Thread: The Great Wall of America

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial ... =110008985

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Great Wall of America
Republicans used to want to tear down barriers. Now they want to build them.

Sunday, September 24, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

It wasn't so long ago, during the Reagan era, that Republicans sought to tear down walls, not erect them. But on Sept. 14 House Republicans passed a bill to construct a 700-mile, double-layered fence along the Mexican border while also approving a study on building a similar wall-like structure along the Canadian border. Price tag for the Mexican portion: $7 billion.

Sixty-four Democrats joined all but six Republicans in voting for the measure, and the Senate GOP may also now vote to build this Great Wall of America. Last week the House passed legislation that would deputize local police forces as agents of the border patrol. This will further burden local law enforcement that already has enough work handling bona fide felons. What we have here is panicked Republicans engaging in pre-election theatrics as they seek to remind voters that they're tough on the illegal immigration problem they've done nothing to actually solve.

Here's one example of how tough they are. Steve King of Iowa suggested in front of the C-SPAN cameras that at the top of this new fence "we electrify this wire with the kind of current that would not kill somebody, but it would be a discouragement for them to be fooling around with it." Then he added: "We do this with livestock all the time." Equating people with cattle: There's an inclusive political message for you.

Few really believe that a fence will do much to keep out those who threaten our safety, such as smugglers, drug runners or terrorists. None of the 9/11 terrorists snuck across the Mexican border illegally; they entered the U.S. with lawful visas. Nor will a wall deter illegal workers, who are drawn here by the powerful magnetic pull of economic opportunity and plentiful jobs.

Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona wasn't much off the mark when she once said that "You show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border" to get over it. These migrant workers are resourceful people, which is one reason they meld so productively into the U.S. labor force. As the U.S. becomes more commercially integrated with Mexico and Canada, the restrictionists' strange utopia of a sealed border becomes even more impossible.

Nor is a "sealed border" desirable, even if it could be achieved. More than nine of 10 of the three million net new jobs created from 2000-05 have been filled by immigrants, according to Census Bureau data. With many regions of the country now suffering from a shortage of workers, not even Pat Buchanan could argue with a straight face that immigrants are stealing jobs from Americans. The fence itself will probably have to be built by immigrants.

The refrain on immigration from Republican lawmakers is that "we support legal, but not illegal, immigration." That sounds fine--except that for six years the Republicans have done virtually nothing to allow more immigrants to enter the U.S. legally even as the demand for their services has soared. The quotas for skill-based high tech workers, the so-called H1-B visas, have been reduced by almost half--to America's own economic detriment. Nor has the House lifted a finger this year to deal with a critical shortage of nurses and agriculture workers. That's a big reason one-half to two-thirds of the crop pickers in America are here illegally.

Republicans cite polls indicating that Americans want a secure border, but the political appeal of walls and fences is exaggerated. Just this month Don Goldwater, the man who held a press conference at the border urging, "Mr. Bush, build this wall now," was defeated in a GOP primary for Governor of Arizona--in the very border state where these policies were thought to be most popular. The Arizona Republican who won a Congressional primary on immigration in the Tucson district is expected to lose in November.

The only real way to reduce the flow of illegal Mexican immigration is to provide a legal, orderly process to match open American jobs with workers who want to fill them. Mr. Bush is for that, and so is the Senate, but House Republicans have concluded that they're better off building fences. When Ronald Reagan spoke of America being a "shining city on a hill," he wasn't thinking of one surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fences.

The refrain on immigration from Republican lawmakers is that "we support legal, but not illegal, immigration." That sounds fine--except that for six years the Republicans have done virtually nothing to allow more immigrants to enter the U.S. legally even as the demand for their services has soared. The quotas for skill-based high tech workers, the so-called H1-B visas, have been reduced by almost half--to America's own economic detriment. Nor has the House lifted a finger this year to deal with a critical shortage of nurses and agriculture workers. That's a big reason one-half to two-thirds of the crop pickers in America are here illegally.

Yep. Sounds right on to me.

D.W.