I have a lot of respect for my friend Reihan Salam, but boy was this frustrating to read:
As I understand it, the DREAM Act implicitly tells us that I should value the children of unauthorized immigrants more than the children of other people living in impoverished countries. If we assume that all human beings merit equal concern, this is obviously nonsensical. Indeed, all controls on migration are suspect under that assumption.
Even so, there is a broad consensus that the United States has a right to control its borders, and that the American polity can decide who will be allowed to settle in the United States. Or to put this another way, we’ve collectively decided that the right to live and work in the U.S. will be treated as a scarce good.
So look, there are two basic ways to look at a political issue: on the policy merits and on how it fits into broader ideological narratives. On the policy merits, the case for DREAM is simple and compelling: there are hundreds of thousands of kids who, through no fault of their own, are trapped in a kind of legal limbo. We should provide them with some way to get out of that legal limbo. I can think of any number of ways to improve the DREAM Act, but this is the only bill with a realistic chance of passing Congress in the near future, and it’s a lot better than nothing.
Reihan’s objects that “we’ve collectively decided” that the opportunity to live and work in the United States “will be treated as” a scarce good. I suspect he’s chosen this weird passive-voice phrasing because he knows better than to straight up claim that the opportunity to live in the United States is a scarce good. It’s not. We should let the DREAM kids stay here and we should be letting a lot more kids from poorer countries come here. Doing the one doesn’t in any way prevent us from doing the other.
OK, so that’s the policy substance. Now let’s talk about the politics. Reihan’s position here is superficially similar to my stance on the Founder’s Visa: I opposed it because it was a largely symbolic gesture that will help only a tiny number of people (many of whom don’t especially need it) while reinforcing a political narrative I find odious: that having more foreigners around is a burden we’re willing to accept only if those foreigners provide large benefits to Americans. Reihan is, I take it, making a roughly similar claim: that DREAM helps a relatively small number of people, that the people it helps aren’t necessarily the most deserving, and that DREAM reinforces an objectionable political narrative.
I don’t think any of these claims stand up to scrutiny. On the first two points, DREAM is simply not in the same league as the Founder’s Visa. The Founder’s Visa would help a tiny number of unusually privileged would-be immigrants. DREAM would help a much larger number of relatively poor (by American, if not world, standards) immigrants.
So that brings us to the core political question: does passing DREAM “implicitly tell us” something we’d rather not be told? This is where I think Reihan is furthest off base. From my perspective, the fundamental question in the immigration debate is: do we recognize immigrants as fellow human beings who are entitled to the same kind of empathy we extend to other Americans, or do we treat them as opponents in a zero-sum world whose interests are fundamentally opposed to our own? Most recent immigration reform proposals, including the Founder’s Visa and the various guest worker proposals, are based on the latter premise: immigrants in general are yucky, but certain immigrants are so useful to the American economy that we’ll hold our collective noses and let them in under tightly control conditions.
The DREAM Act is different. The pro-DREAM argument appeals directly to Americans’ generosity and sense of fairness, not our self-interest. The hoops kids must go through to qualify for DREAM are focused on self-improvement for the kids themselves, not (like the Founders Visa) on maximizing benefits for American citizens. There’s no quota on the number of kids who are eligible, and at the end of the process the kids get to be full-fledged members of the American community.
Nothing about this says that we should “value the children of unauthorized immigrants more than the children of other people living in impoverished countries.” I wish Congress would also enact legislation to help children of people living in impoverished countries. If Reihan has a realistic plan for doing that, I’ll be among its earliest and most enthusiastic supporters. Unfortunately, I think the political climate in the United States makes that unlikely to happen any time soon. But that’s not the fault of the DREAM Act or its supporters. And voting down DREAM will make more ambitious reforms less, not more, likely.
Nice post, Tim. Don’t neglect your studies!
Really good stuff.
The pro-DREAM argument appeals directly to Americans’ generosity and sense of fairness
It almost reminds me of medical marijuana in that respect. Immigration and drug policy both have so much political baggage that attacking the status quo head-on is overwhelmingly difficult. What we end up with are workarounds and exceptions which are simultaneously concessions to basic human decency and cracks in the larger policy wall. It’s messy and in some ways regrettable, but on the balance I think those reforms are important steps forward.
