Why Immigration Is THE Issue - Again

I was challenged on Twitter yesterday as to why immigration is my number one issue.  So I thought that a little recap is in order.

1. It's about fairness and the rule of law.  The culture of this country is sliding towards conditions that foster dictatorship.  Specifically, how one is treated before the law depends on one's circumstances.  Whether it is Hillary getting away with blatantly illegal activity on her server or Obama unlawfully granting amnesty to millions of illegals; were on a path where consequences for illegal activity is determined by a political elite ruled by a donor class.

2. The public wants the border enforced and the politicians won't do it.  The failure to control illegal immigration is indisputable evidence that our system of government has become rigged against the interests of the people as a whole.  Unlike the courts ramming through gay marriage, which never won any popular votes; there is not even a fig leaf of constitutionality in this question.  The Congress has the power to set immigration policy and the President the duty to enforce it.

3. It is an assault on the standard of living and even the lives of the working class.  Kurt Schlichter said it best:

Amnesty was a great idea for bubble people who think illegal immigration satisfies some sort of libertarian ideal, or who only experience its impact by being able to hire a cheaper nanny. It’s a pretty great idea for the illegals too. But leave your nice neighborhood and go where a high school grad who was born here can’t get a job as a roofer since any general contractor who doesn’t hire illegals is going to go broke because his competition will. Tell somebody whose daughter is shot dead in front of him by an illegal who got arrested five times but never got deported that it’s an act of love.

. . .

Immigration and free trade are generally good, but they impose real costs and our base is getting handed the bill. These folks have been asking us for help, and what was our response? Shut up, stupid racists.

4. We have a right to expect assimilation of our culture and ideals.  The current failure to enforce the border is leading to a ghettoization of Spanish speaking illegals who are not assimilating. We have lost the national will to demand assimilation of sub-cultures within our society as a prerequisite to group success.  Until this changes, we have the right to call for an end even to legal immigration if we so desire, in order to ensure that new immigrants share our dedication to freedom, limited government and rule of law.  Further, it is our right to restrict immigration to countries that cherish those values, so that we might preserve our own.

5.  Unlimited Immigration Does Not Benefit AMERICANS as a whole.  I keep having to say this.  We are demanding that the government of the United States operate in a manner that benefits all Americans, not just the few who benefit from illegal competition for wages.

You may view my long history of discussing this topic.  It is comprehensive.

Unlimited Immigration is the Enemy of Freedom and Prosperity

The most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics is Angus Deaton, a British-American Princeton economist known for his focus on data to explain sources of economic growth.  In his book, The Great Escape, he attempts to explain why some nations escaped the grinding poverty that has been the condition of most of mankind since the dawn of history.  In my opinion, part of the trick is asking the question properly, not "Why are so many nations so poor?" but "What sets the rich nations apart that they escaped poverty?"  In The Great Escape he summarizes the answer:

Perhaps the best answer is that poor countries lack the institutions—government capacity, a functioning legal and tax system, security of property rights, and traditions of trust—that are a necessary background for growth to take place.

Ronald Bailey notes in his review that this explanation, while well supported by the facts, doesn't explain why some countries have these institutions; just that they are important.  I believe that the European culture which combined both Greek and Christian tradition provided the societal stability and freedom of inquiry to produce a stable society that valued the innovation adequately to reap its benefits.  Whether or not I am correct, we can still look at the world and see which countries have adopted or are adopting similar cultural values to ours which allowed us to escape poverty.

This matters to the immigration and refugee questions.  As a nation, it is our right to ask for and the duty of our leaders to implement policies that benefit the citizens of our nation.  Unrestricted immigration from countries that don't share our values undermines our prosperity.  When I look at the so-called "Syrian" refugee crisis; I see two key sets of facts.  First, the refugees seem to be neither Syrian nor refugees, in large part.  Second, even when legitimate, they come from a society that doesn't share our values.  Contra Obama, there are no shared universal values.  If there were, there would be democracies all over the Arab world.

With regards to immigration from Latin America; the main sources of migrants continue to be from countries with little respect for the rule of law.  It is not coincidental, that as Mexico has improved its internal governance through reform, the number of migrants from Mexico has declined.  Now, dictatorships trans-shipping people through Mexico are increasingly the problem.

On twitter, someone compared the so-called Syrian refugees to the Jews we admitted during World War II.  For brevity, my response was that the Jews were culturally European and therefor worthy of admission.  In other words, they were ready to support and understand our institutions, security of property rights and "traditions of trust" in ways that Syrians are sadly incapable of.

We should limit immigration based on country of origin in order to not dilute the cultural underpinnings of our society.

Immigration and The National Interest

I have always been a strong proponent of nationalism when it comes to the United States.

The notion of American nationalism is an ideal worth defending. We are a nation of nations, ironically enough, bound together not by the traditional fascist symbols of nationalism, race, ethnicity, or empire; but by ideals embodied in the greatest political documents ever written, the Declaration and the Constitution. The left sees our riches and feels guilt, assuming they are the result of plunder. In fact, they are the result of trade, invention and industry.

