Category ►►► Immigration

May 31, 2006

What Samuelson Didn't Tell You About What the Senate Didn't Tell You

How many immigrants over the next twenty years?

Captain Ed posted an intriguing mystery today about the projected increase in legal immigration under the just-passed Senate immigration bill, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (CIRA). This has been the forgotten story of immigration reform; and the mystery, of course, is how much of an increase there will actually be.

(This is a "numbers" thing, so I'm in hog heaven -- meaning no offense to our kosher viewers!)

Any comprehensive bill that passes through both the Senate and the House will certainly not entail the same increases in immigration as projected for the CIRA; the House will surely cut back on a lot. But it's likewise undeniable that there will be some increase in legal immigration even in the joint bill. Thus, CIRA represents the high end of the range of immigration increase.

The low end is what we would get if nothing else passes, just under current law. The actual projected number will be somwhere in between these two figures.

The Captain's Quarters post links both to the celebrated Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation -- who has recalculated his estimates, but is still wildly overheated in his fear of excess immigration -- and also to a columnist for the Washington Post, Robert Samuelson, giving us dueling Bobs.

The Rector link is to the same article we linked earlier (twice); Rector has simply added the following correction at the top:

(Update: On Tuesday, May 16, the Senate passed Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-NM) amendment to S. 2611 that significantly reduced the number of legal immigrants who could enter under the bill's "guest worker" program. As a result of this change, our estimate of the number of legal immigrants who would enter the country or would gain legal status under S. 2611 falls from 103 million to around 66 million over the next 20 years.)

Rector doesn't give us any explanation of how he arrived at his figure of 66 million new immigrants. But I think we can suss it out from the innards of his article.

Rector notes in the original part of the article that:

The figure of 103 million new legal immigrants is based on the assumption that immigration under the guest worker program would grow at 10 percent per year.... If immigration under the H-2C program did not increase at all for two decades but remained fixed at the initial level of 325,000 per year, total legal immigration under CIRA would be 72 million over twenty years....

(He links to some cool and colorful charts here, for the visually minded.)

But of course, not only did the Bingaman amendment stop the automatic increases in the H-2C guest worker program, it also lowered the number per year from 325,000 to 200,000. When I apply this reduction to the 72 million figure, using Rector's own figures for H-2C workers plus their spouses and children, I get an increase in immigration of 64 million (to which Rector added a couple of million to grow on, I reckon).

However, another amendment, also by Bingaman, which passed on May 27th, caps the total number of work-related green cards to 650,000 per year, including spouses and children; Rector had earlier estimated that number as 990,000 per year, which knocks another 4.6 million off the total.

Thus, using the Rector Ratios, using his analysis modified for the two Bingaman amendments, total immigration under CIRA would increase by 59.5 million, not 66 million (or his original estimate of 103 million).

So much for Rector. What about Samuelson?

Robert Samuelson -- whose main interest appears to be selecting for high-skilled instead of low-skilled immigrants -- veered off today to fret about total immigration levels in general. He is not as alarmist as Robert Rector, but he still estimates a much larger increase in legal immigration than does Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA, 96%), writing for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), about which more anon.

Here is Samuelson in the current column:

The Senate passed legislation last week that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) hailed as "the most far-reaching immigration reform in our history." You might think that the first question anyone would ask is how much it would actually increase or decrease legal immigration. But no. After the Senate approved the bill by 62 to 36, you could not find the answer in the news columns of The Post, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Yet the estimates do exist and are fairly startling. By rough projections, the Senate bill would double the legal immigration that would occur during the next two decades from about 20 million (under present law) to about 40 million.

So Rector calculates 66 million; his own figures, when one includes the second Bingaman amendment, actually work out to 59.5 million; and Samuelson comes in with a modest 40 million. Under current law, without any immigration reforms, most believe there would be about 20 million new immigrants in the next 20 years.

We've started to set our boundaries: the increase in immigration over the next two decades, assuming comprehensive immigration reform passes, will be more than 20 million (that's just under current law) and less than 66 million. If we believe R. Samuelson instead of the somewhat hyperventilating R. Rector, it would be less than 40 million, giving us a range of 20 million.

But where did Samuelson get the 40 million figure he touts?

The doubling of legal immigration under the Senate bill that I cited at the outset comes from a previously unreported estimate made by White House economists.

Alas, that estimate remains unreported, because Samuelson does not give any citation for it. He also mentions the CBO estimate, but he doesn't report that even to the extent of quoting it. That one, however, I was able to find.

Sen. Charles Grassley is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and he took a look at the expected cost of the CIRA, as an official resource for members of Congress to use before voting on any final bill. As part of that estimate, he needed to project how many new immigrants would arrive due to the bill.

Grassley -- no friend of CIRA, which he voted against -- estimated for the CBO an increase of 7.8 million new immigrants over and above the 20 million who would come here under current law. Rounding off, that would give an upper bound of 28 million, and a range of 8 million.

Thus, if we believe Charles Grassley, we're only talking about adding an additional 28 million new legal immigrants due to CIRA, against the background of 20 million we would add in any event. That means an increase of about 40% -- significant, but hardly the catastrophic level projected by the two Bobs.

(Captain Ed is concerned not only about immigration but about the total increase in United States population; he writes:

That level of immigration [the Samuelson numbers -- the Mgt] would be the equivalent of adding eight Minnesotas to the nation within a generation without adding any more territory, and that doesn't even take into account the concomitant growth through births.

(However, the concomitant growth through births is zero, since we're hovering at exactly replacement rate right now, 2.09 births per mother; since that number is probably dropping -- though it's not likely to hit the historic low of 1.77 in 1980 -- we might end up actually losing native-born population... were it not for immigration, the US could eventually find itself in the same dilemma as Europe, with too few people to sustain their GDP -- although we're unlikely ever to be as bad off as they are now, with fertility rates in the 1.6s.)

So there you have it. The likely range, I believe, is the low-end one, since the Samuelson projection is invisible (you can't find out any information about it), and the Rector projection uses highly dubious assumptions, each of which tends to push the total up to ludicrous heights.

Thus, we should expect the actual increase of legal immigration due to reform to be somewhere south of 8 million, assuming a comprehensive bill actually passes. That is the projection that appears to be both rational and defensible. Make of it what you will.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 31, 2006, at the time of 07:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 27, 2006

Matthew Dowd: Americans, Republicans, Conservatives Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Matthew Dowd, GOP poller extraordinaire, writes that the ultra-hardline conservatives who insist that the American people demand "enforcement only" and hate the "amnesty" of the Senate bill have it exactly backwards. In fact:

Dowd's memo says that an internal RNC poll conducted by Jan Van Louhuzen finds that "overwhelming support exists for a temporary worker program. 80% of all voters, 83% of Republicans, and 79% of self-identified conservatives support a temporary worker program as long as immigrants pay taxes and obey the law."

More, from the RNC internal poll: "When voters are given the choice of other immigration proposals, strengthening enforcement with a tamper-proof identity card (89% among all voters, 93% among GOP), various wordings of a temporary worker program (the highest at 85% among all voters, 86% among GOP), and sending National Guard troops to the border (63% among all voters, 84% among GOP) score the highest among both all voters and Republican voters."

Also: "Voters don't consider granting legal status to those already here amnesty."

Hm. So... you mean that maybe the hysterical Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL, 96%) might actually be misinformed when he says that he speaks for "the base?"

Captain Ed posted on this; that's where I saw it. But it doesn't seem to be getting much coverage from most of the conservative bloggers.

And that's too sad; isn't it better to confront the strongest arguments against one's position? Isn't truth more important than any one person's "position" on an issue?

I think a principled response from someone who opposes the Senate bill would be to say something like:

I don't buy this argument; the GOP rank and file understand the core of the immigration dilemma much better than the enforcement-only gang, perpetually gnashing their iron teeth like Baba Yaga, making a sound like a thousand pots and pans clattering down the chimney.

It turns out that polling by Dowd and also his analysis of major media polls aligns very well with the principled compromise that Big Lizards has advocated for months; it seems that we, not some other blogs, truly had our finger on the pulse not only of America, not only of the Republican Party, but even of self-described conservative Republicans. Not bad, even if we are toasting our own kazoo.

I think we should listen to the base... but not because they agree with me. In fact, it's the other way 'round: I changed my mind on several points of this discussion because people I respect -- members of the Republican base -- offered arguments that made a lot of sense to me.

One of the interesting points that Dowd found was that hardly anyone considers an earned path to citizenship to be "amnesty" for illegal immigrants:

Voters don’t consider granting legal status to those already here amnesty. Seventy percent (70%) of voters say illegal immigrants who have put down roots in the U.S. should be granted legal status after they go to the back of the line, pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and have a clean criminal record; just 25% say that would be amnesty and we should instead impose criminal penalties on illegal immigrants in the U.S. Republican and conservative opinion is only slightly lower—68% of conservatives and 64% of Republicans support granting legal status over criminal penalties.

Voters want comprehensive reform, including a temporary worker program and legal status, not inaction. When voters are given the choice between a comprehensive reform plan of getting tough on border security and a temporary worker program or no reform at all (below), 71% choose comprehensive reform and 19% choose no reform. Support for comprehensive reform is even higher among GOP base voters—80% of conservatives and 72% of church-going Protestants want comprehensive reform over no reform.

It's certainly possible for a principled conservative to reject Hagel-Martinez (actually, whatever bill comes out of the joint conference), regardless of how popular it is, not only among Republicans but among conservative Republicans. But at the least, such opponents should recognize and admit that an enforcement-only stance, or a "status quo" stance, will likely damage Republicans in 2006... rather the buoying them up, as some have suggested.

Americans, Republicans, and conservative Republicans actually support comprehensive immigration reform, and they will not take it lightly if the enforcement-only crowd burns down the bill, rather than acquiesce in creating a path to citizenship for the illegals already here -- as supported by 80% of Americans and over 75% of Republicans.

Cud for thinking.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 27, 2006, at the time of 06:31 AM | Comments (64) | TrackBack

May 26, 2006

Welcome Power Line Readers....

Paul Mirengoff was kind enough to post about our immigration-bill exchange. In the post, he noted that I "don't defend it in [my] email."

That is true. One of the joys of having a blog is that I needn't repeat the same arguments over and over in every missive... I can point people to Big Lizards! I wish I had done this in my e-mail to Paul, but I'll do it here.

We have discussed this issue, and in particular the Hagel-Martinez Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, in many, many posts... supporting the basic idea but often bashing particular provisions: for example, importing a permanent class of foreign workers instead of just expanding the number of actual immigrants we let in legally.

And we have also noted important changes that should have been in the bill but don't appear to be (in either the Senate or House version), such as a reform of the legal immigration system to make it less capricious and arbitrary and more rational and fair.

Here is a list:

1. A Tale of Two Cities
2. Heck, Big Lizards Can Break This Silly Logjam
3. Breaking: Senate Compromises On Immigration Reform
4. Patterico's Brilliant Idea
5. The Continental Divide
6. A Modest Proposal
7. First Impressions: Bush's Speech On Immigration
8. A Specter Is Haunting the Blogosphere...
9. The "Cost" of Illegal Immigration - and Rhetorical Dissimulation
10. Excellent Amendment: Criminals Can't Become Citizens
11. Please Fence Me In, Part Deux
12. Will Robert Rector Recalculate?
13. Perm the Temps
14. Plenty of Room for Improvement - Updated
15. Senate Passes Bill... Will Conservatives Play Dog-In-the-Manger?
16. You Are Getting Sleepy, Sleeeeeeeepy....

As you can see, Big Lizards has certainly not been ducking this issue! Sixteen posts arguing our position probably stacks up reasonably well to Power Line, especially considering that they have three brilliant folks arguing their side, and I'm the only member of the Big Lizards team arguing ours (Sachi is more interested in Iraq and country music).

It's not that we have no arguments for our position; it's just that I didn't want to try to shoehorn them into an e-mail.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 26, 2006, at the time of 03:44 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 25, 2006

You Are Getting Sleepy, Sleeeeeeeepy....

I reckon we have to add a new category: argumentum per repetitio, or the Snark Syllogism, from the famous Lewis Carroll poem (which Carroll subtitled "an Agony in Eight Fits"):

Or, in some cases, five times in a single paragraph:

The problem is not just the bill's amnesty provision, though the amnesty provision is profoundly unjust and misguided. Thomas Sowell, for example, has explored the amnesty issue in what is now a series of three devastating columns: "Bordering on fraud (1)," "Bordering on fraud (2)" and "Bordering on fraud (3)." Moreover, as the Meese column demonstrates, the current amnesty proposal repeats the framework of the 1986 amnesty that helped bring us to our present pass.

Toss in a bracketing pair of amnesties on top and bottom, and that makes seven times. Whew!

Let's have a show of hands... can anybody here guess what one word Scott would use to describe legalization of illegal immigrants? Take your time....

As the doddering former Sen. Foghorn Leghorn -- sorry, I meant Fritz Hollings -- might have said, "they's too much, Ah say, they's too much amnestyin' goin' on roun' heah!"

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 25, 2006, at the time of 04:57 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

Senate Passes Bill... Will Conservatives Play Dog-In-the-Manger?

Although the Senate has passed its version of the immigration bill, we really have no idea what the final product will look like. The House bill is so different that the resulting merger will be barely recognizable as the offspring of either.

Some, however, don't want the problem addressed at all. If they can't get everything they want, the prefer everybody gets nothing at all. Sen. Jess Sessions (R-AL), for example, would much prefer there be no border fence at all, if the price is that illegals already here ever get normalized:

“We’ve had some good debate in the Senate,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, who is a fierce critic of the measure. “But it’s still not fixed, in my opinion, in a whole number of ways. What really needs to be done is for the bill to be pulled down.”

Here is something for the critics to ponder... if this bill is not enacted this Congress, it will be enacted in the next, which begins in January. But the 110th Congress will be more liberal than the 109th -- and especially so if the 109th fails to enact immigration reform.

Time is not on your side. Negotiate now in strength -- or be prepared to haggle tomorrow from weakness.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 25, 2006, at the time of 03:59 PM | Comments (22) | TrackBack

May 24, 2006

Plenty of Room for Improvement - Updated

In defending the basic outline of the Hagel-Martinez immigration bill, Big Lizards does not want to leave the impression that we think the bill is perfect. In fact, we eagerly await negotiations with the House of Representatives; there are elements in the House bill that we hope prevail.

For example, the House bill authorizes 700 miles of fence, rather than the slightly less than 400 miles in the Senate bill. The Senate bill, however, adds 500 miles of vehicle barriers: the best of both bills would be 700 miles of fence plus 500 miles of barriers.

Second, Real Clear Politics Blog reports that the repayment of back taxes allows illegals to get by with only repaying three years of back taxes... even if they have a longer history of tax evasion.

Tom Bevan quotes a column of sorts by Charles Grassley, which he posted on his website (I guess that makes it more like a blogpost!):

Taxes -- Under the bill, illegal aliens get an option to only have to pay three of their last five years in back taxes. Law-abiding American citizens do not have the option to pay some of their taxes. The bill would treat lawbreakers better than the American people. The bill also makes the IRS prove that illegal aliens have paid their back taxes. It will be impossible for the IRS to truly enforce this because they cannot audit every single person in this country.

I'm not sure about the last couple of sentences; they seem completely incoherent. But we certainly agree with the firebrand (who hates any sort of bill beyond mass deportations) that illegals who haven't been paying their taxes should be held to account for all of them, not just the last three years.

(Assuming this is true, of course; I haven't read the bill, and due to past behavior, I'm not necessarily willing to trust Grassley to stick to the truth in a debate.)