Immigrants help the rest of us by doing jobs we don’t want to do. It seems strange to treat the privilege to pick vegetables I don’t want to pick for myself as a scarce good to be rationed.
Glad to see you care about youngster’s not only of this nation but other nations as well.
Very nicely said.
@Sarah Brodsky:
Never mind that just about every meatpacking plant and slaughterhouse employs immigrants almost exclusively. Good luck getting non-immigrants with other options to work those jobs.
Plenty of legal workers mine coal, pick up trash, and do lots of other things that I would not do. The price that they charge for their labor is high enough to make it worthwhile for them to do it in part because it is harder for illegal immigrants to get work in these fields. Pay produce workers a living wage and I promise you you will find American citizens picking produce. Second, while I find the notion touching that economic justice and humanitarian principles demand giving to the teeming masses of poor in the world an opportunity to live the American dream, I think that I and the vast overwhelming majority of Americans understandably think that American immigration policy should reflect primarily the interests of the American people. So, emotionally loaded terms aside, that means that cost benefit analysis for the American people, not poetry and loaded appeals to humanitarianism should be the means of determining American immigration policy. Sorry if that means, pull up the gangplank, I am on board, but it certainly beats the notion that American immigration policy alone amongst that of the world’s nations should not reflect a rational approach to serving a nation’s interests.
As sympathetic as I am for a child whose parents have put him or her in this situation, I find it hard to believe you could muster much sympathy for, say the children of an exposed Ponzi-schemer. Their standard of living will surely be impacted by the removal of the gains ill-gotten by the crime. And yet, we seize the money, freeze bank accounts and attempt to reimburse victims from what remains. Why is it different when we’re considering that the parent broke immigration laws versus SEC laws?
“We’ve collectively decided” is not passive voice.
But “will be treated as” is!
The proposed Dream Act needs to be considered realistically. This is massive Amnesty for every illegal alien who can claim,
even fraudulently, that they entered before the age of 16 and have lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years. The proponents
assert that the illegals must serve in the military or attend college. This is not true for several reasons.
The key reason is that any “qualifying” illegal gets 10 years of legal status simply by applying. Of course, in theory
applications can be denied. However, past experience shows that blatantly fraudulent applications will be received in massive
numbers and readily accepted. Note that the Dream Act specifically forbids the use of any information received in an
application for any immigration enforcement purpose. Apparently, the Dream Act imposes no penalties for fraud no matter how
blatant. Of course, it is very unlikely that the Obama administration is going to apply a fine tooth comb to any applicant,
particularly when they have millions of forms to consider.
The age 16 cutoff is quite significant in this context. Aside from the fact that an illegal who entered the U.S. at age 15
really did grow up in Mexico (or anywhere else), the 16 year threshold makes fraud detection rather difficult. If the cutoff
was 10 or 12 the Federal government could reasonably insist that each applicant produce school records to show what age they
snuck over the border. By contrast a fraudulent applicant can simply claim that they entered at age 15 and went to work shortly
thereafter. Of course, they may have really been 25, but who is to say otherwise?
Once they apply every illegal gets 10 years of legal residence in the U.S. In theory to stay on after 10 years, they have to
join the Army or go to college. However, the Dream Act has a “hardship” exemption that anyone can claim. Since even a denied
“hardship” claim can be litigated forever, this amounts to “no illegal left behind”. The government doesn’t have the resources
to reject even obviously bogus “hardship” claims given the de fact rule of immigration law (“it ain’t over until the illegal
wins”).
However, the truth is worse. Even illegals who never lift a pencil or a rifle will engage in activities tying them to America
over a ten year period. Some will marry. Others will have children in and out of wedlock (very likely the latter). The notion
that Congress, the courts, and Federal bureaucracy are going to remove this illegals after a 10 year hiatus is dubious at best.
The bottom line is that this a ten year down payment on permanent Amnesty for every illegal who applies with essentially any
convenient fictions on his or her form.
The next question is what is likely to be the impact of these illegals on our nation. This topic has been extensively
researched and the results are highly negative. A number of references make this point all to clearly.
