Archive for the 'Immigration' Category

Bush discussed his “comprehensive immigration”plan with the U.S. Department of Commerce; the speech can be found here.

Bush continues to propagate myths about immigration that are so brazenly and obviously illogical and wrong-headed that it is amazing that he can do it with a straight face.  For instance, one such illogical statement was that illegal immigrants are “beyond the reach and protection of American law.” I’ll tell you what.  Go to China, preach Christianity on the street corner, and upon being arrested and imprisoned by the police, tell them that because you are not a citizen of China, you are “beyond the reach of Chinese law.”  See how this argument fies (no, I am not suggesting that the U.S. become like China – I am using hyperbole to make a point).  There is another argument routinely proffered: any bill that does not include “comprehensive” measures (what Bush defines as comprehensive, such as a guest worker program, eventual amnesty for those who are here now, etc.) is unrealistic and doomed to failure.  Again, I’ll tell you what.  Go and talk to the Chinese and see how easy it is for “enemies of the state” (e.g., Christians) to get out of the country.  See how effective border guards and fences are for the Chinese.  There is absolutely nothing that makes it necessary to have a guest worker program in order to seal our border.  This is a non sequitur.  But the worst possible quote follows:

There’s a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program that requires every illegal immigrant to leave.

Let’s word this a little differently:

There’s a rational middle ground between granting complete immunity from prosecution and freedom for every felon and requiring each and every felon to go to prison.

How does this last paragraph strike you?

Good Lord.  What could be possessing Bush?  Why does he waste what remaining political capital he has left pushing his immigration policy?

Hat tip to Polipundit for the commentary by Gary Bauer in the Washington Times here.  I am not so sanguine as Gary about the alleged conservatism of Hispanics.  The so-called values-based issues (such as abortion) are based on their Catholic tradition.  On the other issues the numbers are far less impressive than values-based issues.  (By the way, I hate the phrase “values-based” or “values-oriented.”  It presses to the conclusion that some issues are not value-based – a notion with which I disagree.  Your value system should inform every decision on every issue.)

However, I do believe that there is a slight to moderate difference between the Hispanics who are here now (and who have been in the U.S. for years) and the ones coming (or who are about to come).  The ones who have been here are at least accustomed to hard work.  The ones who are still in Mexico and other Latin American countries are still in the middle of some of the most strongly entrenched socialism in the world.  And … there is every reason to conclude that they will vote this way upon being granted with citizenship.

Here I wrote about the coming political earthquake due to immigration, both legal and illegal.  Some objections have come up that deserve a little bit of attention.  Some respond that socialist subsidy and give-away programs are a function of our society, rather than the fact that an employer hires immigrant workers or illegal aliens.  Change the laws to undo the socialism rather than the hiring practices.  Some also respond that not only does the employer benefit from reduced wages paid to the low-skill worker; we benefit as well due to lower prices on common food stuffs and other products and services.

[Breath … sigh].  The fact that our society has socialist give-away programs does not justify adding to the rolls of the recipients.  Besides, either way you cut it up, in terms of the productive worth of the unskilled or low-skill worker, America’s economy will not benefit long term from people who are capable of only manual labor (picking crops, mowing lawns, landscaping).  We have denuded our industrial and manufacturing capability in America.  For instance, to get large-scale steel fabrication and welding done, one must go overseas (e.g., Japan, the Rotterdam shipyard, etc.).  If we have only intellectual capital and services to market, we are not helping ourselves by bringing in people who cannot even speak English.

Regarding the second argument, let’s cover this once again … more slowly this time.  The employer is in favor of illegals because it helps his bottom line.  Period.  There isn’t any more to it than that.  The financial advantage he gets from illegals does not all go to reduce the price for goods.  If it did, then the employer would have no advantage in hiring illegals (since we would get all of the benefit), and he wouldn’t do it.  The employer is the primary recipient of the benefit of hiring illegals.  And once again, the costs associated with these illegals (health care, auto insurance, welfare, medicaid, social security, high rates of prison occupancy by hispanics, gang activity, teaching English, etc.) redound to the tax-paying, premium-paying public.  This is corporate welfare on the backs of the middle class, pure and simple.

A friend reminds me of a quote by Frederic Bastiat:

“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”—from The Law

Indeed!