And of course, we'd rather see the "guest workers" be actual immigrants, people whose intent is to live the rest of their lives in the United States and become citizens... rather than a permanent underclass of foreign nationals imported as cheap labor, as Europe is doing. True, Mexicans are not much like Algerians or Moroccans or Philippine Moslems; but they're also not much like Americans.

There is great room for negotiation on this bill, many things that can be -- and should be -- changed. But there is no chance for dropping any of the big three:

• Secure the border with a real fence;
• Allow more people to enter the country, either as guest workers or immigrants, to continue doing jobs that need doing, but that Americans won't do (the "spillway");
• Do something to regularize the millions of illegals already here.

No bill that excludes any of these three has a prayer of passing through Congress... and not to act at all would be a catastrophe of both policy and politics.

So instead of railing against those elements that are deal-breakers, let's focus on trying to make the bill better: to increase whatever part you see as beneficial to make the bill, on the whole, a deal we can live with.

UPDATE, a few minutes later: Mary Katharine Ham, guest blogging on Hugh Hewitt, reports on a teleconference between Ed Meese and a group of conservative bloggers about the immigration bill, and about Meese's New York Times op-ed today opposing it, "An Amnesty by Any Other Name ...." The conference was run by Matt Spaulding of the Heritage Foundation.

Let's see if we've grasped the essentials here: a group that opposes what it's pleased to call "amnesty" for illegals invites a speaker who opposes what he calls "amnesty" to speak to a bunch of conservative bloggers -- who oppose what they call "amnesty." And by golly, after thrashing out those differences, they finally all concur that they must oppose what they call "amnesty" for illegals!

It seems that Big Lizards must once again resort to the all-purpose, industrial-sized Robert Anton Wilson, "the Persecution and Assassination of the Parapsychologists as Performed by the Inmates of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Under the Direction of the Amazing Randi," Right Where You Are Sitting Now, And/Or Press, 1982, p. 67.

Wilson channels the voice of Lemuel Gulliver, supposed author of Jonathan Swift's classic Gulliver's Travels:

Though we did like the fact that Meese came out in favor of rationalization of the legal immigration system:

Meese agreed that the goal of any plan should be to make our legal immigration process quicker and more able to meet needs of immigrants and employers. He also stressed that immigrants don't come into the country bearing hats that indicate whether they're dangerous or not, so increased enforcement has to be part of the plan.

One out of two ain't bad. For a ballplayer, batting .500 would be spectacular!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 24, 2006, at the time of 01:51 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

May 22, 2006

Perm the Temps

Last Thursday, May 18th, Mark Steyn completely changed my mind about a guest-worker program.

He was being interviewed by Hugh Hewitt (as is Hugh's wont every Thursday), and Steyn made this argument:

HH: Well, since we spoke on Monday night, I've been thinking about your condemnation of guest worker program. And I think that resonates with people, Mark Steyn, as they begin to think about a permanent underclass called in to work. And I think it's ringing a bell that reminds us of Europe.

MS: Well, you don't have to just talk about Europe, where I think it has been a disaster. I mean, you talk about relatively benign societies that don't make the news.

Fiji...a century ago, the British imported, essentially, a guest worker class to Fiji. Indian workers. And what happened was that eventually, the population rose, and I'm quoting off the top of my head here, but it's about like 46, 48 Indians to native Fijians. And as a result, that country has become tribal and profoundly unstable.

[I'm not sure what Steyn is trying to say here; according to the CIA World Factbook, the Fijian population is 51% Fijian, 44% Indian, and 5% Everybody Else. -- the Mgt.]

And if you look at any...even the most benign bi-cultural societies are profoundly unstable.

This is not an immigration issue. When you have up to maybe a fifth of the population of the United States as a special illegal class, mainly from one other society in the world, that is not an immigration issue. Immigration is a quite separate thing.

I would like first to make a big distinction: Steyn referred to a bi-cultural society... not merely a bilingual one. There are a number of stable bilingual societies; Switzerland, for example. But Switzerland is not bi-cultural: the German, French, and Italian cantons of Switzerland are certainly not blowing each other up... but that may be because they are all by and large the same culture: Western European.

If there were a section of Switzerland that was almost exclusively occupied by Bosnians or Kurds, it would be another story.

What Steyn argues is that Mexico's culture is sufficiently different from America's that it is deadly to have a permanent, floating population of people here who think of themselves not as Americans -- not even as proto-Americans -- but as Mexicans in exile.

Who are these foreign nationals? Many are already here illegally, while most are here legally on perpetually renewed work visas. These ex-pats, whom we will call "guest workers," assuredly came here originally just to work. They didn't think of themselves as an invading army of infiltrators.

The problem is what happens to them after they arrive: they are immediately set upon by activists from MEChA and La Raza. These serpents begin whispering fantasies of "Aztlán" into the ears of our (legal or illegal) guests, telling them that everything from deep inside Oregon to the Rio Grande, from Texarkana to the Pacific, is really theirs, it really "belongs to Mexico," and Mexico should "take it back."

(By the way, the word "reconquista," referring to taking back the American Southwest, is generally not used by Chicano activists that I've seen; I think it's a misunderstanding. Chicanos mostly talk about Aztlán; I've only heard reconquista from those opposing them.)

The truly goofy part of this is that Mexico never actually controlled California in any real sense. They claimed they did, following their independence in 1821; and the U.S. went along with the gag (since it didn't concern us at that time). In the mid-1820s, Mexico City started sending governors to the former Spanish colony... but Californios (both Spanish- and English-speaking) simply ignored them, just as they had by and large ignored the colonial governors immediately preceding them: they ran their ranchos, trapped beaver in the Sierras, and lived more or less placidly.

There were also Californios who declared themselves governors of California (also ignored); but the whole thing was up in the air and a big mess... until 1846, when John C. Frémont, with his rag-tag army of mountain men, scouts, and assorted riff-raff, more or less committed the United States to capturing California as part of (pretty much the end of) the Mexican-American War.

There never was any "Aztlán." The mythical idyllic kingdom was seized upon by Chicano activists in the 60s to demand that the United States turn the entire Southwest over to Mexico. In 1969, they formed el Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán -- MEChA -- the Chicano Student Movement of Aztlán.

MEChA (and the National Council of La Raza "the race," founded concurrently with MEChA) act as agents provacateurs of Mexican and other Spanish-speaking immigrants (legal or otherwise). But at least an actual immigrant has somewhat of a defense: most immigrants left their home countries and journeyed to America in order to escape tyranny and poverty and find freedom and opportunity.

Telling someone who fled what he considered to be a dreadful life in Mexico that his new home should now be "returned" to Mexico -- the very place he just left! -- is likely to meet with a chilly reception... and indeed, most actual immigrants do not support groups such as MEChA and La Raza.

(Their American-born children, on the other hand, with no memory of the old country and why Mama and Papa left, are another question.)

But consider how different it is when the targets of the agit-prop are not immigrants, who made the choice to become Americans, but rather just imported workers who still think of themselves as Mexicans (or Bolivians or Venezuelans). I think Steyn is arguing -- and if he is, I have come to agree with him -- that such non-Americans may well look around California or New Mexico or Texas and say to themselves, wouldn't it be great if all this just belonged to us? If we didn't have to go work for the gringos to get a piece, but it was just ours by birthright?

From there, it's a short leap to saying, but it already is ours -- the gringos stole it from us!

We have indeed seen this sort of resentful cultural-warfare arise within a permanent underclass of imported workers who are never allowed to become citizens of the host country: most egregiously in France, Denmark, and other European countries. Riots, arson, murder, and even (potentially) acts of mass terrorism flow from just such a disconnect between people and the culture they reside inside.

Even their children are often denied full citizenship, and they tend to become even more radical than their parents.

It's a very good argument, and it has convinced me: I no longer support a "guest worker" program, as the Senate bill (and the president) advocates. But so, too is my own argument a good one: that no wall, no matter how strong, can withstand a million people trying to knock it down to get in.

In my other analogy, I still believe in the "spillway" that allows the dam to stand, rather than being overtopped and then destroyed by the rising flood of water it tries to hold back. So what is the solution?

The solution is to understand that distinction between immigrants and foreign workers: if we must have a spillway -- and we must -- then it should be in the form of an increase in the number of new immigrants we accept. And not just highly educated people (there aren't enough of them); but also those young men with families, men who may never have had much of a chance at an education or training, but who are willing to work... and who believe in the American dream of freedom and opportunity.

Let's allow more permanent immigrants to replace temporary workers. And to facilitate this, we should also waive the minimum-wage laws for new immigrants here on a work visa.

They're not forced to accept low wages; if they have skills and education, they can find better jobs. But let's allow them to accept a low-paying job, if that's all they're qualified for when they first arrive. When they manage to apply for and receive a green card, then they once again fall under the minimum-wage rules; but by then, they really should be doing something better than picking strawberries or cleaning hotel rooms.

(I oppose minimum-wage laws in general for everybody; but that would be utterly impossible to pass through Congress at this point.)

In fact, we should make such education and language skills a requirement for getting permanent residency, except for spouses of American citizens. Make immigrant applicants demonstrate not only knowledge of English, but also make them pass a high-school level examination of basic knowledge, not only in American history and civics but also math, science, and everything else a typical high-school student must master before getting a diploma in forty-nine of the fifty states.

Let the new immigrants take those jobs that "Americans won't perform" (which is actually true; Americans will not, not even at sharply increased wages). Let them take the jobs at the same rates that temporary guests now receive; it's better than no job at all. And make sure they know that if they learn English and get an education, they can certainly find much better jobs... and do a much better job of supporting their families and giving their niños better lives.

But there appears to be great confusion about this among the "movement conservatives." On the one hand, conservatives seem to accept Steyn's basic point: that it's horrifically dangerous to import hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals into America, people with no intention of ever becoming citizens.

But how do we square the Steyn Syllogism with the Kyl amendment, whose defeat was mourned by conservatives across the country? Here is the Washington Post:

The Senate killed an amendment that would have denied a chance for permanent status and eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants who have been in the country less than five years and to any future immigrants who enter the country under the guest-worker program.

Opponents said the amendment, offered by Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, would have gutted the bipartisan bill that allows guest workers an opportunity to seek permanent residence.

This is insane. Sen. Kyl should have offered an amendment to only admit workers who were applying for "permanent status and eventual citizenship." Kyl has it exactly backwards... and this is one reason why many see conservative opposition to the immigration bill not as solely anti-illegal, but simply anti-immigrant as well.

After all, "future immigrants who enter the country under the guest-worker program" have not necessarily yet broken any American laws. Sure, some folks might have snuck in here earlier, then snuck out again without being caught; but others haven't... and Kyl's amendment does not discriminate between them. He lumps them all together and says none of them, even those who never violated our laws, can come in as guest workers and stay as Americans.

Nor have I seen Kyl or any other conservative propose increasing the number of those admitted as immigrants in lieu of a guest-worker program; typically, they want to eliminate the latter and slash the former to the bone.

The Steyn Syllogism is inarguable, but it implies a very stark choice: either we cripple our economy by starving those businesses that currently depend upon illegal aliens (de facto "guest workers") -- or else we must consciously woo more actual immigrants to American shores by allowing them to work those jobs, even below minimum wage, while they're trying to better themselves such that they can move on up... and make room for the next wave of actual immigrants.

Let's "perm" those temps.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 22, 2006, at the time of 04:08 PM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

May 18, 2006

How to Fake a Poll

Lots of buzz about the Rasmussen poll that many -- Hugh Hewitt, for one notable example -- are touting as showing that Americans just want a border-enforcement bill only, with no guest-worker program or normalization of illegals already here.

It's possible, I suppose, that such sentiment is indeed sweeping the country, undetected by any other polling company; but you sure can't conclude that from this garbage.

The problem is twofold:

1. Rasmussen does not tell us the methodology of the poll; we don't even know whether the poll was by telephone, e-mail, or an online, internet poll (like Zogby often uses). We don't know the margin of error, which would be different for each state (and in a state like California could be quite substantial).

   Methodology makes a huge difference; it can make or break a poll. Perhaps this information is available to "premium subscribers;" I don't know, because I'm not willing to spend $349 to find out. But most polling firms actually put the methodology on the poll itself for release to the general public.

2. Much more important, however, is that the questions Rasmussen asked are biased, and the question order is calculated to move opinion rather than measure it. I would go so far as to call this a "push poll."

   It's actually shameful that a respected company like Rasmussen would resort to such tricks; I wish they had just done a straight poll, since I would really be interested in the answers to properly framed questions.

For starters, let's look at the issue whose response is being seized upon for political purposes: the border security "stick" versus the guest-worker and normalization "carrot." Here is a fair series of questions to ask, were I writing a poll instead of Rasmussen:

This would be a very fair way to gauge what people really want. Note, for example, that I avoid both the biased terms "illegal alien" and "undocumented worker": the first skews the sample against them, while the second skews the sample towards them. I use the very neutral term "lived here without permission."

These questions would have told us a lot, especially for those who did not pick either B or C in question 1 but nevertheless picked A in question 2: people who didn't want a guest-worker program or path to citizenship but were willing to accept it as part of a deal (and the corresponding scenario on the other side).

Question 4 would test whether those supporting the "carrots" consider them absolutely necessary to gain their support, or whether, if nothing else could pass, they could still accept a border-enforcement only bill.

These would be fair questions that would actually tell us something about what the public wanted -- and also what they would be willing to settle for. But that's not what Rasmussen asked. Here is the actual question:

3. Some people say it makes no sense to debate new rules for immigration until we can control our borders and enforce the existing laws. Do you agree or disagree?

What the heck does that mean? New rules for immigration? I would have no idea whether that meant a guest-worker program or different criteria for who is admitted under the legal immigration policy. Heck, for that matter, doesn't 400 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers also constitute "new rules for immigration?"

Does "control our borders and enforce the existing laws" mean build a fence first, or just that we should, right now, today, enforce existing law better -- while we continue to debate building a fence and having a guest-worker program and path to citizenship?

This is an incredibly poorly written question. Some of the respondents will take it one way, others will take it another, still others will hear it a third or fourth way. We cannot tell anything about the opinion of Americans from this stupid question.

Worse, it's question three in a series of questions; immediately preceding it is a question which sets a decidedly negative tone against immigrants in general, and especially those here illegally:

2. Some people believe that the goal of immigration policy should be to keep out national security threats, criminals, and those who would come here to live off our welfare system. Beyond that, all immigrants would be welcome. Do you agree or disagree with that goal for immigration policy?

3. Some people say it makes no sense to debate new rules for immigration until we can control our borders and enforce the existing laws. Do you agree or disagree?

Question 2 first clearly plants the idea that immigrants are coming here to suck up welfare, join criminal gangs, and commit acts of terrorism against the United States. Only then does Rasmussen ask their crappy question 3. You think the first might possibly influence response on the second?

Also, as a general rule, a question that begins "some people say" practically begs the respondent to agree. It conjures the image of some vast sea of people all saying the same thing... do you want to go with the flow, or be some kind of an oddball?

The penultimate question, despite following these two, throws the "conventional wisdom" interpretation of question 3 into a cocked hat:

4. There are currently 11 million illegal aliens living in the United States. Most have lived here for more than five years. Should the United States forcibly require all 11 million illegal aliens to leave this country?

In not a single state does a majority answer Yes to this question. Not one. Alabama had a plurality of 50% saying yes, 29% no; seven other states (Arkansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming) had pluralities saying Yes, ranging from 49-31 in TN to 41-40 in AK -- which clearly is within any likely margin of error for a poll of 500 people.

Contrariwise, in the 25 states where a plurality said No, we should not "forcibly require all 11 million illegal aliens to leave this country," five states had a clear majority opposed, while another four have a plurality of 50%. All of the states that actually border Mexico that were polled came down against deportations (New Mexico was not polled for some reason).