1. The 1997 National Academy of Sciences study found that each low-skilled immigrant costs $89,000 over the course of his/her
lifetime. See http://bit.ly/98KcJf
“The NRC estimates indicated that the average immigrant without a high school education imposes a net fiscal burden on public
coffers of $89,000 during the course of his or her lifetime. The average immigrant with only a high school education creates a
lifetime fiscal burden of $31,000.”
2. There is little evidence that the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of illegals will do much better. Samuel
Huntington looked at this subject in his book, “Who Are We”. See Table 9.1 on page 234 or http://bit.ly/foZPxH. The bottom line
is that educational attainment rises from the first to the second generation and then plateaus at levels far below the national
average. For example, even by the fourth generation only 9.6% of Mexican-Americans have a post-high school degree.
3. The Heritage foundation found that low-skill immigrant households impose huge tax costs on Americans. See “The Fiscal Cost
of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer” (http://bit.ly/98MAOo). The summary is
“In FY 2004, low-skill immigrant households received $30,160 per household in immediate benefits and services (direct benefits,
means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services). In general, low-skill immigrant households received about
$10,000 more in government benefits than did the average U.S. household, largely
because of the higher level of means-tested welfare benefits received by low-skill immigrant households. In contrast, low-skill
immigrant households pay less in taxes than do other households. On average, low-skill immigrant households paid only $10,573
in taxes in FY 2004. Thus, low-skill immigrant households received nearly three dollars in immediate benefits and services for
each dollar in taxes paid. A household’s net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid.
When the costs
of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services are counted, the average low-skill household had
a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes).”
4. Heather MacDonald has written extensively on the bleak realities of mass unskilled immigration. I recommend “Seeing Today’s
Immigrants Straight” (http://bit.ly/hl5aZP). Key quote
“If someone proposed a program to boost the number of Americans who lack a high school diploma, have children out of wedlock,
sell drugs, steal, or use welfare, he’d be deemed mad. Yet liberalized immigration rules would do just that. The illegitimacy
rate among Hispanics is high and rising faster than that of other ethnic groups; their dropout rate is the highest in the
country; Hispanic children are joining gangs at younger and younger ages. Academic achievement is abysmal.”
5. Edward P. Lazear’s (CEA / Harvard Economics) paper “Mexican Assimilation in the United States” has a wealth of statistics
showing the raw deal from south of the border. Summary quote.
“By almost any measure, immigrants from Mexico have performed worse and become
assimilated more slowly than immigrants from other countries. Still, Mexico is a huge country, with many high ability people
who could fare very well in the United States. Why have Mexicans done so badly? The answer is primarily immigration policy.”
See also “Lazear on Immigration” (http://bit.ly/eGV9iR). Money quote
“Immigrants from Mexico do far worse when they migrate to the United States than do immigrants from other countries. Those
difficulties are more a reflection of U.S. immigration policy than they are of underlying cultural differences. The following
facts from the 2000 U.S. Census reveal that Mexican immigrants do not move into mainstream American society as rapidly as do
other immigrants.”
You can read the rest over at the Borjas blog.
Kurzleg / Sarah Brodsky:
“Never mind that just about every meatpacking plant and slaughterhouse employs immigrants almost exclusively. Good luck getting non-immigrants with other options to work those jobs.”
Some number of years ago the Bush administration raided a few packing plants and removed the illegals. American workers formed long lines to take those jobs. Unemployment was a lot lower back then…
Don’t be naive. America needs illegals about as much as anyone needs migraine headaches.
Frank Youell:
This meat plant has had trouble finding employees for $9.50-16.00/hour work.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703556604575502003068891216.html
Frank Youell –
You cite numbers claiming to show that immigrants cost the government more money than they create in taxes, and that children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants have much lower educational attainment than the population at large.
Does this mean that we should also revoke citizenship of anyone who makes less than the median income, since they also cost the government more money than they bring in? And that we should revoke the citizenship of anyone whose grandparents are from Mexico? Or perhaps that we should revoke the citizenship of anyone whose educational attainment is less than the national average?
Even if we were to grant all of these disputable claims, the DREAM act is specifically targeted at people that have more educational attainment than the national average, and thus will be likely to pay more in taxes than they collect in benefits.
