The politics of immigration
In his year-end news conference, President Bush called for an "immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee." We already know there are plenty of employers in this country willing to break the law and hire illegal aliens. And there are 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens already living in this country, so we know there are plenty of willing employees.
I'm sure the White House staff will clean up the language a bit in the coming months. But for all the world, the president's idea of an immigration policy sounds like a national job fair for those businesses and farms that don't want to pay a living wage and for those foreigners who correctly think U.S. border security is a joke and who are willing to break our laws to live here.
Bush's plan would be the most aggressive immigration reform since the controversial bill signed by President Reagan in 1986 granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. That was widely criticized for rewarding illegal behavior and virtually ignoring those who had been waiting for legal entry into the United States. The chief Senate sponsor of the bill, Alan Simpson from Wyoming, admitted at the time that the legislation's effects were unclear. "I don't know what the impact will be," he said, "but this is the humane approach to immigration reform." The former senator and all the rest of us now know what the legislation's effects were. Eighteen years later, there are an estimated 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens in this country.
And now there are those in Congress who want to solve the problem by simply making illegal aliens legal. Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona is sponsoring the Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act to make it easier for foreign workers seeking U.S. employment opportunities and to simplify the permanent- residency application process. Similar legislation, the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2003, is sponsored by Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho and Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. It would allow undocumented farmworkers and their families to qualify for permanent residency after a specific tenure of work.
And Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah has introduced a bill called the Dream Act that would allow states to grant in-state tuition rates to children of illegal aliens. Meanwhile, out-of-state parents of legal residents would get no such break. Each of these politicians is doing nothing more than pandering to the business and agricultural lobbies, and none of these legislative initiatives addresses the economic and social impact of their passage. The powerful lobbying groups have a lot to gain from illegal immigration, while the burden of the real costs falls on the rest of us taxpayers.
Lost wages. Over the past 10 years, more than 2 million low-skilled American workers have been displaced from their jobs. And each 10 percent increase in the immigrant workforce decreases U.S. wages by 3.5 percent. Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies says our lawmakers don't understand what unchecked illegal immigration is doing to workers. "To them it looks like immigrants are doing jobs nobody wants," he says. "But what they really mean is that they are doing jobs that they as middle- and upper-class people don't want."
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