Asymmetrical Information

Jane,

Yes, it's political cover. It's not intended to molify "nativist Americans who resent economic competition from immigrants." Rather, it tries to placate those whose main problem is the "illegal" part of illegal immigration, while trying not to alienate the "hispanic vote."

Perhaps your confustion is rooted in your apparent insistance on framing the issue exclusively in nativist and economic terms.

FWIW, I think the guest worker program will fail as a political tactic. It's too lukewarm to satisfy anyone that holds a strong opinion on the subject and will end up ticking off the "nativists". Making enemies without winning any friends is not a winning political strategy, IMHO.

Mycin

After further thought, I'd like to also suggest that the program is an attempt to not only avoid alienating but to actually pursue the "hispanic vote." Bush has always tried to make inroads into the hispanic community, and had some success during his two compaigns for Texas Governor, as I recall.

Mycin

Small word explanation: Voters are fond of "getting tough" with people they don't like. Politicians pass laws getting tough with illegal immigrants. Once the laws are passed, employers pressure politicians to pressure federal prosecutors not to enforce the laws. And they don't.

Every decade or so Congress passes a law to "solve" the problem and then insists that the law not be enforced. The INS was a famously incompetent bureaucracy because Congress wouldn't let the poor schmucks do their job.

If you're old enough, you may remember the various Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction acts, passed during the Reagan era to control the deficit. They never worked, because Congress didn't want them to work. Now, of course, Congress doesn't even pretend to reduce the deficit.

Jane,

I agree completely -- I've made the same arguments at greater length on the immigration blog I write for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

Here's the text of the relevant post:

If millions of foreign workers are employed in our country, their illegal status a threat to national security, how should America respond? President Bush favors a guest worker program – allow low-wage workers to come here legally, he says, and the ensuing drop in illegal immigration will allow border patrol agents to focus on catching terrorists.

Even if he is correct, however, I can’t imagine a worse foundation for our immigration system. Guest workers, here temporarily for economic reasons, won’t invest themselves in America or its future. My solution: if you allow them to legally work here make them citizens too.

Why do I favor citizenship for immigrants – albeit after they meet some strict requirements - but oppose temporary status as guest workers?

If we welcome and actively assimilate immigrants as future citizens we will ultimately enjoy generations of loyal, productive Americans who embrace our bedrock ideals. That’s why any large scale immigration reform must count assimilation as citizens as a primary goal, requiring English and civics classes, political loyalty to the United States and ultimately a successful application to naturalize as conditions of legal status.

On the other hand, if we create a guest worker system designed to fill low-wage jobs with temporary residents whose only loyalty to America springs from the paycheck they collect we are likely to produce an underclass of second class non-citizens who will ultimately become disaffected with a nation that never fully welcomed them.

Meanwhile they will raise their children – second-generation immigrants who, unlike their parents, are United States citizens – without any sense of loyalty to the United States.

The European experience bears out my point – during their post-WWII economic boom France, Germany, Britain and other countries accepted large numbers of guest workers who settled without full citizenship, attracted family members to join them and bore children. Many of the Islamic radicals segregated into European immigrant enclaves are second generation immigrants whose parents were among those guest workers. They rely on their nation for work or welfare yet loathe it enough to favor its destruction.

Thankfully demographic patterns make it unlikely that the United States will ever face substantial enclaves of Islamic radicals. But the number of illegal immigrants and second-generation immigrants in violent street gangs shows that unassimilated, disaffected immigrants are problematic even if they don’t turn to terrorism. Of course, there is no excuse for such behavior – I’m all for locking up gang members and welding shut the cell doors. But if you grew up watching your parents work deadend jobs in a society that didn’t allow them full citizenship, the right to vote, or even the right to stay indefinitely would you have any loyalty to that country? Might you be more likely to joing an ethnic street gang or a radical political movement that undermines the American system?

Let’s learn the lesson taught so clearly by Europe’s jihadists and, on a lesser scale, our own ethnic street gangs: unassimilated immigrants, lacking both loyalty to their adopted nation and any investment in its future, disproportionately threaten public safety and raise children who do the same, just as many non-immigrants and their children would do if subjected to the same circumstances.