Our position on immigration, illegal and legal, can be summarized as follows:

1. The use of illegal immigrants (migrant workers) is a form of price supports for the agri-industry.  The employers who “hire” them do not supply them with medical insurance or pay them enough to afford automobile insurance.  When these workers become sick or injured, they do not forgo medical care – they go to the local hospital.  Our medical bills and insurance coverage premiums pay for these services to the illegals.  Similarly, our uninsured motorist coverage pays for the insurance that the illegals should be purchasing.  These are merely two examples (a legion of examples could be given) that show that the employer is receiving a form of corporate welfare at the expense of the middle class in America.  The employer is in favor of the use of illegals to do work because it is beneficial to their purse, not because it benefits America.  The employer will always favor the reassignment of financial burden to someone else in order to help the “bottom line.”  But the bottom line for the employer and the bottom line for the taxpayer and ratepayer is not necessarily the same bottom line.  The free market argument to support the hiring of illegals is a smokescreen.  America had a free market before the advent of illegal immigrants and migrant workers.  The existence of illegals is not essential to the existence of the free market.
2. Without the use of illegals to do the low-paid jobs, the market would seek a new equilibrium between product cost and worker pay; the market would determine the true worth of a product or service that had previously been artificially supported by use of the illegal labor force.
3. The flood of immigrants, both legal and illegal, will cause a bloating of the welfare state in the coming decade, to the point that it will place the existence of the middle class in America on a precarious perch.
4. The Senate bill on immigration is a shameful ruse; it does nothing to stop the flood of immigrants, while making way for full amnesty for known felons.  The Senators who claim that it is not amnesty are liars.
5. Effecting a halt to illegal immigration is easy.  The solution is to close the border with a wall from California to Brownsville, Texas, man the border with the National Gaurd, and enact legislation to imprison any employer who hires illegals.
6. Legal immigration and the pathway to citizenship should be an arduous and controlled process, crafted to ensure that America gets the best, brightest and most educated workers and most sincere patriots.
7. Continued immigration from Mexico at the current rate will cause a literal remaking of the very fabric of our society in every category (culture, language, religion and politics).

It is this last item that I want to spend a little time on.  There have been good studies on the economic effect of immigration, specifically, Robert Rector’s papers (Heritage Foundation).  Rector’s papers can be found here, here and here.  However, while the various conservative commentaries and blogs seem to get this issue about right, no one seems to be focusing on what the immigration phenomenon will do to the political scene in the coming decade.

If Rector is right concerning the numbers, we will be adding tens of millions of voters to the rolls in the coming decade.  These voters are by and large socialistic.  The Mexican political landscape is possibly the most Marxist in the world along with a few other South American countries, and the common man in Mexico has been steeped in the politics of “oppression” for at least 70 years.  Further, his religion, while ostensibly Roman Catholic, is really a form of liberation theology with the trappings of Catholicism.  The typical Mexican has heard the politics of oppression not just from their politicians, but from their clergy as well.

Phil Hearse, in “Contours of the Mexican Left,” has the following particularly poignant quote:

Any force trying to work for a democratic, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist transition has to win a base among the rural poor. But for historical reasons to do with the nationalisation of the land under Lázaro Cárdenas and the predominant form of peasant land tenure, which was “village cooperative” rather than based on individual plots, the demand for “land to the tiller” in Mexico does not imply an individual plot for every peasant or rural worker or family. In Mexico, collectivism among the peasantry is a strong tradition: we are not dealing with the atavistic Russian peasants, but a country in which there has already been a bourgeois-democratic revolution led by the peasantry.

One consequence of these factors is that the radical political forces among the rural population are on the whole explicitly anti-capitalist and socialist in their ideology (leaving aside the EZLN, which is a slightly different case). Sometimes this outlook is expressed in support for guerilla organisations; but struggle movements of the rural population are widespread, and they spontaneously ally with the most militant city-based leftist organisations. A good example of this is the OCSS (Peasant Organisation of the Southern Sierra), which would have no difficulty in getting the dictatorship of the proletariat written into its program.

The general conclusion about strategy which needs to be emphasised is that, far from Mexico having ceased to be an oppressed country, today it is more oppressed than 20 or 30 years ago. 

The full paper can be found here.

The coming years will see a cataclysmic shift in the political scene in America with the addition of millions of voters who have been trained to believe that they are “oppressed” by the bourgeois elite and who, by the gift of a vote, will then be empowered to take from the middle class the things that they see as rightfully theirs.

Why … why … why … is no one talking about this coming political earthquake?