Regardless of which, these are not really relevant considerations for citizenship, which is a moral status, and not merely an economic one.
I guess I disagree with the assessment that “The hoops kids must go through to qualify for DREAM are focused on self-improvement for the kids themselves, not (like the Founders Visa) on maximizing benefits for American citizens.”
The reason I support the DREAM act is because I see it as beneficial to America, and Americans. The US needs more people with College Degrees, and it needs more people in our military.
The DREAM act is not about rights (as its limited to a subset of individuals who do the requisite tasks), it not Universal. Now does the DREAM act also have the benefit of helping the individuals who are most sympathetic? Yes, absolutely, but it’s still predicated on helping Americans – as our immigration policy should be.
Several months ago, T.B. Lee gave a misleading figure for the AZ state budget and – despite replying to a comment I left on “Jane Galt”‘s site pointing that out – he never corrected himself.
So, he’s not exactly a credible source.
For the actual facts about the anti-American bill he supports, see my extensive coverage going back several years:
24ahead.com/s/dream-act
@ Kurzleg: That’s not true at all. Slaughterhouses employ quite a number of Americans. I guess when your world is confined to a tiny liberal world view it’s hard to notice how your policies negatively impact other Americans. In particular the Americans liberals profess to care about.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-09-13-plants_N.htm
“Whenever there’s an immigration raid, you find white, black and legal immigrant labor lining up to do those jobs that Americans will supposedly not do,” said Swain, who teaches law and political science.
Exactly who is filling the jobs has varied, depending on the populations surrounding the plants:
• Out West, one of the Swift plants raided by ICE, had a workforce that was about 90% Hispanic — both legal and illegal — before the raids. The lost workers were replaced mostly with white Americans and U.S.-born Hispanics, according to the CIS.
• In the South, a House of Raeford Farms plant in North Carolina that was more than 80% Hispanic before a federal investigation is now about 70% African-American, according to a report by TheCharlotte Observer.
• Throughout the Great Plains, a new wave of legal immigrants is filling the void, according to Jill Cashen, spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million people who work in the food-processing industry. Plants are refilling positions with newly arrived immigrants from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Southeast Asia.
@Sarah: From the article you cited”
“Pay is another challenge. Nearly a dozen tribal casinos or Indian bingo parlors in Seminole and neighboring counties offer similar wages—$9.50 to $16 an hour—for lighter work. Thanks to the suburban sprawl of Oklahoma City to the west, restaurant jobs, janitorial work and opportunities in health care also are increasingly available to Seminole’s blue-collar workers. ”
Looks like the market is working. Workers can work at a less demanding job for equal or more pay with the same skill set. So the meatpackers can either pay more or move in response.They don’t get to hire illegals.
After all once the illegals gain status they will move on and the cycle continues. That’s what happened the last time amnesty was passed.
The Dream Act is just like bankruptcy. Actually, it’s more like the property law concept called adverse possession, but few people know about that. The point is, that we have this gaping hole in immigration law: the absence of a reboot. The Dream Act fills that hole in the form of a limited, one-time, tiny reboot. In every other area of American law, the areas that apply to Americans, we have systemic, permanent reboot options.
The Dream Act doesn’t grant special privileges to anyone. It brings our immigration laws up to standard.
I discuss this concept further here, as immigration bankruptcy and the “reboot” gap:
http://www.hispanicnashville.com/2010/08/immigration-bankruptcy.html
John, I couldn’t agree more. I made a similar point here.
Sarah Brodsky,
Read the article. The jobs pay $10 per hour (not $9.50 – $16.00). Other jobs in the area pay better and offer better working conditions. The employer doesn’t want to pay competitive wages and wants a handout (illegals) instead. If an employer can’t or won’t compete in the labor market, they should go out of business, not use illegals as a bailout.
See “Immigration raids yield jobs for legal workers” (http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2009-09-13-plants_N.htm) . I quote
“By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY
When federal agents descended on six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Co. in December 2006, they rounded up nearly 1,300 suspected illegal immigrants that made up about 10% of the labor force at the plants.
But the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents did not cripple the company or the plants. In fact, they were back up and running at full staff within months by replacing those removed with a significant number of native-born Americans, according to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).”