Fortunately we’ve created a nation where millions of people would like to seek citizenship, embracing our values. Why we would purposefully entrench a system that instead favored noncitizen guest workers - thus marginalizing a whole segment of the population while ensuring that, at best, they’ll never become fully invested in our country’s future - I have no idea.

I make the same argument at even greater length here: http://langamp.com/borderblog/?p=73

One more thing:

One reason it's so hard to compromise on immigration is that the left thinks every immigration reform proposed by the right is a Trojan horse designed to eliminate immigration entirely, while the right thinks every immigration reform proposed by the left is a Trojan horse designed to open our borders to more and more illegal immigrants.

Isn't the compromise solution obvious?

Why not enact legislation that ties reductions in illegal immigration to automatic increases in the number of legal immigrants we accept?

Moderates like me who oppose illegal immigration but favor high loevels of illegal immigration will be happy. The right will be happy because the left will finally have a powerful incentive to cooperate in reducing illegal immigration. And the left will be happy because more immigrants get to come here legally, enjoying civic equality in addition to economic benefits.

If the object is to open up more immigration, why not just . . . open up more immigration?

Because the wiser people in Washington, although they're aware that increasing immigration admissions is the only way to undermine the black market in low-wage labor, are also of the opinion that doing so will be politically unpopular.

So, when you stamp "temporary" and "guest" onto your (otherwise prudent) plan to increase immigration, the thinking is that it stands a better chance at passage.

So, when you stamp "temporary" and "guest" onto your (otherwise prudent) plan to increase immigration,

Could you explain the "otherwise prudent" statement? And also explain WHY we need to increase immigration? (I can't think why we need to, so I would -- sincerely -- like to hear the argument for why we should.)

Look at the huge demonstrations which took place in various cities across the US. If there is any reason to put a brake on illegal immigration, just look at these people who were essentially making political demands on the US government. What's next, do what we want or we'll riot and torch a few cities? And there are people who want more of them in?

And then there are people who want to make it easy for them to gain citizenship. Forgive me for being so mean spirited, but the last thing we need is to import large masses of poor and ignorant people so they can be persuaded into voting for even more redistribution of the wealth from the people who are already here.

Assimilation works very slowly if the culturally variant immigrants come over in huge waves. There was quite a lot of friction when large waves of immigrants came over over from Europe in the late 19th century. But a key difference is that there was no welfare state when this happened. If you want to see what illegal immigration brings today then you need to visit the areas along the Mexican border. Hospitals, schools, jails, and other pieces of the social infrastructure are breaking down because they are being overwhelmed.

Above comment quoted: "political loyalty to the United States and ultimately a successful application to naturalize as conditions of legal status."

How, exactly, do you enforce this?

Especially with Mexican immigration, given the geographical proximity of their native country, I think it is naive to think that they will have political loyalty or a desire to "naturalize" -- which, upon further consideration, boils down the debate between those opposed and those for this sort of legislation.

I'll say what most polite people won't: the reason not to support a guest worker program or any other program that legalizes the presence of these 10 million+ illegal latinos has nothing to do with the pros and cons of citizenship versus guest worker versus whatever. It is about race and culture, period. The latinos who are flooding across the border are an alien people with a lower average IQ, a proven track record of failure as a civilization, and foreign cultural practices and values. It is insanity to pretend that 10 million latino immigrants would be no different than 10 million German, French, or English immigrants. The Germans have one of the highest average IQs in the world and a track record of superb contribution to Western civilization. If we actually need immigrants - which is in doubt, in my opinion - then open the door to immigration only from nations with the same or better qualifications as our own. We are in a position to be choosey about who we let in here.

In my opinion however, the debate is moot at this point. Both major political parties have demonstrated that they fear the wrath of the latinos, legal and illegal. There will be no legislation that actually requires these criminal trespassers to leave, and if there was, it wouldn't be enforced. Their population, legal or illegal, will grow faster than the white population, and as they gain political power they will use it to give their compatriots in Latin America even more ways to get in here. They will increasingly force ever more draconian forms of socialism on us, and our political sphere will become more and more corrupt, as is already happening in the California communities where they have become the majority.

In my opinion, at this point there is no realistic way of preventing an eventual race war, a Balkans-style situation in this country - or whatever comes after it. There are too many non-whites, they are too fecund, and they are too resentful of and hostile towards whites. They have demonstrated in every place around the world where they gain power that they will use it to exact revenge on whites. South Africa is a prime example.