The mean split among those states with a plurality saying Yes, deport is 44.6 to 36.3, for a spread of 8.4%. The mean split among those with a plurality saying No, don't deport, is 47.0 to 35.0, for a spread of 12.0%. The No-deport states are very significantly firmer in their position than the Yes-deport states. This does not particularly sound like a pool of respondents who are in the Rep. Tom Tancredo camp.

Is it really too much to ask to get an honest, legitimate poll on what people want in the bill, what they'll accept as part of a Grand Deal, and what they absolutely wouldn't take under any circumstances... rather than a biased push-poll whose purpose is to spook the herd and scuttle the deal?

It's too bad that so many in the blogosphere are quite capable of seeing the gaping flaws in some bad poll that is against their position... but will seize upon any poll that supports them, no matter how many warning signs there are that it simply isn't serious.

By the way, here are my own positions, so you can take into account my biases. I've put them behind the "slither on" vehicle barrier....

1. I support a fence, but I think it won't work without a "spillway" to siphon off those people trying to come here for legitimate reasons.

2. A guest-worker program could be that spillway; but so could an increase in the number of actual legal immigrants we accept -- those wishing to live here permanently.

   Given my druthers, I would rather the latter than the former, as I think Mark Steyn makes a very good point that "guest workers" are disturbingly similar to what so many European countries have done to very bad effect.

3. Tied for most urgent task, fully as important as "securing the border," is rationalizing the legal immigration policy so that would-be Americans have a clear "path to citizenship" (a phrase I have used for years): they would know exactly what they had to do to become permanent residents and then citizens, and about how long it would take.

   The path must be mandatory, not subject to the caprice or vindictiveness of Immigration workers. At any point, the immigrant must know what he has accomplished, what is still left to do, and how to go about completing the path to his swearing-in ceremony.

4. So long as enough guest workers or new immigrants (whichever we choose) are let into the country to satisfy the labor needs, I don't object to very harsh legal sanctions, including prison time, for employers who still hire illegals.

   If insufficient numbers are allowed in and employers simply cannot fill the jobs with legals, then I think it grossly unfair to turn the law into a business suicide pact.

5. I have no particular position on the legalization of those already here, save that it's a bad idea to allow a huge permanent underclass of resentful criminals to remain. If we cannot find a way to make them leave -- and it appears we cannot -- then it's probably marginally better to find a way to legalize them. But I'm much less concerned about this point than the others above.
6. Finally, I believe that if the GOP-controlled Congress and the Republican president do not make some significant changes to the immigration status quo, we'll be massacred on November 6th. Or at least it will be a whole heck of a lot harder.

Make of it what you will.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 18, 2006, at the time of 05:39 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

May 17, 2006

Will Robert Rector Recalculate?

Yesterday, in The "Cost" of Illegal Immigration - and Rhetorical Dissimulation, I tore into the "backgrounder" by Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation which attempted to make the case (unsuccessfully, in my opinion) that we could not afford a guest-worker program. (He also attacked normalization of illegals already here, but that's a different subject.)

Rector calculated that the guest-worker program could end up costing tens of billions of dollars per year in increased welfare payments:

Because nearly all of the guest workers and their families would within a few years become eligible for government welfare and other services, the fiscal costs from the program could rival those stemming from the direct amnesty provisions of the bill.

As Rector had previously estimated -- way overestimated, again in my opinion -- the cost of normalization at $46 billion per year or more, he must have been estimating a similar cost for the guest-worker program. (In addition, like most "security-only" activists, he uses his own private definition of the word "amnesty;" but however churlish, that doesn't affect his calculation.)

Rector arrived at his estimate by taking the beginning annual cap on guest workers (325,000) and increasing it according to the formula in the original bill: in any year that the number of people trying to enter as guest workers exceeded the current cap, the next year's cap would automatically rise 20%.

Finally, CIRA would issue 325,000 new visas per year to "guest workers." The number of visas available could increase by 20 percent annually, reaching two million per year within ten years. By 2017, the guest worker program would have admitted some eight million new workers. Illegal aliens who have been in the country for less than two years would be eligible to become guest workers and would probably be the primary recipients of these supposedly temporary (H2C) visas. Recipients of these visas could bring spouses and children into the country immedi­ately, increasing the number of entrants over ten years well above eight million.

It is, of course manifestly absurd to assume that the availability of "guest workers" would rise limitlessly at the maximum allowable rate; does he expect the entire population of Mexico to pour into the United States, leaving 761,606 square miles of empty real estate south of the Rio Grande? At some point, probably far below "two million per year," we would reach labor saturation. The law of supply and demand has not been repealed.

But it makes little difference, because the action taken on the floor of the Senate yesterday moots Rector's argument, requiring a complete recalculation. Senators voted not only to lower the initial cap from 325,000 to 200,000, they voted to eliminate the automatic 20% rise when the cap was reached:

Today the Senate voted 69-28 to set aside an amendment by North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan to eliminate the guest-worker program from the measure. Dorgan said the program would cost Americans jobs and wages. "The guest-worker provision is about importing cheap labor,'' he said before the vote....

The Senate then backed, by a voice vote, [Jeff] Bingaman's [D-NM] amendment to reduce the number of yearly visas available to foreign workers by 40 percent and prohibit increases that may be sought by industry if the visa-cap is met in any year. [Jeff Bingaman gets a 100% rating from the ACLU -- and 12% from the American Conservative Union. -- the Mgt.]

Besides throwing Robert Rector's estimates into a cocked hat, this vote may actually cause a problem -- not in the politics; it makes it more likely to pass. Rather, it causes a problem in the policy: we may be building too small a "spillway."

The point of the guest-worker program is to take pressure off the fence and other border-security provisions. The idea is that the huge majority of people who cross illegally do so just to find work. These illegals do not cause all that much damage by their existence here (though they may cause damage sneaking in across private property); alas, real bad guys, especially terrorists, may hide among the vast number of illegals, making it virtually impossible to detect them.

So long as hundreds of thousand of people are being denied entry, they will "push" against the wall. As I've said many times, no wall, no matter how strong, can stand against a million people trying to knock it down.

The only way to stop the illegal entry is to build a gate in the wall, a "spillway in the dam": we need to separate out those illegals who just want to work and shunt them through a legal guest-worker program; that way, those humans still trying to enter illegally -- assuming the honest can enter legally -- must be presumed to be dishonest.

We can use far more draconian interdiction methods against presumed criminals and terrorists than we can against presumed decent, hardworking families that include women and children.

But all this depends upon one key point: that those coming here just to work are, in fact, able to get in and work. If not, then the spillway is too small, the water builds up behind the dam, and eventually, the dam bursts.

The whole point of the guest-worker program is not to give work to poor Mexicans; I really couldn't care less about them. (Go ahead, call me heartless. Believe me, I've been called much worse.) What does matter is that we need to relieve enough pressure on the fence or the fence will fail.

I worry that 200,000 a year with no increases, even if the cap is clearly shown to be too small, will not relieve enough pressure. After two years of backlog, there may be just as many trying to enter illegally as there are right now.

I hope this is revisited soon: it would be a terrible shame if an otherwise decent, comprehensive bill is crippled from the very beginning... by an ultra-liberal Democrat, of course.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 17, 2006, at the time of 05:14 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack

Please Fence Me In, Part Deux

Hugh Hewitt will be very happy, and with good reason: the Senate just overwhelming approved the Sessions amendment to the immigration bill, requiring 370 miles of actual fence, plus 500 miles of vehicle barriers. The lopsided vote -- 83 to 16 -- sends a very, very strong signal that the Senate is finally aboard and serious.

I can't find a roll-call (it may not be up on Thomas yet), but even assuming all 55 Republicans voted for it, that would mean that at a minimum, 29 of 45 Democrats must have voted for the fence, too. That's 64%.

Then Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) proposed one of the "killer amendments," one that would remove all of the guest-worker and normalization sections from the bill. A huge argument erupted over the meaning of the word "amnesty," with one side insisting upon the actual meaning of the word in law and philology, and the other insisting, in true Humpty Dumpty fashion, upon a special definition that they just now made up.

I complain about this irritating tactic of "argument by redefinition" when the Democrats do it; should I do less when Republicans resort to the same, "progressive" dodge?

But it's a moot point: minutes ago, the Senate rejected the Vitter amendment 66-33... which means (for fairness sake) that, even assuming all 44 Democrats and one "Independent" who caucuses with the Democrats (Triple-J) voted against the Vitter amendment, at a minimum, 21 of 55 Republicans (38%) must also have voted against stripping out these "carrots."

This is going very well:

• Putting the fence and the barriers into the bill makes it far more likely that the House will be willing to accept the compromise;
• Leaving in the guest-worker provision will take enough pressure off the wall that it will actually work (that's the "spillway in the dam," in my earlier analogy);
• Leaving in the normalization means that the Democrats will see themselves getting something, so they will be less likely to scuttle the deal on procedural votes; and it will mollify enough liberal or moderate Republicans that majority is attainable.

It looks like this bill is now destined for passage; and aside from a handful of representatives -- most of them named King, for some unfathomable reason -- I haven't heard from any of the movers and shakers in the House that the Senate bill was dead, or that they would refuse to agree to the citizenship and guest-worker provisions. (In fact, Speaker Denny Hastert, R-IL, has already said he and some other leaders would accept that... and that was before the president's widely popular speech.)

But will the policy itself work? Nobody can answer that until it happens. Those who voted for Simpson-Mazzoli in 1986 (and President Ronald Reagan, who signed it) sincerely believed that it would work, and it seems to have been a crashing failure: we had about 3 million illegals then, and twenty years later, we have 11 million.

(But did it really fail? There isn't any way to tell even that; perhaps without the Border-Patrol and employer-sanction provisions in Simpson-Mazzoli, we would have 22 million illegals by now. That's the trouble with alternate-history; how can we ever know?)

In any event, the border-security measures this time are far stronger than in 1986, and the citizenship path is much longer and involves a lot more pain and punishment for those illegals already here -- including admission of guilt, a big fine, back taxes, and so forth. And in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 (CIRA, or Hagel-Martinez), these pieces are all structured into the bill itself; they don't rely upon Democrats keeping their word.

In the 99th Congress, which enacted Simpson-Mazzoli, the Democrats controlled the House and the Republicans controlled the Senate 53-47; but in the 1986 election, the Democrats took the Senate, too... so in the 100th Congress, which would have been responsible for appropriating the money for the actual border-security measures (of which there were some, mostly penalties on employers and more Border Patrol agents and such), was entirely Democratic... and those measures never happened.

It may well be that the failures of Simpson-Mazzoli were more because the Democrats refused to implement the "sticks" than because the deal itself was flawed.

So that gives conservatives even more incentive to stay involved, to turn out in droves on November 6th, and to make absolutely certain that both houses of Congress remain firmly in Republican hands... thus to make equally certain that the "sticks" of Hagel-Martinez get enacted along with the "carrots."

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 17, 2006, at the time of 01:34 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

May 16, 2006

Excellent Amendment: Criminals Can't Become Citizens

The Senate is currently working through a series of amendments. Some are bad; some are really ugly, like Byron Dorgan's (D-N.D.) attempt to prevent "foreigners and recent illegal immigrants" (!) from signing up to be guest workers; one presumes Dorgan wants the guest-worker program limited to Americans only.

But some of the amendments are really, really good. For example, this one:

Compromise averted a third showdown, when the bill's critics and supporters agreed to deny illegal immigrants any chance at citizenship if they had been convicted of three misdemeanors or a felony.

The last time this came up, I think I remember it was the Senate that killed it; so it's a great leap forward (er, maybe I should use a different expression) that the Senate is now aboard in saying that we only want to extend citizenship to assimilated immigrants with American virtues, not thugs with American vices.

I'm sure the House will have no objection to this provision.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 16, 2006, at the time of 05:06 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

The "Cost" of Illegal Immigration - and Rhetorical Dissimulation

Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation -- an organization that has long derided any immigation plan other than pure enforcement as "amnesty" -- has put up a "backgrounder" study on the foundation's website. He purports to show that any immigration plan that offers "amnesty" (by which Rector means any path to citizenship whatsoever) will be a huge drag on the American economy. The key graf:

An immigration plan proposed by Senators Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), the Com­prehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611) would provide amnesty to 9 to 10 million illegal immigrants and put them on a path to citizenship. Once these individuals become citizens, the net addi­tional cost to the federal government of benefits for these individuals will be around $16 billion per year. Further, once an illegal immigrant becomes a citizen, he has the right to bring his parents to live in the U.S. The parents, in turn, may become citizens. The long-term cost of government benefits to the parents of 10 million recipients of amnesty could be $30 billion per year or more. In the long run, S. 2611, if enacted, would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.

Rector's intent is to make the economic case against any form of guest-worker program, any path to citizenship for anyone currently here illegally, and -- in my opinion -- against immigration in general. But how solid a case does he really make?

Let's take a look.

"Amnesty" or "plea bargain?"

Let's get one side issue out of the way before starting: Rector consistently uses "amnesty" almost as a synonym for citizenship; in fact, he uses the word "amnesty" forty-one times in this article, starting with the first word of the title.

"Amnesty" means a general pardon prior to trial or conviction. A pardon is "the excusing of an offense without exacting a penalty : remission of punishment."

• In law, when the president pardons someone, the offense is erased as if it had never occurred;.

  According to Black's Law Dictionary, "it releases punishment and blots out the existence of guilt, so that in the eyes of the law, the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offense."

• When the IRS has a "tax amnesty," you are allowed to repay back taxes with no penalty whatsoever, often even without interest;
• When states or cities declare "firearm amnesties," the same holds true: you can turn in anything, and you won't be arrested or prosecuted;
• When President Carter and Congress declared an amnesty in 1977 of Vietnam draft-dodgers, they were allowed to return to the United States with no charges of any kind.

An amnesty means the crime is "blotted out," as if it never occurred. But in fact, under Hagel-Martinez, the illegals are punished; the crime of illegal entry is not blotted out: they must admit guilt and pay a substantial fine.

The word for the executive reducing a sentence already imposed on someone already convicted is clemency, or perhaps commutation. But what we're really discussing is when a person voluntarily admits guilt in exchange for a reduced sentence. The term for that is a plea bargain.

But I reckon "plea bargain" isn't enraging enough to create a mass, emotional uprising... hence they've settled upon "amnesty." It may be completely wrongly used, but I suppose the ends must justify the means.

Cost in perspective

First, a bit of background of our own. The current U.S. budget is about $2.6 trillion; so an increase of $46 billion at some point in the future -- the first $10 billion about six or seven years from now, the $30 billion (assuming it happens, see below) about 10-15 years after that -- amounts to 1.7% of the budget... and could be paid for by just a slight reduction in any of a number of other areas.

Second, Rector clearly assumes (from the fact that he doesn't even mention it) that we will do absolutely nothing to get a handle on spending on entitlement programs over the next 16 to 22 years. This in itself is a rather breathtaking assumption: since the Heritage Foundation itself has recommended a number of things we could do -- the easiest and most obvious being shifting Medicare from a defined benefit to a defined contribution program -- one must conclude that Robert Rector believes that the Heritage Foundation will have no influence whatsoever on American economic policies... a stunning admission of impotence from a formerly influential body!

From A To-Do List Before Spending Hits Tipping Point, by Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner, December 20th, 2005:

Of course, to really control Medicare spending, lawmakers will have to fundamentally change the program. It's time to design a new system based on personal choice, market competition and light regulation. Such a system should be a "defined contribution" system, not the "defined benefit" system we have now.