The notion this country needs illegals is absurd. We need better wages for poor working Americans. Getting rid of illegals will help real Americans get real jobs.
Kenny,
“Does this mean that we should also revoke citizenship of anyone who makes less than the median income, since they also cost the government more money than they bring in? And that we should revoke the citizenship of anyone whose grandparents are from Mexico? Or perhaps that we should revoke the citizenship of anyone whose educational attainment is less than the national average?”
Sorry but we live in something called the “United States”. Look it up on the Internet if you need some information about it. It has been around for a while.
The citizens of the so-called “United States” have the right to live here. Foreigners don’t. We are talking about people illegally residing in the United States. They have zero right to be here. As such it is entirely reasonable to discuss whether they are likely to be a burden or not. The same test does not apply to native born Americans or lawful immigrants.
“Even if we were to grant all of these disputable claims, the DREAM act is specifically targeted at people that have more educational attainment than the national average, and thus will be likely to pay more in taxes than they collect in benefits.”
This is a truth-challenged statement. The Dream Act provides de facto Amnesty for all illegals who entered under the age of 16 (or who fraudulently claim that they did). The act gives all them legal status in the United States for 10 years. If they don’t go to college, vocational school, or serve in the military, they might loose legal status. However, they can still claim that it would be a “hardship” to leave the U.S. even if they did nothing but collect welfare for a decade. After 10 more years, it very unlikely that these illegals are going to leave. Anyone being honest will admit that this is a full fledged Amnesty for anyone who applies, irrespective of what they do until 2020.
That makes the poor life prospects of these illegals, highly relevant. They will be burden (on average) every day they live in the U.S. We don’t need a second underclass. We don’t need more poor people. We have a large surplus as it is.
“Regardless of which, these are not really relevant considerations for citizenship, which is a moral status, and not merely an economic one.”
A moral nation enforces its borders and laws. A moral nation doesn’t fawn over sweatshop labor for greedy employers. A moral nation protects its own. Let me quote from someone who knew about the real life of workers.
“America must not be overwhelmed. Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces and, in particular, two hostile forces of considerable strength. One of these is composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength (broad backs) at the lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages. The other is composed of racial groups in the United States who oppose all restrictive legislation because they want the doors left open for an influx of their countrymen regardless of the menace to the people of their adopted country.”
The quote is from Samuel Gompers (himself a Jewish immigrant). Now what side are you on? Greedy employers or racial special interest group?
John Lamb,
If I steal a car and get caught, I don’t get to keep it. Claiming “adverse possession” isn’t going to help me either. I may not go to jail, but the car goes back to its rightful owner. We may not jail illegals when we catch them, but they get to go home (their country, not ours) too.
“The Dream Act doesn’t grant special privileges to anyone. It brings our immigration laws up to standard.”
The place called “truth” must be an alien nation for you. We have millions of people waiting to lawfully immigrate to the U.S. Illegals have jumped the que and violated our laws and borders. They get rewarded and law abiding lawful (by intent) immigrants get punished.
No special privileges? On what planet?
The proposed Dream Act needs to be considered realistically. This is massive Amnesty for every illegal alien who can claim, even fraudulently, that they entered before the age of 16 and have lived in the U.S. for at least 5 years. The proponents assert that the illegals must serve in the military or attend college. This is not true for several reasons.
The key reason is that any “qualifying” illegal gets 10 years of legal status simply by applying. Of course, in theory applications can be denied. However, past experience shows that blatantly fraudulent applications will be received in massive numbers and readily accepted. Note that the Dream Act specifically forbids the use of any information received in an application for any immigration enforcement purpose. Apparently, the Dream Act imposes no penalties for fraud no matter how blatant. Of course, it is very unlikely that the Obama administration is going to apply a fine tooth comb to any applicant, particularly when they have millions of forms to consider.
The age 16 cutoff is quite significant in this context. Aside from the fact that an illegal who entered the U.S. at age 15 really did grow up in Mexico (or anywhere else), the 16 year threshold makes fraud detection rather difficult. If the cutoff was 10 or 12 the Federal government could reasonably insist that each applicant produce school records to show what age they snuck over the border. By contrast a fraudulent applicant can simply claim that they entered at age 15 and went to work shortly thereafter. Of course, they may have really been 25, but who is to say otherwise?
