Everything Sucks, I Blame Mexicans

Given that the basic conclusion is that the public is really unhappy with Bush, the Republicans, and the status quo there's something pretty depressing about this Democracy Corps (PDF) strategy memo based on some polls and focus groups. In particular, what's depressing about it is the extent to which independents and other median voter types seem inclined to basically see nefarious foreigners as the root of all our problems. Here participants are asked to name the top two problems facing the country:

Democratic voters, like Democratic politicians, see Iraq and health care as the big issues. But to independents the entrance of too many immigrants into the country is overwhelmingly the top priority. And, indeed, independents see pretty much everything as more important than Iraq. Meanwhile, the text of the memo makes it clear that voters' concerns about illegal immigration, as voiced in focus groups, tend to be founded on the inaccurate perception that illegals are hogging up tons of public services and tend to be focused in rural areas where few immigrants live. Nevertheless, Stan Greenberg and James Carville don't have any particularly creative advice to offer:

But Democrats can get this right – genuinely attacking Bush for losing control of immigration, specifically, failing to manage the borders and no longer enforcing laws at the workplace. Democrats favor greater control and enforcement at the borders and restored penalties on employers for employing illegal workers. They would deny most government benefits, which is current law in almost all cases. Recognizing we can’t expel 12 million workers, Democrats accept some kind of legal status for the those who are working, pay taxes and are law-abiding – putting our values at the heart of the reforms that will further open up our society.

That may be good electoral strategy. Obviously, Republicans will counter by shifting to an even more restrictionist stance. And since the more anti-immigration party will be arguing that illegal immigrants' use of public services is a big problem and the less anti-immigration party will also be arguing that illegal immigrants' use of public services is a big problem, then moderately informed voters are, naturally, going to become even more deeply entrenched in their erroneous conviction that this is a big problem .

Comments

Could some of the people who selected "Borders left unprotected" be thinking about terrorism rather than illegal immigration?

Posted by Peter | October 31, 2007 10:38 AM

I'm surprised there aren't more "Mexican Illegals" costumes out there for Hallowe'en.

Posted by Freddie | October 31, 2007 10:40 AM

Let's be honest here, those people aren't bothered by my white, immigrant from Europe family. They're bothered by brown people.

By itself, though, this tells me relatively little about whether or not Democrats could, hypothetically and unethically, appeal to these racists. We all know that a very large portion of people who claim to be "independents" are actually just partisans on one side or the other.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if most of these anti-immigrant independents were people who habitually vote for Republicans, or consider themselves to the right of the Republican party (i.e. those paramilitary wackos the minutemen).

Posted by rufustfyrfly | October 31, 2007 10:41 AM

why not just blame the palestinians?

Posted by marty kirchick | October 31, 2007 10:41 AM

I wonder to what extent self-identified "Independents" fluctuate depending on what party is currently en vogue. Are indies a real political faction as these sorts of polls seem to assume, or are they simply the drop off of the unpopular parties most disaffected?

Posted by Sam Hutcheson | October 31, 2007 10:41 AM

You focus on the disparity in attitudes toward immigration. What of the apparent heightened concern on the part if Independents for our energy, enviroment and deficit problems? I'd be happy to cope with a little controlled xenophobia if the tradeoff was having the aforementioned three issues dealt with.

Posted by steve duncan | October 31, 2007 10:42 AM

Perhaps this shows - as any sane person would see - that our big foreign policy initiative in the last six years should not have been in the U.S., but in ... Mexico! As in, a common sense solution to the problem in Mexico would have involved the kind of massive development aid that has been lavished, instead, on a country, Iraq, that could actually have borrowed a lot of money, given its potential wealth, to rebuild its infrastructure with a very competent professional class - if the U.S. hadn't been stepping on Iraq's throat, counting on making it a neo-liberal showcase of free enterprise. Instead, in the worst of all possible worlds that is the signature of the Bushian governing style, Iraq's infrastructure sucks while American tax money went to various rich American corporations to make them much richer as the projects they left behind in Iraq were either blown up or exposed as completely useless (i.e., Laura Bush's white elephant 'children's hospital' in Basra).

No immigration policy in the U.S. will work, of course, if it only concentrates on the U.S. If Mexico is an economic basketcase, expect more immigration. That's just the way it will be.

As for the reaction of the independents - there's nothing depressing about this. It is exactly what one should expect - it happens to every country that experiences a high level of immigration. Liberal policy should recognize that there is elbow room for immigration, but only up to a point, and think about how to preserve the tolerant attitude, and be tough minded about it. That means telling people that the Tancredos of the world are peddling a fantasy, and that no guarding of the border will work unless it is subordinate to massive development aid of a different type than what the U.S. has previously contrived for Mexico - a neo-liberal regime that starves the infrastructure which Mexico needs if it is ever to capture, accumulate, and build on the wealth it could generate on the manufacturing level it inhabits.

The problem, here, is that the Bush administration, through its systematic legalized graft in Iraq, has probably tapped out the American will to send money to another country - even though, in the case of Mexico, it ultimately serves the American interest.

Posted by roger | October 31, 2007 10:44 AM

"Government is running record deficits"???

Uh, no. The deficit is 1.2% of GDP, which is far below the post-war average.

An accurate question would be "Government is running smaller than normal deficits". Not that I expect accuracy from a Democratic pollster.

Posted by Al | October 31, 2007 10:50 AM

Al, your ice cream is cold. Tell us, how much does that suck?

Posted by steve duncan | October 31, 2007 10:56 AM

This is hardly a surprise. This happened to the Irish, the Italians ("wop" is an acronym for without papers, for Pete's sake), et. al. and they had to cross a sea. A land border crossing heightens the feelings of insecurity. If Dems don't get this quick, we will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Immigration is '08's gay marriage if Dems don't follow Carville's advice pronto.

I'm in VA and we have our statewide elections this year. Northern Virginia has become increasingly liberal with two exceptions that may decide our General Assembly makeup: the closing of the day labor center in Herndon and the passage of service restrictions in Prince William County. People who are otherwise fairly liberal support these things. Don't make the mistake of thinking that those independents are closet righties.

As far as I'm concerned, Hillary and Obama blew it with their immigrant license answers last night. The substance of the issue doesn't matter. It is an emotional issue and they just threw an easy pitch to the GOP.

Posted by Lynn | October 31, 2007 10:57 AM

As has been pointed out by Schaller and other, the portion of "Independents" who do not strongly lean toward Democrats or Republicans is comparatively small.

“Independents made up 35 percent of the 2006 voters, more than either Democrats or Republicans,” Mr. Abramowitz said, based on his analysis of data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. “But most of these independent identifiers were not true swing voters - most of them leaned toward one party or the other, and these leaning independents voted overwhelmingly for their preferred party.”

Mr. Abramowitz added this key point: “Moreover, Democratic leaners were just as liberal as other Democrats, and Republican leaners were just as conservative as other Republicans.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.schaller24oct24,0,7325401.column

So it might be interesting to see the poll results of Democratic-leaning independents vs. Republican-leaning independents vs. Not-leaning independents.

Posted by El Cid | October 31, 2007 10:57 AM

I think at least some of the number of Independents on the Border question may not be against too many immigrants but rather about securing our borders against entry from terrorists.

It's not too difficult to imagine the ease of entry by true criminals if it is so easy for masses of generally uneducated people to move freely across the border.

