It’s an issue with plenty of subplots that has stirred
passionate debate locally and across the nation. Two of our
editorial board members square off today, airing substantially
different views
Point
Illegal Immigration: an American crisis
Twenty years ago, Congress passed the Immigration and Control Reform Act, promising that in exchange for amnesty for nearly 3 million immigrants living in the United States, the U.S. government would control future illegal immigration through increased border control and enforcement of employer sanctions.
Those promises were not kept.
We now have an estimated 11,500,000 illegal immigrants living in the United States, with a half million more arriving each year.
Americans disagree sharply over what is to be done about illegal immigration, but about two points there is no dispute. Illegal immigration is a problem, a crisis. And people come to the United States illegally for jobs.
Eliminate the job market for illegal immigrants, and the flood will dry up. How is this to be accomplished?
The Center for Immigration Studies has posted a 27-page report entitled “Attrition Through Enforcement: A Cost Effective Strategy to Shrink the Illegal Population,” at http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back406.html. In brief, it suggests:
– mandatory employer verification of social security numbers and immigration status,
– end misuse of SSN and IRS identification numbers, by allowing information sharing among key federal agencies,
– reduce visa overstays.
CIS estimates that such an attrition strategy could cut the illegal population in half in five years.
The key to the program is eliminating jobs. It is already illegal to hire an illegal alien. Three pilot programs have been tested on a voluntary basis; the Basic Pilot Program works by identifying illegal immigrants who use false SSN or immigration documents. Make it mandatory.
While we wait for the jobs to dry up and the illegal immigrants to go home, we may as well build a fence to protect those Americans unfortunate enough to own border property. At present, they are living in a war zone, and it is the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect them from invasion.
– Cynthia Walker
Counterpoint
Let More Workers into U.S. Legally
I support the attrition plan and add one more point: Issue more visas so that the large number who seek work can enter legally and in the light.
These four strategies are humane and will take great strides toward reducing the number of undocumented workers. Icing on this cake would be not a higher, longer fence, but support for worker rights such as living wage in the countries of origin. If U.S. firms can no longer dump low-wage jobs off-shore, then the whole playing field rises and people are more able to make a living in their home countries.
Some questions remain:
– Who’s to bear the cost of employer-verification programs? How will it be done?
– What privacy protections will be dropped to enhance information-sharing? Proceed with caution.
– What’s the cost of keeping better track of visa overstays? Whatever it is, that’s a better, more sensible, more workable solution than fences and border patrols.
– Rose Barry
Point
Immigrants Enhance Nation, Economy
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed.”
We all recognize these inspiring opening words of our Declaration of Independence and consider these as core values. First come the rights, then come the governments instituted to preserve these rights. The framers did not specify that the rights are those of documented citizens, but that they are the rights of all. The author of the Declaration and the framers of the Constitution that followed the War for Independence, and their forbears, had no one’s permission to enter this land.
In the 19th century, the waves of immigration from Ireland, Italy, and eastern Europe soon became 15 percent of the U.S. population, and were a despised second class. In 100 years, the once-despised immigrant groups have become the established citizenry. They have thrived and have enriched our country.
In the current debate over immigration reform, some points of clarification: 75 percent of today’s immigrants have legal permanent visas, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Of the 25 percent who are undocumented, 40 percent entered legally and have now overstayed temporary visas.
Let’s address three concerns:
– Terrorism: Security experts cite effective use of good intelligence rather than immigration restrictions as the path to safety. (U.S. Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Immigration & Terrorism; Cato Institute). So, don’t blame immigrants for terrorism.
– Undocumented immigrants suck jobs and resources out of the economy: According to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, immigrant workers create wealth and jobs and use few dollars in services.
– Immigrants send all their money back home: First they spend money in the U.S. economy to buy food, services, homes, cars, etc. Then, they spend billions in direct foreign investment in their countries of origin. That’s investment that costs U.S. taxpayers and businesses nothing. That private investment stimulates the economies of the home countries.
What’s to be done?
– Strengthen local economies in sending countries with trade policies and development aid to reduce immigration, legal and illegal.
– Issue more visas and work permits. If employers can hire legal immigrants and workers can criss-cross the border legally, the labor flow will be safer and we’ll know who’s crossing and when. The U.S. currently issues about 90,000 agriculture and low-skill visas per year even though hundreds of thousands of jobs exist in these sectors. If we issue sufficient visas, the jobs would be filled by documented, instead of undocumented, workers.
– Treat all immigrants, with and without papers, humanely. We all lose when we spend our resources enforcing outdated laws and ineffectual border controls.
– Rose Barry
Ms. Barry’s argument ignores the difference between legal immigration and illegal.
Yes, people have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but citizens of other countries do not have the right to live at liberty pursuing happiness in the United States. Not without a visa.
I dispute her assertion that the framers and their forebearers had no one’s permission to enter this land. Virginia and Massachusetts were established by charter, the original Georgians were sentenced to prison colonies in the New World, Penn bought his Sylvania from the contemporary natives. There were no national governments in 1605 to permit or forbid entry onto this continent. There are now.
The current flood of illegal immigration has created an enormous black market in fake documents. That black market supplied the fake IDs that allowed terrorists to board airplanes, hijack them and fly them into buildings.
The Friends Committee statistics cited by Ms. Barry are for immigrants as a whole. When one abstracts legal immigrants from those numbers, the numbers change dramatically. According to a 2004 repost for the Center for Immigration Studies by director Steven Camarota, the illegally-resident population produces a net fiscal drain of about $10 billion (fiscal costs minus taxes paid).
– Cynthia Walker
Counterpoint
Separate the Legal from the Illegal
Ms. Barry’s argument ignores the difference between legal immigration and illegal.
Yes, people have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but citizens of other countries do not have the right to live at liberty pursuing happiness in the United States. Not without a visa.
I dispute her assertion that the framers and their forebearers had no one’s permission to enter this land. Virginia and Massachusetts were established by charter, the original Georgians were sentenced to prison colonies in the New World, Penn bought his Sylvania from the contemporary natives. There were no national governments in 1605 to permit or forbid entry onto this continent. There are now.
The current flood of illegal immigration has created an enormous black market in fake documents. That black market supplied the fake IDs that allowed terrorists to board airplanes, hijack them and fly them into buildings.
The Friends Committee statistics cited by Ms. Barry are for immigrants as a whole. When one abstracts legal immigrants from those numbers, the numbers change dramatically. According to a 2004 repost for the Center for Immigration Studies by director Steven Camarota, the illegally-resident population produces a net fiscal drain of about $10 billion (fiscal costs minus taxes paid).
– Cynthia Walker
