Ed Kilgore, formerly of the New Donkey blog, is taking over as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist with a mandate to (among other things) enliven TDS's blog. His debut post observes that whether or not the immigration compromise passes, the GOP seems to be throwing away all hope of increasing its share of the Hispanic vote even as the Hispanic vote will grow whether or not there's an amnesty.
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The New New Donkey
18 Jun 2007 10:58 am
Comments (7)
You are right, Luis, that the focus has to be on how to best bring the 12 million undocumented out of the shadows, both for themselves and for the legal residents against whom big business pits them; and, accordingly, that any "path to citizenship" that is too onerous will fail in that objective.
But I think Matt's usage is a response to the way Malkin and Dobbs and their ilk say "it's really amnesty" with this audible gasp, as if that would be the worst and most unthinkable thing in the world. Say it with a shrug, and often enough, and you make the craziness of the likes of Dobbs more obvious.
This whole immigration debate has got me thinking - why not just open the border with Mexico and allow a free flow of people back and forth, just like they do in the European Union?
Well first, there is the issue of security - Mexico's drug lords, the possibility of Jihadis infiltrating, etc., that would have to be resolved. But then, why not?
The U.S. and Mexico could some day enter an E.U.-type situation where there are open borders between nations (no, I'm not suggesting that the rest of the E.U.'s governmental structure is appropriate). The key is to get to a point where the economic imbalance between the U.S. and Mexico is not so great that millions of additional Mexicans would have economic incentives to cross an open border.
But we may be already there. Right now, the U.S. has a per capita gross national product (GNP) of $44,200. Mexico's per capita GNP is $7,800. The U.S. projected economic growth rate over the next five years is 2.5%. Mexico's is 3.5%.
Meanwhile, there are great disparities between various E.U. nations with open borders. For example, Germany has a per capita GNP of $35,100, while neighboring Poland's is $8,900. Yet, despite the anecdotal talk of the "polish plumber invasion," there doesn't seem to be a huge influx of Poles into Germany (or France, or Great Britain for that matter).
And Mexico could grow faster. I would note, that India's expected GNP growth rate over the next five years is expected to be 7.6%. India, like Mexico, is an imperfect democracy with a lot of difficult economic issues.
The U.S. could undoubtedly help Mexico ramp up its growth rate by fully implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement, so loathed by the anti-globalization crowd.
The recent victory of Calderon over a left-wing opponent, and moves toward liberalizing the economy and combatting drug crime and corruption, bode well for Mexico's future governance. And even if a left-wing candidate wins a future Mexican Presidential election, the chances are that candidate will be another Lula da Silva, not Hugo Chavez.
As for the influx of millions of Mexicans, we have that situation already. There are about 100 million Mexicans and 300 million of us, and Mexico's birthrate has plummeted in the past decades. As for assimilation, did you know that by the third generation of Mexican-Americans, 75% don't even speak Spanish any more?
(a) Fuck "Democratic strategists". They've proven their utter uselessness in the last n elections, for n large.
(b) I wonder how much Daily Show traffic their projections show them getting.
Yet, despite the anecdotal talk of the "polish plumber invasion," there doesn't seem to be a huge influx of Poles into Germany (or France, or Great Britain for that matter).
The Germans have had limits on the number of Poles that can come into Germany, while anywhere between 500,000 and a million Poles have arrived in Britain in the last three years. I'd say that qualifies as a huge influx.
I thought it was appropriate for Matt to say amnesty in this context -- the post is about the politics, not the policy as such. Though maybe it should be "amnesty," to indicate that he knows the difference.
"This whole immigration debate has got me thinking - why not just open the border with Mexico and allow a free flow of people back and forth, just like they do in the European Union?"
This is apparently what we had roughly from the time of the end of the war with Mexico to our skirmishes with Pancho Villa. Mexican braceros also provided much-needed labor during WWII.
Comments closed July 02, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Matt, I'm sure you've heard this before, but I must object to your use of the term "amnesty" to describe the path to legal status being described in the current immigration bill. I know it's cutely contrarian of you to call it that, but this use of the term masks a significant policy issue regarding how punitive the "path to citizenship" can be before it fails to achieve its purported goal of mainstreaming the current undocumented. To just brush the whole debate off under the "amnesty" slogan is truly to adopt the right wing view of the issue.
Posted by Colorado Luis | June 18, 2007 11:49 AM