Immigration’s unmentionables
Was Barack Obama a closet redneck back in 2005? Maybe it was his white half speaking when he uttered sentiments on immigration identical to the ones Donald Trump is condemned as a bigot for uttering today. Back then Obama said:
“We are a generous and welcoming people here in the U.S., but those who enter the country illegally and those who employ them disregard the rule of law, and they are showing disregard for those who are following the law.”
Today, such rhetoric is condemned in some circles — for example, CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post — as “racist.”
Actually, in the context of immigration, “racist” is a mostly nonsensical charge. The immigration hoo-ha is largely about Mexican and Central American illegal aliens. They are nationalities, NOT a race. (And the existence of the militant Latino group La Raza — meaning “The Race” — doesn’t alter that fact one bit.)
Maybe Obama was guilty of that other popularly imputed sin — “xenophobia” — when he went on to declare: “We simply cannot allow people to pour into our country undetected, undocumented and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently and lawfully to become immigrants of this country.”
That’s shockingly divisive, hateful speech by today’s standards, is it not?
Yet you don’t have to dig very deep into the archives to find almost the same words once spoken by Bill Clinton and other Democratic leaders. Today they’re the first to bark charges of “racism” and “xenophobia” at those who now voice the very same view they once did not so very long ago.
As the tide of illegal immigration rolls in, it’s astounding to witness the ingrate militancy of Mexican-flag-waving, self-entitled illegal aliens at protests on U.S. soil, railing against the Indian-cheating, slave-owning, land-stealing, Yanqui-yahoo ways of the nation they’ve entered as uninvited guests.
Meanwhile, the “caravan” — supposed “refugees” fleeing oppression — moves on through Mexico, unfurling the flags of Latin American nations even as the mob presses on for the border, demanding admittance to the hateful Estados Unidos.
Wouldn’t it make more sense for the anti-America firebrands to warn the “undocumented” to steer clear of intolerante Norteamerica at all costs?
Union leaders, including not least Cesar Chavez, were once outspoken foes of illegal immigration. They understood the economic truism that it suppresses wages. Which in fact is the very reason many Republicans of all types — from the likes of Swamp valet Paul Ryan to the libertarian oligarch Koch brothers — openly or sneakily disfavor talk of enforcing the borders.
Open-border cheering sections tirelessly and sanctimoniously insist on minimum-wage hikes while undermining the bottom wage with their let-’emin advocacy. Pro-immigration advocates might as well be going around waving banners and placards proclaiming “Cheap Labor Now!” Of course, they don’t. Instead, they go around citing the treacly Emma Lazarus poem affixed to the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Civil rights leaders from Frederick Douglass to Barbara Jordan were vocal in warning that immigration undercuts economic prospects for African Americans. But today’s self-described “civil rights” leaders follow the Democratic Party’s unspoken line — that Immigration, legal or otherwise, is a shrewd investment in the party’s future voter rolls. And indeed it is, although to the disadvantage of the party’s most loyal, taken-forgranted constituency.
As is frequently noted, yes, anti-immigration history has a loathsome streak of bigotry running through it. But that history also has been driven by the legitimate economic concerns of marginalized working stiffs.
The cagey Abe Lincoln was politically astute in recognizing the real anxieties, as well as prejudices, behind anti-immigration views. He spoke out against the anti-immigrant Know Nothing movement of his day. But he was careful about when, where and how he did so.
A brief side excursion into history: The Know Nothings got their moniker not from their ignorance but from their secrecy. Originally, members were sworn to answer all inquiries with the reply, “I know nothing.”
By the mid-1850s, the Know Nothings had morphed into the American Party. At their height, they elected eight governors on the party’s ticket. In 1856, the Know Nothings put up ex-President Millard Fillmore as their White House candidate. He finished third but garnered an impressive 21.5 percent of the popular vote. He even carried one state, Maryland. (Bonus historical tidbit: In the old photos, Fillmore looks a lot like the gangster “Paulie Cicero,” played by Paul Sorvino, in the movie “Goodfellas.”)
The virulently anti-Catholic Know Nothings included in their midst, oddly enough, a staunchly anti-slavery faction. This faction recognized that slavery undercut the economic standing of hard-pressed working-class whites, just as immigration does.
Determined not to alienate this faction’s potential support, the politically ambitious Lincoln modulated or muffled his criticism of the movement, depending on the place or occasion. The politician in Lincoln grasped that immigration, despite its undeniable benefits to the nation, is not an entirely unmixed blessing for all.
Today, in some political circles, there’s a ritualistic insistence that leaky borders are no big deal. This view holds that “undocumented immigration” has few, if any, significant social or economic downsides worth fretting about.
But this is not 1850. Today’s technology-driven economy has no need for millions of unskilled laborers to do the back-breaking physical work of clearing roadways, laying railroad track, digging canals and tunnels, stoking foundry furnaces or handling shipping cargo. Much of that is done by machines.
As for crime, it would be astounding if it had no connection to illegal immigration. Illegal immigration consists disproportionately of young males with little schooling and no job skills. This is the very demographic that correlates statistically to crime. (See “Empirical Characteristics of Legal and Illegal Immigration,” Journal of Population Economics.”)
There are truckloads of statistics that confirm as much. The U.S. Government Accountability Office focused on a “study population” of illegal immigrant crime in a report last July. The study revealed there are some 208,800 illegal immigrants in federal prisons or local jails for various crimes. The study reported that “criminal aliens” (the GAO’s term) had an average of 10 arrests each — 10! — half for drug offenses. Those numbers alone debunk the notion that crime is a negligible factor to consider in illegal immigration.
Further debunking the notion are 2.8 million illegal alien arrests the GAO study focused on, 2011-2016. The arrests included: 6,000 homicides; 108,400 assaults; 44,500 weapons offenses; 13,800 sex offenses, and 13,500 robberies. Throw in on top of theses totals 336,000 arrests for drugs and 141,300 arrests for obstruction of justice. (See “Criminal Alien Statistics: Information on Incarcerations, Arrests, Convictions, Costs and Removals,” GAO, July 2018.)
The comparative crime rates of immigrants vs. native born is a debatable, opaque topic, due to the resistance of authorities to identify arrests by citizenship status. Clearly, however, as the GAO numbers show, crime is no negligible component of illegal immigration.
The GAO study doesn’t examine the broad-scale costs of illegal immigration. But it does say that the federal and state incarceration costs, alone, amounted to $6 billion to $6.4 billion over the years 2005-2009. Add to this figure tens of billions of dollars more in police and court costs, public education and taxpayercovered medical bills.
A major chunk of these costs goes undefrayed by payroll taxes such as are deducted from the paychecks of American citizens. Illegal aliens are typically paid cash, under the table.
The major incentive for hiring illegal aliens, aside from their willingness to work for low pay, is employer avoidance of payroll taxes, not to mention avoidance of labor laws. This latter means, of course, that winking at illegal immigrants also entails winking at employer exploitation of them. Seems like a high price to pay just to fatten the Democratic Party’s constituency rolls.
But — the counter argument goes — illegals spend such meager earnings as they manage to scrape together on necessities.
And these purchases, in their own modest way, surely contribute to the U.S. economy, do they not?
Um, that’s maybe not quite the whole story. Large sums of money are in effect sucked out of the economy and sent south.
In 2017, $28 billion went back to Mexico. (Center for Latin American Monetary Studies.) Such “remittances” in some years surpass even Mexico’s income from oil. U.S. remittances account for 10 to 15 percent of the entire GDPs of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.