On Assimilation and Rule of Law, Part 2
by James Na ~ March 27th, 2006. Filed under: America, Fiskings, Law, Miscellaneous.Joshua wrote this earlier in the aftermath of the recent illegal immigrant protests.
I share much of his sentiment regarding this controversial topic. A few weeks back, I wrote the following (People Against Illegal Immigration Aren’t “Xenophobes”), which I think is worth repeating lin light of the protests and the backlash:
I am also a naturalized American. I am not “white.” I tried my best to become a citizen as quickly as legally possible. In other words, I was an immigrant too. But I did everything LEGALLY and waited for hours in a queue outside the immigration (formerly INS, now BCIS) office. I waited days, weeks, months and years go by as the federal bureaucracy processed my applications, and as I paid my fees, answered questions, sat for interviews and passed the citizenship test.And I am stridently against ILLEGAL immigration, as are many other LEGAL immigrants, naturalized citizens and “ethnic” Americans. Here are the reasons why:
1. Outsiders cannot join our society by violating our laws first as, literally, the first step into the country. It is legally wrong, morally reprehensible and sets a highly destructive precedent by destroying the respect for the rule of law, upon which this country is based. No amount of economic benefit brought by illegal immigration is going to outweigh the destruction of the respect for the rule of law in the long run.
2. Illegal immigration creates an underground society, culture and economy that bisects the society and frays its civic fabric. We cannot exist as a coherent civil society when our society is divided into legals and illegals.
3. Even if most illegal immigrants just want to work and send money home, networks of illegal residents unfortunately and inevitably become conduits of trafficking in people (including sexual slaves), narcotics and other illicit goods. Crime also increases, because illegal immigrant communities make good targets for criminal predators (since illegal generally won’t go to the police to report crimes).
4. Illegal immigration is a security threat. We have not had a publicly known penetration of our porous borders by Islamic terrorists yet, but since terrorists flow to weak points in our defense as water flows from high to low ground, they are bound to try… and succeed eventually. Border security is paramount to protecting the United States from further terrorist attacks.
5. Illegal immigration is grossly unfair to legal immigrants who waited, paid and jumped enormous Kafka-esque hoops to do everything “by the book.” They are the kind of people we want as our new citizens, not those who simply do what is expedient and illegal.
LEGAL immigration is a wonderful thing. It keeps our country young (literally), revitalizes our society and economy and sustains our melting pot. But we must draw a strong distinction between LEGAL immigration and ILLEGAL immigration, because the two have vastly different consequences. The former leads to assimilation, which is good for our society. The latter leads to the societal ills I describe above.
Many Americans of good conscience and tolerance for ethnic groups and cultures other than their own share opposition against illegal immigration because of these problems. Many of them are, like me, “ethnic” immigrants themselves. They are not racists, they are not kooks, they are certainly not “xenophobes.” They are, simply, concerned American citizens who fear for the society their children will inherit.
March 27th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
I agree with my colleague’s every word about how legal immigration adds vitality to our society, and of course, the other two of us are married to legal immigrants.
That said, every dealing my wife and I have with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services causes me to doubt that that particular agency can ever make a guest-worker program effective. We’ve now gone down to the CIS office twice to get her prints taken, only to be told that CIS had screwed them up again, and that we’ll have to go back. This will cause me to miss another half-day of work when we go back for the third time. I presume that this is the same biometric ID system that we’re using to track visitors and student who enter the country. Not encouraging.
March 27th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
James,
An excellent post. I agree with most of it, as its logical conclusion is vastly expanded legal immigration. However, some caveats:
No amount of economic benefit brought by illegal immigration is going to outweigh the destruction of the respect for the rule of law in the long run.
Either “the destruction of the respect for the rule of law” refers to that in general, or the specific harm caused by another amnesty. If in general, that’s true beacuse no respect ofr the rule of law would imply a state of barbarism. If specific, then the statement’s untenable — “no amount” is generally a poor statement in politics, as bodies politic constantly optimize for several things at once. Either way, the sentence doesn’t add much.
Illegal immigration is grossly unfair to legal immigrants who waited, paid and jumped enormous Kafka-esque hoops to do everything “by the book.”
Similar arguments are made by advocates of 100% estate and gift taxes — “bequests are grossly unfair to those who earned their money.” Unless you are refering to the general unfairness to all of granting amnesties, in which case both see above and explain why routine Presidential amnesty grants don’t do the same.
March 28th, 2006 at 8:47 am
Illegal immigration is grossly unfair to legal immigrants who waited, paid and jumped enormous Kafka-esque hoops to do everything “by the book”.
As someone who has come to the States legally (and hopes to remain so!) and has gone through all the hoops etc., my first sentiment is that it would help if the process was more streamlined and logical (i.e., you don’t need to fill out thousands of forms, most of them repeating each other), more efficient and less time-consuming.
As for it being ‘unfair’ to allow illegals to become legal at this point, well, life is unfair. There are people who choose to lead law-abiding lives and those who don’t, and there’s not much we can do about that. But you could say it shows that those who do follow the rules should be able to have a say in whether the ones who don’t should be allowed clemency (as indeed you do).
March 28th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Good posts on a serious issue. Now, do you either of you care to address the economics of illegal immigration (without blaming it on the Mexicans)? Namely, the necessity for a large under-class to service the needs of American business which can’t or won’t pay a living wage to native born Americans to do jobs such as: pick strawberries, mow lawns, care for the children of the American elites, wash floors, etc. Or for that matter Americans who would rather sit on their butts than get their hands dirty in a low skill, low wage, but legal job that matches their education levels. I agree with what you have said on the problems of illegal immigration. But it’s hard to argue against the idea that this is an example of a market functioning as it should, with or without the intervention of an unresponsive bureaucracy. As I see it, until the American service industry gets over their crack-like addiction to cheap labor, we’ll be talking about this when we are sitting in our retirement homes.
