By Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up.
Conservative corporate employers still support the idea
of imported, cheap, non-union labor — in a strange alliance with liberal
activists who want the larger blocs of Latino voters that eventually follow
massive influxes from Latin America.
Yet how conservative are businesses that in the past
flouted federal law — and how liberal are activists who undermined the
bargaining power of American minimum-wage, entry-level workers, many of them
minorities?
The remedies for illegal immigration under discussion are
just as incoherent. If the government now plans to offer some foreign nationals
a pathway to citizenship, does it also suddenly have the will to determine who
among illegal immigrants does not qualify for citizenship?
Millions of illegal immigrants have resided in the United
States for some time. They have not been convicted of crimes. And they have
been hard-working and self-supporting. But if the majority deserve a chance to
obtain legal residence and begin the process of citizenship, what about others
who would not qualify under those same considerations?
There is talk of reforming legal immigration as well.
Under the proposed system, from now on we would select most immigrants for
citizenship not by their place of origin, or by the fact of their prior illegal
residence in the United States, but on the basis of needed skill sets and
education and their willingness to wait in line legally.
Yet are loud proponents of “comprehensive immigration
reform” really willing to embrace the reforms they boast about? It might spell
the end of privileging millions from Latin America to enter the United States
without requisite concern about legality, education, English fluency, or
particular skill sets.
Massive illegal immigration is not ethnically blind or
based on education. For decades it has favored more proximate Latin American
arrivals who can easily cross the U.S.-Mexican border over those from distant
Asia, Africa, or Europe who simply cannot.
The politics of immigration are just as weird. Democrats,
buoyed by the two election victories of Barack Obama, now welcome large pools
of new Latino citizens to vote en bloc for Democratic candidates. But if the
border were actually closed and immigration were once again handled through a
legal, systematic process, then in time Latinos — in the pattern of Greek,
Italian, and Armenian Americans — would follow most other ethnic minorities and
decouple their ethnic allegiances from politics.
Republicans seem more confused. After needlessly
bombastic talk in the 2012 presidential primaries, they have gone to the other
extreme of emphasizing amnesties instead of enforcement — largely in efforts to
pander to growing numbers of Latino voters.
Here, too, paradoxes abound. Various polls suggest that
immigration was not the primary reason why Latinos voted overwhelmingly for
Barack Obama.
When the Pew Research Center recently surveyed Latinos
and asked whether they preferred high taxes and big government or low taxes and
small government, they preferred high taxes and big government by a 75–19
margin. And they usually see liberal Democrats as far better stewards of
redistributionist government, and Republicans more as heartless advocates of a
capricious free market.
Asian Americans, for whom illegal immigration is not
really an issue, voted for Democrats by about the same margins as did Latinos —
and perhaps because of similar perceptions of minority-friendly big
government.
Moreover, the largest concentrations of Latino voters are
in southwestern blue states such as California, New Mexico, and Nevada, where
Republicans usually lose anyway, and for a variety of reasons other than
immigration. Ironically, the best long-term strategy for Republicans would be
to close the border and allow the forces of upward mobility, assimilation, and
the natural social conservatism of Latinos to work.
Everyone talks grandly of passing bipartisan
comprehensive immigration reform as if the present system had not sprung up to
serve the needs of all sorts of special interests that certainly have not gone
away.
We forget that too many employers still want the cheap
labor of foreign nationals.
The Mexican government still promotes illegal immigration
as a political safety valve and a valuable source of cash remittances.
Too many ethnic activists, whose support derives from
large numbers of under-assimilated Latinos, don’t want to deport anyone and do
not welcome legal immigration redefined by ethnically blind, skill-based
criteria.
Democratic politicos don’t want closed borders, only to
see the melting pot someday turn their loyal supporters into independent
voters. And panicky Republicans simply have no idea what they want — other than
to cater to as many constituencies as they can.
The present system of immigration is far too often
illegal and immoral. But it is also weirdly rational in the way that it serves
so well so many lobbies — and so poorly the shared public interest at large.
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