In that respect, the debate about immigration policies at this point is irrelevant. The problem would have had to have been addressed a decade ago or more, when our politicians weren't yet afraid of the latino voters.

One issue that has a lot of weight in my mind: illegal immigrants are often very reluctant to go to the police when subjected to crime, because they don't want to get deported. The result is that they're subject to a lot of crime, and a lot of exploitative working conditions. I have a lot of trouble believing that it's in society's interest to allow that much criminal behavior to flourish.

Comparison with European guest worker programs seems facile to me, because the 14th amendment guarantees that all of the immigrants' children will be full US citizens, so there isn't a possibility of multi-generational guest worker families.

[W]hy would nativist Americans who resent economic competition from immigrants be any happier just because those immigrants will leave (and be replaced by a new crop) after some specified period of time?

Actually, if the German experience is any guide, they won't leave even though their time is up.

The guest-worker program seems to be pitched at people who seem to be more irritated by the illegality than the numbers.

Could you explain the "otherwise prudent" statement? And also explain WHY we need to increase immigration? (I can't think why we need to, so I would -- sincerely -- like to hear the argument for why we should.)

We should increase immigration because we share a land border with a country that has maybe 60 or 70 million workers (actually a lot more than that if you also consider Central America) who mostly earn much less than they could if by merely walking north to clean American toilets.

The technical and political infeasibilty of keeping large numbers of these higher wage-seeking people from immigrating here means that refusing to allow them entrance guarantees us a black market in illegal labor. Large numbers of them are coming whether we like it or not. That black market is what we call illegal immigration, and its 12 million participants now constitute a non-trivial challenge for US policy makers.

And yes, we do, for all practical purposes, refuse them entry. Unlike during the halcyon days of transatlantic immigration when Jane's (and my Irish side ancestors, too) ancestors came to the US, we nowadays basically don't allow any economic immigration from its most likely source (then Europe, now Latin America). The quota for Mexico is currently running at, if memory serves me right, 10,000 per year. That's just absurd.

So, that, in a nutshell, is why we should increase immigration. Because we're getting it anyway, but in an illegal fashion. One would hope that your average Mexican or Guatemalan would choose to come in through official channels if thinks he's got a realistic chance of one day being permitted by the US government to immigrate even if he has to wait a few year for his number to come up. Living where you have a legal right to do so must surely be a safer and more pleasant existence than living a life in the shadows.

I belive it is this attempt to undermine the current perverse incentive to immigrate illegally that is at the heart of the effort to enact a guest worker program. Again, calling them temporary "guests" simply sound more palatable in the current xenophobic climate. God forbid we afford Mexicans the same opportunity we gave the Italians and Irish.

I live in Dallas. As you can imagine, I see a LOT of latino immigrants -- legal and illegal -- every day. If I were to summarize what I think about Mexicans in as short a statement as possible, it would look like "people who work". Period.

Lots of small service businesses around here are run by Mexicans. I am 100% sure most of them employ illegals. You call a roofer or a mason or a landscaper -- the company owner speaks some English, his workers don't. They DO work though. The alternative is to call their "white" competition -- one of those companies that advertise everywhere. You'll get a smooth talking salesman, neverending wait for the workers to show up, 3X the price and, as likely as not, shoddier work. What were those cultural values again that Latinos presumably lack? Low IQs? Bullshit. It is education they lack, not IQ.

And as to immigrants being a drag on the welfare state, perhaps the welfare state is the problem, not the immigrants.

"Jane" reveals her continuing ignorance through use of terms like "nativist".

That said, another reason why they want a "guest" worker program is perhaps because one of these days one of those RICO suits against companies that employ illegal aliens is going to go all the way, and the company involved is going to be taken to the cleaners.

With "guests" that's not an issue.

The reason I call them "guests" is because they will never go home. Six years? In one year or less they could have a U.S. citizen child, buy a house, and start a business. There is no way in the world anything is going to make our "guests" leave.

All those who call them guests without the quotes are either unable to figure that out or are simply lying to you.

Regarding the Hispanic vote.