March 28th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
The American economy would have serious problems without illegal immigrants coming from Mexico and Latin America. Many restaurants and motels/hotels would go out of business without the cheap labor of the illegals. Many construction projects would not finish on time nor meet the budget restraints, if it weren’t for the illegals who do the exhausting and dangerous work. Even Korean-American businesses, such as restaurants and large grocery stores, use illegal workers. Some Korean-Americans have told me that illegal Mexicans are the best workers because they work hard and they don’t steal, complain, nor quit.
Americans would not be able to eat abundant, cheap produce if it weren’t for the migrant farm workers from Mexico. Even with the illegals, American farms still face worker shortages. It has been reported that many farms had to let much of their harvest rot this past fall, because they couldn’t find enough workers. It’s difficult for farms to attract legal workers because of pesticide/herbicide exposure that causes cancer and birth defects, the low wages, long hours of hard labor, and the seasonal nature of the work.
Also, the children of the long-term illegals are suffering. Illegal families are always afraid of being deported, and they face an uncertain future. Children who are left behind in their native countries have to endure long separations. Giving legal status to some of these families will improve families and give a better future to these children.
Americans are benefitting so much from the millions of hard-working illegals, that it would be extremely selfish to not give something back. Granting amnesty to long-term working illegals is the decent, humane thing to do. An amnesty forgives the illegal entry, based on the years of hard work. Forgiveness is a good thing, especially for people who deserve it. An amnesty will not necessarily increase illegal immigration, because people who are determined will come any way. In addition, an amnesty can make it easier to keep track of the working illegals by giving them identities and legal status. This way, the illegals who are just criminals can be more easily found out.
Some people have said that legal immigrants had to endure a long and difficult process. However, many illegals have endured even more difficulties while working hard for many years, benefitting many Americans.
Also, America should have a separate immigration policy just for Mexicans, because of the long border between the two countries, and the fact that most of the illegals come from Mexico.
March 28th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Back when it was still called the INS, Newt Gingrich cited it as a shinning example of bureaucratic inefficiency (no doubt compounded by the fact that there are few serious contituents for the agency).
That makes no sense. How does my act of giving my money — that I earned with my toil — to my son when I die affect someone else’s money?
When I speak of “fairness,” I am speaking of the state treating all the citizens equally in rights and ensuring that all citizens compete based on the same set of rules (laws).
For the state to then step in and take the fruits of one’s (legal) labor away, because he wishes to pass it on to his child is grossly UNFAIR.
The economics of illegal immigration is difficult to talk about, because estimates, let alone exact numbers, are difficult to obtain.
At first glance, low cost of labor provides the economy with competitive businesses and low prices of goods for consumers.
However, illegal laborers often do not pay taxes (income, property, etc.) and thus do not contribute to the funding of social services, which they utilize (medical care, schools, etc.).
As illegal communities are often (willingly or not) conduits of illicit trade (prostitutes, drugs, weapons, etc.), there are also increased social costs.
The real issue, for me, however, is the bifurcation of society into legals and illegals, into a legitimate society and economy and a underground one that is not taxed or regulated as the polity dictates by elections and legislations.
This fraying of the rule of law and a common civil society (indeed the very notion of classical Civitas) brought on by this bifurcation is ultimately destructive to the society, no matter how economically efficient it may be.
We should keep in mind that one of the foundations of the American economy being the most efficient and profitable one is the rule of law.
After all, Mexico has all the low-cost workers in the world, yet does not possess a world class economy.
A country can be economically advanced without low cost labor (see Japan), but no matter how much low cost labor it possesses, it can not be such an economy without a strong rule of law.
We cannot have millions of people in our midst who do not swear allegiance to our country, do not share our Civitas and do not respect our laws in the first place.
My proposed solutions for this are simple:
1. Stronger enforcement and punishment against those businesses that hire illegals and do not take reasonable due diligence (willful ignorance should not be a defense).
2. A serious, well-structured guest worker program for ONLY those who (are waiting overseas) enter the country legally and abide by all of our laws. NO amnestry for those who live here illegally today.
March 29th, 2006 at 12:03 am
the necessity for a large under-class to service the needs of American business which can’t or won’t pay a living wage to native born Americans to do jobs such as: pick strawberries, mow lawns,
Can we at least PLEASE keep this argument grounded in reality without resorting to made-up stuff?
All “necessities” are a function of price, as are “living wages”. If illegal immigrants are not available to mow grass at $2 an hour, homeowners will go back to doing it the old-fashioned way: doing it themselves or hiring the neighborhood kids to do it for that price. Same for berry picking. The fact that an illegal Mexican immigrant with 6 kids living in a one bedroom flat can only barely survive on berry picking and lawn mowing wages is no argument that we should be paying him even more to live here illegally. It instead is a strong argument that our local high school kids should be mowing our lawns on Saturday afternoon for spending cash instead.
There never has been and never will be an economic “necessity” for the presence of 5 million illegal immigrants to keep America running.
This is an economic issue, not a cultural or class issue.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:58 am
A guest worker program is a good stalking horse for free immigration, but as such it can’t work. Germany tried it with Turks, and ended up with a large, permanent Turkish minority.
At best, “guest worker” legislation prepares the public for the unification of two multinational economic & political unions into one.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
What do you mean? Please elaborate.
March 30th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
James,
I just mean it’s the vehicle open-borders proponents will use. It sounds temporary, but it’s clearly not. So clearly that it allows two seperate debates: one between the informed public (the media elite, congress, etc) who knows they’re talking about mass immigration but don’t want political flag, and one to the uninformed public, designed to stop them from reacting.