That means the government would agree to contribute a certain amount to fund each beneficiary's coverage. This would create a market for private health plans that would compete for customers by offering attractive benefit packages. It also would let seniors keep their pre-retirement health care plan if they're happy with it or design new coverage options tailored to their needs.

Such a defined-contribution plan also would allow lawmakers to control costs. Defined-benefit programs don't work because they're like a blank check -- each new medical advance creates a new government requirement. A defined-contribution plan would allow seniors to enjoy those advances without sticking Uncle Sam with the big bills.

Several states have already begun experimenting with a defined contribution Medicare plan, rather than a defined benefit plan... notably Florida and South Carolina, two states with very large numbers of retirees. And according to yet another Heritage Foundation paper, these state reforms -- made possible by the federal waiver system for state experimentation pushed through Congress by President Bush -- are expected to dramatically reduce Medicare costs, starting almost immediately and into the future.

From the same article I quoted above:

There are plenty of places to make cuts right now. For example:

* The Congressional Budget Office has published a "Budget Options" book identifying $140 billion in potential cuts.

* The federal government spends $23 billion annually on silly special interest projects such as grants to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and efforts to combat teenage "goth" culture in Blue Springs, Mo.

* Washington spends $60 billion annually on corporate welfare, versus $43 billion on homeland security.

And that's just for starters.

Right. So if we could make just 20% of the cuts envisioned in each of these areas, that's $41.2 billion per year right there. The Medicare changes that the Heritage Foundation proposes, along with Health Savings Accounts, would save tens of billions of dollars in Medicare costs almost immediately, a savings that will continue to rise with every passing year.

Potential spending cuts dwarf any increased cost from a guest-worker program or normalizing illegals already here... a cost that even Rector admits would be at least partially mitigated by increased tax revenues from the newly-legalized former illegals.

So Rector's objection is a non-issue from the beginning. The real issue is general control of spending: if we do that, any increase in spending related to illegals made legal will be easily absorbed; if we do not gain control of spending, then immigration won't make any difference -- we're sunk anyway.

Convictions make convicts

But even more than that, the Heritage study demonstrates a rather colossal disdain for the ability of new legal immigrants to support their own families. For example, Rector notes that when adult immigrants (legal or otherwise) become citizens, they are allowed to bring both their parents to the United States as legal immigrants; some of those parents will themselves eventually become citizens.

He estimates, probably not unreasonably, that about 10% of those immigrants' parents will eventually come here and become citizens (though he assumes that every adult immigrant has two living parents who will want to come here, which is not reasonable at all; but let that lie). Thus, he guesses that legalizing 10 million immigrants will eventually produce 20 million parents coming here from the old country, of whom two million will eventually become citizens.

How many does he estimate will immediately go on welfare then? Oh, approximately two million:

If ten million current illegal immigrants were granted amnesty and citizenship under CIRA, as many as twenty million foreign born parents would be given the right to immigrate to the U.S. Once in the U.S., the immigrant parents would receive social services and government funded medical care, much of it paid for through the Medicaid disproportionate share program. [Note, not "might receive" but "would receive." -- the Mgt.]

These immigrant parents coming to the U.S. would also be eligible to apply for citizenship themselves. On attaining citizenship, most would become eligible for benefits from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid programs, at an average cost of over $18,000 per person per year. While it is true that the language require­ments of the citizenship test would serve as a bar­rier to immigrant parents becoming citizens, the tests are not very difficult and the financial rewards of citizenship would be very great. If only ten per­cent of the parents of those receiving amnesty under CIRA became citizens and enrolled in SSI and Medicaid, the extra costs to government would be over $30 billion per year.

What exactly is Rector saying? Medicare is available to every senior or disabled person, regardless of income; but he is talking here about Medicaid:

Medicaid is available only to certain low-income individuals and families who fit into an eligibility group that is recognized by federal and state law.

In other words, Medicaid -- unlike Medicare -- is a welfare program. So is SSI, by the way, another federal payment made only to low-income citizens and legally resident aliens, brought to us courtesy President Richard Nixon.

Perhaps I'm not being exactly fair to Mr. Rector. Maybe he's not saying that 10% of the parents will become citizens, and of those who do, 100% will immediately go on welfare. Maybe he means that 40% or 50% will become citizens, and of those, only 10% will go on welfare.

How many does he think will become citizens, with or without welfare? He doesn't say; nor does he give us any reason to believe that the intersection is 10% of all immigrating parents of immigrants... despite the fact that his entire calculation critically depends upon this estimate.

Perhaps I can be pardoned -- or granted clemency -- for believing that in fact, Rector by and large assumes that the only reason these parents of immigrants would ever become citizens themselves is to suck up welfare benefits; it fits the tone of the rest of his piece.

I think it very plausible that only 10% of elderly parents of adult immigrants might eventually become citizens themselves; but the idea that every last one of them can't wait to jump aboard the "welfare wagon" is insulting, offensive, and absurd..

For one point, you're an "adult" in this country at age 18; in many Third-World countries, people have children at a much younger age. Thus, a great many of those parents brought in by immigrants will be in their forties and fifties and used to hard work. Does Rector think they loafed their time away in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvadore, Armenia, and Ukraine? Why wouldn't a substantial portion of these parents find work themselves?

May immigrants come here and start their own businesses: stores, restaurants, meat markets, dance instruction, computer software... who knows? Family-owned small businesses have become the backbone of the American economy, and the fastest growing segment thereof. Such businesses often hire the whole family, and nobody is on welfare.

And does Rector assume from the outset that all attempts at assimilation will fail, that nobody among the immigrants is responsible and shares the American ethic of paying your own way and supporting your own family -- even your parents when they get old?

Does Rector thus casually assume that current immigrants are morally inferior to all the earlier generations of immigrants -- possibly even including his own parents or grandparents?

The cost of inflammatory rhetoric

This is the level to which this discussion has degenerated, where even respectable and respected institutions like the Heritage Foundation begin any discussion with a hidden, anti-immigrant bias, anger at all these foreigners coming into "our" America, and the assumption that they only come to suck up our welfare and live on Easy Street.

Good God, we deserve better from that side of the debate.

We desperately need continuing input from those for whom border security is paramount:

• We need pressure to build a real wall;
• We need more money and manpower offered for border security;
• We need much harsher penalties for employers hiring illegals once they have legal guest workers available instead;
• We need guarantees that we won't repeat the disaster of Simpson-Mazzoli in 1986 (signed by Ronald Reagan, by the way).

But when the security-side of the debate abandons the field, refusing even to engage in the effort of making a marginally good bill into a pretty good one, preferring a one-sided bill that cannot pass to a balanced bill that will... then our country -- and their own cause of border security -- is ill-served indeed.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 16, 2006, at the time of 04:22 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

May 15, 2006

A Specter Is Haunting the Blogosphere...

...the specter of absolutism.

The GOP now consists of a house divided; and as Lincoln taught, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

I admit, I am stunned and angry that my favorite writer on my favorite blog has made himself the blunt end of a battering ram that is lustily knocking down the entire temple of achievement we've built in this city on a hill for the last five years.

Here he is on the speech:

He Had His Chance...

...and he blew it. He should have given the speech I told him to. As soon as he started talking about guest worker programs and the impossibility of deporting 11 million illegals, it was all over. President Bush keeps trying to find the middle ground, on this and many other issues. But sometimes, there isn't a viable middle ground. This is one of those instances....

President Bush doesn't have many chances left to salvage his second term. After tonight, he might not have any.

No "viable middle ground." It's my way or the highway. And what is the speech that John "told him" to give? Anent immigration, it boils down to this:

So, discussion about long-term approaches to immigration will continue. But in the meantime, your priority will be securing the borders and enforcing the laws currently on the books. Which means that the crackdown on employers of illegals will be expanded. Announce some specific measures to begin securing the Mexican border, preferably including some kind of fence.

Bush did say this, of course; all of it! And there is nobody on the right, least of all Big Lizards, who does not support a dramatically increased border security... a fence, even a bigger fence than Sen. Sessions calls for; more Border Patrol; drones, sensors, even National Guard along the border. I am for this, Sachi is for it, President Bush is for it.

So what so enrages John?

The only plausible answer is that John wanted this to be the only program. He wanted Bush to announce that he was not going to pursue anything but enforcement now... and that everything else -- rationalizing the legal immigration system, guest-worker program, and normalization of those here illegally -- would have to be put off until some indefinite time in the future.

In other words, John Hinderaker is outraged and says that Bush's second term is no longer "salvageable" because Bush didn't accept the "compromise" he offered: we get everything we want today... and in a couple of years, we might talk about whether the rest of you get anything at all.

John, of course, knows that such a bill could never pass the Senate. So evidently, John prefers an enforcement-only bill that doesn't pass to a compromise bill that does.

He's right about one point: there are issues where there is no "viable middle ground." Slavery was one; we could not be a nation half slave and half free. The war on terrorism is another: either you're with us or you're with the terrorists.

There are black and white issues; but it is sheer folly to see every issue as so stark a choice, with one winner and everyone else a loser. Even day and night have a twilight between them. We must find a viable middle ground here, or we shall have no ground to stand on whatsoever... and we shall have done it to ourselves.

That sound you hear is the rumble of electoral doom, as half the GOP, like Samson, pulls the temple down upon all our heads -- their own, included.

Do they think of the other half as Philistines, because they would rather see a good compromise bill that passes and moves the ball forward... than stand fast on purity of essence, refuse to settle for anything short of "perfection," and therefore accomplishing nothing whatsoever?

The other sound you hear is the joyous ululation of the Democrats, as they watch the Republican Party tear itself apart over this issue like sharks in a feeding frenzy... because one side of the debate is unwilling to give even one angry inch:

• Bush supported the fence!
• Bush supported a crackdown on employers of illegals!
• Bush supported enforcing the existing laws!
• Bush supported ending "catch and release" of illegals!

And that wasn't enough, because he didn't come out swinging against guest workers and for mass deportation:

As soon as he started talking about guest worker programs and the impossibility of deporting 11 million illegals, it was all over.

So that's it; if the anti-immigrant side of the GOP -- fair or not, that is the impression they leave -- persists in this folly, the idea that we can round up and deport eleven million people, and that we can just seal off the border and keep all the foreigners out, then bid adieu to the House, the Senate, and the White House, and gird yourself for twenty years of absolute hell on Earth. Because if we blow this, then that's how long the Republicans will have to wander in the wilderness until we're back in power.

Twenty years of socialist misery. Twenty years of staggering tax increases. Twenty years of racial preference poured down our throats with a gasoline funnel. Twenty years of imperialist judges nullifying elections and ruling by decree.

Twenty years of increasingly savage terrorist attacks; America will be Israel under Barak.

But at least, thank God, we will have stuck to our guns and refused to compromise in any way, shape, form, manner, style, jot, or tittle.

For the love of God, people... compromise means you must give a little. There is a middle ground. And if I'm wrong, if there is not, then we are all lost -- because John's side does not have the support of the American people and will never win.

Here are our choices:

1. We settle on a reasonable compromise bill that includes both border enforcement and also immigration reform, a guest-worker program, and some eventual normalization; and we try to make it the best bill we can, given those constraints; or...
2. We rend the party, the Democrats win, and then you'll find out what "amnesty" and "open borders" really mean. And minor things like the entire war on jihadi terrorism will trampled underfoot by the Democratic thugs who seize control of our country.

And all for the want of the simple art of giving a little to get a lot.

Think. Think. Think two times, three times... and don't throw away this magnificent opportunity -- just because you only get three-quarters of a loaf instead of the whole bloody thing on a golden plate.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 15, 2006, at the time of 09:17 PM | Comments (45) | TrackBack

First Impressions: Bush's Speech On Immigration

I'm splitting my initial response to Bush's speech tonight into three sections: Content, Delivery, and the Reaction I expect it will receive.

Content

Overall, I liked the speech quite a bit. I wish President Bush had been more explicit about the fence; but he did mention it not once but twice, so there is no question he supports some amount of actual, real, physical fencing along the border.

The president unambiguously distinguished the fence from a mere "security barrier," which he prefers for the rural areas where few people are crossing now; the implication is that the barrier would be less aggressive than the fence, more like a classic vehicle-barrier -- chicanes, concrete blocks, checkpoints, maybe even automated spike-strips that can deploy in front of a vehicle trying to run the checkpoint (we use these in some places in Iraq).

So real, actual, and tough walls ("fencing") in high-traffic areas where there is a lot of illegal immigration, and a barrier in rural areas where there is some but not much illegal crossings, with those areas where there are few to no crossings covered only by a "virtual fence" (as others have called it; Bush didn't use that term) of motion detectors, infrared cameras, and Predator drones overhead (but presumably sans the Hellfire missiles.)

Also on the enforcement side, the prez noted that he had increased the Border Patrol from 9,000 when he was first inaugurated to 12,000 today; and he called for increasing them to somewhere above 18,000 -- which would more than double the 2001 level. But he will call upon governors to allocate 6,000 National Guardsmen to assist the current Border Patrol (increasing the manpower to 18,000 as soon as the state NGs come aboard) for one year; thereafter, each increase in trained and deployed Border Patrol would be matched by a decrease in the Guard.

Huh, he missed the opportunity to say, "as the Border Patrol stands up, the National Guard will stand down." (See now if Big Lizards had been writing his speeches, he would have been hounded from office long ago.)

I like this, but I don't think it's going to be very effective. Under posse comitatus, if Bush nationalizes the Guard, then they probably cannot be used on the border -- even if, as he says, they won't conduct any law enforcement operations. But if he doesn't nationalize them, it will be up to the individual governors; and some -- e.g., Arnold Schwarzenegger of my home state of California -- have already signalled they're not on board with this proposal. Maybe the feds can armtwist the governors on this; but in California's case, there may actually be more "immigration activists" opposing anything that seals off the borders to illegals than there are ordinary people who want to see an end to illegal immigration.

So you read it here first: I predict that no matter how much the feds call for state National Guard units to deploy on the border, California, Arizona, and New Mexico will not play along... at least not to the extent that Bush envisions.

Still, some is better than none; I'm sure he'll get cooperation from Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. I have no idea what Gov. Blanco of Louisiana will do: she's a liberal, but LA blacks are not exactly pro-illegal-immigration; and of course, she wants lots of federal aid -- so maybe Congress could include a federal-funding stick for non-complying states to go along with any carrots that are offered in the way of federal help to local law enforcement that works with federal cops on illegal immigration.

He discussed the guest-worker program and "normalization" of those illegals already here; and I was very pleased that he made quite a point of connecting these to border security. He hasn't read Big Lizards enough, or else he would have used my phrase: there is no wall so strong that a million people pushing won't knock it down.

But he did say that there are so many people desperate to come here that a wall and enforcement, no matter how strong, cannot keep them out. That it's imperative to reduce the number of folks trying to get in here illegally... and the only way to do that is to give them a legal way of doing so. (He also failed to use my analogy of a dam, with and without a spillway. His people really do need to get in touch with my people!)

I was disappointed that he didn't talk about rationalizing the legal immigration system, but he certainly didn't oppose it. I keep hoping that any comprehensive reform will include changing the current system -- arbitrary, byzantine, nationality-based, corrupt, and so bureaucratic it makes the Department of Motor Vehicles seem positively user-friendly -- to one that is rational, explicable, fair to everyone, clear about what prospective immigrants must do, and with an enforced time-table for response by the USCIS (the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, what used to be called the INS).

But all in all, the content of this speech is a very, very good start to a compromise bill that nobody will love -- but that everybody can live with. And that's what a compromise is, b'gad.

Delivery

At the beginning, Bush seemed oddly hesitant, as if he had not had enough practice time; but within a few minutes, he got into the swing of it, and the speech went smoother from there.