I'm not suggesting that all Independents are worried about this obvious threat but I think it's wrong to suggest that they are all against immigrants because of a poorly worded category.

Posted by Deb-TUD | October 31, 2007 10:58 AM

Al:
You ignorant slut!! Why do you think oil is at an all time record high? And no, the answer is not increasing demand. Have you checked the value of the dollar lately? Ever tried to take a trip to a foreign land lately? Bush and the Federal Reserve are the cause of the high oil prices by running the printing presses non-stop. Smaller than normal deficits? Smaller than what? Come back when you learn economics.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | October 31, 2007 11:01 AM

Democrats favor greater control and enforcement at the borders and restored penalties on employers for employing illegal workers. They would deny most government benefits, which is current law in almost all cases.

That's right, don't deport the menacing 12 million illegals - instead, force them to become a povery-ridden underclass who do our shit jobs for us; kick their kids out of public schools and deny them medical benefits when they're sick; and feed the growing resentment against them by blaming them for all of our society's ills. Excellent strategy, Democrats!

Posted by commie atheist | October 31, 2007 11:01 AM

Not to mention the fact that the Republicans tried to cash in hard on the brown-immigrant-hate during the 2006 election, with tons of local, below-the-radar ads with footage of Latino people with scary music over them. We all know how well that worked.

It's a loser in the short run, and will kill you in the long run.

Posted by rufustfyrfly | October 31, 2007 11:03 AM

Here's a crazy idea. Instead of following Carville's advice, Democrats could embrace amnesty for current illegals and win the increasingly political and increasingly large block of Latino voters, which trended towards Bush in the '04 elections and is clearly up for grabs.

Posted by Christopher | October 31, 2007 11:04 AM

Yeah, Al. I always tell people I take home about $20k
more than I do a year because I simply don't count
my mortgage, income tax and car payment as
expenditures.

Sure, I actually have to spend that money on Ira^,
er, house, IRS and car, but I just don't count it.
And then I never run a 'deficit'.

Simple. Like you.

Posted by Bigby | October 31, 2007 11:05 AM

"And since the more anti-immigration party will be arguing that illegal immigrants' use of public services is a big problem and the less anti-immigration party will also be arguing that illegal immigrants' use of public services is a big problem, then moderately informed voters are, naturally, going to become even more deeply entrenched in their erroneous conviction that this is a big problem.'

Along with the aid of Lou Dobbs...

Posted by Barbara | October 31, 2007 11:07 AM

Let's see ... we have a gigantic Hispanic voting block, which had been trending conservative and Republican in the western and border states in previous elections, but now is becoming a solidly Democratic constituent due to hyper-aggressive, anti-immigration GOP rhetoric, and Carville wants to piss them off by using similar rhetoric in the hopes of picking up white, rural, Republican-leaning independents?

These guys understand demographics, right? That's their job, isn't it?

Posted by DanF | October 31, 2007 11:07 AM

Lynn: sorry to nitpick, but "wop" does not refer to "without papers." It comes from the Italian word "guappo."

http://www.billcasselman.com/wording_room/wop.htm

Posted by Dr. Victor Davis Handjob | October 31, 2007 11:08 AM

Smaller than normal deficits? Smaller than what?

Maybe you didn't read the part of my post that said that a deficit of 1.2% of GDP is smaller than the post-war average?

Posted by Al | October 31, 2007 11:10 AM

There has been an obvious mistake in the poll. Independents, lovers of bipartisanship, are worried about their hero. The entry was "Broder's left unprotected", nor "borders". Once terrorists eliminate David Broder, Republicans and Democrats will fall to savaging eachother on the floor of the House with tooth and nail. Then where would we be?

Posted by Njorl | October 31, 2007 11:21 AM

The entry was "Broder's left unprotected", nor "borders".

Then the solution is obvious: we need to build a wall around David Broder. A firewall, perhaps.

Posted by Michael Bérubé | October 31, 2007 11:31 AM

I agree with the first comment: a significant fraction of respondents were probably thinking about terrorism, not immigration issues.

Posted by Mike the Mad Biologist | October 31, 2007 11:33 AM

The entry was "Broder's left unprotected", nor "borders".

Then the solution is obvious: we need to build a wall around David Broder. A firewall, perhaps.

I prefer "a world without Broders."

Posted by commie atheist | October 31, 2007 11:35 AM

Honestly, my biggest fear is that some gay, brown skinned, anti-Zionist, catholic burka-totter will come to my country, encourage my wife to grow a fat ass, and then steal my job by getting sucked off by my congressman for free. I'm also afraid because when these gbsazcbt come to our country in oil and gas guzzling cars that are hard to see from my Escalade they use up all our national health care and don't leave us anything but a giant bureaucracy that gives jobs to foreigners who are willing to work from their homes in India and China.

And, no. I'm not a hypocrite. I only let my congressman suck me off for $20 when I'm on meth.

Posted by The Black Monk | October 31, 2007 11:37 AM

Hey Al, nice bait and switch. On-budget the deficit is more than double that, and this in a time of what you're tribe is calling "the best economy of our lifetime". If so, shouldn't we be seeing surpluses by now?

And what will happen to the on-budget deficit when the inevitable economic slow-down hits thanks to the precarious fiscal footing you clowns have put the country on? That's right, it will explode.

Oh, and before you start telling me it's appropriate for you clowns to raid the SS fund to do potemkin deficit charts, maybe you can explain to taxpayers that their regressive payroll taxes aren't for their retirement, they're for paying for your war.

Posted by Redstar | October 31, 2007 11:42 AM

I prefer "a world without Broders."

Then join us now! We bring healing and life-saving medicine to countries devastated by Broders.

Posted by Doctors Without Broders | October 31, 2007 11:45 AM

amazingly, our elite economic powers that be declare that having too much of something relative to the demand for it is an iron law that can never be broken...

... Unless pretending it doesn't exist means that they can get more cheap labor. In which case, it's just a conspiracy theory. Supply? Demand? Totally unrelated. Why? well, apparently Americans don't want to work in dining establishments or hotel/motels. How do we know this? Well... no Americans are poor or desperate enough to need those jobs!

That, in essence, is the left wing argument on immigration. The Democratic party is pandering to illegal immigrants and their relatives with this. They really shouldn't be shocked that their logic doesn't persuade the great many. It makes no sense, and runs counter to every other argument they make.

To most Americans, you all sound like you're whining because you want cheap or slave labor, and you're not getting it. Or, worse, you sound like you're trying to win elections by importing new voters.

After so many years of economic stagnation for the American family, where so much of the gains in our society have been swallowed up by so few, nobody wants to hear the elite cry about how they can't get enough household help.

Posted by Soullite | October 31, 2007 12:03 PM

This sounds like another NAFTA to me "trust us, amnesty for illegal immigrants will make your lives better and it won't cost you a single job. All according to some magical formula we won't tell anybody about."

Pretending this is all about race is why you turn off so many independents. Calling them racist, when in reality they are worried about their own economic futures, is going ot do nothing but turn off any independent who would have been sympathetic to you.

Seriously. Go. Fuck. Yourselves.

Posted by Soullite | October 31, 2007 12:06 PM

Consider these two:

1. Tens of thousands of people from "SpecialInterest" countries have illegally entered over the southern border. "SpecialInterest" means: Iraq, Iran, SaudiArabia, Pakistan, etc. There have been at least a couple rings broken up, and two Hezb. members were arrested after having been in the U.S. for a year.

2. All MattY can do is try to racialize the issue and calls those who support defending the U.S. against terrorist infiltration racists.

Given those two facts, should you trust anything MattY says?

P.S. special note to MattY: here's the number you want: 202 728 1600 Ask for "Senor Sarukhan". Tell him you're a semi-famous blogger and you'd like to help his country's cause, but you'd like a share of the profits.

Posted by TLB | October 31, 2007 12:10 PM

What Democrats, Republicans and Independents who believe in a free economy should do is attack statist protectionism of closed borders (and limited trade). Don't make a race issue out of it.

Explain again - as you would to a child - why more immigration, also of low labor, is better for white, poor Americans than no immigration. Just as people have struggled for centuries to explain to white folks why liberating (making them official) blacks is ok even for poor white folks who will have to compete with them.

This, economic perspective, is better than blaming racism on those folks. Many are not racists but genuinely, albeit mistakenly, believe that they are protecting their values by making their values less attractive. That they are protecting "something" by locking themselves up...

The Economist invites to a talk in NY about all these immigration and protectionist issues in New York. This is badly needed!

Immigrants are not a disease - they are something positive and natural like breathing. Even if they had a negative impact in some areas - prohibiting cancer or drugs is not a solution - it is not even a strategy. Building a wall ala Berlin and locking every drug user up is the idea of a child. It does not work. Those who have difficulties recognizing policy mistakes and reality for what it is - are only tricked into more vital lies and the vicious circle gains momentum.

Expanding NAFTA to include free movement of labor has the same logic behind as free trade. Or what is next - Americans from poor federal states are not allowed to move to California anymore (only the illegal Mexicans can and will continue to do so?) Federal States with import duties and quotas? The Farm subsidies and water contracts with farmers are already a sign for this? Pathetic policies of fear of change.

America - wake up to your core values or you will lose them out of fear to lose them. American's used to love and embrace change - not anymore. Your real values came before your constitution and the virtual recognition of virtual borders. America is where respect for the individual and freedom are being practiced - an American is whoever practices these values. Non-intervention does not mean protectionism (those are actually utterly incompatible and Ron Paul is hence NOT a libertarian per se!)

Do you want to outsource America's core values? Peter Drucker, an Austrian who was drawn to the US for its values, would not be impressed?

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | October 31, 2007 12:29 PM

Soullite,

Just chill, dude, Yglesias doesn't speak for the Democratic party, he doesn't even speak for the left-wing of the Democratic party. He's a blogger and, as such, doesn't shoe-horn into the same socio-economic strata that working heads of households typically do.

In other words, his economic concerns are not the same as those of us raising a family, two paychecks or so (or a serious illness) away from losing everything. (The same can be said of many prominent bloggers btw, on both sides of the ideological divide.)

He doesn't speak for the Democratic party, he doesn't speak for the left, I'd say you should press your candidates on this important issue and wait and see what the Democrats come up with.

You know you can't trust the GOP to do the right thing on this issue, they're the ones who've been paid by business the past decade to look the other way. Despite the noise some of them make, you know they'll never do anything...

Posted by Redstar | October 31, 2007 12:29 PM

Is there anyone out there who actually believes that the viciously incompetent Republicans who are "addressing" the issue of borders and immigration by screaming a bunch of nut squad hype about terrorists and the costs of illegal immigrants to communities would actually do anything, anything, even one tiny thing to solve the problem???

Once again, we have a nut squad who had absolute power over all branches of government from 2002 to 2006, and did nothing about this vital issue.

Is this not obvious to people?

Does screaming about a fence build one, especially any one which was anything more than symbolic? Does screaming about the immigration threat actually control border passages? Is this another one of those 'issues' which are so crucial to the hearts of so many that no realism may be brooked in responding to it?

Posted by El Cid | October 31, 2007 12:30 PM

... Unless pretending it doesn't exist means that they can get more cheap labor. In which case, it's just a conspiracy theory. Supply? Demand? Totally unrelated. Why? well, apparently Americans don't want to work in dining establishments or hotel/motels. How do we know this? Well... no Americans are poor or desperate enough to need those jobs!

So you take the corporate Republican position on illegal immigration (arrest just the workers so they're too scared to protest any bad treatment but leave the companies that hire the workers alone), apply it to the Democrats, and then declare the Democrats are the problem.

Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

Soullight, I assume you're on board with my position about illegal workers, which is that any company that is found to be using them three times is immediately shut down and its assets liquidated? Because as it stands, companies keep using illegal workers because the fines they have to pay are no big deal.

Shut multiple offenders like Tyson down and you'll see some movement towards eliminating illegal workers. Trying to cut off the supply while leaving the demand in place is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Put down the deck chair and focus some effort on where it will actually do some good: the companies that employ illegal workers at sub-minimum wages.

Posted by Mnemosyne | October 31, 2007 12:31 PM

roger said: "As in, a common sense solution to the problem in Mexico would have involved the kind of massive development aid that has been lavished, instead, on a country, Iraq"

While squandering money in Iraq is indeed stupid lavishing aide on Mexico without tougher trade agreements with China and India would have been a waste too. It wouldn't have mattered how much cash we poured into Mexico or what kind of sweetheart deals we tried to cut to find them work down there so they didn't have to find work up here the fact that Chinese can and do work for a $100 a month and are able to save for the future doing it makes that kind of policy impossible to succeed.

That great sucking sound Ross Perot heard wasn't jobs going to Mexico because they all went to Red China. The PRC is now the kind of laissez faire safety net and regulation free country the neocons hoped to make Iraq. Until that changes it's going to be very hard for anybody else to compete with them for manufacturing work.

Posted by markg8 | October 31, 2007 12:37 PM

Hugo Pottisch, if you are a Peter Drucker fan, here is him on immigration:
"...But the immigrants have a mismatch of skills: They are qualified for yesterday's jobs, which are the kinds of jobs that are going away."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/01/12/357916/index.htm

Posted by pjgoober | October 31, 2007 12:49 PM

Re: Immigration is '08's gay marriage if Dems don't follow Carville's advice pronto.

No, because the GOP cannot exploit the issue as it was able to exploit gay marriage. In case no one has noticed the GOP leadership is resolutely pro-immigrant (remember the Bush immigration bill, which was hardly something Bush alone was pushing?) And the GOP's business wing, dependent as it has become on immigrants at all levels, will simply not allow any serious move to curtail immigration. Yes, there are some individual GOP demagogues like Tancredo who will rant and froth about immigration, but they will also be marginalized by the party establishment. The GOP does realize that immigration is a hot-button issue but for the reasons just mentioned the best they will do is utter platitudes and try to downplay it.

Re: Bush and the Federal Reserve are the cause of the high oil prices by running the printing presses non-stop.

Oil is priced in dollars so this is not true. It is however true that this fall's runup in oil prices can be laid at Bush's door: it is mainly the result of the administration sabre-rattling campaign at Iran.

Now, here's something interesting no one else has commented on yet: more independents than Democrats are concerned about global warming and oil dependency. What's up with that?

Posted by JonF | October 31, 2007 1:43 PM

So much for the "reality-based community". Any Democrat who cared about his country and was numerate would know that importing millions of uneducated, unskilled poor people from Mexico hurts Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder -- the ones Democrats always claim they want to help. And importing tens of millions of more poor people will make any liberal plans to expand entitlements even more economically unfeasible.

On the plus side though, more Mexicans = more reliable Democratic voters when they get legalized or when their kids grow up.

Posted by Fred | October 31, 2007 1:52 PM

I think Hugo Pottisch is a satire. If not, he should try to understand what other countries would do if we had open borders. If he's serious, he's completely divorced from reality.

As for El Cid, he doesn't seem to understand that there's a difference between the corrupt top leaders of the GOP such as Bush and most Republican Cong. and most of the GOP base. Bush is even more of a Dem on this issue than most Dems.

Posted by TLB | October 31, 2007 1:52 PM

markg8 - you are right that the optimum time to have done the kind of development that the EU did with Greece and Spain, and that we ourselves did with Israel, was in the 90s. However, I think your wrong that Mexico can't leverage its geography and the human capital infrastructure it has now to find a developmental path upward. After all, the cocaine trade has done this. I'm not joking - although a black market good with those built in constraints, still, the lure of geography has brought that trade squarely to Mexico. Mexico could easily have competed with India, for instance, in the software service area, if NAFTA hadn't been set up in such a way that its benefits went mostly to a corrupt few in Mexico and American corporations, leaving communities with workers who are too ill paid to really be taxed in order to build schools or even have working sewage systems.

I'm not saying such a development package would be easy to create. I am saying that pretending Mexico can collapse economically and the U.S. can build a wall is a fantasy. Similar to the fantasy that the U.S. is going to build an enforcement mechanism that will go after and shut down those companies that hire illegals. Right. We are talking about the U.S. congress here, in which responsivenes to business comes first, second and third - the place that routinely threatens to curtail the SEC when it begins to take regulation seriously. The discourse about immigration is alarmingly like that about illegal drugs - we are going to go after businesses, or we are going to have this great enforcement mechanism. It won't work. It never has worked. Those people who want an immigration policy that works, instead of one that satisfies revenge fantasies, should look for a policy that actually addresses the root cause of the problem.

Posted by roger | October 31, 2007 2:06 PM

Year 2004 - Democrats look at poll numbers that show rising public disgust with Bush and conclude all other factors can be ignored. To them, it is Clearly All About Iraq! And the solution is a Senator with Gravitas who talks out of both sides of his August, Mighty Mouth.

Year 2008 Elections Race - Democrats look at poll numbers that show continuing Republican, Independent, and Democratic disgust with Bush. And weigh similar results from 2006 where voters said they were fed up with Republican incompetence, Iraq, corruption, America going in the wrong direction, stagnant wages, Borders overrun, massive deficits and CHina killing us in competition. And like 2004, Democrats and their Lefty MSM enablers have decided It is All About Iraq.....we must ignore or discount all other poll results...the most urgent thing is to declare defeat and cut & run from Iraq. Oh, and do nothing with Iran but urge more diplomacy and care more about the civil rights of terrorists than Bush.. And of course, this must be led by a Seantor with Gravitas that talks out of both sides of their mouth.

Like 2000, 2004 - a surefire path for Democratic success?
Riding the coat tails of glowing satisfaction with the Democratic Congress and it's many urgent investigations of scandal and doing nothing otherwise?
With it's two leading candidates lacking any military or executive experience?
And Iraq improving and blame solidly fixed on the guy leaving office through BDS?

Sounds like another attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

*************************
This sounds like another NAFTA to me "trust us, amnesty for illegal immigrants will make your lives better and it won't cost you a single job. All according to some magical formula we won't tell anybody about."
Pretending this is all about race is why you turn off so many independents. Calling them racist, when in reality they are worried about their own economic futures, is going ot do nothing but turn off any independent who would have been sympathetic to you.
Seriously. Go. Fuck. Yourselves.
Posted by Soullite

It was Matt playing the race card and calling anyone questioning tens of millions of illegal invader's right to be here and unify all they left behind in foreign lands here if Amnesty passes as ignorant Americans. But the same general Elitist argument that cheap 3rd Worlders are indispensible because everyone needs cheap maids, nannies, workers at their owned businesses doesn't fly.

I agree with Soullite that the unctuous, smarmy lectures on ignorant Americans worried about their petty little jobs and laughable AMerican values doesn't concern them as much as future Hispanic votes, illegal alien rights, the need to expand free health care for illegals, give them all drivers licenses and full de facto US citizenship...grates enormously on Independents, Republicans, and the Reagan Democrats who were returning to the Democratic fold in 2006.

I loved how Hillary! paused, then deliberately rephased the descriptor as "undocumented people" from the Moderator's question abot "illegal aliens". How clever and cute of her. How Orwellian. Nothing is illegal or illegal. It is only a matter of having or lacking some sort of documentation and government permission.
Thus to Hillary! and like-minded Leftists - perhaps the problem of arsonists in California can be reduced to "undocumented fire setters" since they simply lacked the State Lands, National Forest Fire Permit Document that would have allowed them to be out there setting fires legally....

Posted by Chris Ford | October 31, 2007 2:20 PM

A lot of lofty discussion here, but if anyone wants to know who unregulated immigration hurts ask any micro business owner.

There is nothing racist about wanting border regulation. It carried this country for a very long time very successfully.

Why is there no Ellis Island on our borders? I don't think any thinking soul is discounting immigration itself, just a completely unregulated flow of undocumented folks. It hurts all of us, the undocumented included as they are literally forced into the slave labor category.

Control the borders. Nothing else can be accomplished until that step is taken.

Posted by G Davis | October 31, 2007 2:30 PM

pjgoober

Drucker is addressing one of the challenges of low skilled immigrants. He does not make a point for protectionism as far as I am aware. In fact, I am certain that he will claim that free market dynamics, including free movement of labor, is an American value that is desirable to resolve that challenge best.

One of the arguments overlooked by many is that an increase of high-skill immigrants or domestic workers will increase demand for low-skilled labor as well. Certain low skill jobs cannot be outsourced to other countries and are needed locally.

If we believed low-skilled jobs are somehow inherently undesired and have to be extinguished worldwide - I'd wonder if we have understood the principle of relativity?

In the article you have linked to Drucker makes the follwing claim:

Q: Does the U.S. still set the tone for the world economy? A: The dominance of the U.S. is already over. What is emerging is a world economy of blocs represented by NAFTA, the European Union, ASEAN. There's no one center in this world economy.

From a business perspective the end of the (economic) nation state is not only desirable but has been practiced successfully for decades, by businesses and consumers at least if not by citizens.

PS: a commenter claims I am a satire due to my distance from what he considers reality. He claims that:

If we followed their advice, stronger, more cohesive countries such as China would take advantage of their foolishness [of free labor economics] to send us people in order to obtain power inside the U.S. Their proposal would allow other countries to colonize parts of the U.S. and obtain effective co-dominion or worse. No one should take anything either says seriously.

That is his reality? Why does he not mention the treat of a Soviet attack with nuclear bombs instead? The Soviet Union's protectionism was defeated by America's openness and not the other way around. Had they send millions of Russian immigrants to take power in the US - those immigrants would have done so mostly to fight Communism and to protect American democracy!

Well 12 million illegal immigrants and packed prisons are showing how real current policies are. Prohibiting cars does not make street law enforcement the most efficient. Tyrannical regimes world-wide show how well the economy can be protected when erecting a wall. TLB only serves to show how much trust he has in the power of individual rights and freedom.

Prohibition has always created more security problems than it has avoided. You can stay healthy without locking yourself up in a hospital. In the case of labor protectionism (inbreeding), the economy will suffer for certain, the American idea(l) will suffer for certain.

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | October 31, 2007 2:37 PM

Re: Bush and the Federal Reserve are the cause of the high oil prices by running the printing presses non-stop.
JonF - Oil is priced in dollars so this is not true. It is however true that this fall's runup in oil prices can be laid at Bush's door: it is mainly the result of the administration sabre-rattling campaign at Iran.

Sorry, you are wrong in the sense that the global oil commodies market prices in the effect, of the collapsing US dollar, to ensure the a barrel of oil maintains value in the face of currency devaluation. Dollar goes down? Futures trading prices that in. Two factors drive true oil price: Supply and demand, and speculation. Speculation includes various risk premiums tied to terrorism, unanticipated shortages, hurricanes, refinery fires, internal politics in oil exporting countries.

Unfortunately for the American schnook citizen, his stagnant wage and declining dollar's value means he must take a 3rd hit that other citizens in other nations avoid...
In Bush's free spending tenure when China has also destroyed any hope of balanced trade and our "current account" - the Euro has gone from being worth 88 cents to 1.51 today. The Canadian loon is now worth more than a dollar. And the Yen has strengthened enoromously against the World's Greatest Debtor nation's currency.

(Translated, that means that the price of oil has risen significantly less in other countries than here with our debased currency. And it could get far worse if the dollar is abandoned as the world's reserve currency for a more stable currency the creditor nations agree on.)

Posted by Chris Ford | October 31, 2007 2:42 PM

Re illegals hurt citizens at the bottom of the ladder.

No, not so, and for a simple reason. The employers hiring super-low wage workers want illegals. It's like an anti-union card. Those workers never complain, never sue, never demand minimum wage, and work with any chemicals they're given.

I live in part of California with thousands of farmworkers, and Compton--just for instance--is real close by. There are plenty of extremely poor people in Compton, and some of them would work hard at any job that paid money. I've never heard of any agribusiness around here even trying to hire them. Agribusiness would much rather have people who can't complain even when their life is at stake.

(Their life is at stake, by the way. Median life span for migrant farmworkers is 47, last I heard.)

Posted by quixote | October 31, 2007 2:46 PM

G Davis,

If you want to control the borders, you have to change our immigration laws to reflect economic realities.

This is a great supply of people of Latin America who want to emigrate here in order to work, and there are plenty of American employers who want to hire these immigrants when they arrive. Thus, there is a natural economic relationship between Latin America and the US that is contravened by laws that artificially limit the number of people who can immigrate here legally. However, if you change these laws and remove these artificial limits, then illegal immigration would mostly disappear.

The vast majority of illegal immigrants come here for legitimate economic reasons; if these people are able to come here legally, then the incentives for illegal immmigration disappear. People who come here illegally now would be able to come here legally instead. That means they would enter this country through proper & legal channels, which leads to effective & thorough regulation of our borders, and of the people who emigrate here. Add in amnesty to this reform in immigration laws, and illegal immigration virtually disappears in this country.

Posted by eltoro | October 31, 2007 3:00 PM

eltoro-Read what I said again...the part about thinking people not discounting immigration itself...

I have nothing against immigration. I have a serious problem with uncontrolled borders, both for economic and security reasons.

I don't believe any solution will present itself until we control the borders. That doesn't discount your additional solutions, but there is a first step to that process and that is stop the flow, then deal with the rest.

It's Ellis Island...a simple fix to the first step.

Posted by G Davis | October 31, 2007 3:09 PM

Can we dispense with the foolish meme quixote repeats that illegal aliens work for less than the minimum wage? Someone please show me evidence of this. All the evidence I've seen -- from media reports about construction, the restaurant industry, etc. -- show that illegals tend to earn more than the minimum wage, but less than the prevailing wage before they showed up.

"There are plenty of extremely poor people in Compton, and some of them would work hard at any job that paid money."

This theory was actually put to the test in Georgia recently. The WSJ wrote an article about it. A chicken-processing plant (called Crider) that had been employing mostly illegal Mexican immigrants was raided and had to find new workers. Desperate for new workers, the plant raised its wages and recruited local poor blacks. When blacks started quiting, the company tried to import Hmong immigrants from Minnesota. What if there were no Hmongs or Mexicans? The plant would have had to raise salaries even higher to retain its black employees.

Posted by Fred | October 31, 2007 3:42 PM

Considering that Matt might soon be the most prominent Spanish-surnamed journalist in America (especially if Geraldo Rivera goes through with his musings about retiring to his home in Israel and getting elected to the Knesset), maybe he's not feeling quite as much economic pressure from illegal immigrants as are millions of other Americans?

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 31, 2007 4:03 PM

re Illegals - People are saving a lot of money on re-roofing jobs in the NY metro area. Also - illegals have brought down the crime rate in many cities in the NE - Native American crime rates in Paterson and New Haven and Jersey City - others are higher.

Posted by Comment | October 31, 2007 4:22 PM

Hugo Pottisch says: a commenter claims I am a satire due to my distance from what he considers reality... Had [the Soviets] send millions of Russian immigrants to take power in the US - those immigrants would have done so mostly to fight Communism and to protect American democracy!

OK, I'm forced to admit that I think you're either a satire or really, really high. Are you in a time zone where it's evening?

If I headed up China, and the U.S. had open borders, I'd send a fair number of committed party members to serve as organizers who could be kept in line by keeping their families in China or by making sure they were ideologically oriented. They could use race-based means (just like the Dems use) to keep the rest in line and make sure they supported China's interests. And, while I'm sure I'm smarter than MattY, I'm also sure that anyone who's able to rise to the top of China is smarter than me and is better able to come up with distardly plans.

Hugo Pottisch's fantasy world requires us to completely ignore everything every country has done throughout history.

Posted by TLB | October 31, 2007 4:32 PM

The most recent Chinese spy case involved a woman in California Republican politics.

Posted by Comment | October 31, 2007 4:53 PM

Fred-- That's how it's SUPPOSED to work. You people always talk about the free market. Well, that's the free market. You raise wages to get people to do the job you need done. If you can't employ people cheaply enough to make profit on your product, your product probably doesn't really belong in the market and neither does your firm.

Posted by Soullite | October 31, 2007 5:28 PM

Eltoro-- Everything you say is completely correct. That's why the so-called 'liberals' on this subject never actually want to institute any real loosening of the requirements of citizenship. They just want to make life easier on illegal immigrants and they want to make it easier to employ illegal immigrants. They want quest worker programs that will never lead to citizenship. They want these policies because they bring in the cheapest labor. If these immigrants were to come here legally, most of them would be competing at similar wages.

When one of these people actually proposes a law that is not designed to make war against the American working class and poor, then they can start declaring everyone who opposes it to be racist. As it is, they are simply ignoring every argument their opponents make so they can plug their ears and yell "RACIST" at the top of their lungs.

Posted by Soullite | October 31, 2007 5:33 PM

Why don't the Democrats, or Republicans for that matter, support immigration on the basis of skill?

Part of the problem with the way illegal immigration works is that only the poor masses are willing to take the risks, because the rewards are relatively greater.

Furthermore, we have a "humane" system wherein family unification takes precedence.

This is laudable, and mind-blowingly stupid.

Soullite, by the way, if doctors found their wages being depressed like many less privileged workers, or dentists did, or IT people did, or whatever, I'm pretty sure you'd have a lot more elite interest in strengthening borders :)

Posted by Greg | October 31, 2007 6:37 PM

TBL

I enjoy your own satire of fear...

I can gather that you are not concerned with economic growth but rather with home land security. We can try to treat these issues separately - albeit the two are directly related (America riches nation and most immigration since its discovery, Californian immigration since the 80s and wealth, Reagan bankrupting the Soviet system with money and not wars, etc).

If you give up economic growth (through less free labor markets) - you give up security budgets too. The reason why China become more powerful is not because they have a billion people but because they have introduced more economic freedom. We want to counter that new power by introducing less economic freedom? What? That is like getting rid of our nukes only because Iran is trying to build one? No - when you want to punish a dictatorship you introduce sanctions, which is involuntary protectionism because it is a disease and not a treatment!!!! We want to punish ourselves?

And coming back to reality. The US border with Mexico is being patrolled and yet there are 12 million illegals here and now. Spending more billions on making tighter might stop some but no way all. Those who come in are then willing to risk even more and poor risk takers often end up as criminals, especially when jobs are scare because no market economics is being practiced.

But the point is that the underground becomes even more underground and even more organized and hence feels even more solidarity. These people are not happy at home and they are not happy with the US (Bin Laden having grown up under an oppressive regime and having experienced the US as oppressive as well... not good soil).

Prohibition only makes the "bad" organized and smarter and stronger.

The only real and sustainable security we know off is wealthy people whose individual rights are protected by democracy. When was the last time two democracies waged wars with each other and when was the last time two dictatorships did? Tell me - why should people who are willing to risk their lives to flee from political or economic oppression be punished?

And in your mind - do you really think that your claims of a Chinese invasion by corrupting democracy is likely to happen, as you write:

Millions of Chinese spies who grew up under an oppressive regime are send by China to the US in order to get elected and take over the country. In order to achieve their goals they must pose as great family people, loving free markets, freedom of speech, respect for all religions and sexualities, etc.. but it is all acting.

Deep down, those millions of Chinese spies, will continue to believe in the rule of a Dictator. They just act the American life style and value systems that they adopted. They feel so much loyalty for dictatorships that they are going to risk their new lives literally. They do not believe that they should not be able to say what they think and feel. They do not feel that they should have the right to go where they want to go.. etc.

TLB - how do you feel when walking down China Town or Honk Kong? If anyone should be controlled and monitored it is types like you.

Another point is that I am not saying - everyone who enters the US becomes a citizen and can vote from day one. I am talking about free labor mobility - legal work permits and possibly no minimum wages for low-skilled immigrants. Under NAFTA - the criminal records of Mexicans could be checked, etc and this would be an easy start. The point is that only real suspects and criminals should attempt to cross the border. When you have an ocean of water to scan it is hard to find the few toxic drops!

Making illegals legal is the best way to do that. Incidentally - making drugs legal too. When you can smuggle drugs you can also smuggle dirty bombs (when you smuggle alcohol you automatically also smuggle weapons). Why make it impossible for law enforcement to find the needle by throwing a hay stack over it ourselves?

Why punish those good individuals who are willing to risk their lives to enjoy the values of the US and who would make the economy stronger? Why would we make it harder for ourselves to defend our country while weakening our own economy?

A Chinese Wall that should keep real danger outside only makes sense with open and efficient labor markets. Without it - either you cannot pay for it - or you become so weak that there is nothing to protect - or you have so much noise that the dangerous voices cannot be heard. We should pay for the wall with our tax money while illegal immigrants and their employers do not? Drug smugglers do not pay taxes either!

We have to think "healthy immune system" and not "oxygen tank"!

Hugo Pottisch's fantasy world requires us to completely ignore everything every country has done throughout history.

TLB - follow me to a completely new fantasy world... You sound as if you are from any other country but America. Maybe that is why you want to behave as if this was some other country but not America?

PS: The problem with liberals and immigration is the minimum wage. The minimum wage can keep immigrants illegal - even when free labor movement is possible. No - please do NOT tell me that you know some of the 12 million illegal immigrants who work for MORE than the minimum wage. It is as boring as the story about the chain smoker who became 100 years old...

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | October 31, 2007 6:47 PM

G Davis,

I agree with you that the 1st step is to control the flow. You are not going to control the flow, however, if you ignore the underlying economic forces that drive the flow in the 1st place. Since it is not the lack of a wall that drives immigration from Latin America in the 1st place, building bigger & better walls is not going to reduce the flow, but rather it will simply change its direction toward even more illegal channels. If you remove the incentives for using illegal channels, however, the flow will change toward legal channels. When the flow overwhelmingly comes through legal channels, then our law enforcement apparatus can truly control our border with Mexico, just as it controls it with Canada. (Notice that we don't need a wall to deal with immigration from Canada, despite its far larger and less concentrated border.)

It is a fallacy that we must attain border control before we reform our immigration laws. Rather, our lack of border control is due to our failure to make our immigration more sensible. Reform our laws, and border control will follow.

Posted by eltoro | October 31, 2007 8:42 PM

BTW, there's no clear etymology of "wop".

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 31, 2007 9:27 PM

Re: Two factors drive true oil price: Supply and demand, and speculation.

Correction: PERCEIVED supply and demand. Nothing has really changed on the actual supply and demand front since earlier this year when it was predicted oil prices would fall this autumn. What has changed is the perception that the supply is not secure, and specifically that a war between Iran and the US would endanger a large fraction of that supply (there are also some lesser problems in other parts of the world that play a role in this). That is why oil prices are going up.
Meanwhile the advantage of being the world's reserve currency is precisely that one avoids the consequences of currency devaluation in any commodity that is priced in one's currency.

Posted by Jonf | October 31, 2007 9:56 PM

Immigration - legal or illegal - is only a problem if you make it a problem by treating such people as something other than the same humans the rest of your citizens are.

It is also only a problem if your economy sucks because your economic policy is to rip off your citizens with taxes and use the booty to conquer the world instead of, you know, actually developing technology and your economy and your people.

It is also only a problem if you don't deal fairly with the countries sending people to your country, and support their economic development, because you few them as "threats" to your economy instead of partners in developing your economy and theirs.

OTOH, some people believe the US stole most of its wealth from the rest of the world. So in that scenario, the rest of the world is coming here to get some of it back, which is perfect justice.

The reality is that immigration is the least of this country's worries. Which is naturally why the moron "independents" - who obviously don't THINK independently - are so concerned about it.

The only Americans "threatened with economic pressure" from "poor, uneducated" immigrants are those "poor, uneducated American" marginals who should not exist in the first place if we had a decent educational and training system instead of spending one to two trillion dollars on unnecessary wars.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 31, 2007 10:21 PM

I don't read Yglesias comments regularly since he posts so damn much--it's all I can do to keep up with the posts, let alone comments--but I can't believe his threads are always this filled with rabid right-wingers. I have to guess the post got linked to at some restrictionist site. Then came a mini-swarm who took over the thread and declared themselves a majority--a basic pattern that's been repeated in the immigration debate across the country. (Except that Soullite got confused for a minute and started arguing with Fred.)

I haven't yet read the whole Democracy Corps study, but I read this post about it and the one here, and I don't like what I see. It looks suspiciously like the "sensible left's" approach to Iraq: say what the right is saying, except more quietly. That didn't work out so well before, as I recall.

As far as the polling firm that conducted the survey, count me unconvinced that progressives will be well-served by accepting their results without scrutiny. They brought us "Si Se Puede" in Bolivia with "Our Brand Is Crisis," and they brought us this Bill Kristol Weekly Standard column with the following helpful nugget:

focus groups--according to the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner--show that "attacks on Democrats for opposing any effort to stop terrorists . . . were highly effective."

Caveat emptor.

Posted by yave begnet | October 31, 2007 10:33 PM

>>It is a fallacy that we must attain border control before we reform our immigration laws. Rather, our lack of border control is due to our failure to make our immigration more sensible. Reform our laws, and border control will follow.

Eltoro, that is just nonsense...there are perfectly good laws already on the books that are not being enforced, so what makes you think new laws would be enforced.

What I'm asking for is basically the same as you...disallowing the business world from taking advantage of a slave labor pool...immigration, in and of itself, is not the problem. The magnet is the problem.

How we get there is where we disagree. I don't think we need new laws or necessarily a fence or anything else. We need to enforce our current laws, establish a system for those wanting to come in as outlined in our current laws and once the non-stop flow is abated, we decide how to deal with the folks already here to get them legal.

It's as simple as Ellis Island...but we have to enforce the concept which also means funding it...that will be the hard part.

Posted by G Davis | November 1, 2007 12:18 AM

I'm an independent and am very worried about what mass illegal immigration has done and is doing to the country. But I live in an urban/suburban area (in L.A.) and it's not only the "hogging" of public services I'm concerned about. For starters, try googling "LAPD's most wanted."

Posted by Chris | November 1, 2007 1:43 AM

Mnemo, yes of course. Such companies should have all of their assets seized and they should be shut down. For too long we've allowed corporations to run wild breaking any law they wish with only civil penalties. At some point, not only should the company themselves be subject to criminal prosecution, but any business found to be engaging in a pattern of illegal dealings should see their officers charged under a statute similar to RICO and send to prison for the rest of their lives.

Posted by Soullite | November 1, 2007 2:31 AM

Davis says we're not enforcing the old laws, so we don't need new laws, because we need to enforce the old laws.

This is called reasoning on the right.

You don't need the old laws OR new laws. You need to get a clue about the causes of excessive immigration and the effects of excessive immigration and address that.

And passing laws on such a social phenomena is virtually guaranteed to be useless.

As for LAPD's most wanted, they'd be stealing hubcaps if the drug trade were legalized out of existence - which is another example of the uselessness of the legal system as a solution for all ills.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 1, 2007 6:36 AM

A quick Google found this at the top:

"Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that, if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit would grow to nearly $29 billion."

Now how much did the Iraq war cost? How much is Bush asking for just in EXTRA money now? Another $45 billion or whatever?

You could probably pay for all of Mexico to live here with the money Iraq costs per year. Or better, you could take over Mexico for that kind of money and pay the people to stay there on welfare...

Morons.

Immigration - about the most useless issue facing the US in its history.

It's bullshit. A distraction from this country's real problems. The same old, same old chimpanzee reaction - blame the brown monkeys.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | November 1, 2007 6:44 AM

"This is a great supply of people of Latin America who want to emigrate here in order to work,"

Yeah, but with a whole world of people who want to emigrate here in order to work, why in the world would we give preference to Latin America? Why not bring some more Philippine nurses and doctors in, to lower medical expenses? Get an entrepreneurial shot in the arm from small businessmen from Hong Kong?

What's with this? Is it some kind of poverty of imagination, that the only legal immigration policy you can conceive of is one that exactly replicates the demographics of the people coming here illegally? Who are the ones coming in illegally only because they've got the luck of sharing a land border with us?

Is the impossibility of wading across the Pacific ocean really a good reason to give Asians the finger like that?

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 1, 2007 7:15 AM

Brett,

Did I say anything about only giving preference to Latin American immigrants? No, I said we should eliminate the arbritrary numerical limits our immigration law currently possesses. Let the market determine which immigrants get jobs here.

If anybody has a poverty of imagination here Brett, it is yourself. Didn't it ever occur to you that arbritrary numerical limits affect immigrants from all places, not just Latin America? Didn't it ever occur to you how unfair it is that people who try to immigrate here legally often have to wait 5-10 years to get in? If you had thought of these things, then you wouldn't have leaped to the asinine conclusion that my ideas would only help Latin American immigrants.

Posted by eltoro | November 1, 2007 10:35 AM

Eltoro, my wife is a (legal)immigrant from Asia, as are a lot of my friends, so I am very well aware of the obstacles we place in the way of legal immigrants. And of just how many well educated, english literate would-be immigrants we turn away every year, in order to make room for the illegal immigrants.

You're the one who brought up Latin America. I just wanted to point out that, if we didn't deliberately give preference to Latin Americans, (Currently by letting them walk across the border...) they'd be a relatively small fraction of immigrants to this country. Yes, there are a lot of Latin Americans who want to come here. But it's a big world, and Latin Americans are a minority in it.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 1, 2007 10:50 AM

G Davis,

I agree with you about the Ellis Island concept. However, we already have a law enforcement apparatus available to control our borders. The problem is, the flow of immigration doesn't head toward our metaphorical Ellis Island, but circumvents it instead. Better law enforcement is not enough to prevent this circumvention. In order to drive the flow of immigration toward Ellis Island, we must remove the incentives for immigrants to circumvent it. That's why I'm telling you that we need to remove the numerical limits we place on immigration.

If anybody who wants to come here for work can do so without waiting 5-10 years, what reason would that person have for coming here illegally? If legal immigration becames vastly easier than illegal immigration, the flow of immigration will NATURALLY gravitate toward our metaphorical Ellis Island, and border control on the US-Mexican border will be as prevalent as it is on the US-Canadian border.

In addition, once employers in this country are deprived of the vast pool of illegal immigrant labor that they currently enjoy, the playing field between immigrant labor and native-born labor will become equal. Because employers will have to pay at least minimum wage to all employees, both native-born and immigrant, hiring immigrant labor will no longer reap the enormous cost savings that it does now. This will lead to reduced demand for immigrant labor, which leads to reduced job opportunities for immigrants, which leads to reduced levels of immigration.

Posted by eltoro | November 1, 2007 10:56 AM

"If anybody who wants to come here for work can do so without waiting 5-10 years, what reason would that person have for coming here illegally?"

Because,

1. We simply can't absorb everyone who wants to come here. You want to see the population of this country double in the next ten years?

2. There are people no sane country voluntarilly admits as immigrants. Criminals, for instance. That won't stop them from wanting to come here, and without enforcement, they WILL come here.

3. Given 1, we HAVE to be selective about who gets to move here, it's unavoidable. Either stupidly selective by lottery, or intelligently selective by skimming the world's cream. But letting everybody who wants to come here enter the country is simply not an option.

And, since there are going to be people we'd turn away under ANY remotely sane immigration law, there are going to be people who want to come here who can only do it illegally.

Not enforcing the borders isn't an option.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 1, 2007 11:05 AM

Brett,

The number of illegal immigrants has nothing to do with how many legal immigrants we allow into the country in any given year. It's the numerical limits in immigration law that prevent people from coming here legally.

I brought up Latin America in order to explain the economic dynamics that drive illegal immigration (i.e. there is a vast supply of people from Latin America who are willing to work here, and there are numerous American businesses who are willing to hire them, even if it means breaking the law). I did not bring it up because I wanted to show favoritism to Latin American immigrants in the policies I prescribe. My prescription would eliminate the incentives for illegal immigration, but would not favor immigrants from any particular part of the world. The market would sort out who gets to work in this country, and geography would no longer favor Latin American immigrants over other immigrants. (Although I must point out, geography by itself doesn't help Latin American immigrants get jobs in the US. If geography were the prime consideration, then native-born Americans would have an overwhelming advantage in getting jobs over Latin American immigrants.)

Posted by eltoro | November 1, 2007 11:19 AM

Brett,

I said anybody who wants to immigrate here FOR WORK should be able to come here. I didn't say anything about not enforcing border control, or about letting criminals or terrorists in. I'm talking only about people who want to work, and last time I looked, looking for a job is not inherently a criminal activity.

Moreover, I have mentioned repeatedly that limits on immigration should be determined by market forces. If an immigrant can find a legitimate job in the US and sustain himself economically, that person should gain admission. If he can't, he should be deported, simple as that. That will address your concerns about whether this country can absorb its immigrants, and it will do so without using an arbritrary numerical limit.

You may be right that we can't absorb everybody who wants to come here, but you have no empirical basis for that statement. I have more faith in the ability of market forces in determine the correct limits, rather than your gut feelings that immigration would lead to a doubling or tripling of our population. The market would also do a far better job of selecting the cream of the crop, instead of the criteria that Brett Bellmore wants to impose by fiat.

Posted by eltoro | November 1, 2007 11:42 AM

my wife is a (legal)immigrant from Asia, as are a lot of my friends, so I am very well aware of the obstacles we place in the way of legal immigrants

What are these obstacles you refer to? The simple fact that there are rules that have to be followed? My wife if also a (legal)immigrant. So is my boss. About two-thirds of my coworkers are also (legal)immigrants. I've never gotten the impression that any of them, including my own wife, have felt that these "obstacles" are unreasonable or particularly difficult to get through. The U.S.'s immigration policies are about as generous as anyone could ask for.

Posted by Chris | November 1, 2007 6:32 PM

Eltoro,

Some immigrants earn enough that they tend to pay more in taxes than they consume in government benefits; these immigrants would be an asset to America as they would broaden our tax base.

Unskilled immigrants who earn ~$20k per year are net drains on government resources; skilled immigrants making ~$75k generally aren't. We could use more entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, physicians, and nurses. We have no shortage of busboys and landscapers.

Posted by Fred | November 1, 2007 7:10 PM

"What are these obstacles you refer to?"

Let's see...

1. Calling the embassy, and finding out the only way to get the phone answered is to pay $20 first. Each time you call. They take Visa. How appropriate...

2. First time we go to the Embassy, during business hours of course, we get turned back. "You must appear before business hours to get a number to be admitted during business hours!" we're told. "Come back tomorrow!"

3. Pick up application forms at Embassy, including fee schedule. They don't mention at the that the fees are going up next week. Going up $5. So the visa application which was sent by express mail gets sent back by parcel post, to be mailed to them AGAIN with a slightly larger check. Lost a month on that, alone.

4. Being asked to repeatedly file the same blasted forms at each step of the process. What do they do, shred them after they've read 'em? It's the same agency each time, can't they just look in her file for them?

5. Her flight is approaching, and the embassy says they haven't printed the approved visa yet. Cancel flight because the courier won't have time to get it to her. Visa which supposedly isn't printed yet shows up at her door the next day, having been sent out a week before they assured us it hadn't been printed yet.

6. Being asked for the notice THEY sent me, stating that she could apply for a visa. As part of her application for the Green card, after she was issued the visa, and after she used it to enter the country.

7. Paying $250 to the agency that sent me said notice, applying for a replacement copy of the notice to send right back to them.

8. Application for replacement copy rejected? Reason? They don't think I don't need it. Approval of Green card in separate envelope arrives same day. Fee was, of course, non-refundable.

It was a bureaucratic nightmare.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 1, 2007 7:43 PM

Sounds like you've got a problem with federal bureaucracy, not our immigration policies. I can't argue with that!

Posted by Chris | November 1, 2007 8:41 PM

"We could use more entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, physicians, and nurses. We have no shortage of busboys and landscapers."

Fred,

Then you should be in favor of my market-based approach. The invisible hand of the marketplace does a better job of matching our needs for human capital than quotas set by the government. Remove all numerical limits we place on immigration, and bring in as many people as we can through guest worker programs or entrepenuerial development programs. Let businesses determine which immigrants they need or want to fill their positions (skilled and unskilled), and let those with entrepenuerial ability prove themselves in the American marketplace.

As for you net tax drain argument, what sort of time frame are you talking about? Is an unskilled immigrant worker forever condemned to be a net tax drain? Isn't it more probable that an unskilled immigrant worker over time will acquire skills, earn more money, and wind up paying more in taxes than what he uses in government resources? Moreover, aren't the children and grandchildren of unskilled workers likely to be more educated and more skiled than their immigrant forebears? Furthermore, isn't it possible than an unskilled immigrant may contribute generations of hardworking, upwardly mobile descendants who will work toward American economic renewal and growth, while the descendants of the skilled immigrant may be little more than spoiled trust fund kids who contribute nothing of substance to this country?

Since you are not God, Fred, you cannot predict with any certainty what the ultimate contribution of any immigrant may be. That's why I would rather have the market determine who gets in for economic reasons, rather than relying on Fred's criteria imposed by law.

Posted by eltoro | November 1, 2007 11:55 PM

"As for you net tax drain argument, what sort of time frame are you talking about?"

Any time frame you pick.

"Is an unskilled immigrant worker forever condemned to be a net tax drain? Isn't it more probable that an unskilled immigrant worker over time will acquire skills, earn more money, and wind up paying more in taxes than what he uses in government resources?"

No. That hasn't been the case. As the unskilled immigrant worker gets older, he will require more government services, more medical care, etc. And if he has kids, they will likely be a net drain on our resources too. Nearly half of fourth-generation Mexican Americans don't graduate high school. Mexicans have been in this country for a long time, and they have not followed the Jewish-Irish-Italian-Polish path up the socioeconomic ladder. If it hasn't happened in 150 years, what makes you think it's going to start happening now?

Like Krauthammer said, we have the equivalent of the top 100 picks in the NBA draft. It's like we're spending those picks on drafting custodians to mop the gym floor.

Posted by Fred | November 2, 2007 3:28 PM

"Since you are not God, Fred, you cannot predict with any certainty what the ultimate contribution of any immigrant may be."

The science of statistics should be used in public policy, no? I can't predict with absolute certainty that there won't be an Ashkenazi Jew who becomes an NBA star, but that doesn't mean I'm going to focus my recruiting efforts on yeshivas. Why not? Because demographic trends are statistically significant, and the trends are crystal clear after multiple generations of immigration.

"That's why I would rather have the market determine who gets in for economic reasons..."

You are obfuscating the economic interests of individual businesses with the economic interests of the country as a whole. If I were a landscaper contractor, sure, I'd be better off with lots of unskilled Mexican immigrants to keep my payroll costs down, but since these unskilled immigrants would pay less in taxes than they consumed in government services, the rest of the community would be worse off. That's not the free market, that's privatizing profits and socializing costs.

Posted by Fred | November 2, 2007 3:37 PM