And, regarding the claim that increasing legal immigration would decrease illegal immigration, that's partly correct. All you need to do is add together the 40% of Mexico's population that wants to come to the U.S. to about 5 billion other people who'd probably like to come here, and the problem will be solved.

Hi Jane,

I'm not sure what it means, but nice blog title. I found yours through Technorati; a lot of folks are posting about immigration today.

Bush has been in reaction mode on a lot of stuff recently, but I gave my reasons why I think he's right about needing a guest worker program on my blog RealCurrents.

This is a big messy political issue. Folks need to just stop calling everybody racists and actually talk about it.

That said, another reason why they want a "guest" worker program is perhaps because one of these days one of those RICO suits against companies that employ illegal aliens is going to go all the way, and the company involved is going to be taken to the cleaners...With "guests" that's not an issue.

Um, duh, TLB. Obviously one reason some people support a guest worker plan (or any other sort of increase in legal immigration) is access to a legal supply of labor. And yeah, fear of legal sancions flowing from the current system is a perfectly reasonable motive to want the government to change the law and allow a legal supply of immigrant labor. Again, duh!

Got any other pearls of wisdom you care to share with us? Perhaps you're going to inform us that one reason gin drinkers wanted to end prohibition was to be left to drink in peace, free from fear of the local beat cop. Sheesh!

It's fitting that an argument as racist and ignorant as Mark. J's asserts absurd racially deterministic arguments about Mexicans and their "failed civilization" while citing Germans as the people we should all aspire to be like.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Germans -- it would be hard to with my last name -- but if you're someone who looks at a nationality's historic success building a functional society or their historic impact on civilization as measures of the worth of present day members... well, if you believe all that and cite Germans as the people we should aspire to be like you must be crazy.

"The Germans have one of the highest average IQs in the world and a track record of superb contribution to Western civilization."

High IQs: maybe. Contribution to Western civilization: decidedly mixed.

(P.S. Read my freaking surname -- hell, read my name -- before you flame me for Teutonophobia. Jesus, where's the minimum-IQ entry requirement for Usenet?)

'Guest workers, here temporarily for economic reasons, won’t invest themselves in America or its future. ' With no citizenship, its going to be a disaster.

Until we address the GDP per capita gap between us (41K) and Mexico(6K), there is going to be a huge problem. Either ours has to fall or theirs has to go up. I prefer to raise theirs.

It's uncontestable that Germans have contributed much, much more to Western civilization than Mexicans have. However, if for some reason you can't concede that, then choose the English or the Swedes or the French or virtually any other European country.

Yes, the Germans spawned the Nazis. But haven't most civilizations had periods of despotism? The Mexicans had their Aztecs with their human sacrifices, for example. The Germans were no different, except that because of their high intelligence and cultural affinity for things like discipline and precision, their despotism was much more dangerous than most other nations'.

If you can't concede that Europeans would make better immigration candidates than Mexicans in terms of the potential value of their contributions, then you are just being willfully ignorant.

I wonder though, what has changed that has spurred all this latino immigration in the last 30 years. We've had a porous border with them for as long as the countries have existed, but it seems only now that they are becoming a real threat to our country. Why didn't they flood in and take over Los Angeles 40 or 60 or 100 years ago, for example? Did their economy just recently collapse? They used to stay put in their own nation, but now they seem hell-bent on changing ours instead. Our jobs have almost always been better-paying than theirs, so what's different now? And if they are better workers, why weren't our employers preferentially hiring them 40 or 60 years ago? I have no point to make in this regard, I'm just curious.

"during their post-WWII economic boom France, Germany, Britain and other countries accepted large numbers of guest workers who settled without full citizenship, attracted family members to join them and bore children. Many of the Islamic radicals segregated into European immigrant enclaves are second generation immigrants whose parents were among those guest workers. They rely on their nation for work or welfare yet loathe it enough to favor its destruction."

It's interesting that you mention Germany. From what I've heard, most of the children and grandchildren of the Turkish "guest workers" that arrived in the 1950's and 60's consider themselves fully German in just about every respect. If they speak Turkish at all, it's a few words they use with their grandmothers.
The second and third generation of the North Africans who came to France in the same period may not be quite as fully assimilated, but they're making progress; once again, it's only the exceptions who seem to get any attention.