As usual, he came across (to me) as sincere, heartfelt, and intelligent. As usual, I'm sure he came across to die-hard liberals as a lying Fascist weasel with the IQ of an eggplant, and to die-hard Tancredoites as Vicente Fox's sock puppet... for whatever that may be worth.

Not his best delivered speech; those are invariably his stump speeches, of course, since he has the opportunity to refine them over weeks of giving them all over the country. But not his worst speech, either; his worst are always those where he is doing something purely for political reasons, and not because he really believes what he's saying... such as the "steel tariffs" speech.

He believes what he said today; he just didn't have a lot of time to practice it, as it was likely being revised up until moments before he delivered it.

Reaction

The most important question is how the Republican base will react. I think they'll be pleased, by and large: a month ago, this speech would have been a lot "softer," with less explicit discussion of border control and a more lenient guest-worker and "normalization" section.

Bush is now much more oriented towards border enforcement than he was, and he recognizes that the base matters: George W. Bush has "grown" on this issue.

I believe Bush's approval rating among conservatives will rise; but it's not going to be sudden. They want to wait and see how he interacts with the House and Senate. For example, will Bush support the amendment offered by Sen. Sessions to add an actual fence into the Senate bill?

Jeff Sessions -- excuse me, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (can you tell he's from the South?) -- wants to amend the Senate bill to add 370 miles of actual fence, plus 500+ miles of vehicle barriers. Majority Leader Frist (R-TN) is very strongly behind it, and I suspect Bush will embrace this, too. But until he does, I think conservatives are going to be skeptical.

I'm afraid some so-called "conservatives" barely listened to the speech; since the only thing many of them would ever accept is pure enforcement, mass deportations, and internment camps -- no guest workers, no normalization, and nothing else -- there was no reason even to bother with what the president said: I suspect many had their responses already written before Bush even spoke, and they simply waited until the speech ended before clicking the Publish button (for the sake of appearances).

Hugh Hewitt, in a nutty update that caters to this mob, wrote this about fifteen minutes after Bush finished talking:

Memo to Tony Snow: The blogosphere/talk radio callers/e-mailers are turning against this speech in a decisive fashion. They simply do not believe the Administration is really committed to border enforcement, and the spokespeople sent out to back up the president's message aren't doing that job. Period.

Decisive? After a quarter of an hour?

If this really is true, then "the blogosphere/talk radio callers/e-mailers" are all a bunch of horses' asses. However, I really doubt that those Huge is hearing from now, in the first couple, three hours after the speech, will be truly representative of that vast body of intellectual opinion (for which I have a lot more respect).

Much more likely, at the moment, Hugh is hearing from the Perpetually Aggrieved wing of the Republican Party (which has its much larger counterpart among the Democras), who could barely contain themselves until the speech was actually delivered to e-mail Hugh that they hated it. I'm sure Frank Gaffney is beside himself with indignation; but I prefer Power Line's blog-of-the-week the Strata-Sphere, where A.J. Strata proves himself a man of intelligence, wisdom, courage, and sincerity. (By which I mean he agrees with me, of course.)

Today conservatives and Americans across this nation, especially those who voted for George W Bush, should be thankful for what we have accomplished and for having George Bush as President. My tolerance for the whiners who don’t get all they want, or who say the pace of getting America to become more responsive to conservative ideas is too slow, is totally used up. Tonight, when George Bush speaks his is going to discuss how we can take SOME steps towards getting a handle on immigration and the security threats it represents.... [All emphasis added]

I have no words of thanks to those who are so frustrated they have turned on Bush when he needs our support, and threaten to sit out elections. Why would I have any thanks for that kind of action? I am thankful we avoided a President Gore and President Kerry. Gore would have lost his mind after 9-11 (look at how he handled the 2000 election). And Kerry would have been so confused about what to do he would have signed legislation beforing vetoing it.

All right, this is just my first, few, brief thoughts on the subject of Bush's speech on immigration. I'm certain I'll have something much more substantial -- and much longer -- to say later, when I've had a chance to digest. (Metaphorically and also literally; we're just about to eat dinner here at Lizard Central.)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, May 15, 2006, at the time of 07:20 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

April 07, 2006

A Modest Proposal

A number of people (such as Charles Krauthammer) have proposed that we build the wall first, and then, only after it's shown to be working, legalize the illegals already here.

All right; let's set aside, for the time being, any talk of legalization of those already here. What about the other, forgotten issue of reforming legal immigration?

My argument all along has been that there is no wall so strong that a million people pushing on it won't knock it down. I say that if honest men can enter through the front door in God's own daylight, then only thugs, goons, and terrorists will try to enter in the Devil's night through the window. These are arguments about legal immigration and legal guest workers -- they have nothing to do with regularizing those already here.

Not even Tom Tancredo can say that rationalizing our legal immigration policy is "amnesty." (Amnesty for what?)

So here is my modest proposal. I wonder if Krauthammer, or anybody else who says he is only against illegal immigration, will join me in this?

1. We start building the wall immediately. Not "start the process," but start sinking steel poles and laying concrete. We just grab the map the House used for its 700-mile proposal and start construction. (We can start on May Day, just to freak out the Left.) With me so far?

2. At the same time, we rationalize the legal immigration process. I don't mean make it easier or drop any requirements; heck, I might want to add requirements for legal immigration. By "rationalize," I mean a set of rules that lead automatically to a Green Card and eventual citizenship, no matter how many years it takes (within reason -- 80 years is right out). All I want to see is: "if I follow these steps, I will get permanent residency; if I then follow these other steps, I will become an American citizen."

   Not "then maybe I'll get a Green Card," or "I might be allowed to be a citizen." A flat, automatic system: jump through the following hoops, whatever they are, and you've got it automatically, without the immigrant having to petition the USCIS and hope they decide in his favor (the USCIS can stop a particular case if something serious comes up).

3. At the same time, put into place a guest worker program... for which the alien can only apply from his country of origin, not from within the United States. This is to prevent people currently here illegally from piggybacking onto it (unless of course they sneak back across the border and apply from Mexico; but how could we even know that?)
4. We drop the hammer on companies still employing illegals, notwithstanding the guest worker program; we detect violations by whatever means we choose to put into place.

Notice something? No legalization of current illegals at all! Didn't even bring it up. This is entirely and completely about securing the border, rationalizing our current legal immigration, and setting up a system to bleed off those folks who just want to come here and work and are willing to do so legally. The latter two points are designed to take pressure off the wall so it will work... the "spillway in the dam," as I have characterized it.

After this has worked for a while (assuming it does), only then do we talk about legalizing the illegals.

How about this? Is this acceptable to hard-core immigration conservatives?

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 07, 2006, at the time of 10:31 PM | Comments (53) | TrackBack

Goodbye D.C., Hello Baghdad

I cannot, will not join in this Snoopy dance of glee at the complete inability of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to come to agreement on a very fair and reasonable immigration compromise. Every single substantive objection on either side can be fixed. The fixes are not difficult to find. There is only one objection that is insurmountable: liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans appear have allied to force the bill to collapse.

One of those two groups is rationally pursuing its own self interest; it will actually benefit at the ballot box if the effort collapses completely. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) is not in that group. The reality is that if this bill ends up collapsing, it will cause Republicans to lose seats in the House and Senate in November... which hurts conservatives in Congress a heck of a lot more than it hurts Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) or Harry Reid (D-Las Vegas).

It's unfathomable to me that men and women who belong to the world's most exclusive club, what it pleases them to call "the greatest deliberative body in the world," are congenitally incapable of deliberating. Instead they posture, the proclaim, they throw hysterical tantrums. They act more like the Shia in the Iraqi National Assembly than like grown-up adults who actually care about America. Goodbye, D.C., and hello Baghdad.

The deal has collapsed (at least for the moment) because of conservative Republican attempts to amend the bill (two amendments in particular) and the Democrats' filibuster of those amendments. So let's start with the amendments themselves.

In theory, they're not bad; but the devil once again lurks (as usual) in the details:

One amendment would have required the Department of Homeland Security to certify that the border was secure before creating a guest worker program or granting legal status to illegal immigrants. Another would have had the legalization program bar illegal immigrants who had deportation orders or had been convicted of a felony or three misdemeanors. Democratic critics of the proposals said they were intended to ensure that the legalization process would never be implemented.

Gosh, who could argue with those? What possible reason could there be not to -- all right, let's actually think a second time about each:

Require certification of border security before implementing immigration reform

Fine. I have no objection to the theory, but -- how exactly does the amendment define "secure?" Does this mean the DHS has only to certify that the wall and fence have been properly built? Or does it mean he must guarantee that it's impossible for even a single illegal to cross the border? If the latter, that could not be legally certified in a hundred years.

Do conservatives offer this amendment in order to advance the issue, or to kill the entire bill? If they're being honest about it, they will be willing to negotiate exactly what constitutes "secure" enough for the DHS to certify. They will offer standards that can actually be satisfied within a reasonable timeframe, say two to three years. Honest Democrats are willing to negotiate those standards, to make sure they allow certification within two or three years -- not thirty or forty, or never.

But if either side simply wants to collapse the entire effort, it's easy enough: just insist upon the impossible -- either a level of security that can never be achieved, or refuse to require any such certification whatsoever, which is equally unreasonable.

Permanently bar from citizenship illegals who have been deported or been convicted of felonies or multiple misdemeanors

Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this idea; but it can easily be turned into a poison pill. For example... do they include under the deportation clause immigrants deported for no reason other than having been caught? If so, it's absurd: this part of the bill is already directed solely at persons illegally in the country. Are they really saying we only want as citizens those illegals clever enough not to have been nabbed? What is it, a proxy IQ test?

Or by "deported," do they mean those deported for reasons much stronger than "you were caught here illegally?" If they mean the latter, then conservatives must spell out exactly what deportation reasons provoke the permanent ban.

And felonies are one thing; but three misdemeanors? Do they really mean that if an immigrant was a stupid teenager twenty years ago, and if he went on a one-night spree knocking over garbage cans and got convicted of three counts of malicious mischief, that he is forever barred from becoming a citizen? That is quite literally insane.

If conservatives have any interest at all in actually coming to some agreement, they must be willing to negotiate exactly what criminal convictions and reasons for deportation will permanently bar citizenship.

Democrats who want a bill will be willing to allow a vote on such a list of crimes. This requires all Democrats to go on record either saying they want to let murderers and rapists into the country... or else accepting that some people won't qualify for citizenship because of bad character. But moderate Democrats will agree to both amendments (or at least agree to vote on them), if they are reasonable and spelled out in detail.

Who's got hand?

The distinction is this: if the liberal Democrats negotiate in bad faith and manage to force a collapse, they win at the ballot box. If the conservative Republicans force collapse through sheer pigheadedness and refusal to compromise... then they lose in November.

But the conservatives are driving the bus right now; they've got the upper hand. If they negotiate in good faith, they have the power to force a successful resolution. The moderate Republicans are already on board, and 55 Republicans need only five Democrats to stop a filibuster.

In the last test on Wednesday night, an even tougher vote against cloture on the Democratic version of immigration reform got (surprise!) four moderate Democrats and one Democratic nutcase to vote with the Republicans:

Voting against cloture were all 55 Republicans (including co-sponsors McCain and Specter) and five Democrats, who stiffed their own party boss, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Caesar's Palace): Robert Byrd (WV), Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL), Kent Conrad (ND), and Byron Dorgan (ND). Of this group, only Sen. Dorgan is not running for reelection this year... and he may have felt obliged to support his fellow NoDak, Kent Conrad, who is.

So here is the stark choice:

1. If conservative Republicans are willing to negotiate their amendments in good faith, they'll be joined by moderate Republicans and enough moderate Democrats to overcome any filibuster, allowing reasonable changes to strengthen enforcement in the immigration reform bill.
2. Contrariwise, if the conservatives insist upon unreasonable amendments, they won't get the Democrats; in which case, they will be unable to amend the bill at all, because they can't break Harry Reid's filibuster without Democratic votes.
3. Without amendment, the bill collapses... which benefits only the liberal Democrats -- not the conservatives, the moderate Republicans, or even the moderate Democrats.
4. Victory or defeat is entirely in the hands of conservatives: if they will negotiate in good faith, they (and the country) will win. If they insist upon "my way or the highway," everybody loses -- except Reid and Pelosi, of course.

People must understand that conservatives are a minority in Congress, as they are in the country. They cannot simply cram a pure-enforcement bill down everybody's throat. It's not in the cards; it won't happen.

If they try hard, however, they can gain enough support to make reasonable changes:

• Define what it means for the border to be "secure" and make it reasonable enough that it's just two or three years away -- not thirty or forty.
• Define exactly what crimes bar citizenship, so we don't end up with mass numbers of people being denied for trivial offenses that even many sitting members of Congress have committed.

With those amendments and perhaps a few others -- emphasis on reasonable -- they can get on with the negotiation and light this candle. They can actually achieve something.

Or they can clench their fists and refuse to back down even an inch. They can become the most Do-Nothing Congress since the 80th in 1948, as Hugh Hewitt likes to say. Like the Shia in Baghdad, they can bring democracy to a screeching halt.

Until November.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 07, 2006, at the time of 06:34 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

The Continental Divide

There are two basic camps on immigration; the camp you choose typically determines your positions and priorities.

• Illegal immigrants are essentially criminals.
• Illegal immigrants are essentially thwarted freedom-seekers.

There is an interesting geographic dispersal about these camps: the first is primarily found in states that have very few illegal immigrants, the second primarily in states that have a very large illegal population -- though of course there are campsites of each in each type of state.

To characterize the first camp:

And I'll also characterize the other camp -- to which I note I firmly belong:

So which camp are you? It's a good proxy measurement for whether you support or oppose the current Senate compromise legislation.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 07, 2006, at the time of 04:29 AM | Comments (28) | TrackBack

April 06, 2006

Patterico's Brilliant Idea

Over on Patterico's Pontifications, Patterico has a great idea for a codicil to be added to immigration reform pending in both the House and Senate:

We will never deport the millions of illegals currently residing in the country. But, as I have previously argued, we can use our scarce enforcement resources to target violent criminals. [All emphasis added by BL]

While many illegals are hardworking folk, some are robbers, kidnappers, rapists, violent gang members, and murderers. Police officers often know who these individuals are — yet they have their hands tied by local policy.

Targeting violent illegals makes good sense.

Patterico hasn't been posting much lately; I suspect he's in trial on some major prosecution. It's good to see him back today, and with an excellent suggestion for an amendment to the bill in Congress.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 06, 2006, at the time of 04:36 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Breaking: Senate Compromises On Immigration Reform

In a shocking example of comity, the Senate -- including most Democrats -- appears to have coalesced around the compromise bill of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist; the Democrats appear to have dropped their objections both to the "no felony convictions" rule for citizenship, and also to the lack of guaranteed re-entry for those illegals who have been here less than two years: they're still obliged to return to their countries of origin and apply for readmission, but under this bill, they can be denied for any of a number of reasons.

What may have turned the Senate around is the decisive, crushing rejection of the original McCain-Kennedy-Spector bill passed out of the J-Com. In the vote to end debate (cloture vote on a filibuster), the bill needed to get 60 votes. It garnered 39, less than two-thirds what it needed. In fact, in a bipartisan mauling of Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Edward Kennedy (D-Margaritaville), 60 senators voted against ending debate.

Voting against cloture were all 55 Republicans (including co-sponsors McCain and Specter) and five Democrats, who stiffed their own party boss, Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Caesar's Palace): Robert Byrd (WV), Ben Nelson (NE), Bill Nelson (FL), Kent Conrad (ND), and Byron Dorgan (ND). Of this group, only Sen. Dorgan is not running for reelection this year... and he may have felt obliged to support his fellow NoDak, Kent Conrad, who is.

