The Great Immigration Debate

Marc Cooper has a great and  long piece posted at Truth Dig today on Illegal Immigration.  He  has been writing extensively on illegal immigration for some time. Although we may disagree on some points  we do agree as most Americans do about one fundamental truth, the border is out of control and needs to be fixed.
 
Early on Marc writes:

 

In the simplest of terms, a strategy of enforcement-only measures has made no perceivable dent in the human flow across the border. And there is, therefore, no reason to believe that further measures of fortification are going to work any better.

 

He is half right. No doubt half hearted out of sight out of mind enforcement only measures will not work. However a serious enforcement effort, building an impassable fence along the entire border with proper border guards stationed across its length to monitor any attempts to climb over, dig under, or breach it will bring illegal immigration to a dead stop.
 
As Marc conveniently points out:

 

The U.S.-Mexican border has been “10 times deadlier to Mexican immigrants in the last 10 years than was the whole 28-year history of the Berlin Wall to East Germans,” Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC San Diego, told me. Over the history of the Berlin Wall, 287 people perished while trying to cross it. Since the Clinton administration implemented the current U.S. border strategy, as many as 3,500 Mexicans have died while trying to make the crossing.

Now you can try to argue that the disparities between East and West Germany were not as severe as the US and Mexico, but any serious person would laugh you out of the room. The “Berlin Wall” example Marc cites is 50 years of proof that a well guarded well built fence will effectively stop illegal immigration and save Mexican lives.
 
Marc later in the piece writes:
 

An unofficial coalition of “restrictionists”—of shut-the-border advocates—sprang to life and has since clearly seized the initiative. A small group of sometimes armed “Minutemen” pulled off a sizable media stunt by rushing down to “patrol” the border.

It certainly was well publicized and again proved that securing the border isn’t nearly as hard as some on the left want us to believe. By the way building a fence along the entire southern border is also relatively inexpensive.

Again Marc gets it half right with his next paragraph:

 

The root cause of the immigration surge, of course, has nothing to do with a broken U.S. border but everything to do with a ruined Mexican economy. The wage differential between the U.S. and Mexico is about 11 to 1. Some studies suggest that in the agricultural sector there’s a 20-to-1 differential. The passage of the 1994 NAFTA agreement further depressed Mexican rural wages and further accelerated the immigration wave.

I am skeptical about NAFTA’s effects one way or the other and generally favor free trade. Be that as it may, Marc  unintentionally nails another point. The cause of Illegal immigration is due to Mexico’s woes.
 
Most Mexicans would prefer to live in Mexico if they could only earn a decent living, be able to provide for their family and hopefully better their future and that of their children. Better known as the “American Dream”. The point is we can not fix Mexico’s problems. We can offer assistance, we can buy Mexican goods, we can invest in Mexico (if the Mexican government would change its laws to allow foreigners to own property in Mexico) but without invading Mexico we can not rid our southern neighbor of its corrupt kleptocracy. Only Mexicans can do that.
 
Mexico is the 5th richest country in the world! There is no excuse for the widespread poverty that exists there. When Mexico reforms itself, Mexicans will stop trying to immigrate to the US.
 
Marc points out that a deal between Mexico and the US to allow massive legal immigration from Mexico was on the fast track on September 10th. The attacks that occurred on September 11th changed everything.
 
Yes it did and it should have.
 
Cooper describes a house bill sponsored by Jim Sensenbrenner as “Draconian.”
 
 

Those allied with Tancredo (and therefore opposed to any sort of liberalized reform) won a major victory in December when the House passed a draconian anti-immigration bill sponsored by Wisconsin Republican James Sensenbrenner. This measure, now being loudly protested by a number of Latin American foreign ministers, would reclassify all illegal aliens no longer as violators of a civil code but as criminal felons. Anyone aiding or abetting or employing them would also be committing a felony. And a new 700-mile-long wall would be built along the border—extending tenfold the current length.

 

I am curious exactly what he objects to in his description of the bill. Does he think we should allow anyone to walk across the Mexican American border wherever and whenever they choose? Don’t we check passports at our air and sea ports and official border crossings now?
 
As Marc has already pointed out one of the draws for illegal immigrants is higher wages in the US. By putting some teeth into existing laws US employers will stop hiring illegal workers. This is good for both our economy and Mexicans working here legally.

He continues: 
 
 

No provision was made for any sort of guest-worker or normalization program, a notion that restrictionists like Tancredo and Sensenbrenner scorn as little more than an “amnesty.” The logic of the Sensenbrenner bill is that the 12 million undocumented currently living here would somehow be rounded up and deported.

 

The truth is if no system is created to legalize the 12 million immigrants currently living and working here illegally many of them will deport themselves. I am not advocating that just recognizing the economic reality that Marc has already pointed out.  

Marc says:
 

On the right, there must be some recognition that it is indeed the pushes and pulls (and mostly the latter) of a global free market economy that drives Mexican immigration to the United States rather than some dark conspiracy between American liberals and Mexican officials.’

I agree but I think they already know this. He continues:

 

Notions of deporting the millions of Mexicans and Central Americans already living and working here make about as much sense as the proposals to sweep up and expel the Italians and Irish who settled on the Eastern seaboard made a century ago.

 

I agree completely, however Marc and the left need to realize there is a significant difference between this wave of Mexican immigration and the Italian and Irish immigration of the last century. Italians and Irish immigrated legally.  12 million Mexicans are here illegally and need to recognize they have broken our laws and face some consequences for it. 

I agree deporting 12 million people is a fantasy. I also recognize GWB’s current proposal of allowing Mexicans to work in the US for 6 years before forcing them back to Mexico is also nonsense.

Then Marc addresses the left:

 

The left must also abandon some of its illusions. Asserting effective control over national borders is always a legitimate and necessary task and one that should be supported by all. Simply denouncing border militarization and highlighting the sometimes very real abuses of the Border Patrol do not in themselves constitute a viable policy. The left must also recognize that there are legitimate complaints to be made by those living in border areas who see their schools, hospitals and sometimes even their natural environment overrun by desperate migrants who lack all legal acknowledgment. The current official policy of hotly pursuing migrants on the border and then ignoring them once they’ve been given a minimum wage job works for nobody. Immigrant workers should certainly be legalized, but in return there must be strict work site enforcement. Accepting and supporting a verification system at the point of employment must accompany supporting a channel for legal immigration. This would not only uphold the law but would also serve to protect immigrant workers from all the sorts of exploitation they currently experience.

Again we agree completely. The Left must recognize that we can not allow unfettered Mexican illegal immigration to continue. To do so harms both the Mexican and American middle and lower classes and only benefits American Corporations and Mexican crooks. I would add that Illegal immigration creates a black market of lawlessness of human and drug trafficking that is also harmful to both of our countries.

In the end we are not that far apart.

This post is cross-posted at The Real Ugly American but you just read it. If you would like something completely unrelated try  my interview with Milblogger Sgt. Tim Boggs.

Oh one last thing did I ever tell you what a good guy Dave was?