People don't employ Guatamalan nannies because they enjoy the illicit thrill of living on the wrong side of the law; they do so because Guatamalan nannies, unlike many of their American counterparts, are quite willing to forgoe things like social security taxes.

Perhaps, but I'd suggest the number one factor is that they're much more willing to trust their children and their home to a Guatemalan woman than to an American (white, or even more so, black) of the same income and education level. Wrongly or rightly.

Is it political cover?

I would argue yes. I mean, look at the additional provisions included in the Senate bill: They must stay for six years, remaining legally employed, to get a green card. After that, if they pay back taxes and any fines and learn English, they can become citizens in five more years.

How many illegal immigrants are really going to want to do this, let alone will be able to?

It's a simple matter of setting criteria that sounds good on paper, but will have little to no positive effect for the people whom it will affect. Not that I'm opposed to that; I personally think we need to reverse a decades-long trend in lax immgration policy through a decades-long trend of attrition and the phasing out of conveniences for illegal immigrants who are here, or who may be thinking of coming here.

Um, duh, TLB. Obviously one reason some people support a guest worker plan (or any other sort of increase in legal immigration) is access to a legal supply of labor. And yeah, fear of legal sancions flowing from the current system is a perfectly reasonable motive to want the government to change the law and allow a legal supply of immigrant labor. Again, duh!

Actually, employers have almost nothing to fear from the government vis-a-vis hiring illegal aliens now.

In fact, after Katrina, Bush basically told companies throughout the U.S. they had 45 days to hire anyone without documentation and not face any penalties.

And, any state or local prosecutor who tried to bring charges against an illegal alien employer would probably be presented with an offer he couldn't refuse.

The companies might now want a legal work force to prevent suits from private parties rather than government entities.

That's the wrinkle that isn't quite so obvious.

If you're under age 50 or so, just ask yourself:

1) Who is going to be supporting you in your retirement by paying Social Security and Medicare taxes?
2) Who is going to be changing your diapers in the nursing home?

Any guesses?

Mexico is a virulently racist society.

Watch Mexican TV for a while. Notice anything? The actresses are blond half the time, and pretty much everyone could pass for a gringo. The Spanish-descended elite do not allow the Indian-descended "small brown people" to thrive. They are kept in terrible poverty and face extreme discrimination everywhere.

No wonder they want to come here. I say, let 'em come. They aren't the problem. The "multicultural" left IS the problem for it is they who discourage assimilation and encourage divisiveness based on racial lines (as they've done with African Americans for many decades).

We should welcome the forlorn but hard-working Mestizos and encourage them to learn English and wave the stars & stripes. As always, the problem is compounded by the America-hating Left who never miss an opportunity to label "Amerika" an oppressive, racist society while ignoring the real thing elsewhere.

The Mexicans had their Aztecs with their human sacrifices, for example.

First, the Aztec empire arose, flourished, and then fell to Cortez and plague before the mid-1500s, which is a bit far back to be pushing the analogy. By contrast in Europe, Luther was being delcared a heritic, yet another Franco-Germanic war was brewing, and the Spanish Inquisition had recently been initiated.

Second, Mexicans as we know them now did not exist at the time of the Aztecs. Cortez decimated the Aztec empire in the early 1500s, and he and the other 2000 or so Spaniards he eventually commanded either raped or intermarried with the natives, their offspring intermarried, etc. Modern-day Mexicans typically have a random mix of Spanish and native blood in their ancestrage. Their culture likewise blends faint remanants of the native Maya and Aztec traditions (mysticism and ritual) with the Spanish ones, most notably Catholocism; and their language contains words which are essentially a pidgin of Spanish and native language, and are unrecognizable to a Spaniard.

Smoov wrote: " ... Mexico is a virulently racist society. ... Watch Mexican TV for a while. Notice anything? The actresses are blond half the time, and pretty much everyone could pass for a gringo. The Spanish-descended elite do not allow the Indian-descended "small brown people" to thrive. They are kept in terrible poverty and face extreme discrimination everywhere. ...."