Slipping a bit on the bloodstained Senate floor, Reid then rushed to express support, late last night, for the Frist bill; as Big Lizards predicted late last night (early this morning, for you sun people), "this is one of those rare occasions where both sides really do want a bill."

As we noted, the Frist bill is almost the same as the one rejected, except for introducing a three-part classification of illegals:

1. Those here five years or more need not return to their home countries; they can apply for guaranteed legal status in situ (after paying back taxes, paying a fine, and only if they can show they have continuously worked -- no welfare, I think this means -- and if they don't have any felony convictions already). This group comprises about 60% of the 11 million - 12 million illegals, according to Dr. Sen. Frist, or 6.6 to 7.2 millions.
2. Those here between two and five years do have to return to their countries of origin and apply for readmission; but they are guaranteed re-entry if they meet the requirements above. I have seen no figures on how big a percent this group is of the remainder.
3. Those here less than two years have to return (if they want legal status), but they are not guaranteed re-entry. If they don't, they're subject to deportation (if caught).

We're not particularly happy about that last category; the most likely response is that most of those in Camp Three won't return or legalize at all. But since the bill also heavily increases border security -- I'm sure there is a virtual fence, and I think the bill authorizes a physical fence across some of the southern border, but don't hold my feet to the grindstone on that one -- and also coils like an anaconda around businesses that hire illegals, it will be significantly more difficult for illegals to operate here with the sort of impunity they have enjoyed for decades.

This could actually work... because in addition to a fence (virtual or physical), and in addition to regularizing those already here, the bill also sets up a guest worker program for future in-and-outers and clarifies the path to citizenship for future immigrants; this means decent people who want to come here for honest reasons have a legal way to do so -- and therefore no reason to pay a coyote to sneak them past the border.

This takes a lot of the pressure off the system and allows us to vigorously enforce the border laws: when customers with legitimate business can enter through the front door in broad daylight, it's much more acceptable to drop the hammer on people slithering in through the window at night.

The House earlier passed a bill that was all cop and no compassion: straight, heavy-handed border protection, including declaring that those here illegally, however long, were guilty of a felony, and could therefore never become citizens. The House version didn't even offer a nod to those who desperately want to become Americans, or even just work here honestly for a while, but who cannot, for various reasons, navigate through the labyrinth of immigration law.

This House bill (or a substitute) will have to be reconciled with the Senate's bill in the joint committee... but House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) has already signalled that it would be possible for the House to support a compromise bill, so long as it also contains tough enforcement measures -- which the current Senate version does.

So we at Big Lizards have very high hopes for this version of immigration reform: it's a solid bill, it has strong backing that is even (I can't believe I'm typing this word) bipartisan; and the president is eager to sign it.

This will go a long way towards allowing the Republicans to do well in the November elections. If nothing else, they can point to this major bill, the most significant immigration reform in two decades (and a lot better than Reagan's amnesty program, since this bill is not amnesty -- except for those right-wingers who redefine the word "amnesty" the way lefties redefine "civil war"). I presume they'll also confirm a few more conservative judges and will probably vote to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. That presents a flurry of action on issues important to Republicans and will bring them out to vote.

The senators finally stopped "foaming at the mouth" and got down to brokering a deal. Good job, fellows!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 06, 2006, at the time of 03:04 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Heck, Big Lizards Can Break This Silly Logjam

According to AP, there are now two competing Senate immigration-reform proposals, one pushed by Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Las Vegas), the other by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Nashville). Hey, it's Lounge vs. Country!

They're both pretty similar at this point. Here's AP:

In general, both bills would increase border security, regulate the flow of future immigrants and offer legal status to many of the men, women and children who came to the United States unlawfully or overstayed their visas.

The rival plans differ on the details, though, and so far, at least, attempts at a bipartisan compromise have failed.

Each side is filibustering the other's bill; that means each bill has to get 60 votes to move on, you'll pardon the phrase. Since there are only 55 Republicans and only 45 Democrats (counting Jumpin' Jim Jeffords as a Democrat, since that's who he caucuses with), without some crossover voting, neither side can budge an inch. It's an impasse!

So what exactly are these demonic "details" that evidently contain the Devil?

In general [AP seems to like that meaningless prepositional phrase], the measure backed by Democrats would grant most of the 11 million immigrants legalized status and the opportunity to apply for citizenship after meeting several conditions. They include payment of a fine and any back taxes, passing a background check and learning English.

By contrast, the Republican approach requires illegal immigrants who have been in the United States between two years and five years to return to their home country briefly, then re-enter as temporary workers. They could then begin a process of seeking citizenship.

Illegal immigrants here longer than five years would not be required to return home; those in the country less than two years would be required to leave without assurances of returning, and take their place in line with others seeking entry papers.

If we were brokering this debate, we'd have a workable compromise in about two minutes. We warned about this "poison pill." Remember what Big Lizards wrote in an earlier post?

And even here, the main bone of contention seems to be pretty simple: the McCain-Kennedy camp wants to be able to regularize them in situ, after they pay a fine and all back taxes; but the Cornyn camp wants them to do all that, but still be required to return to their country of origin and then be readmitted here legally.

I think the reason the McCainiacs (which includes me on this one, special issue) are so opposed to forcing the illegal immigrants -- and I do mean immigrants, not workers -- to return and then try to be readmitted is their sneaking suspicion (which I share) that what the Cornynites really want is to trick them into returning to their countries of origin... so they can say "ha ha, you're never getting back in... never!"

Clearly, that same fear will occur to illegal immigrants. Without some sort of legal assurances, they won't leave; they would rather stay here illegally than return "home" without any hope of being allowed back into what they consider their real home, the United States.

If your goal is to get illegal immigrants to exit and then be readmitted legally, you must guarantee they will, in fact, be readmitted, assuming nothing disqualifying arises during the reentry security checks. Without such assurance, the reentry provision is just a poison pill to kill the whole deal, and the demand for it is dishonest.

The fix appears pretty simple. Here is the compromise bill that could gather 35-40 of the Republicans and maybe half or more of the Democrats (that's a low of 57-58 in favor, if you're counting; close enough that they can probably break the filibuster -- since this is one of those rare occasions where both sides really do want a bill):

The Senate should go with the Frist bill, with one change: those illegals who have been here less than two years still have to exit and re-enter the country legally... but they're guaranteed readmission, unless the background check turns up something really bad, like a felony conviction.

One interesting side issue: earlier today, Sen. Reid threatened to filibuster against an amendment, offered by Johns Kyl (R-AZ) and Cornyn (R-TX), to permanently refuse citizenship to illegals who were convicted of a felony. Power Line covered this; here is the pertinent passage:

This is astonishing: Blog of the Week Right Wing News notes that Senate Democrats have successfully blocked an amendment to the immigration bill now under consideration that would have prevented aliens convicted of felonies from becoming citizens:

Democrats said the amendment would "gut" the immigration bill under consideration in the Senate and refused to allow a vote on it.

So now the Democrats are using the filibuster to protect the "right" of convicted felons who have emigrated to the U.S. illegally to become citizens. How can they possibly justify that, you ask? Beats me:

"I do not have to explain in any more detail than what I have as why I don't want to move forward," Mr. Reid said. "I don't agree with the amendment. I don't think it's going to benefit this legislation that is pending before the Senate and I'm going to do what I can to prevent a vote on it."

Later, Mr. Reid added, "We're not going to allow amendments like Kyl-Cornyn to take out what we believe is the goodness of this bill."

Big Lizards has sussed this one out, too: in the poisoned atmosphere of the Senate, Sens. Reid, Kyle, and Cornyn are simply not talking to each other... and Harry Reid believes that the "felony" rule, in conjunction with the House bill making it a felony to be in the country illegally at all, is meant to sneakily bar all illegal aliens from ever becoming citizens.

So how about restoring the felony rule for re-entering illegals... but write right into the clause that it only applies to felonies other than being in the country illegally or "smuggling aliens" -- which Right Wing News notes is actually one of the felonies in question. (Smuggling aliens could be interpreted to mean an illegal alien bringing his wife and kids into the United States along with himself.) Maybe we could bar professional "coyotes" but not aliens who "smuggled" in other aliens for non-monetary, non-felonious reasons.

That legal assurance should allay Democrats' fears that this is just a backdoor way to bar all illegals from re-entering once they've left in order to re-enter -- which would be a dirty trick indeed, and would make Republicans look just like the racists the Democrats always accuse us of being.

There. Problems solved. It's amazing how easy this all is... when you're not a thin-skinned, hysterical, hyperpartisan, foaming-at-the-mouth D.C. politician on the warpath, I mean.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 06, 2006, at the time of 05:48 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

April 04, 2006

A Tale of Two Cities

I won't say this is my last word on immigration reform, because something interesting might crop up. But I'll be loath to post anything more unless I think of a totally different angle.

An article by Herbert Meyer (via RealClearPolitics blog) notes a distinction I only recently internalized: the difference between immigrants and guests.

The distinction is simple to explain but profound in its implications:

• An immigrant wants to renounce his citizenship in his country of origin (usually birth but not always) and become an American;
• A guest wants only to visit for a time; this includes tourists, students, and workers (legal and illegal). A guest worker, of course, wants to come here and work, then go back home.

These two groups create two radically different "cities," which can exist in the same physical space: on the right hand, a city of foreigners who are really just Americans in training, who think and act as much like Americans as they can; and on the left hand, a city of foreigner who like being foreign, who don't like America or Americans, who may even seethe in resentment that the American Southwest was "stolen" from Mexico (to which it actually never belonged) -- a city of people marching in the streets waving Mexican flags and holding signs that say "this is MY continent!"

The immigration debate, then, is a tale of two cities; and which city you see determines which side you're on. But if we look a little closer, close enough to determine fine distinctions, we discover that it's really one city after all. Only then can we slip carefully through the barbed wire to create a plan to satisfy both camps in Congress.

Terrorists are rarely immigrants; there is too much scrutiny, too many background checks. They normally come as tourists or students, or they just sneak across the border. Guests are the biggest security risk; immigrants, even when here illegally, are the most valuable of the people seeking admission to the country.

The most important issue related to any of this is protecting the border. While I believe that no wall can work without first separating out those people -- immigrant and guest -- who come here for benign reasons from those who come here for malicious reasons... it is equally true that no such reformation of the rules can work unless you control the borders. Otherwise, everyone you don't want to admit will just sneak in anyway. Realistically, the two programs must be done simultaneously, like lifting ourselves by tugging on our own bootstraps.

Once the borders are better controlled, though, my first concern is towards regularizing and rationalizing our immigration system; doing the same for guests (including guest workers) can come later. So if we had to drop one or the other from the bill currently slithering its way through the Senate, I would prefer to lose the guest-worker program than immigration reform.

Ideally, I want all four programs: border security, immigration reform, a better managed guest-worker program -- and regularization of those immigrants already here illegally, but whom we would otherwise be happy to admit under the reformed immigration system. But the guest-worker program is least important of those four.

Which is good, because it appears one of the most contentious. I doubt that anyone, not even Tom-Tom Tancredo, would raise a serious objection to rationalizing the immigration system: making a clear path to citizenship encourages exactly the sort of committed immigrants we need. Nobody can be in favor of an arbitrary system where applicants have no clue what they're supposed to do to become citizens.

And the only people who could possibly oppose better border control are politicians who hope to be reelected on the illegal votes of non-citizens (the Sanchez Sisters spring to mind).

The big divide occurs over the last two problems: guest workerss and people already here illegally (guests or immigrants). These are two partially overlapping groups, but it's easiest to split them into three groups: guest workers here legally; illegal workers; and illegal immigrants:

1. How many legal guests should we allow? All who want to come; only those who we determine, to the best of our ability, are not threats; a predefined number of those we determine are not threats; or none at all?
2. What do we do with people who are already here illegally but have no interest in living here permanently?

I don't believe there is much to argue about these two categories. First, we come to agreement on how many legal guest workers to admit; any question of numbers can be compromised (that's what Congress does best).

After settling that point, it's easy to deal with the next: if enough guest workers can enter legally, then we can drop the hammer on employers who hire people still coming illegally. That should drastically reduce this group, because if the workers can't get jobs, they'll go home (where it's much cheaper to live).

The big, tough question is the third:

3. What do we do about the millions of people who are here illegally -- but only because our immigration system is so screwed up, they can't get in legally, even though there is nothing wrong with them: they're sane, decent, honest, hard-working people who only want a better life for themselves and their families. This number is far less than the 12 million we hear about, because many of those are Cat-2 (illegal workers), not Cat-3 (illegal immigrants).

We're talking here about people who would be happy to immigrate here legally, following all the rules and jumping through all the hoops -- except that we have such a wretched system, they can't figure out what to do. They keep being rebuffed, but nobody will tell them why or what they can do to fix the problem or make themselves more attractive applicants. In desperation, they sneak in or overstay a student or tourist visa.

And even here, the main bone of contention seems to be pretty simple: the McCain-Kennedy camp wants to be able to regularize them in situ, after they pay a fine and all back taxes; but the Cornyn camp wants them to do all that, but still be required to return to their country of origin and then be readmitted here legally.

I think the reason the McCainiacs (which includes me on this one, special issue) are so opposed to forcing the illegal immigrants -- and I do mean immigrants, not workers -- to return and then try to be readmitted is their sneaking suspicion (which I share) that what the Cornynites really want is to trick them into returning to their countries of origin... so they can say "ha ha, you're never getting back in... never!"

Clearly, that same fear will occur to illegal immigrants. Without some sort of legal assurances, they won't leave; they would rather stay here illegally than return "home" without any hope of being allowed back into what they consider their real home, the United States.

If your goal is to get illegal immigrants to exit and then be readmitted legally, you must guarantee they will, in fact, be readmitted, assuming nothing disqualifying arises during the reentry security checks. Without such assurance, the reentry provision is just a poison pill to kill the whole deal, and the demand for it is dishonest.

The traditional response, that guaranteeing readmission provides an incentive for future immigrants to come here illegally, is a non-sequitur; since we're rationalizing the process anyway, it's easier for a person of good character to come legally than sneak across and hope for another piece of legislation down the road. And if the person is not of good character, they wouldn't be readmitted anyway.

Assuming everybody is honest, here then is a broad outline of a bill that would actually pass:

1. We control the borders by a combination of a real wall, an electronic wall created by advanced technology, and beefed up border- and law-enforcement agencies.
2. We decide how many guest workers (who can pass the threat firewall) we will admit legally, then make it easier for them to move through the steps than it currently is. The number should be higher than it is right now, since the number of illegal who can get jobs here indicates we're not admitting enough legals.
3. We tighten the noose around employers who hire illegals anyway... those not satisfied with cheap legal guest workers and want to maximize profits by hiring even cheaper illegal workers. We require employers to verify the status using the systemI wrote about earlier (like verifying a credit-card payment but with embedded photo and biometric information).
4. We rationalize the path to citizenship for immigrants. It can be long and arduous, but so long as they can see that they're making progress, they'll continue along it. Remove all race-based and country-of-origin-based quotas; if you want to control the numbers, use a point system based upon individual attainments or family situations.
5. Finally, we make all illegal immigrants first exit the country and then apply for readmission legally (after paying appropriate fines and back-taxes)... but we guarantee that if nothing untoward pops up during the reentry security checks, they will be readmitted; otherwise, they have no incentive to leave.

And with that, I believe you can get sixty senators and a majority in the House.

