Thread: Immigrants, Anti-Illegal Aliens and Americans

OPINIONMarch 31, 2013, 7:01 p.m. ET.

Immigrants, Anti-Immigrants and Americans

The weekend progress in negotiations is a good step toward reform that merits conservative support..

By GROVER JOSEPH REES
Over the weekend, the congressional negotiations on immigration reform reportedly cleared a major hurdle with an agreement between business and labor to support a substantial increase in the number of visas available to temporary workers.

Almost immediately, the news drew criticism from the right. The criticism was in keeping with much recent commentary that has depicted Republican support for immigration reform as an abandonment of principle, or at least as a burst of "moderation," by politicians who have suddenly decided that they will never win another national election if they do not get more Hispanic and Asian votes. This analysis fits nicely into the otherwise divergent narratives of the anti-immigration movement and of the anti-Republican left.

Although there are good political reasons for conservatives to be pro-immigration, the best reasons have to do with principle. When I was learning how to be a Reagan Republican, you did not have to be against immigrants and you were supposed to be in favor of refugees. Support and encouragement of a robust legal immigration system—not just for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and the occasional rocket scientist, but for thousands upon thousands of ordinary people seeking better lives—flows naturally from the positions most conservatives take on related issues.

Opponents of immigration are fond of dismissing pro-immigrant conservatives as "big business" seeking "cheap labor." The germ of truth in this is that American conservatives generally believe that economic activity should be governed by contract rather than by status. We believe an economic system driven by competition among free individuals and enterprises is more likely to confer long-lasting benefits on everybody than a system in which government periodically designates winners and losers.

But the economic arguments for immigration are merely one aspect of a broader commitment to human freedom. American conservatives oppose racial quotas, redistributionist taxes and most other aspects of the nanny state not because we wish to hurt the intended beneficiaries of these policies, but because we believe the law should ensure equality of opportunity rather than attempt to guarantee preferred outcomes.

In contrast, restrictive immigration laws represent a decision by those of us who are already here to enforce our own perceived economic advantage, or our aesthetic preferences about how many neighbors we should have and how they should look and sound—at extreme cost to the principles we otherwise espouse.

Conservatives should also recognize that the country's traditional generosity toward immigrants is an important element of American exceptionalism. The greatest country in the world achieved that status not because of its racial or cultural heterogeneity, and not even because of its economic or military strength, but because of its ideas. The nation's greatness therefore cannot be threatened by immigration. On the contrary, it is reaffirmed and reinforced.

Ronald Reagan made clear in his final presidential address to the American people that in describing the United States as a "shining city on a hill," he meant a place of refuge for freedom-loving people from around the world. "If this city has walls, the walls have doors, and the doors are open to everyone with the energy and the will and the heart to get in."

This is not to say conservatives should support "open borders." Although such a policy or something like it served the U.S. until well into the 20th century, it is not practical now that anyone can travel anywhere almost instantly.

Contrary to the anti-immigration movement, however, there is no reason to suppose that the legal limits should be lower than they are today. Current annual immigration to the U.S., legal and illegal, is between a third and a half of 1% of the population. This is about average by historic standards, and far lower than during peak periods in which immigration averaged 1% per year or even higher. So if the country could succeed in eliminating or substantially reducing illegal immigration, America could easily afford to increase the numbers of legal immigrants and refugees.

It is also important to reform the current system in which immigrant visas are confined to a small number of categories, making it impossible for most people to immigrate legally. It would be much easier to convince people to wait their turn in line if there were actually a line in which they were eligible to wait.

It is true that the existence of a far deeper social and economic "safety net" than 100 years ago could change the self-selection process for immigrants as well as how they behave once they get here. No nation can afford to be the high bidder in an international welfare auction. The solution is to restrict the eligibility of recently arrived immigrants for nonemergency welfare benefits and to enforce the public-charge provisions of immigration laws, not to shut the door on people who want to come here to work.

The anti-immigration movement and its conservative supporters are right to believe we should have better immigration enforcement. We are now sending exactly the wrong message to prospective immigrants: Don't even think about coming here legally, unless you are in one of the relatively narrow legal immigrant categories. But if you come here illegally, we probably won't catch you. Both parts of this message need to be fixed: by enforcement that is thorough and effective without being mean, and by a far less restrictive legal immigration system.

The recent bipartisan proposal by Sen. Marco Rubio and seven of his colleagues, which has been the starting point for the current negotiations, gets an astonishing amount of this right. In particular, it takes exactly the right approach to the question of "amnesty." The proposal recognizes, on the one hand, that people who violate immigration laws are more like speeders than they are like murderers. Violations of law should not go unpunished, but penalties should be proportionate, and a substantial fine is appropriate for most immigration violations.