That is absolutely correct! The disparity in income in Mexico between rich and poor is mind-boggling. And the ruling oligarchy plays us (i.e. the USA) for fools while the people who actually emigrate here illegally are just pawns in the game. Dunno if it's still true, but when I lived in Mexico in the early 1990's, they had more multi-millionaires per capita than the USA or Japan or West Germany

Illegal emigration to the USA (and the billions of dollars that the emigrants send back home) is the safety valve that allows the Mexican ruling class to continue plundering their country with impunity.

If you're under age 50 or so, just ask yourself:

1) Who is going to be supporting you in your retirement by paying Social Security and Medicare taxes?
2) Who is going to be changing your diapers in the nursing home?

Any guesses?

You do realize that, with respect to these issues, immigration is a zero-sum game, right? Eventually, advanced societies need to employ immigration-neutral solutions to these problems. There is no fundamental advantage to procrastinating on this, and there may be serious disadvantages. (I doubt MarkJ is wrong. Those who think otherwise are going to have a tough time dealing with the coming decade's genetic research results, and an even tougher time dealing with East Asia's subsequent application of the results.) Western civilization itself is not at stake, but America's position of leadership is.

Addressing your question directly, Japan's solution to the nursing home problem is robotics, and in my view this is obviously a superior solution to the one we are employing.

Jane, the meaning of the guest worker idea becomes clear after you understand one simple concept: the reserve army of the unemployed.

We want cheap labor (at least many influential lobbies do). But we don't want them to vote (at least many important groups don't). Right now, the muddled solution to that is: illegals. Technically illegal, so, can't vote. But de-facto legal, in the sense that they are supported this way and that. It's a win, but only sort of.

The downside is, when a recession hits, you've got all these people out of work. But not the illegals - they work for cheap. Some do lose work (and may go back home), but most won't, because they are not the most marginal workers here. It's other Americans, blacks in particular. And they vote. Not just the 66% dem that illegals would, but 95% dem.

The Guest Worker Brigades (GWB) idea improves on that. Once you get it in place, then you are positioned to come down hard on illegals. Build the wall, force employers to be your cops. This gives the state control over the marginal labor force, without pesky voter opposition from them. In good times, you let in all the guest workers that the business lobby will pay your campaigns for. Shakedown big biz! Reelection! Win! Workers to pay taxes and such. Expand economy. Win! Then in bad times, when voters are getting angry about unemployment, you send home the GWBs, perhaps causing a revolution in Mexico, but who cares about that? You've exported your unemployment! Win!

Jane Galt wrote: "... But why would nativist Americans who resent economic competition from immigrants be any happier just because those immigrants will leave (and be replaced by a new crop) after some specified period of time? I just don't get it. Somebody 'splain me, please? And use small words...."

OK, here are some comments with (mostly) small words. Sorry, but these comments are going to be in random order because I just don’t have time today to put together a coherent presentation.

1.) The “excellent article” that you linked to is subscription only. That means that us peasants can’t read it, and therefore can’t make intelligent comments on it.

2.) Who says that the only people who oppose illegal immigration are “... nativist Americans who resent economic competition ...” ?? I don’t know exactly what a “nativist” is, but I will cheerfully agree to being a Redneck, and I can tell you that the typical redneck is a lot less worried about “economic competition” than by seeing people getting massively rewarded for thumbing their noses at the Law. And George Bush’s so-called guest worker plan is nothing but a thinly-disguised amnesty plan.

3.) It is totally absurd to compare immigration conditions today with the conditions of 100 years ago when: (a) America was not a Welfare Society, and (b) we still had plenty of uncrowded, undeveloped, habitable open space. (And by the way: The people who were immigrating here 100 years ago were not coming from a neighboring country that claimed to be the rightful owner of a sizeable chunk of America’s territory.

4.) If there really are jobs that “Americans just won’t do,” then the proper solution is to eliminate Welfare, or at least scale it way, way back. Likewise, people who hire nannies or other casual labor on an occasional basis should not have to be going through a lot of crazy red tape to pay employment taxes in the first place. Raise the threshold to something reasonable – say $10,000 per year per person – and throw some Social Security Admin. bureaucrats out of work.

5.) I don’t see anything terribly wrong with some kind of guest worker program between the USA and Mexico, but there is no reason at all why guest worker status should be a stepping stone to permanent residency – much less to citizenship. Let people come here and work for a while, save up their money, and then go back permanently to their home country and open a shop or something. Hopefully they would soak up some American Ideals while they were here and transplant that back to the home country, which would provide a win-win situation for everybody.

