bought off, anyway.
- We'll never really be able to control the border.
- Living in Minnesota, I have no way of knowing what things are like in California, or Arizona, so my opinions about what Californians and Arizonans should do about border issues aren't worth much.
- From this distance, it seems like Texas has less trouble with illegal immigration than either Arizona or California. I don't know why that is. I don't know what the situation is in New Mexico, because there's rarely any reporting about it.
- We aren't asking people to assimilate in the same way we did when my ancestors came over. This is a problem.
- Whatever might emerge out of Washington is more about gaining political advantage than about solving the problem.
So does that list seem a bit jumbled to you? That's the point. There are so many variables involved that it's well-nigh impossible to account for every issue. I would imagine that a thoughtful reader of this blog could come up with several other factors I've failed to mention here.
So what does it all mean? Beats me. The only thing I can predict with confidence is this -- if we see anything that is labeled "comprehensive" get passed into law, it won't be.
9 comments:
D,
Left off your checklist is the reality that the most rapidly expanding demographic of immigrants (both legal and illegal) are Asian, not Hispanic.
I think border security and the issues of immigration aren't quite as tied together as we want them to be. The primary motivator to secure the border, in my mind, has more to do with the drug war in Mexico you described than it does with preventing a Guatemalan dishwater from coming here to work for below minimum wage.
I also think our political class tends to overestimate the number of immigrants here who wish to become American citizens versus are simply here to find work. Assimilation only occurs if you intend to settle down, not if you only plan to work for a little while, send money home, and then return if or when economic conditions for your family improve. We should be addressing the issue of reforming and expediting temporary worker visas instead of trying to grant citizenship to people who (I speak from some minor personal experiences with the Hispanic community in St. Paul) don't want it.
We can't and won't get perfect border security, but we can make it more difficult to simply walk or drive across the border, no? Let's not forget, as the left always does, that incentives drive economic decisions. Make legal immigration easier and illegal tougher, and you're going to get what you want--honest, hardworking people motivated to be here who also have legal protections against unscrupulous employers.
Oh, and a far lower supply of drugs, too, and theoretically a safer, more secure Mexico that doesn't need to "offload" people into a sounder economy.
Now if we can only persuade DC of this....
I think that most of us are somewhat ambivalent about immigration. It's really pretty hypocritical to be opposed at every level unless one is perhaps a Native American. Additionally, we are facing some pretty severe demographic with most of our Social Programs and increased immigration can perhaps help offset the pending crisis.
I don't know where the 11 Million number comes from, but I will bet that the actual number of illegals is much higher.
It does seem to me that we face 2 issues: What do we do with the people who are already here, and then, what do we do about all of the others who want to be here?
FR said:
I think border security and the issues of immigration aren't quite as tied together as we want them to be. The primary motivator to secure the border, in my mind, has more to do with the drug war in Mexico you described than it does with preventing a Guatemalan dishwater from coming here to work for below minimum wage.
Yep. The complicating factor is the War on Drugs, which we continue to wage even though increasingly we don't seem to care that much about drug use. As P. J. O'Rourke pointed out over 20 years ago, we are not a serious nation on this particular issue.
Bubba said:
We can't and won't get perfect border security, but we can make it more difficult to simply walk or drive across the border, no?
Not sure we can, really.
Bubba also said:
Make legal immigration easier and illegal tougher, and you're going to get what you want--honest, hardworking people motivated to be here who also have legal protections against unscrupulous employers.
Yep. I tend to doubt what seems to be on offer will do these things, however.
Anon said:
Additionally, we are facing some pretty severe demographic with most of our Social Programs and increased immigration can perhaps help offset the pending crisis.
True, but the experience of Europe is a cautionary tale. The banlieues of Paris are terrible places.
My take is that you can't get to 100%, but if you merely installed a vehicle barrier in remote areas and made sure it was repaired when it was compromised, you at least have made it impossible to simply drive a vehicle across without bridging the vehicle barrier. That's a huge advantage.
Plus, if you provide the safety valve of legal immigration (apply in Mexico City, not Houston, please), you've greatly changed the mix of people trying to jump the fence, too. It can work.
Perhaps the more promising solution is to actually crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants.
Our ability to stem the flow of illegal immigrants at the border is relatively minor compared to the likely costs of doing so. That's less the case with targeting employers who exploit illegals.
Agreed on points 1-6. My thoughts are similarly jumbled, so I won't try to cover them all...
Net migration from Mexico these days is essentially zero (i.e., people are going back at roughly the same rate at which they are coming in); that is almost certainly a product of the fact that the Mexican economy is growing (albeit in fits and starts, and unevenly in terms of geography) and ours is largely stagnant. And in particular, that the construction boom of the less decade has petered out.
To me, that suggests that illegal migration from Mexico is almost entirely a function of the labor market, at least recently. Supply and demand, and all of that. One corollary of that is that most (or at least an awful lot of) illegal migrants probably aren't coming here out of a burning desire to be Americans. They just want to improve their lives and the lives of their families in Mexico. So it really makes sense to get out in front of the next economic cycle, and make it easier for people to do so legally, i.e., a robust guest worker program of some sort.
Short of militarizing the entire southern border, I really don't see much that can be done to make it substantially more secure. And a realistic cost/benefit analysis has to enter into that discussion.
And if you're worried about contraband more than people, it's worth pointing out that the majority of that isn't coming through via dashes across the desert. It's coming in secreted into commercial shipping.
To me, that suggests that illegal migration from Mexico is almost entirely a function of the labor market, at least recently. Supply and demand, and all of that. One corollary of that is that most (or at least an awful lot of) illegal migrants probably aren't coming here out of a burning desire to be Americans. They just want to improve their lives and the lives of their families in Mexico.
That could be true, but we don't really know that because we aren't asking that question. If that is true, then a guest worker program should be front and center.
And if you're worried about contraband more than people, it's worth pointing out that the majority of that isn't coming through via dashes across the desert. It's coming in secreted into commercial shipping.
That's part of my problem with this issue. I don't know if I'm worried about contraband more than people, because I'm deeply ambivalent about the WOD. It seems, at least to me, that we ought to sort that part out first.
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