So what are to make of the left's desire for unfettered immigration and the business class' desire for working class immigration? How do they accord with the national interest? I submit that they do not.  While some immigration of skilled workers is in the national interest, wholesale immigration that undermines national values, strains our infrastructure and depresses wages does not help the nation.  We have built the most stable wealthy and freest nation in the world. We are under no obligation to allow centuries of work to be undone by unfettered immigration and a generous welfare state.  I am certain that the left looks to mass immigration to change the character of the nation for that very reason, out of their resentment at the success that liberty and a strong constitutional order have wrought.

Take a look at Sweden, where immigrants from war-torn countries in the Middle East are never turned away.  The presence of so many immigrants is leading to a vast increase in crime and especially rape (actual rape, not imaginary frat house rape.) It is also causing the erosion of legitimate political debate as the parties of both right and left have cut a deal to prevent any debate on immigration at all.  CDR Salamander has the story:

As large boats drift throughout the Mediterranean Sea, waiting to come ashore; as open borders to the east and south minimize barriers to entry, and a political elite who are tuning out the concerns of its own people - and more importantly - want to make sure no one calls them a nasty name - well, where does this go?. . .For immigration to work where the people lack education, technical skill, and cultural literacy; if they come to work hard and contribute to society, most of the friction will come only from the indigenous population who are on the lower side of the economic spectrum whose wages are depressed (another reason to keep unskilled immigration at low levels, it impacts most your nation's most economically vulnerable). However - what if they come to only take? 

. . . 

It doesn't have to be this way. Smart, humane, and economically sound policies are out there to keep things manageable without asking a people to commit cultural suicide or to turn to their darker natures to preserve their unique culture.

Sultan Knish argues that both the left and the business class take their cues on immigration from the concept of empire, which is the opposite of nationalism and that only nationalism can beat back the forces of empire.

The argument between the establishments of the right and the left is over two different kinds of empires. The Republican establishment in America and its various center-right counterparts abroad have attached themselves to the liberal vision of a transnational empire of international law so much that they have forgotten that this vision came from the left, rather than from the right.
This Empire of International Law proved to have some uses for global trade and security, particularly during the Cold War. These practical arrangements however are overshadowed by the fact that it, like every empire, sacrifices the interests of its peoples to its own structure. This is true of the structure at every level, from the EU to the Federal structure of the United States. The system has displaced the people. And the system runs on principles that require cheap labor leading to policies like amnesty.

While I agree that immigration of skilled workers will help our economy, we have a right and duty to control who and how many to ensure that the interests of the American people are upheld.  This is why Obama's policies, which have only encouraged a new flood of illegal immigration are so treacherous.  His message to Central America was almost explicitly a call to violate our borders.  He did so in the very best leftist tradition.

Our only hope is that the forces driving immigration from across the borders are subsiding.  For the first time in quite a while, Mexico did not supply the majority of illegal border crossers into America.  I predicted over a year ago that illegal immigration from Mexico would slow.  Now that it has, it makes it easier to secure the border and get on with overall immigration reform.

More on Demography

I posted last week about trends in world depopulation, and how America needs immigrants as a result.  In a review of a book by Jonathan V. Last, Heather Wilhelm argues that even having a high immigration rate won't necessarily hold off the impacts of low birth rates forever, because it is a global trend.  Further, because the causes of low birth rates (i.e. below replacement levels)  are cultural, and immigrant women assimilate the culture, their birth rates drop as well.  Near the end of the review, she gives us this food for thought:

The best arguments for having children, unfortunately, run opposed to modern, secular American culture. Good reasons to have kids tend to be about delayed gratification, prioritizing family, putting others first, transmitting serious values and beliefs, focusing on something larger than yourself, and understanding the difference between joy and fun. Perhaps this is why, as Last notes, "American pets now outnumber American children by more than four to one." It's also why, if American fertility continues to slide -- and, as the author notes, that's still an "if" at this point -- there's little the government can do.

Indeed there is not.  Just one more area where culture has its consequences.  The falling birth rate is going to wreck the welfare state, and world wide, not just in America.  We are already getting a taste of it now, as the demographic bulge of baby boomers starts to enter retirement and medicare costs continue to ramp skyward.  Immigration could hold off the trend for a while, but eventually birth rates must return to sustainment levels for modern humanity to survive.

Happy 125th to an American Inspiration

Today marks the 125th anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. The statue has become synonymous with the aspirations of immigrants the world over coming to America's shores seeking refuge from the tyranny that has plagued most of mankind's history. Today's events include the swearing in of 125 new citizens of this Republic. As I have opined before, we need to have skilled immigrants on the order of millions to solve our economic woes in this country.