Once they apply every illegal gets 10 years of legal residence in the U.S. In theory to stay on after 10 years, they have to join the Army or go to college. However, the Dream Act has a “hardship” exemption that anyone can claim. Since even a denied “hardship” claim can be litigated forever, this amounts to “no illegal left behind”. The government doesn’t have the resources to reject even obviously bogus “hardship” claims given the de fact rule of immigration law (“it ain’t over until the illegal wins”).
However, the truth is worse. Even illegals who never lift a pencil or a rifle will engage in activities tying them to America over a ten year period. Some will marry. Others will have children in and out of wedlock (very likely the latter). The notion that Congress, the courts, and Federal bureaucracy are going to remove this illegals after a 10 year hiatus is dubious at best. The bottom line is that this a ten year down payment on permanent Amnesty for every illegal who applies with essentially any convenient fictions on his or her form.
The next question is what is likely to be the impact of these illegals on our nation. This topic has been extensively researched and the results are highly negative. A number of references make this point all to clearly.
1. The 1997 National Academy of Sciences study found that each low-skilled immigrant costs $89,000 over the course of his/her lifetime. See http://bit.ly/98KcJf
“The NRC estimates indicated that the average immigrant without a high school education imposes a net fiscal burden on public coffers of $89,000 during the course of his or her lifetime. The average immigrant with only a high school education creates a lifetime fiscal burden of $31,000.”
2. There is little evidence that the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of illegals will do much better. Samuel Huntington looked at this subject in his book, “Who Are We”. See Table 9.1 on page 234 or http://bit.ly/foZPxH. The bottom line is that educational attainment rises from the first to the second generation and then plateaus at levels far below the national average. For example, even by the fourth generation only 9.6% of Mexican-Americans have a post-high school degree.
3. The Heritage foundation found that low-skill immigrant households impose huge tax costs on Americans. See “The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer” (http://bit.ly/98MAOo). The summary is
“In FY 2004, low-skill immigrant households received $30,160 per household in immediate benefits and services (direct benefits, means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services). In general, low-skill immigrant households received about $10,000 more in government benefits than did the average U.S. household, largely
because of the higher level of means-tested welfare benefits received by low-skill immigrant households. In contrast, low-skill immigrant households pay less in taxes than do other households. On average, low-skill immigrant households paid only $10,573 in taxes in FY 2004. Thus, low-skill immigrant households received nearly three dollars in immediate benefits and services for each dollar in taxes paid. A household’s net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. When the costs
of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services are counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes).”
4. Heather MacDonald has written extensively on the bleak realities of mass unskilled immigration. I recommend “Seeing Today’s Immigrants Straight” (http://bit.ly/hl5aZP). Key quote
“If someone proposed a program to boost the number of Americans who lack a high school diploma, have children out of wedlock, sell drugs, steal, or use welfare, he’d be deemed mad. Yet liberalized immigration rules would do just that. The illegitimacy rate among Hispanics is high and rising faster than that of other ethnic groups; their dropout rate is the highest in the country; Hispanic children are joining gangs at younger and younger ages. Academic achievement is abysmal.”
5. Edward P. Lazear’s (CEA / Harvard Economics) paper “Mexican Assimilation in the United States” has a wealth of statistics showing the raw deal from south of the border. Summary quote.
“By almost any measure, immigrants from Mexico have performed worse and become
assimilated more slowly than immigrants from other countries. Still, Mexico is a huge country, with many high ability people who could fare very well in the United States. Why have Mexicans done so badly? The answer is primarily immigration policy.”
See also “Lazear on Immigration” (http://bit.ly/eGV9iR). Money quote
“Immigrants from Mexico do far worse when they migrate to the United States than do immigrants from other countries. Those difficulties are more a reflection of U.S. immigration policy than they are of underlying cultural differences. The following facts from the 2000 U.S. Census reveal that Mexican immigrants do not move into mainstream American society as rapidly as do other immigrants.”
You can read the rest over at the Borjas blog.
Frank Youell, you have a pretty screwed up definition of morality. A wise man once wrote that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. I think this man was correct, and that a truly moral nation would take his words seriously. Even with respect to the human beings you so charmingly label “illegals.”
Timothy B Lee,
Illegals have rights. They have the right to live in their country, not this one.
If you don’t believe in countries or the right of this nation or any nation to enforce its borders, please say so.
Until then, don’t offer any pretense of morality.
Frank, your quarrel is with Thomas Jefferson, not me. He certainly “believed in countries,” although I doubt he’d be a fan of our current immigration rules.
I have no problem with Thomas Jefferson (on this issue). However, you rather clearly do. Your concept of human equality includes the right on any person to live in the United States, with or without the consent of the American people. You don’t appear to have courage to say that directly, however your meaning is clear.
Jefferson saw it “differently”. I quote
“The first consideration in immigration is the welfare of the receiving nation. In a new government based on principles unfamiliar to the rest of the world and resting on the sentiments of the people themselves, the influx of a large number of new immigrants unaccustomed to the government of a free society could be detrimental to that society. Immigration, therefore, must be approached carefully and cautiously.”
If living in the USA is a universal right, then the welfare of the USA (the receiving nation) is irrelevant. Jefferson did not agree. Perhaps you can persuade him otherwise.
Jefferson rejected mass immigration as a danger to the republic. I quote
“[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible… founded in good policy?… They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass… If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship: but I doubt the expediency of inviting them by extraordinary encouragements.”
He also rejected “diversity” and favored assimilation
“Although as to other foreigners it is thought better to discourage their settling together in large masses, wherein, as in our German settlements, they preserve for a long time their own languages, habits, and principles of government, and that they should distribute themselves sparsely among the natives for quicker amalgamation…”
Got a citation for that first quote?
And that final quote proves my point: “If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/
Hey look what else I found!
“Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular.”
“If they come of themselves, they are entitled to all the rights of citizenship.”
Sure, who disagrees with that? The question is gets in and who doesn’t?
Remember
“The first consideration in immigration is the welfare of the receiving nation”
and
“[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible… founded in good policy?”
Jefferson clearly said no. You disagree. Don’t try to use Jefferson to support your notions of human rights. Alternatively, find a different Jefferson more to your liking.
“If they come of themselves” means “if they come to this country.” There’s no caveat about having a green card, because there were no legal restrictions on immigration in Jefferson’s time. Jefferson believed that everyone who wanted to come here, and could afford to make the journey, was entitled to citizenship. Sounds like an open-borders extremist to me!
It is evident that Jefferson rejected any “right” to immigrate. Clearly he favored modest immigration limited to those who might benefit the nation. That is the position of the vast majority of Americans saved for the Open Borders (“no one is illegal”) lobby.
You clearly disagree (but so far lack the honesty to say so).
Why invoke Jefferson when he obviously opposed your ideas?
“No one is illegal” pretty well sums up 18th-century American immigration law! Seriously, one of us has a basic reading comprehension problem. If you seriously interpret the above quotes as evidence that Jefferson supported legal restrictions on immigration, despite the fact that the first immigration restrictions wouldn’t be enacted for almost another century, I doubt anything I could write would change your mind. Sometimes you see what you want to see. So I’m done with this conversation. Have a great evening.
One other thing. Your first “Jefferson quote” is actually the University of Virginia’s paraphrase of Jefferson’s views. That’s why it doesn’t come with a source citation like the others. See, for example, this page where “Jefferson” refers to himself in the third person.
If you know any history, you will recognize that sea passage to America was enormously expensive. Expense both limited the number of immigrants and insured that they well highly skilled individuals from developed countries (typically Northern Europe at that time). As a consequence Jefferson could embrace free immigration on the part of those who could afford to do so.
Advances in technology later in the 19th century (steamships) made possible mass immigration of unskilled workers from essentially anywhere. At that point public opinion turned against immigration leading to the reforms of the 1920s. Note that the decisive change was not the geography of immigration, but falling skill levels. See Claudia Goldin’s work on the subject.
The bottom line is that Jefferson believed first and foremost that immigration must serve the national interest. It was never a “right” of the immigrants. He also rejected mass immigration. He welcomed limited, high-skill immigration. He would no doubt welcome restricted, selective immigration now.
