e. magill's Intrigue

Modern American Immigration Policy and Its Proposed Changes: The Substantive Angle

Yesterday, the president outlined his proposal to change current immigration policy. As a result, many conservatives and political thinkers have reacted, and most of them have reacted negatively. I wish to explore this issue, but I feel that it is best separated into two parts: the substantive angle and the political implications.

This part of the rant deals with the substance of modern American immigration policy, where it stands, and where I see it going. It also deals with how I feel, from an ideological standpoint, about the president’s proposal. [NOTE: The second part of this rant was never completed and does not appear anywhere on this site.]

Immigration as I See It

Most of my political opinions spring from Libertarian principles, but on the subject of immigration, I think extreme Libertarian thinking would result in anarchy. While Libertarianism is a wonderful idealogy for domestic issues, I think it is unhealthy, dangerous, and naive when dealing with foreign policy. Governments that do not uphold the principles of liberty should not be granted libertarian license in the world. In other words, governments cannot be treated the same way as individuals.

Immigration is, therefore, a difficult subject for my sometimes conflicting ideologies (Libertarianism v. Neoconservatism) to tackle. I believe that an individual should have the right to choose the nation he or she lives in, but I do not believe that an immigration policy free of regulation is anything short of national suicide. Many people in the world wish to escape tyrannous, impoverished, or undesirable nations and come to ours, and we should treat these people with respect, compassion, and gratitude. However, hidden amongst those people are those who could harm us, either deliberately or not, and our government should be wary of this.

Therefore, when it comes to the vested interest of the United States government, I think the effects of immigration need to be looked at from two specific angles: one of economy and the other of national security.

The Economic Impact of Legal Immigration

Once a person has come to this country legally and has achieved citizenship, he or she is a citizen. Therefore, that person has the same economic impact upon the country as a natural-born citizen would. He or she may be willing to work for less money, but that is a problem to be solved by capitalism and not government. Therefore, the economic problem of legal immigration has no impact great enough to justify additional government regulation.

However, the government regulation that exists today is not perfect. People coming to this country and seeking legal status are welcomed by long waiting periods and unconscionably high financial demands. If you were coming here to escape poverty, how could you possibly pay the tens of thousands of dollars that it takes to immigrate legally?

As I see it, this is the core problem of modern immigration. It is unfair to demand such exorbitant amounts of money from typically poor people whose only crime is seeking a better life. Demanding high payment, and not allowing the families of would-be citizens to work while they sludge through the process, results in the extremely high and unprecedented number of undocumented workers in the United States today.

If this were to be fixed, though, millions of citizens who went through the process before the change (or are undergoing the process now) will undoubtedly feel unfairly treated and will probably demand financial compensation. To pay the bill that would be demanded by this outcry would be to bankrupt this nation, and not paying that bill would be alienating millions of legal, law-abiding Americans. Therefore, the process of financial immigration reform would necessitate slow and tedious changes over extended periods of time.

The Economic Impact of Illegal Immigration

Most people in America today, especially those in the labor and tech markets, are aware of the impact that illegal immigration is having on the economy. Companies that break the law--and are not punished for it--by employing illegal workers as extremely cheap labor benefit greatly and often succeed with far greater strides than an honest business. While I wouldn’t admit it to the authorities unless I were feeling particularly vengeful, I know that, at my employ, this practice is very real.

Illegal immigrants are not subject to a great deal of legal or societal troubles unless they are caught committing or being involved in other illegal acts. For example, a group of illegal immigrants can crowd together in a cheap apartment, go to work at a local steel factory for wages well below the minimum, and not worry too much about the repercussions.

This practice, if it remains unchecked, would be a cancer upon the free market, but it is understandable from all angles. A man who runs the Mexican border, searching for the American dream, has to choose between legal immigration that he could not even come close to affording or the life of an ignored outlaw who works for wages that, while unbelievably low to the average American citizen, are far better than those he left behind. A struggling company has to make the choice between obeying the law in good faith (facing possible bankruptcy) and breaking a law that is rarely enforced by hiring employees who are willing to work for two bucks an hour without benefits.

The problem here is an exacerbation of the financial problem of legal immigration combined with a lack of government enforcement. No administration in recent history has been willing to tackle the problem of enforcement, because (as can be seen by the reaction to the Wal-Mart fiasco last year) it is severely politically damaging to do so. Instead, we live in a society that has passed immigration law and refuses to punish those who break it*. By omission of action, we are rewarding illegal activity, and that is unacceptable.

The National Security Impact

Regardless of what you think of the War on Terror, you have to realize that the unprecedented amount of illegal immigration today makes terrorism a more palpable threat than it ever has been before. This fact reinforces my earlier assertion that deregulated immigration policy is tantamount to national suicide. Therefore, we know today, more clearly than we have ever known, that there is a serious facet of national security involved in immigration.

For this reason, anyone immigrating to this country, either legally or illegally, must be investigated in the form of a detailed background analysis. This point, naturally, curls the nose-hairs of true Libertarians in much the same way as the USA PATRIOT ACT or the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. I do not believe, however, that the beautiful ideals of Libertarianism trump the very realistic threats represented by international terror.

The United States has already been the victim of several terrorist strikes, the most dramatic being, of course, the attacks of September 11, 2001, and in every case of international terror on our soil, illegal immigration has played a part. Due to a lack of enforcement on the issue of immigration, we had no way of knowing that potential terrorists were on our soil and planning to strike. And today, we have no more knowledge than we did before these strikes when it comes to how many illegal immigrants are in our borders, where they are, and what they are doing. This is also unacceptable, and I refuse to believe that making these points is unjustified alarmism.

Therefore, considering the economic and national security problems of modern immigration, we are faced with a terrible dilemma. On one end, we have a problem that calls for a slow, tedious solution, but on the other end, we have a problem that calls for an immediate solution. In addition, we have a general populace that doesn’t seem to recognize or care about either problem.

The Proposal

The proposal outlined by the president would not solve these problems. It feels like something that started out as a good idea but ended as a concept that wasn’t thought out properly. To solve the problem of immigration in America quickly involves doing one of two things: enforcing current law or changing it.

This proposal seeks to do the second while ignoring the first. It doesn’t, however, change the core problems of immigration. Instead, it hopes to further reward illegal activity in the foolish belief that all illegal immigrants will suddenly want to become documented. This is either a ploy to gain a greater picture of the true number of illegal immigrants or a way of making immigration easier by forgiving illegal methodologies. Neither explanation makes sense or has any hope of combating the growing problems of national security.

This proposal is not only unacceptable, but it is potentially harmful. Not all illegal immigrants will register under this plan, and nobody can get me to believe that an immigrant on a temporary, three-year license is going to pack up and go home when his or her three years are up. Maybe this proposal will gain a slightly less muddy picture of the true nature of illegal immigration, but I think that any clarification it provides will be deceptive and ineffective.

In addition, this proposal will--and already has--spark the resentment I mentioned before. Citizens who came here through legal immigration feel slapped in the face, and they are not going to take it lightly if this thing gets passed. There is already an outcry, and it spurs from nothing more than a proposal. Just try to imagine what an actual law would cause!

No problems would be solved, and more problems would be created. Therefore, on substance, I find this proposal to be unacceptable.

-e. magill, 01/08/2004

*In addition, due in large part to President Johnson’s socialistic “War on Poverty” (started 40 years ago today), we live in a welfare state so drunk with the ideals of entitlement that even an illegal immigrant can find himself or herself in the possession of a large amount of taxpayer dollars.