Anyone who actually wants to be informed on immigration should go obtain and read a book by the National Academy of Sciences, called "The New Americans."

Here is a little bit of light to shed on this debate, specifically on the impact of immigrants on government:

Adding feds and state/local together, a college educated immigrant has a net PDV of about $100k, an immigrant with less than high school education has a net PDV of about -$30k. (This includes both the costs and revenues flowing from descendants).

However, that masks an enormous variation on the impact of immigrants on federal finances vs. state/local.

1) Immigrants are a net benefit for the federal government's finances.
1a) They spread the cost of true public goods over more taxpayers (e.g. military spending)
1b) They spread the cost of true public bads over more taxpayers (e.g. they lower the per-person share of the public debt)
1c) They make the support of the elderly slightly easier.

2) Immigrants are a net harm for the finances of state and local governments.
2a) Due to the their younger population structure and high ESL costs, they increase education spending a lot.
2b) Immigrants qua immigrants are less likely to use anti-poverty programs (mainly funded by state and local gov). However, a higher fraction of immigrants have low education, so on net they generate more anti-poverty and law-enforcement expenses than tax revenue for state and local govs.

The federal government benefits from increased immigration, but it imposes a negative externality on state/local govs. Some compensation to state/local govs that host immigrants would seem very much in order.

This is a fantastic site! I look forward to checking it out daily!

Why is he going along with this...???

"It's hard to make someone see your point when it conflicts with his income."

It's a long term costs and short term benefits problem problem for the establishment. Short term the immigrants lower wages and raise rents. Good for the people that run America. Long term it's reversed. Now the immgrants have citizen kids in schools, and less importantly, but still economically significantly, they have welfare and medical expenses. They can vote to increase their benefits.
So if we expell the illegal immigrants we get the higher wages and lower rents right away, but the twenty year ago immigrant's present day children are still costing the rich people money.
The establishment wants to somehow separate the costs from the benefits. They want to get the lower wages and higher rents, without the higher taxes caused by the children of the immigrants. That's why they want a guest worker program that makes the parents go home with their kids. Also, they want to make sure that the kids don't get American citizenship and benefits.
Sure, we could fine employers that hire illegals. It's not like a national ID card is going to cause problems for us that the present day web of databases won't cause for all the legal residents. We have zero privacy. But a national ID database would eliminate a lot of cheap labor overnight and drastically redistribute income to the lower paid bottom quintile of America, at the expense of the rest of America.
Welfare mommies are bad enough. Welfare mommies that make as much money as you do are even worse.

That's why they want a guest worker program that makes the parents go home with their kids. Also, they want to make sure that the kids don't get American citizenship and benefits.

Well, then they'd best not back the program in question, because there's absolutely no way "to make sure that the kids don't get American citizenship" if said kids are born on US soil, unless they also propose the change the constitution.

Dog of Justice barks: Who is going to be supporting you in your retirement by paying Social Security and Medicare taxes?

With the Bush/Fox/Democrat strategy, those supporting you would be serf laborers living in caves when they aren't hunched over picking strawberries. The sane strategy might try to arrange to have those supporting you being people who are designing and building strawberry-picking machines.

Some compensation to state/local govs that host immigrants would seem very much in order.

Indeed. For instance, Bush keeps trying to cut the SCAAP program that refunds states for the enormous costs of jailing criminal illegal aliens.

And, California is spending $12 billion building schools. That's just for the LAUSD, and a very good percentage of those students are citizens of Mexico.

Hurray for a "libertarian" immigration policy!

I support sweatshops too cuz shoo honey it saves hours of famfiddlin' paperwork.

For those who are old enough to remember we once had a guest worker program for Mexican farm laborers. It was called the Bracero Program and it worked very well. The farmers loved it because the Braceros would show up to harvest the crops and move on to the next farm/orchard. When the crops were all in the Braceros went back to Mexico and waited for the next season. They loved the program too.

A man named Cesar Chavez, who was the leader of the California Farm Workers Union, got that program killed because the union wanted higher wages and they couldn't get them with the Bracero program in place.