However, that’s not what we are talking about, now is it.
You have invoked Jefferson to assert that immigration is a fundamental human right. Clearly, Jefferson did not see it that way. Never does he say anything like
“It may not be desirable for the dissolute and demoralized handicraftsmen of Europe to enter the USA, but that is their right irrespective.”
Instead he emphasizes the dangers of mass immigration without ever hinting that immigration is a “right”.
“[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible… founded in good policy?… They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass..”
If you can find a shred of evidence that Jefferson believed that immigration was “natural right” please produce it. Jefferson’s statements, direct and paraphrased all disagree.
Beyond that you need to stop hiding behind a Jefferson who will not shield you. If you believe that “no one is illegal” and immigration is a “natural right”, then you should have the decency and honesty to say so. Of course, your reticence is not surprising. The Open Borders lobby is usually intelligent enough to cloak its agenda.
It is quite true that “no one was illegal” in the 18th century. Indeed, the refusal of the British to allow the colonies to restrict immigration was a material revolutionary grievance in the North. So intent were the Northern states on restricting the importation of slaves, that the Constitution contains a 20 year ban on any such legislation. When the two decades passed (in 1808), the importation of slaves was banned with a penalty of death for importation of slaves.
After 1808, people could definitely be illegal in the U.S. On March 2, 1807 none other than Thomas Jefferson signed the Slave Trace Act banning the importation of slaves starting on January 1st, 1808. From that point onwards, people could definitely be illegal in the United Sates. Note that in the Amistad case the slaveowners were stripped of their slaves who were returned to Africa.
Frank:
Responding to your hypothetical about a thief stealing the car, every applicable civil or criminal statute, whether state or federal, has a statute of limitations. After that date, the person who stole the car “gets” to keep it, since there can be no legal action to pursue the theft at that point.
John
JL,
You should read more law. A few points.
1. The statue of limitations applies to original crime. A thief never obtains lawful title simply by keeping stolen property long enough. Cars and artworks are returned to rightful owners decades after they have been stolen.
2. Illegals aliens are continuously in violation of the law. Any hypothetical statue of limitations restarts each day the illegal violates the law by residing in the U.S.
3. Certain types of property issues are subject to a statue of limitations. However, the time limit only starts when the property conflict is discovered.
You need to try harder.
Frank, thanks for setting me straight on the stolen personal property – even as I wrote it, the idea of keeping the car had a strange ring to it. This is proof that I’m not a criminal lawyer. Nice of you to keep me on my toes.
As to real property, however, doesn’t adverse possession provide a perfect parallel? I skimmed your strings of comments above and didn’t see you mention it.
JL,
Adverse possession applies to land. The conditions for claiming adverse possession are rather difficult to satisfy. I am involved in an adverse possession case (fortunately trivial) right now. The Wikipedia page provides a useful summary of all of the tests needed to gain adverse possession. A useful note is that adverse possession does not apply to public property. Given that lawful residence/citizenship is a right/privilege provided by the state, the logic of adverse possession does not apply.
A useful analogy might be embezzlement. Even after the statue of limitations expires, you still don’t get to keep the money. In practice, the statue of limitations is very unlikely to expire because the clock typically starts when the crime is detected, not when it is committed.
Frank, even though you mention the core logic of adverse possession, nothing you say in your first paragraph addresses that logic, which is that a person who has been in a physical place for a certain amount of time, despite not having followed the legal channels to be in that space, will over time and under certain conditions acquire a moral right to occupy that place, and that the law must acknowledge that moral right.
Anyone who has been granted title to real property by way of adverse possession has jumped the line, so to speak, ahead of the person who has been waiting patiently for a real estate listing to appear in the paper.
That goes to your point about a statute of limitations – in that even ongoing violations of property rights can (and should) go stale and be transformed into non-violations – and also about special treatment, since the fact that we offer this kind of reboot to ourselves in so many areas of the law but not in immigration reveals how the lack of a reboot is the real unevenness in the law, and that providing a reboot in immigration law evens things out instead of giving immigrants special treatment.
If you are inclined to reply further, I ask that you read my immigration bankruptcy post, to which I linked in my first comment above.