THE SMITH CENTER

for Private Enterprise Studies

A Flawed Immigration Policy

by

Richard B. Speed

Professor of History, CSUEB

In order to deal with the estimated ten to twelve million illegal aliens currently living in this country, President Bush recently proposed to reform the nation's immigration laws. While he and his administration refuse to call it an amnesty, his proposal has all of the earmarks of an amnesty. Those who are here illegally would be designated guest workers and permitted to stay for three years during which time they would be allowed to obtain driver's licenses, work legally, and apply for green cards. In time they would be able to apply for citizenship, thus cutting in line ahead of millions abroad who are waiting patiently for permission to immigrate to the United States.

President Bush says that illegal immigrants only take jobs that Americans won't. But to be accurate, he should say that they accept jobs that Americans won't do, at the wages being offered. If the supply of labor was limited to those who are here legally, employers would have to compete for employees, as they should, by offering higher wages. If wages were allowed to rise in accordance with supply and demand in the American market, Americans could be found to do the work at some wage level. Employers would merely have to pay more as they do in other industries. But a constant influx of new migrants willing to work for third world wages drives down the income of unskilled American workers.

If employers believe it is too expensive to pay employees better, they could use the other classic strategy that American business has employed to contend with rising wages and scarce labor: they could increase productivity through automation and technology. In fact, massive levels of illegal immigration have retarded innovation in agriculture and the U.S. has fallen far behind such countries as Australia which has been in the forefront of this process.

Some contend that a free market approach to immigration demands a relatively open border. During most of the nineteenth century however, business clamored for high tariffs in order to protect nascent industries from foreign competition. There were good nationalist reasons for doing so, but this was a massive subsidy for American business at the expense of the general consuming public. This was not the free-market thing to do. By the same token, unrestricted immigration provided large numbers of workers for the same industries and it is undeniable that the constant influx of workers kept wages down. This too was a government subsidy to business paid for by workers. Government took sides. This was not a free-market policy either. The same is true today. Government should not be in the business of subsidizing MacDonald's, or Tyson Foods, or any other business large or small. A de facto policy of permitting massive levels of illegal immigration in order to provide a cheap labor supply for farmers, large and small, is a huge subsidy to low wage employers in agricultural and service industries.

Those who support open borders hold that the corollary to free trade in goods is free trade in people. But people are not merely value-free goods. They bring with them cultural values, social mores, and political identities which may not correspond with our own. But Americans too have an identity replete with cultural and political meaning. Americans have worked hard to establish their cultural identity and have a right to preserve that identity in their own country. Furthermore they have a right to expect that those whom they invite to join us as fellow citizens will eventually shed their old identity and join us as Americans. In short, immigrants should assimilate. Indeed the function of the melting pot has always been to make Americans. The very concept emerged in response to the divergent origins of the American people, and took on significance in the context of the great wave of immigration that took place at the end of the nineteenth century. In short, business may be importing workers, but as a nation, we are importing people-people who must be transformed into Americans.

Yet today we live in a period of intense ethnic nationalism and multiculturalism which actively denies the importance of assimilation, instead encouraging the retention of ethnic and cultural differences. What's more we have a powerful ethnic grievance industry subsidized by government-both Democratic and Republican-which actively sets one group against another, and undermines the social glue that binds us together as Americans. Given the conjunction of uncontrolled immigration, the ten to twelve million illegal immigrants who are already here, and the prevalence of multiculturalism, one has to wonder whether the melting pot still works. If it does not, then the United States is in very serious trouble. Under the circumstances, we must get control of our immigration policy.

The president's defenders argue that his immigration plan is an attempt to get control of the situation, but he proposes to do it in the same way that some would deal with the influx of drugs across our borders: capitulate and legalize them. In short, acknowledge that we can't win, and give up. But that would only encourage even more illegal immigration, as the last amnesty did. Indeed, the president does not even propose any significant increase in border security, or employer sanctions. In any case, a nation that can't control who crosses its borders is a nation that has lost a critical attribute of its sovereignty. This should be intolerable to any American.