Big Lizards: solving society's scaley conundrums in the blogosphere!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 04, 2006, at the time of 07:42 PM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

March 30, 2006

Two Walls That Pass In the Night

"Atrocious Analogies" is the new topic of the day, mostly sparked by Captain Ed's otherwise excellent post George Will: Ich Bin Ein Ost-Berliner? -- both the atrocious analogy he accuses George Will of making, and the atrocious analogy that Ed himself makes!

Cap'n's "analogy" has been raised by a number of people opposed to the Senate J-Com's immigration plan and supportive of a "wall" (or fence) along the American southern border to keep out illegals, and that makes it worth discussing.

Ed's post is actually good; I especially like this point, noting the need for much stronger border control:

No illegal will enter a program that costs him significant fines and back taxes when all he has to do is stay quiet and keep crossing the border in both directions as he sees fit. As for learning English, that would certainly be a novel approach; we don't even make our legal immigrants do that any more, as evidenced by ballots in a plethora of languages and government-sponsored translators at all level of public services. [Emphasis added]

As you know -- or should, if you've been reading -- I too support such a wall, and for the same reasons Ed does (and George Will does, too); so my objection to Captain Ed's analogy is not ideological. It's literary: I think the Captain Ed analogy squashes conversation nearly as badly as does Will's, and both should be tossed in the dustbin of rhetorical history.

All right, all right, I'll tell you what they are. You demanding readers take all the mystery out of blogposts!

George Will makes his conservative case for the moderate approach to immigration reform, giving enough room for hard-line enforcement while arguing for eventual absorption of the illegals already inside the US. However, he starts out with an almost unforgivable analogy that will have border-enforcement readers seeing red before they ever get to the rest of his arguments:

America, the only developed nation that shares a long -- 2,000-mile -- border with a Third World nation, could seal that border. East Germany showed how: walls, barbed wire, machine gun-toting border guards in towers, mine fields, large, irritable dogs. And we have modern technologies that East Germany never had: sophisticated sensors, unmanned surveillance drones, etc.

That is, of course, the allegedly atrocious analogy that George Will made. Actually, it's not really atrocious: it is merely unfortunate. It wrongly invokes the image of a prison-country like the Soviet Union (and its satellite, East Germany), which repugnant image blinds otherwise rational folks like Captain Ed to the point Will is really trying to make... which is simply that such brutal force is what you need to prevent a large number of people from passing a wall -- it makes no difference which direction.

I'm no great admirer of Will; I think he's the most overrated supposed "thinker" of the supposed "conservative" persuasion. And this is one reason why: he is so enamored of the sound of his own typing that he really doesn't spend much time thinking at all.

My own dam analogy is much better: building a wall to stop immigration without also building a gate through the wall for the decent, law-abiding, and hard-working is like building a dam across a river -- without building a spillway for the water.

The lake you create will rise and rise, until eventually it will overtop the dam (a word I just learned recently in the brouhaha about the New Orleans levees), causing a horrific cascade over the top that will likely cause a catastrophic breach (a word I already knew). The water must go somewhere; it won't flow back upriver.

In reality, we really are talking about what George Will suggested: machine guns, minefields, razor-wire, helicopters, a huge military force diverted to the border (the Border Patrol cannot handle it, even at ten times its present size)... and a huge number of dead children, women, and men whose only crime was -- they wanted to live in "freedom." And it won't work anyway: there is no wall so strong that a million people pushing won't knock it down.

But wait, ab Hugh (I hear you ask), you said you support the wall. What gives?

I support a wall -- but only as part of a comprehensive solution that also includes three things:

1. A guest-worker program to temporarily admit those who just want to work here then migrate back across the border again;
2. A clearly defined path to citizenship -- neither arbitrary, nor racially or nationality based -- for those decent, honest, hard-working immigrants who want to live the American ideal;
3. Some mechanism to regularize those immigrants among the 12 million illegals who actually want to become citizens and at least register and regulate the rest, who only want to be guest workers.

(Note that I am now clearly separating 1 from 2.)

Once we have a door that the deserving can open, I have no objection to using Blackhawks and Predators on the felons still climbing through the windows.

I have an analogy for you, I hear you suggest: how about the walls separating Gaza and he West Bank from Israel? Aren't you in favor of those, too? Isn't that the real analogy?

Funny you should mention that. Here is what Captain Ed wrote:

Israel's border with the West Bank and Gaza provide a much clearer analogy. First and foremost, it's built to keep people out, not create a nation of prisoners. It also provides deterrence from illegal crossings, forcing Palestinians towards well-manned checkpoints where security reaches maximum efficiency. The idea is not to kill Palestinian crossers, but to keep them from trying to enter Israel illegally at all. And, by the way, it works; it has been the single most important tool the Israelis had in ending the intifadas. (And by the way, it's hard to argue that Israel isn't a developed nation, that the Palestinian territories aren't a Third World area, or that their border is less significant to Israel's national defense than our southern border.)

But it's easy to argue the one terrible flaw that spoils everything about this analogy: there are no hordes of decent, law-abiding, and hard-working Palestinians desperate to emmigrate to Israel. There is only one group of people trying to breach that wall: terrorists who want to butcher Jews by the thousands, if they only could, and drive them into the sea.

They let through a small number of day-workers, who must leave again at night. And that's pretty much it.

Israel protects its wall with soldiers, machine guns, and minefields... and it's perfectly proper to do so, since the only people likely to get killed are illegal combatants, terrorists, and mass murderers. There is no million people trying to knock down the Israeli "security fence;" there is a small group of a few hundred, and they're all people who deserve to die. (Yes, every human life has value; but sometimes, that "value" is a negative number.)

And that makes all the difference. A wall across our southern border may well work; I'm in favor of trying. But only under the circumstances I mentioned above. And in any event, there is no valid analogy at all with the wall that Israel built (is building), because they need only keep out bad guys -- while we need not only to do that but also to channel the hundreds of thousands of good guys. We need a dam with a spillway; Israel only needs a seawall.

There is one more atrocious analogy that I must highlight; again, it comes from Captain Ed's post -- and I really do like the post, if only the Captain (and George Will) would take better thought on their analogizing:

The rest of Will's column fares better, although I disagree with his emphasis on what will be an amnesty program in practice, if not in name.

A while back (I mean about twenty-five years ago) I read an article about "swinger" parties, which I must confess I know about only at second-hand, alas. Those are gatherings where a number of adults come to, well, copulate with each other in various permutations. The only money collected is whatever is necessary to buy the chips and soda (or whatever they drink at such places); the participants at the one in question were all middle-aged, middle-income folks who just liked sex a lot.

A politician was demanding that the city of Los Angeles ban such parties (in the city that contains Hollywood? fat chance!) And in the course of his argument to the LA City Council, he found occasion to declare that --

It's exactly like prostitution, except no money changes hands!

(I don't have the clipping in front of me, but the words are seared, seared in my brain. Along with another one that I'll reveal at the end.)

Captain, Captain... "amnesty" means a general pardon; and a "pardon" means to exempt from penalty, to let an offense pass without punishment.

It is impossible by definition for a program that fines lawbreakers to be an "amnesty" -- neither in name nor practice.

Folks can argue that the fines aren't stiff enough, or maybe that there should be prison time in some cases; but if punishment is meted out at all -- and a $2,000 fine is pretty stiff for such poor people -- then it ain't amnesty! (Even if the business pays it, then the business is being fined for the crime of hiring illegals.)

So let's either stuff the analogies back in the sack, or at least spend some time to come up with new ones that better fit the circumstances. These hoary, old cliches are bursting at the seams. Let's take the high road and win one for the Gipper, give it the old college try and put our thinking caps on. All's well that ends well!

(Oh, I almost forgot: back in 1984, I was at a conference on George Orwell at the Los Angeles World Science Fiction Convention. During the discussion of Orwell's chastisement of various leftist pamphleteers for their inelegant use of language, one anguished audience member leapt up and declared, "they're literally raping the language! They're literally raping the language!" Then he sat down again. Friend Lee and I were the only two spectators to burst out laughing.)

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 30, 2006, at the time of 04:53 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

March 28, 2006

Border Control, Immigration Law Reform, Assimilation

This post is brief, almost a "stub," as Wikipedia likes to call its one-paragraph discussions of larger topics. The three legs of the immigration stool are:

1. Improved border control;
2. Rational reform of the entire system of immigration law, from who gets in, to who can work, to who can stay.
3. A much larger focus on assimilation, which must be made mandatory for permanent residency and citizenship.

Border Control

Ideas include a real wall, a "virtual wall," a high-tech biometric-imprinted ID card, more Border Patrol agents.

Rational Reform of Immigration Law

A defined and well-understood path to residency and citizenship: if you do the following good things (hold a job, learn English, invest in America through buying a house, say), and if you refrain from doing the following bad things (commit a crime, go bankrupt, receive welfare, whatever), then you will receive a Green Card after the appropriate length of time; and you will eventually become a citizen.

No more guessing, hoping and praying, hiring lawyers, or pleading with congressmen; a clear, defined path that is the same for everyone.

One very big change requires a constitutional amendment: I think we should change the birthright citizenship clause so that a person is only an American by birth if he is born in the United States to a mother who is legally resident... either a Green-Card holder or at least a legally resident alien. If Mom sneaks across the border and gives birth, the child is not automatically a citizen of the United States.

Assimilation

One huge advantage of immigrating to America is that we do not require you to give up your ethnic or religious identity in order to become an American. Anybody here know an Italian-American? How about a Mexican-American, Japanese-American, or Arab-American? Tens of millions of each, and we as a country are richer for the wonderful cultural elements we gain from them.

But unlike the Borg, we do not require immigrants to jettison their unique backgrounds to be Americans... only those elements that are antithetical to what America stands for (anti-American elements such as sharia, reconquista, or slavery).

We require them to accept, or at least tolerate, the core beliefs of America: liberty, democracy, responsibility, duty, capitalism, and equal justice.

Immigrants used to assimilate almost universally; most still do today. They become Americans in total, and with a whole heart. But we must formally require this before we extend citizenship or even permanent residency. There are various ways to do so, too numerous to go into in this stub.

And that's it; that would solve the problem, I believe. And that is as clean as I can put it. But the stool needs all three legs, or it topples over.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 28, 2006, at the time of 04:51 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

Migrant Protectionism

John HInderaker was kind enough to link our last post, Ins and Outs of Immigration, in his most recent piece on Power Line (my favorite blog, not even excepting Big Lizards). In that post, John professes perplexity about the best course of action relating both to the currently resident illegal immigrants and also those trying to come here legally in the future.

Perplexity is almost the only possible response... primarily because we're talking about so many people: literally millions and millions.

The best approach is to have a lodestone, a principle to which one sticks until and unless it's proven false. Trying to put together a technocratic, patchwork "solution" is doomed to failure, because that technique only works when the technocrats actually have a handle on the situation (it works for redesigning the New Orleans levees, for example: do this and that, fix this over here, and Bob's got a good idea about overtopping problems in the future).

John brings up a very important point, one that leads directly to my own personal lodestone. He writes:

The remaining issues are not so clear, however: what do we do about the 11 million or so illegal aliens who are already here, and what impact would shutting off the flow of labor from Mexico have on our economy? President Bush's guest worker proposal is, of course, intended to address those problems. I'm not sure whether the administration's proposal is the right one, in part because I've become convinced that the flow of illegal immigrants has depressed wages for unskilled labor.

John is exactly correct about this; and that is precisely why we need to continue such immigration, albeit with more regularization, because we want the wages of unskilled labor to be depressed. We pay too much for it. We pay more than it is worth in a free market.

Note: this is not a "response" to John, because he didn't argue any particular side here; this post is a riff off of the Power Line post, the hares started in my own mind by John beating the bushes.

Analogies are often very useful to limn the larger principles behind a specific instance. In this case, the most natural analogy is to the flood of cheap Japanese cars that really began in the 1970s. Big Iron complained that such cars would "artificially" depress the value of their own cars; the "big three" (Chrysler, Ford, GM) demanded that the federal government clamp down on such imports, restricting the flow of cheap cars here in order to protect the jobs of American autoworkers, then among the highest-paid industrial workers in the world.

And the Ford and Carter administrations obliged to some extent; some barriers were erected -- and the Japanese figured out ways to sneak around them. For example, they opened up Toyota and Nissan (then sold under the name Datsun) plants in the United States, which assembled parts manufactured in Japan. This confused the legal issue of whether the cars were domestic or imported. Detroit demanded ever more draconian regulations, including a rule that would define an automobile as an "import" if it were made by a company owned by foreigners, no matter where it was made -- or who the factory employed. The United Auto Workers joined wholeheartedly in this protectionism.

But in the end, it was a King Canute situation. There was nothing we could do to completely protect the American auto industry without crippling the rest of our economy. The effect was immediate and severe: the qualtity of cars soared and consumer choice expanded. Decades of automotive monopoly -- rather, "triopoly" -- had papered over huge and growing problems of legacy pensions, overemployment, a total lack of innovation, utter complacency, and -- it was the Carter years, recall -- corporate malaise.

Cars today cost a lot more than cars did in, say, 1972, even taking inflation into account. Much of that is overregulation by federal, state, and local agencies; but the rest reflects the tremendous improvements in quality. Even so, I'm pretty sure that the number of cars per 1,000 people is higher today than in the 1970s.

The fight was between protectionism and capitalism, and it turned into a rout. What was "artificial" in the 1970s was not the impact of the Japanese cars; it was the cozy cocoon the Big Three had created for themselves.

Back to immigration. Almost certainly, any form of regularization of what are now illegal aliens will result in higher wages for industries traditionally manned by illegals, including farm labor and hotel workers: a captive workforce is willing to accept less money because they have no choice.

That means some products will cost more. Those prices are artificially depressed right now. On the other hand, other cost factors will decrease: legal immigrants making somewhat more money will be able to afford health insurance, for example, and will not utilize hospital emergency rooms as doctor's offices. They will also begin "migrating" (sorry!) to other types of jobs than picking fruit and cleaning hotels, because they will legally be allowed to do so... and this will actually lower labor costs in manufacturing (unskilled and semiskilled) and the service industries, as John suggested.

But that's good, not bad, for society. Lower wages allow companies in those industries to hire more workers at the same cost, increasing competitiveness. People who currently work at unskilled or semiskilled jobs in "protected" industries will see a real drop in their income. So it goes; that's how capitalism works. Most of them have the option to improve their skills and earn more money.

The worst thing is for the invisible hand of the free market to be tripped up by the "invisible foot" of government (Milton Friedman's term). To artificially interdict the free flow of capital, labor, and products leads to economic disaster -- as Europe has long since exemplified.

Draconian immigration laws do exactly that: they create artificial labor scarcity, raising wages beyond what the employees are really worth. Laws that criminalize employment (by criminalizing "presence") function exactly as minimum wage laws; they are anticompetitive and anti-capitalist.

I am a capitalist; not only do I "admit" it -- I revel in it. My hero is Danny DeVito's "Larry Garfield" in the wonderful movie Other People's Money, a much better role model than the absurd caricature "Gordon Gekko" in Oliver Stone's paean to socialism, Wall Street. And that is my lodestone, my Polaris, in the great immigration debate.

There are only two factors to consider: national security and capitalism. Both are equally important.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 28, 2006, at the time of 03:40 PM | Comments (18) | TrackBack

Ins and Outs of Immigration

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill out of committee, sending it to the floor. Of course, under the arcane and byzantine rules of the U.S. Senate, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has the option either to send the committee's bill to the floor -- or his own bill, which differs wildly.

I hope he will not take that option, since it would enrage not only all the Democrats but enough of the Republicans that it would likely go down in flames, making Frist a laughingstock. (I don't dislike the guy enough to do that to my party.)

