Amateur Megalomania

Immigration

With the increasing furor over immigration, trade deficits, and all things xenophobic, I’ve been considering my own positions. I’ve long been of the ‘border control’ school, but recently I’ve determined that the idea of ‘controlling the border’ is not directly coupled to limitation and controls on legal immigration. They are strongly related, but a position on one does not force a similar position on the other.

And that is where my thinking regarding illegal aliens begins to take a decidedly non-conservative turn, much to my own surprise.

We have limitations and standards on the amount, education, and nationality of the people we allow to settle here. While I’m not sure how these numbers are determined, I would guess that a fair amount of the figuring might be arbitrary. How does one determine how many IT professionals from India will be required? But laws are laws, and while these numbers might be fuzzy, they have to be enforced. Illegal immigration is a crime, and continued non-enforcement harms all law.

But at the same time, enforcement of bad law has the same effect. The tide of humanity from Central and South America will not alter their behavior based upon US law, and I doubt the American people are completely willing to countenance harsher, more effective means of enforcement.

But immigration law enforcement operates on the assumption that immigration is a thing that must be limited. To some degree that is true, but I suspect that also to some degree, it is not.

Let’s take this in a few parts.

Assumption number one. The Mexican border is a security risk. I agree with that. It is porous and open. People who wish to do us harm can easily blend into the pipeline, and enforcement is difficult due to the volume of people making it across. The revolving door continues to swing, sweeping in a tide while we deport those we can.

But is this a problem of immigration, or migration? Do we honestly believe we can put a stop to the movements of potentially millions of people, responding to economic forces? Has any migration of people ever been stopped by anything less than the brutal and total deployment of force? Are we willing to go that far, and more importantly, should we even consider such action?

Forgive me for distilling part of the assumption down to a simple metaphor, but people don’t feel the need to break in when the door is wide open. Should we chose to accept the reality of this migration and work to legalize and identify all newcomers? Perhaps this tide of uncontrolled crossing would slow down, making it easier to find those who can’t hope to make it through an open, monitored door? A thundering majority should avail itself of the opportunity of legal entry and residence, particularly of the risks of an illegal crossing would remove any future hope of that open door. Line them up and let them in under correct procedures and registration, and watch the whole business of illegal smuggling dry up.

Assumption number two. Uncontrolled immigration will destroy the American culture. This is essentially a racist argument. While it is true that immigrants are better served by assimilating the American culture, it is not a requirement of our laws. Cultural purity as a matter of legislation should leave us all shuddering in revulsion. The strength of American culture is in our lack of it, beyond our respect for the rule of law, our general acceptance of capitalism, and our revulsion of cultural issues becoming a matter of law. The Great Migrations of the past saw the absorption of millions of disparate individuals from all over Europe, and while it is true that this European commonality molded us to what we are today, there is no reason that we must remain Eurocentric in our ethnic mix. Such limitations run counter to what we are as a people – Americans first, hyphenated second.

I do agree that in the specific example of Mexican immigration, the Mexican arrivals need to avoid the trap of isolating themselves in a parallel economy and culture outside of the American ‘norm’. They can shift what we are (and they should), but they should also shift themselves. The reasons for this isolation of immigrant communities stems from issues I’ll address in a moment.

Assumption three. Illegal immigration hurts ‘American’ workers. There are two distinctions here, both false. One could say that legal immigration places ‘American’ workers in compensation with new American workers. This is an example of zero-sum thinking, and touches upon the necessary liquidity of labor and capital in a growing world. The addition of new workers does not detract from a static pool of available jobs in the long run. If it did, then each expanding generation would be facing a higher and higher unemployment rate. To oppose the growth in workers is essentially adopting a zero population growth perspective. If my neighbor has more children, do I then have to worry about my children finding a job when their time comes? While immigration of certain skill sets naturally requires a modification of the existing labor pool, the ultimate effect is a positive one. Available skills discover a market price, sending clear signals as to what type of labor is needed and where that labor should flow. This is a net benefit to the economy as a whole.

Illegal aliens do not take jobs that legal Americans want or seek. Considering the pay and benefits received by illegals, few Americans would either accept the conditions, or seek those conditions in the first place. Whether it is lawn care, housing, restaurant or other service jobs, illegals are bringing services at a low price, lower than what would be accepted by Citizens. But these low prices aren’t a reason to tolerate illegal immigration. On the contrary, these pay conditions are the very reason I am considering the open immigration policy.

Assumption four. Illegal aliens are a drain on our welfare system. Perhaps they are, but I suspect that this is true because the alien status is illegal, not because of any inherent problems with the immigrant pool. Again, such suspicions to the contrary are inherently racist, and are unworthy of any seriously thinking person.

Illegal aliens are a forced into a second tier of existence. They are unable to negotiate in good faith with prospective employers who know of their status, and almost all employers have to have some idea of the status of any prospective employee. They are unable to exercise benefits, even if they have them. As a result, they are forced into emergency services when sick, and lack preventative care accessible to legal immigrants. It is either impossible or extremely difficult to acquire credit, bank accounts, loans, or any of the other financial vehicles that permit Citizens to manage debt, invest, or capitalize a new business venture. Homes cannot be mortgaged. They are forced to live in a cash economy, outside of the interest bearing world that must of us know.

This is a recipe for continued and persistent poverty. It is the primary reason the nations from which they flee are mired in hopeless economic doldrums. Go read Hernando de Soto to figure out that we are perpetuating our own version of a Central American economic train wreck within our own borders, isolated from our own economy. The illegal alien is locked into a state of serfdom; but that serfdom is a far sight better than what he faced back home, so the tide continues to flow.

What good comes from a second class of citizen, locked out of the potential to access the fruits of this country? Why do we wish to perpetuate serfdom?

I’ve longed believe that there is a flashpoint of prosperity in any society. This flashpoint is determined by the size of the population coupled with the liquidity of a capitalist system. At some point after the essential production is met to account for the basic needs of all, the excess labor is free to create and expand the economic base, discovering new products and services. This process continues at an increasing pace with the addition of more motivated labor, branching out into more and more unknown products and services, expanding opportunity, growing the base of consumers and finding more ways to unlock capital – which is essentially human ingenuity and time, both of which are increased in an expanding, free population (and this is all the subject of a later post on the nature of capitalism, stay tuned). While the immediate addition of immigrants would swell the pool of unskilled labor, access to the everyday levers of capitalism would create an expanded pool of motivated and skilled workers within a generation. People are people. They wish to improve their lives whenever possible. To assume anything else carries the taint of racism, as we saw in the proclamation that the Arabs don’t want freedom.

So would a flood of legal and nearly unrestricted immigration place a burden on social services? Perhaps in the short term, but I think it would be more of a benefit in the long term. Would immigrants ship billions of dollars a year back to Mexican families, or would they use that money to bring those families here, where they can start to become Americans?

Central and South America might be beyond reform, judging on a long, torturous history of corruption and strife. Those that wish to come here aren’t importing the morals of the Banana Republic, they are fleeing to a better life, and history has shown that an immigrant guards the American Dream with more vigilance than most ‘natives’. How can we stand in front of these people ‘yearning to be free’ and turn them away, or worse yet, invite them in but only as residents outside of our legal system? That doesn’t strike me as an American perspective.

Either way, we cannot continue on the present course or a steadily leaking border. To stand in front of the migration with military force as the only sure means to prevent it is questionable policy in the light of history. To permit the continual serfdom of a second tier population in this country is immoral. To permit open, transparent and free migration is potentially misguided optimism, but American optimism has served us well in the past.