Most of the Illegals that were given amnesty back in the 80s also came here as farm workers. Now, however, the Illegals are not only on the farms, but are in the construction trades, in restaurants, in hotels/motels, and a lot of other jobs that it is claimed (I believe the claim to be weak) Americans won't take. I have a friend who is a narcotics cop who swears that 50% of them are also involved in the drug trade. That has been his personal experience and may not be an accurate picture. However, even 10% in the drug trade is 1.2 million too many drug trafickers.

Seal the border first. Slow the illegal immigration to a trickle and then decide what to do about the illegals that are here. One thing for sure, if they have a criminal record, they should be sent home never to return. If my friend is right that could be half of the 12 million.

The guest worker program could work like the old Bracero program. Workers come in the spring to work the seasonal jobs and leave in the fall.

If businesses feel like they need permanent workers they should ask that the legal immigration
quotas be increased for unskilled workers. Might be a hard sell.

"famfiddlin paperwork" damn right. When I employed an elderly chinese refugee from the Tienanmen Square days, as a babysitter, I paid her fully above the table because she was working on getting her green card. Counting up all the quarterly state and federal returns, unemployment insurance docs, and other randomness, plus my returns (as a contract SW engineer) plus my kids' separate returns (because they exceeded some trivial amount of interest income) I filed 19 separate returns one year. Want to guess how many mistakes I might have made? Silly me, anyway, thinking a mere Berkeley engineering grad could handle such a *complex* employment situation without paid professional help. Don't try to tell *me* that isn't a real barrier to following the damn law.

Yet, I suspect that they aren't, for many employers. The reason that people employ illegal immigrants is that they will work harder, for lower wages, and often off the books. People don't employ Guatamalan nannies because they enjoy the illicit thrill of living on the wrong side of the law; they do so because Guatamalan nannies, unlike many of their American counterparts, are quite willing to forgoe things like social security taxes. My mother, who actually paid social security taxes on the woman who cleaned our apartment, was driven to near-madness by the experience.

I honestly cannot relate to this problem. My parents didn't hire someone to raise their children or clean their home. I was raised by a mother and father who taught their kids that we had to clean up after ourselves and pitch in to do chores around the home. Perhaps that's why I am less inclined to dismiss the concerns brought up over the problems of illegal immigration as simply being "nativism" and why you seem to have trouble grasping these concerns.

I'm just saying.

Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers helped kill off the Bracero program, and its demise was one of the reasons behind the huge surge of illegal immigration from Mexico. And what soon greatly weakened the UFW? Illegal immigration from Mexico.

I'm always amused at those who insist Mexican immigrants should be forced to adopt the language and culture of the U.S. if they are going to migrate to our land.

The first illegal immigrants into Texas arrived about 190 years ago. They were U.S. citizens who possessed no land grants. They simply wandered across the border and found farmland in Spanish Texas. They did not adopt either the culture or the official language of the Mexican government.

Spanish was the official language of the American Southwest for 300 of the last 470 years. It remained the dominant language among Hispanics there for at least another 120 years. I suppose that television changed that.

I see no reason why Mexican adults should be forced to learn English. My Acadian ancestors in Louisiana spoke French and functioned very well for 200 years after they arrived.

"My parents didn't hire someone to raise their children or clean their home. I was raised by a mother and father who taught their kids that we had to clean up after ourselves and pitch in to do chores around the home."

You're saying that, as a 9 month old infant or even a two year old toddler, your parents walked out and left you alone with an ultimatum that "you'd better wash those dishes and do the laundry before we get back"? You need to realize that the part of your childhood that you remember is the older part, and not all women can or should take a decade off from their careers.

And the pressures on mothers aren't entirely due to work. One of my children needed a lot of therapy for medical reasons, so I had a full-time, on the books nanny for two years. It was incredibly expensive and the paperwork was a nightmare, but it gave my children a better life, so I kept it up as long as I could afford it. Should special needs children, or any children, be denied the extensive care and attention they need because you think it's unethical to hire someone else to scrub toilets?

As you yourself said, you can't relate to the pressures that many of us face. If we can afford help and are willing to pay for it, why should huge dead-weight costs (excessive paperwork) be placed in our way? Why should the penalty be so much larger for those of us that want to do it legally?

Comments are Closed.