Another possibility is that Frist would move neither bill, first seeking agreement among the Republican caucus to a changed version of the J-Com bill that would include some of the harsher border-protection language of Frist's. In either case, whatever bill ends up going to the floor will first be amended; and then it must be reconciled with the bill from the House of Reps... and the differences between the House and Senate on immigration are just as stark as those between Frist's bill and the committee bill.

I should reveal my biases right up front (since I'm not a member of the Antique Media and never will be): I am both pro-immigration and also pro-border control. I have written about this many times before (for example, here and here). I truly and actually believe in the American ideal; but my ideological creed must be tempered by the forge of reality: we obviously cannot simply open the borders and let a firehose of immigration spray across. I try to keep at least two of my feet on the ground.

But those who insist we can just "seal the borders" and "deport all the illegals" are making the same ethereal, other-worldly mistake. It is not physically possible to round 'em up and ship 'em out; there are twelve million illegals here right now, for heaven's sake. Any immigration reform plan must come to grips with this 800-lb gorilla.

As odd as I feel saying it, the McCain-Kennedy bill is the only one to come out of either body that tries to find a solution to that King Kong of dilemmas, what to do with the 12,000,000. I don't particularly like Sen. John McCain (R-Gadfly) and I despise Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Margaritaville). But their bill at least makes an attempt to resolve that problem.

And strangely, it's also the closest to the bill President Bush proposed. At least the J-Com bill includes a guest-worker program with a path to citizenship -- and that is another huge point in its favor, since at the moment, there is no defined path to citizenship... and that is nine-tenths of the problem: since we don't make any provision to let even the most deserving come in the front door (it's entirely random -- when it isn't being race-based), those desperate for freedom come squirming in through the window.

What do you expect? Even the most decent people will take desperate measures to feed their families and let their children grow up in freedom, not tyranny.

According to the Times, the J-Com bill includes the following provisions:

• Double the Border Patrol;
• Make deportation of illegals easier;
• Criminalize the building of tunnels across the border;
• According to AP, it would "authorize a 'virtual wall' of unmanned vehicles, cameras and sensors to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border;"
• Associated Press again: it would "shelter humanitarian organizations from prosecution if they provide non-emergency assistance to illegal residents;"
• Creates a temporary worker program, a la Bush's proposal;
• Creates a path to citizenship: after six years fairly continuous employment in the temporary worker program, the immigrant can apply for permanent residency (what used to be called a "green card"). After five years here with a green card, they could apply to become American citizens;
• Anybody currently residing here illegally could (it appears) apply to become a temporary worker, as above. He would first have to pay all back taxes, pay a civil fine for having entered illegally, pass a criminal background check, learn English, and so forth. He would not get a green card for six years, just like the temporary workers; and he would have to line up for citizenship behind those who entered here legally at the same time he snuck across the border.

Naturally, the anti-immigration crowd immediately dubbed that final provision as "amnesty." In fact, they dub anything short of lining up all the immigrants and mowing them down as "amnesty." The Times:

Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, said the Judiciary panel "let the American people down by passing out a blanket amnesty bill."

This is legislative DaDa-ism. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 simply offered instant green cards to every illegal living here since 1982. That is what a "blanket amnesty bill" looks like... and it looks nothing like this one. "Wolf! Wolf!"

Of course, if the nativists would condescend to join the debate -- with some suggestion more helpful and workable than mass internments, razor wire, a minefield, machine-gun emplacements, and half the Army stationed along each border -- they might actually be able to influence the provisions of the eventual bill.

For example, the current version does not require those living here illegally to return to their countries of origin before applying to become a temporary worker; perhaps it should. It would certainly make it clear that they weren't getting any kind of "amnesty."

Also, perhaps that "virtual wall" could be a real wall stretching at least part of the way across the border. But we still need the ability to separate those whose only crime is entering illegally -- but who would enter legally if we didn't make it so nearly impossible, and who would work responsibily to support themselves and their famlilies -- from those who are criminals in every sense of the word, coming here to commit robberies and murders, smuggle drugs, or blow up buildings. There are comparatively few of the latter, but they hide among the teeming masses of the former.

With a mechanism to legally admit those who just want to come here to work, the "wall" only needs to keep out the much smaller number of actual thugs and terrorists. But if we insist upon a wall to keep everybody out, it's doomed to failure: there is no wall so strong that it can't be knocked down by the hands of a million people pushing.

If we let the otherwise honest immigrants enter through the door during business hours, they can undergo criminal background checks, be fingerprinted and biometricized, and we can keep better track of them. And when honest folks can come in through the door in daylight, then the cops have greater license to use force against anyone trying to enter by night through a window.

So I'm bucking the trend here: I think this bill is a reasonable beginning; but it needs work. It's a little too immigration-friendly, but to call it "blanket amnesty" is both ludicrous and counterproductive. Better to amend the worst parts and expand the best, and actually get something workable.

The alternative is a complete Republican collapse, which will make it more likely that the next Congress will include Majority Leader Reid and Squeaker of the House Pelosi, and Judiciary Committees chaired by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)... and just wait and see what the heck kind of a bill you get out of that lineup.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 28, 2006, at the time of 05:36 AM | Comments (36) | TrackBack

March 13, 2006

Please Fence Me In

All right, I've changed my mind a bit about the "security fence" many nativ-- er, America-focused folks want to build along the 3,000-mile border with Mexico. Not that I now think it will actually solve any problems by itself; I stand by my original conclusion: there is no wall, no matter how strong, that can stand up to a million people trying to knock it over.

But I now believe that without first getting their fence, many members of Congress will not even give honest consideration to any system to divide the illegales into two groups: those honest and decent folks who are simply desperate to feed their families and give their children a better life (about 99% of illegal immigrants)... and those who cross the line for nefarious purposes: to smuggle drugs, evade prison, or worst of all, commit heinous acts of terrorism against the United States.

Solely in order to finally reduce the immigration problem down to something we can handle, I now support building the friggin' fence first. I hope the congressional gentry will feel happy enough about that achievement that they will bend their mighty brains to the more urgent problem of understanding who is really our enemy -- and who merely twists around our insane immigration laws.

The fence, once we build it, will reveal the fallacy of imagining that a security barrier along the southern border will be as effective as the similar barriers separating the Gaza Strip and the West Bank from Israel. It will not, for the simple reason that our illegal immigrants have a completely different motivation than Arabs illegally sneaking into Israel.

In Israel, there is already a de facto segregation: Arabs who just want to live and work in Israel have already moved there, and done so long ago; in fact, a very significant proportion of the Israeli population is Arab -- mostly Moslem Arab, but some Christians and a tiny batch of Jewish Arabs.

Those left in the Palestinian Authority who cross under night's black cloak have only one purpose in mind; that very fact restricts their number. Few men (and even fewer women) truly want to be martyrs, no matter what words they mouth when words are demanded. They grumble or cheer, as the case may warrant; but only those committed to the struggle are willing to burrow like trap-door spiders beneath the wall, knowing they will strike and die.

That is the very situation I want to create in the United States. Today, millions flood across the border, desperate not to kill children in school or wives at home with their babies, but to build a world where their own babies and children can grow up without knowing starvation of body or soul, wracked by poverty and crushed by oppression. They come for the same reason my own ancestors came -- back when we welcomed the tired, the poor, the huddled masses.

Today, for reasons entirely understandable, we simply cannot take them all; we would quickly lose our country. But even so, I cannot find it in my heart to wish ill of father and mother who break the law only to give a better life to those to whom they have indeed given life. I cannot understand my countrymen who wish them to die in the desert (children too?) or who want the Army to "protect" our land from these "invaders"... with M-16 and Abrams tank.

The compromise is to let in the father, but not forever. To let him come and work (God knows we need the labor) and send the money home, then go home himself when he has provided for his family; a guest worker, just as described.

This is not "amnesty," except to those for whom words have no more meaning than the lives they would likewise misuse. In amnesty, those already here are tapped with a magic wand, given a Green Card, and told they can stay indefinitely. The distinction is between giving a man a cot in a homeless shelter -- and letting him wall off a corner and file a title deed.

But there is another, smaller group that creeps like the night on little cat feet, across the border with no thought of children they don't have or a family they long ago abandoned. These men -- and occasionally women -- think only of the harm and misery they can cause, whether for sake of ideology or monetary gain.

They are sociopaths: other humans are less than zero to them. They are the polar opposites of men working to support their loved ones. These others have no one they love, because they are incapable of love: hate long ago expelled it from their stomachs, the way a hydrophobic dog vomits water. It is this group I want to interdict, hold, and when appropriate, imprison or execute.

But we cannot find them now, for they hide among the first group. And the first group, even if they suspect, are afraid to raise voice against them... because they know if they do so, even to save another man's children, they would condemn their own to a painful, belly-bloated death by hunger -- if the rabid dogs didn't cut their tongues from their mouths before they could utter the accusation.

To stop the beasts, we must first separate them from the men.

There is only one way I can think to do this: and that is to open the door to the latter. Let them come in straight and honest, photographed, fingerprinted, with a high-tech guest-worker card linked to a database of background, current history in the United States, and biometric information to prevent identity theft. Where the door is opened wide, only the guilty try to slip through the window.

With a technologically sophisticated guest worker program, there will not be a million men trying to knock down the wall. There will only be a handful trying to burrow under it, slide around it, or glide over the top... a quiet enough number that a beefed-up Border Patrol could catch them all -- being finally able to focus their force, not spread it scattershot among foul and fair alike.

Then and never else will the security fence truly work, because it will in fact mimic the successful Israeli wall... rather than King Canute vainly ordering out the tide.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 13, 2006, at the time of 03:36 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

November 11, 2005

French Introspection? Ooh La La!

As if the New York Times has been reading blogs, they have started examining the question of France and whether or how much the French lack of a national identity is in part responsible for the non-assimilation of their Moslem immigrants.

Some choice quotations, all emphasis added by moi:

"I was born in Senegal when it was part of France," [Semou Diouf] said before putting the pipe in his mouth. "I speak French, my wife is French and I was educated in France." The problem, he added after pulling the pipe out of his mouth again, "is the French don't think I'm French."

That, in a nutshell, is what lies at the heart of the unrest that has swept France in the past two weeks: millions of French citizens, whether immigrants or the offspring of immigrants, feel rejected by traditional French society, which has resisted adjusting a vision of itself forged in fires of the French Revolution....

"People have it in their head that surveying by race or religion is bad, it's dirty, it's something reserved for Americans and that we shouldn't do it here," said Yazid Sabeg, the only prominent Frenchman of Arab descent at the head of a publicly listed French company. "But without statistics to look at, how can we measure the problem?"....

The idea behind France's republican ideal was that by officially ignoring ethnic differences in favor of a transcendent French identity, the country would avoid the stratification of society that existed before the French Revolution or the fragmentation that it now sees in multicultural models like the United States. But the French model, never updated, has failed, critics say. "France always talks about avoiding ghettoization, but it has already happened," Mr. Sabeg said, adding that people are separated in the housing projects, in their schools and in their heads [Yeah, well this "fragmented" United States ain't having no Moslem riots at the moment! -- the Mgt.]....

Most second-generation Muslim immigrants are generally no more observant than young French Catholics. But the legacy of discrimination [or the lack of any specifically French identity -- the Mgt.] creates the conditions for young people who feel neither French nor North African to seek an identity in Islam - often anti-Western, political Islam.

I don't know what to make of that last assertion. It's classic Times: vast, sweeping, unsourced. But it strikes me as more or less true, or at least verisimilitudinous: if true, doesn't this mean that the French antipathy towards non-European culture and especially against religion is, in fact, driving young Arab French into the arms of a particularly violent and primitive religion, militant Islamism?

The real problem, as I see it, is that this "transcendent French identity" they seek is one founded in the French revolution of 218 years ago and, as the Times notes, "never updated." It cannot function as a specifically French identity today because it is so inextricably bound up in the social milieu of eighteenth-century Europe. Unlike the American "organic laws" -- the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 -- which actually do transcend their eighteenth-century origins by avoiding too close an embrace with the petty questions of the day, the French Revolution degenerated into "the Terror" and became thoroughly and horrifically tied to a particular place and time (especially after its inauspicious end at the hands of one of its own, the "Emperor" Napoleon Bonaparte.

At least some of the French private sector is starting to understand the true solution:

Karim Zeribi, a former soccer player and political adviser, said a study he carried out earlier this year found that résumés sent out with traditionally French names got responses 50 times higher than those with North African or African names. In the wake of the study, Mr. Zeribi established an agency in April called Act for Citizenship, which canvasses minority neighborhoods for qualified job candidates and markets them to corporations.

"We want to create a network for these people where there is none," Mr. Zeribi said. Still, he said, his young candidates are regularly asked if they are practicing Muslims when they are interviewed for jobs.

This clearly is the way to go... apart from whatever the French government has to do to reassure the immigrants that they are not confined to particular ghettos in France -- "mosquitos trapped in amber," as Sachi put it in a previous post -- the best step is for business and private interests to seek out, on their own franc, qualified Moslem employees and students.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 11, 2005, at the time of 02:02 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack

October 31, 2005

Just Go Right in There and Get 'Em!

Yesterday, Captain Ed had an interesting and troubling post on the rise of a particularly vicious Central-American gang called Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, M-18, or MS. At the end of the post, Captain Ed noted that deportations have had virtually no effect on gang members, who now number more than 50,000; they simply sneak right back into the United States again the moment they are released. He ends with this ringing demand:

We need to demand that Congress finally do something about the southern border and the flood of illegals that come across it if we purport to take security seriously, especially in this age of terror. We made an impact on the Supreme Court and on spending just by speaking out -- and we need to do so on this issue as well. [Emphasis added]

All right. Like what, exactly?

Note, I want specifics: not like Phil Donohue's prescription for how he would have captured Osama bin Laden without invading Afghanistan: "I would just go right in there and get him!" Ed links Michelle Malkin (Chris Kelly writing) -- another brilliant blog whose brilliance seems to fade a bit on this particular issue; Kelly suggests no more of a solution than does Captain Ed.

There are probably about 12,000,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S. How do you round up this many people? How many cops would it take? Do we need to rewrite the posse comitatus act to set the military loose to search American houses and arrest people they suspect of being criminals? How many soldiers do we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Central America, to play police officer when they have had exactly zero training for that function?

Where do we put all these detainees as we round 'em up? Reopen Manzanar for anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant? Even at a rate of one hearing every five minutes, it would take more than 37 years just to process the first million detainees -- and you still have 11,000,000 to go. Plus however many slip across during that first 37-year period. How many courtrooms, judges, court reporters, and clerks are we going to dedicate to doing nothing but processing these hearings? And since the arresting agent would have to testify in any case where irregularies were alleged by the detainee, how many Border Patrol and soldiers do we pull from the line to hang around the courthouse in case they're needed?

And when the hearings end, what do we do with the proven illegals? Deport them?

Nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to work so long as we're dealing with millions of people. Before anything else is done, we must create incentives for the illegales to regularize themselves. And we only do that by offering something: people who have hidden here for years are not going to turn themselves in for nothing.

President Bush's plan might not be the best we can construct; Congress will have its say. But without first separating the "people [who] want nothing more than economic opportunity" -- the vast majority -- from the criminal scum who join gangs like MS-13 (or worse, al-Qaeda), everything we do will be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. As any engineer knows, any structure, no matter how sturdy, will collapse under its own weight if you make it big enough.

There is no blinking it: we are going to have to offer carrots along with the stick to get undocumented aliens to turn themselves in voluntarily. There is no alternative. Some may wrongly term this "amnesty;" but given the choice between the unpalatable and the impossible, I know which I would select.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, October 31, 2005, at the time of 04:03 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack