Compromised Ideals

21 May 2007



Senate Immigration “Deal” Pleases Too Few

The US Senate and the White House hammered out a compromise on immigration policy at the end of last week. Over the week-end, the opposition to the deal grew ominously. The nativists are screaming “amnesty!” which is about the most insulting word they can muster. The open-borders crowd complains that the new system would discourage reunification of families and is too harsh on illegal immigrants. The deal looks like it’s doomed because the extremists on both sides are too emotional to act in anyway but confrontationally.

Part of the problem is an insistence on ideology rather than practicality. On the one hand, there are about 12 million people in the US without the proper documentation. Rounding them up and shipping them all back to where they came from is just too expensive and too time consuming. On the other hand, those who entered the country illegally have compromised the rights of those who followed the rules. Additionally, there is a legitimate case for importing labor (America did that throughout the 19th Century and enjoyed incredible economic and social development). By the same token, there is a legitimate demand that US citizens get priority in competition for jobs and the fruits of economic activity.

Border security is a big deal for the Minutemen and other nativists. To be sure the US has porous borders and something needs to be done. However, building a fence across part of the US border with Mexico is a joke. After all, most people in the US illegally arrived on valid visas at American airports, ports and land crossings and simply over-stayed their visas. Tighter enforcement will cost plenty, and every enforcement demand dies the minute higher taxes to pay for it gets mentioned.

Meanwhile, business wants as much cheap labor as it can get. Lower wages and salaries mean more shareholder value. Would Americans be willing to pay for lettuce harvested by American citizens making $10 an hour? America doesn’t produce enough engineers to continue its economic growth, so it imports them from India and elsewhere. Creating more American engineers is certainly possible – a crash course starting this minute would produce more in the time it takes to earn a college degree, say about 4 years (plus graduate school). America can’t wait that long.

The current compromise, of which the world has seen 400 of the 1,000 pages of proposed legislation, looks doomed because it yields on points beyond the redlines of the hardliners. After all, it will take 60 senators voting to close debate to get it out of the Senate; any one senator can put a hold on the bill. The House of Representatives will have its own ideas when any bill gets out of the Senate, and there’s the conference committee after that. The point is that the compromise is hugely unpopular among certain very loud groups, and therefore, it will either change radically or die. The smart money is on the latter since immigration is such a great election issue on all sides.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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