Thread: Ambitious plan needed to halt illegal migration

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_3147209

Oppenheimer: Ambitious plan needed to halt illegal migration
By Andres Oppenheimer


Last week's proposal by the Bush administration to ''return every single entrant, with no exception,'' to their home countries while creating a legal guest workers' program for migrants is pure nonsense. Unfortunately, other immigration bills before the U.S. Congress are not substantially better.

Before I tell you why neither Bush's $7.5 billion immigration enforcement plan nor the other two major proposals - the Kennedy-McCain bill and the Kyl-Cornyn bill - are likely to stop the record flow of illegal immigration, let's look at the facts.

There is no question there is an immigration crisis. There are at least 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country - more than 80 percent from Latin America and the Caribbean - and two-thirds of them have arrived in the past decade. By most estimates, a record 500,000 illegal immigrants are settling in the United States every year.

In California, Arizona, Texas and other border states, there are growing complaints that migrants are congesting schools, hospitals and roads. And Mexico-phobic fear mongers - such as CNN's Lou Dobbs and Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington - are raising the anti-immigration hysteria nationwide with dire warnings of a collapse of America's lifestyle because of the massive influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants.

The Bush administration is proposing an additional $890 million a year in border enforcement to ''return every single entrant, with no exception,'' as Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff put it to Congress. At the same time, the administration calls for creation of a temporary workers' program that would allow guest workers to stay up to six years in the country, but then would have to return home.

Another plan, the Kennedy-McCain bill, proposes increased border enforcement, but also an opportunity for undocumented workers to earn legal status. That would allow Washington to keep track of millions of people who now live in the shadows and would make the country more secure against terrorist plots, the bill's sponsors say.

The Kyl-Cornyn bill, in turn, combines increased enforcement with improved avenues for legal immigration, but makes it difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain legal status.

The trouble with all these proposals is they don't address two basic facts:

-No amount of money will be able to seal the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

-Illegal immigration will continue as long as the income gap between the United States and its southern neighbors remains as wide as it is.

My conclusion: Enforcement-based proposals will not only fail but may backfire. A new study by Princeton University professor Douglas S. Massey shows that, while U.S. government spending to militarize the border has grown substantially over the past 10 years, illegal immigration has soared at even higher rates.

The reason is a decline in circular migration. As we put more troops on the border, more migrants move north with their entire families, rather than alone, for fear it's going to be more difficult to visit home. And those who are already in the United States stay for good, because border crossings become more expensive and more dangerous.

If we're serious about reducing illegal migration, we should begin talking about more ambitious plans to reduce the north-south income gap.

We should take a page from the European Union, where the richest countries decided five decades ago to help build schools and roads in poor neighboring countries in exchange for commitments of responsible economic behavior, and all of Europe benefited.

I know what you're probably thinking: Oppenheimer lives in la-la land. Given the national security-focused, anti-immigration climate in much of the United States, the chances of Washington launching a European-styled Community of the Americas anytime soon are almost nil.

I don't buy it. If the Germans, French and British struck a mutual-help deal shortly after millions of their countrymen died fighting one another in World War II, there is no reason why the United States and Mexico could not expand their current free trade deal to a more ambitious economic integration agreement, then expand it to the rest of the region.

It's time to reframe the immigration debate and put it in the context of U.S.-Latin American economic integration. Otherwise, we will continue throwing money into a bottomless pit.

It is easy, send 100,000 troops to the border. 1 aircraft Carry in the Gulf of Mexico and another cruising down the coast of California. A good stern warning to a certain government. A Presidential Executive Order to all Law enforcement to round all illegals Immediately. And send the bill to the prospective country and if they don't pay for there citizens return. NO MORE MONEY TO THEM EVERY.