Immigration: Amnesty and Fences
Good Fences Make for Good PolicyThere is lots of talk about Robert Samuelson's Washington Post piece on immigration- here are Sailer's original post and Douthat's thoughts. Samuelson cites some alarming statistics:
Since 1990 about 90 percent of the increase in people living below the government's poverty lines has come among Hispanics. That has to be mainly immigrants and their U.S.-born children. In a report, the Pew Hispanic Center notes:
· Residential segregation is increasing. In 2000, 43 percent of Hispanics lived in neighborhoods with Hispanic majorities, up from 39 percent in 1990.
· The median net worth of Hispanic households is about 9 percent of that of non-Hispanic whites (net worth is what people own minus what they owe). - Samuelson in WaPo
The problem is not solved by promoting amnesty. If we admit that most immigrants are here for economic reasons, if we accept that their ghettoization is at least partially self-chosen then making illegal immigrants who are here for work, not citizenship is counter productive. It certainly solves the legal problem that gets so many conservative panties into a twist - but it presents a new and perhaps tougher problem: How do we assimilate into America 4 out of every 100 people standing on this soil if they never wished to become citizens in the first place?
A wall is fine and probably would do alot to calm the rising right wing populist spirit of our politics but it would not solve alot of the immigration problems that Americans see everyday. Take for instance Danbury Connecticut - a kind of ground zero for this issue away from the border. The entire downtown is being taken over by shops with the word "Brasil" in the title - like "Brasil Fashion: Clothing for Men, Women, Children. Money Transfers." Also the long lines at the bank where there are not enough Portuguese and Spanish speakers to serve the clients - of course there is a kind of white flight from these swamped banks. These problems will continue even if we get our border wall. What we need is enforcement of labor laws.
Declaring 12 million illegal immigrants legal resolved one problem but then you still have 12 million new citizens who probably never wanted to be citizens anyway. They also have families in Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil. Are we prepared to make citizens of all their relatives as well?
Michael Brendan Dougherty
in Politics
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Source: Build a Fence -- And Amnesty -
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Source: Read Almost the Whole Thing
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As some of you will already be aware, Michael Brendan Dougherty's blog Surfeited with Dainties marked its first anniversary on Monday. I regret that it has taken me a few days to put up a proper post acknowledging and celebrating...
Reader Comments (5)
The whole business is a huge mess, though, which won't go away until we fix the real problems of the Welfare State and the suicide of the West.
Obviously amnesty does not make someone a citizen straightaway, but it does regularise the status of formerly illegal immigrants and makes them eligible for citizenship, while also approving of the initial lawbreaking.
Likely no one, but then you're just left with the existing state of affairs. Michael's objection seemed to be with making citizens of people who don't wish to become citizens.
<i>it maintains the supply of cheap labour, thus depressing the wages of native workers,</i>
Since the demand for that labor exists and would be filled without the government actively BLOCKING the free transit of workers, I'd think it more accurate to state that the current legal environment amounts to artificially inflating the wages of native workers. And in turn, inflating the prices paid by native consumers.
<i>guarantees that the wages paid to these "guest workers" will not be reinvested here but will return with them to their home country.</i>
It certainly doesn't "guarantee" that. It would be difficult to be a full-time resident in any place and not consume SOMETHING local in your stay. But what should it matter if their wages are sent home? In what substantive way would that be different than if they'd stayed home, made some commodity good, and exported it here?