A group of anti-amnesty Republicans said that prisoners should pick fruit rather than illegal immigrants – one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
It’s one thing to oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants as being bad for America. However, Rep. Rohrabacher’s suggestion was absolutely idiotic. The anti-amnesty side is going themselves no favors by looking like a bunch of half-cocked loons and using rhetoric that’s needlessly inflammatory.
Immigration splits the GOP more than any other issue, and the President’s plans for what amounts to amnesty for illegals could very well hurt the party in this year’s elections. Bush should tread very carefully around this issue. Rewarding people who have broken this nation’s laws is not sound policy, but neither can we try and retreat behind the walls of Fortress America and simply try to seal the border. As long as people can come through they will, and we can’t prevent all of them.
There are no easy solutions to this problem. We can’t seal the borders, and amnesty would reward breaking the law. A temporary guest worker program might help, but it won’t help enough to necessarily be worth it. If we cap the number of guest workers, people will still stream in illegally. A good fraction of the immigrants who come across the border do so to get social benefits that guest workers do not. Even if we enforce our borders more strongly and provide a guest worker program as the President wants, it won’t do much more than restrict the tide of illegals.
The only way to prevent this problem is to get the Mexican economy to a functioning state, which is a much harder task than any of the other options – and is largely out of our hands. As long as there is a sufficiently strong economic incentive to do so, illegals will cross our borders, even if there’s substantial risk. We can – and should – work to enforce our laws, but the reality is that this issue isn’t going to go away, and when politicians seem more interested in pandering to one side or another, the chances of a sensible policy coming out of this debate seems slim.
“Immigration splits the GOP more than any other issue, and the President’s plans for what amounts to amnesty for illegals could very well hurt the party in this year’s elections”
If it wasn’t for the President’s high-profile position supporting a guest worker program, the issue would be a net gain for the GOP since most Democrats suicidally support the same wrongheaded philosophy. Long-term, the issue still probably bodes well for Republicans because of sheer demographics, particularly if a guest worker program is indeed enacted. Disgust with favorable treatment for illegal immigrants suppressing wage levels and busting the budgets of social services will drives whites to become more Republican, blacks to become less Democrat, and an ever-rising share of the Hispanic population ineligible to vote. Thank God for the Democrats that the leader of the GOP is taking on the same foolhardy position most of them are or the political heat would be on the Dems for embracing such a wildly unpopular idea.
“We can’t seal the borders”
Why not?
“The only way to prevent this problem is to get the Mexican economy to a functioning state, which is a much harder task than any of the other options – and is largely out of our hands”
Remember back in 1993 when you guys insisted that NAFTA was gonna solve that problem? How’s that working out for you?
Because they’re too long, and as long as there’s an incentive to cross them, people will find a way. We can build a fence like Israel has, but even that won’t be an impermeable barrier. It’s still not a bad idea, however.
NAFTA helped, but the problems with the Mexican economy run a lot deeper than their trade policies. Fox showed some promise when he started, but he’s not exactly doing the best job in the world. Mexico would be an economic basket case with or without NAFTA.
“NAFTA helped”
The last I heard, wages were DOWN 25% in Mexico since 1994. Where exactly are we seeing NAFTA helping Mexico?
Correlation != causation
Mexico suffered a major currency devaluation at the end of 1994 that was totally unrelated to NAFTA. NAFTA provided a small but much-needed boost to the Mexican economy. The peso lost one-third of its total value – that’s enough to screw over *any* economy, no less one as bad as Mexico’s. They also got hit by the 2000-2002 recession like we did.
The border has to be sealed before we can even begin to think about correcting the illegal “migration” issue.
I’m sorry but it’s too late and the problem is too big.
Okay, Dana Rohrbacher has officially gone plum loco. To contract out prison labor to private enterprise is the first step on the road to wholesale slavery. Using the “chain gang” at a state level to clean up highways and engage in other busywork to let off steam and gain a little public benefit is one thing; but when you turn them into a significant part of the economy, you’re opening the door to all kinds of potential absuses. How long before the state begins issuing prisoner quotas to keep their cash cow busy?
Yet, at the same time, I’m not sure we need guest workers. A limited labor pool is often a major driver for innovation in worker efficiency in and efficiency-boosting technologies; in fact, some have noted that one of the major drivers of innovation in America has been our sparse population relative to our land mass and massive resources. Limited population growth is driving serious efforts by the Japanese in developing automation technologies; whereas artificially discouraging labor in Germany has lead to the use of technologies, that, combined with the pre-existing German work ethic and efficiency, has allowed them to have one of the strongest industrial economies on the planet while still not employing their entire workforce.
I was never an immigration hawk until I moved to New Mexico; now that I see the underclass of Mexican immigrants that the Caucasian-American elites down here live off of, I’m starting to wonder if an open-door policy is really a good idea in the long run. While Albert Einstein wasn’t a political or economic theorist, he made some interesting observations when he worked as a patent examiner; he viewed the high cost of American labor as being a prime driver in our search for better ways of doing things (i.e. technological improvements); he contrasted us with China and India, “gloomy museum-pieces” where the extremely low cost of labor (due to the massive population) stood in the way of the need for innovation. I find it rather telling, actually. It may no longer be true (New Mexico has a very large immigrant population, but it’s also becoming a major source of innovation, with the presence of many high tech startups, and even the emergence of the civilian space industry; China and India are both beginning to emerge as technological powers), but I wouldn’t bet the farm just yet.