Michael Medved:
Republicans of all stripes tend to display two bad habits whenever they talk about immigration and those ticks damage the GOP and cripple our credibility.
First, we almost inevitably discuss illegal immigration in the context of winning Hispanic votes, as if it were a political problem, rather than a profound policy and ethical dilemma that impacts millions and threatens future character of the country. As soon as advocates of immigration reform say something like “we must do something on this issue to attract the Latino voters we need to win majorities” it makes them sound like sleazy politicians who care more about winning than doing the right thing for the country. On the other hand, when skeptics say “we shouldn’t even worry about Hispanic voters because they’ll vote for high welfare, open-borders Democrats anyway” then you are callously writing off a major segment of the American electorate and suggesting that they are somehow unworthy of your coalition. Either way, you’re insulting their intelligence by arguing that for those Latinos who have gone to the considerable trouble of becoming naturalized citizens, or who have lived here since birth, the chief issue will always be the status of unauthorized migrants.
No one can argue against the proposition that the problem of illegal immigration plays a disproportionate role in Latino communities, and in Asian communities for that matter. But that’s not the reason to address the issue: the reason to address the issue is the future of the United States demands it. If our leaders took a series of constructive, incremental steps to enhance both the rule of law and the lives of immigrants, no one could doubt that they would be politically rewarded in the long term, no matter how challenging those steps might seem at the moment. And no one should question that if shrill politicos took destructive steps (like insisting on a deportation policy that emphasizes family separation) that they would be politically punished eventually, regardless of the lusty cheers that might arise for a few months.
That brings me to the second bad habit that Republicans demonstrate in most cases when we speak about immigration: a preference for simplistic gimmick solutions that serve as applause lines rather than policy contributions. For decades, some conservative politicians seem transfixed with the “big dream” of building a huge, impenetrable fence that will “seal the border” once and for all. Most recently, Donald Trumph has graciously volunteered to apply his unique skill set to these efforts, conjuring the image of a vast, gilded wall occasionally punctuated with glittering casinos and Trump Tower residences.
For those who wonder why we haven’t finished the promised border fence despite the long-ago Congressional commitment to do so, one can thank a plague of law suits based on “property rights” by uncooperative border ranchers (the kind of cause of action conservatives usually like) as well as a crippling undergrowth of environmental regulations.
Aside from these inconvenient obstacles, there’s the data suggesting that already today the great bulk of illegal immigrants don’t crawl across the southern border or leap over fences: they arrive in airports, with visas, and then overstay their allotted time. In fact, during the period 2003-2013, Pew research emphasized that illegal immigration from Asia exceeded illegal immigration from Mexico by a ratio of nearly four to one. A border fence will do little to deter the techies who are pouring into the country from India and elsewhere. And it will do absolutely nothing to sort out the problems of the more than 12 million already here, with nearly two thirds of them US residents for ten years or more.
Another and annoyingly unworkable solution is the outrageous gambit promulgated by the Obama administration: provide automatic, immediate (and Congressionally unauthorized) work permits to some four or five million illegals and they’ll all happily join the American mainstream and become a credit to our country. The problem is that this mechanism provides no meaningful basis for selecting those illegals who truly do want to “Americanize,” and will go to considerable trouble to do so, and those who feel no interest whatever in doing so, or haven’t done anything to merit acceptance in any way. In 1986, barely half of the three million illegal aliens eligible for President Reagan’s amnesty ever bothered with the process; the rest ignored the opportunity, with scant consequences to them.
For years I have wanted the Republicans to propose a straight-up deal.
Granted, finding and shipping some 12+ million illegals home is a non-starter – it’ll never happen.
So here’s the deal. All illegals already here will get amnesty and a green card. They can stay and work in the US. But the MUST be a price. You came here illegally, and you take the amnesty, but you will never, EVER become US citizens. You will be legal aliens until the day you die. If you want to be a citizen, go home, and come back legally.
I think that is a fair deal. I would even add that your children would not be citizens either (unless they leave and come back legally), but that would require a constitutional amendment and democrats can and will block it.
I have said that if it were mandated that one has to present proof of legal residency to receive taxpayer funded benefits (food stamps, housing subsidies, medical care) this problem would, indeed, self-deport itself. For what illegal immigrants are here for, what they earn, how much they send back home and what it costs to live here, I believe they would not be able to survive here without those subsidies.
However, with sanctuary cities handing out ID cards like candy on Halloween, this solution (if it, indeed, is a solution) is rapidly losing its window of opportunity.
@Dreadnought: The only problem is the will to follow through. This was what was attempted in 1986, with just 3 million, and the Democrats abrogated the deal. As was laid out in the article, as long as the Democrats characterize the need to truly reform immigration and secure the borders as “hating immigrants, hating Mexicans, hating the poor, etc, etc”, it will remain difficult for Republican politicians to have the courage to follow through with reforms. Indeed, the favor of Hispanics has to be curried in the process or else there will be no one left between open border liberals and the rest of the country.