Systemic Thinking About Illegal Immigration

The Arizona law that seeks to enforce established U.S. law on immigration through the agency of the state law enforcement has put the spotlight on illegal immigration again. Solving this problem is in the best interests of Republicans, because it will continue to be used by the Democrats in their attempts to make the party look racist, which it is not.

The issue requires a realistic view of the incentives driving the current problem. For the businesses that employ the illegals, such as restaurants, poultry and meat packing, landscapers, and janitorial firms, the illegal immigrants are a source of cheaper labor. To say that native Americans are not willing to do these jobs is not technically correct; they are unwilling to do these jobs at the wages on offer from these businesses. Often, these businesses are able to employ the illegal immigrant at below the prevailing minimum wage, either directly or through not paying social security and withholding taxes for the worker. So there is a large incentive on the part of businesses to provide a magnet for people to cross the border illegally or overstay a visa, the other main source of illegal immigration.

For the workers, even the reduced wages on offer are a significant improvement over the wages available in Mexico or other third world nations. Their desperation for income drives them to the very dangerous undertaking of crossing into the United States. Because they are outside of the law, they also become prey for the unscrupulous. For the "coyotes" that guide them across the border and often abuse the illegals, they provide a steady income.

The border between the U.S. and Mexico is the primary entry point for this illegal immigration. The length of the border makes it very expensive to adequately patrol and prevent the immigration. Further, while one might infer that a person in the country illegally, i.e. without authorization, has committed the crime of "improper entry by an alien," that is not necessarily self evident. As a result, the actual violation is "illegal presence" and is not technically a crime. The civil sanction is deportation, not any criminal prosecution. This puts the Arizona law into a different light. Essentially, the police are being asked to perform a check for a civil violation while they going about enforcing Arizona's criminal code. One might view that as fairly benign or as overreach. For example, would we like the police to check the status of child support payments of everyone they arrest? One might argue this either way. Conversely, it puts the outcry against the law in a different context. What rights are being violated? However, as a libertarian, suspicious of state power, I have to ask what constitutes suspicion that an individual is an illegal alien and therefor subject to having to produce papers. Let's say I was jaywalking after going swimming at a community pool and have no identification on me and am detained. How do the police determine reasonable suspicion of my alien status? I think this is a tough one. I would have much preferred if the law had been limited to persons taken into custody, because then there is really no additional penalty for an immigration status check, they are already detained.

We find a situation with huge economic incentives driving behavior. Conservatives and libertarians often point out the folly of Obamacare and other government efforts by a similar analysis showing how stupid legislation drives behavior. The current example being the lack of enforceable penalties means that healthy people won't buy health insurance until they are sick, driving up insurance rates. With regards to illegal immigration, the only solution is to remove the economic incentives to cross the border illegally in search of work. This leaves these options:

1. A massive crackdown on employers who employ illegals to dry up the demand. This would involve massive increase in the policing and enforcement of existing law. We are already perhaps seeing a test run of this option in the San Diego prosecution of the French Gourmet restaurant. The federal DA is seeking forfeiture of the property of the restaurant as a means of leverage to settle the case. I personally have eaten there and had them provide food for catered events, so I am distressed. We see the heavy hand of the state and it makes me nervous.

2. A much more massive guest worker program that we currently have. If every worker who wanted to search for work in this country were allowed to enter the country after being fingerprinted, having a records check and being issued a green card; there would be no need for the trek across the Arizona desert. Further, such a program would probably require a sub-minimum wage to remove all the incentives to work illegally. Further, such a program would have to require workers to return to their country of origin when no longer working and prevent them from becoming citizens to be palatable. Such a program would be good for the economy, but would probably rouse organized labor to vehemently oppose it.

3. Vastly increase the budget to enforce the border with Mexico. I don't think this will solve the problem by itself, the economic incentives are too powerful. I know this is what most of my readers would like, but frankly, we should be realistic about how effective this will be. The East Germans couldn't stop the steady leakage of people out of that country even with a massive police apparatus and much less economic incentive. What are we going to do?

Ultimately some compromise among these three options will have to be made. As you may have guessed, I favor mostly option 2, because I believe that we are economically better off the more work that is performed in our own country. But we need to offer some solutions. Total intransigence just looks like nativism.

Chattin' with Road Dawg 'bout Immigration

'Dawg dropped by unexpectedly this evening, for cervezas y tacos. Mostly family chat, but we had a little discussion about the illegal immigrants as well. 'Dawg has nothing against folk coming to work here, but they need to check in at the front gate. We further agreed that they need to be fingerprinted and positively identified before being sent on their way to work. They should pay their share of taxes so they aren't a burden on the rest of us when they hit the emergency room after slicing a finger when the slicer was intended for linoleum. None of this gets them citizenship either, so they have no right of permanent residence.

However, as believers in free markets, we both think that as many workers should be allowed in the country as can find work. Further, there should be no minimum wage for them, because whatever they can get paid is still better than where they came from. I can't emphasize enough that this is a free market issue. Conservatives need to think about that when we start chatting up how to deal with immigration.