But the proposal also recognizes that to create a special visa that is available only to people who can prove that they violated our laws to get here—as the U.S. did in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986—is fundamentally wrong. Hence the insistence of the current proposal that the "path to citizenship" for undocumented immigrants be through applications for visas that are equally available to those who did not violate our laws, and that the undocumented immigrants should not be given priority.

Even more important, the senators' proposal also recognizes that the country's current legal immigration system is inadequate for those who have no special professional skills but who want to work and whose labor, at least in good economic times, the economy needs. Opposition to this part of the proposal by organized labor has been the most important obstacle in the immigration reform negotiations, but agreement reportedly reached this weekend would create up to 200,000 visas each year for "guest workers."

This is a step in the right direction. Only by substantially increasing the number of visas available to people who have neither close family ties to current citizens nor specialized skills will we be telling the whole truth when we say that "immigrants are welcome, so long as they come here legally." Only then will we realize once again President Reagan's vision of the shining city on the hill, "still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

Mr. Rees, a former law professor, judge and ambassador, served from 1991-93 as general counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Grover Rees: Immigrants, Anti-Immigrants and Americans - WSJ.com

I guess the Wall Street Journal is willing to give about anyone a job that is willing to sellout their nation and fellow countrymen to invasion and unsustainable hyper legal immigration.

W

Norquist trades on Reagan quite a bit to get his own political message out. Ed Meese was the Attornry General and had to implement the 1986 amnesty and this is his view.

Does any of this sound familiar?

REAGAN WOULD NOT REPEAT AMNESTY MISTAKE

By: emeese
12/13/2006 12:06 AM

This is the fifth in an occasional series of exclusive articles in which leading conservatives who served in the Reagan Administration explain how they believe the principles of Reagan conservatism ought to be applied today and in the coming years. This week, Edwin Meese, who was Reagan’s first presidential counselor and then attorney general, addresses immigration.


What would Ronald Reagan do? I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked that question, on virtually every issue imaginable.

As much as we all want clarity and certainty, I usually refrain from specific answers. That’s because it is very difficult to directly translate particular political decisions to another context, in another time. The better way to answer the question—and the way President Reagan himself would approach such questions—is to understand Reagan’s principles and how they should apply in today’s politics, and review past decisions and consider what lessons they have for us.

Immigration is one area where Reagan’s principles can guide us, and the lessons are instructive.

I was attorney general two decades ago during the debate over what became the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. President Reagan, acting on the recommendation of a bipartisan task force, supported a comprehensive approach to the problem of illegal immigration, including adjusting the status of what was then a relatively small population. Since the Immigration and Naturalization Service was then in the Department of Justice, I had the responsibility for directing the implementation of that plan.

President Reagan set out to correct the loss of control at our borders. Border security and enforcement of immigration laws would be greatly strengthened—in particular, through sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants. If jobs were the attraction for illegal immigrants, then cutting off that option was crucial.

He also agreed with the legislation in adjusting the status of immigrants—even if they had entered illegally—who were law-abiding long-term residents, many of whom had children in the United States. Illegal immigrants who could establish that they had resided in America continuously for five years would be granted temporary resident status, which could be upgraded to permanent residency after 18 months and, after another five years, to citizenship. It wasn’t automatic. They had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because these are pretty much the same provisions included in the Comprehensive Reform Act of 2006, which its supporters claim is not amnesty. In the end, slight differences in process do not change the overriding fact that the 1986 law and the recent Senate legislation both include an amnesty. The difference is that President Reagan called it for what it was.

Lesson of 1986

The lesson from the 1986 experience is that such an amnesty did not solve the problem. There was extensive document fraud, and the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded projections. And there was a failure of political will to enforce new laws against employers. After a brief slowdown, illegal immigration returned to high levels and continued unabated, forming the nucleus of today’s large population of illegal aliens.

So here we are, 20 years later, having much the same debate and being offered much the same deal.

What would President Reagan do? For one thing, he would not repeat the mistakes of the past, including those of his own administration. He knew that secure borders are vital, and would now insist on meeting that priority first. He would seek to strengthen the enforcement of existing immigration laws. He would employ new tools—like biometric technology for identification, and cameras, sensors and satellites to monitor the border—that make enforcement and verification less onerous and more effective.

One idea President Reagan had at the time that we might also try improving on is to create a pilot program that would allow genuinely temporary workers to come to the United States—a reasonable program consistent with security and open to the needs and dynamics of our market economy.

And what about those already here? Today it seems to me that the fair policy, one that will not encourage further illegal immigration, is to give those here illegally the opportunity to correct their status by returning to their country of origin and getting in line with everyone else. This, along with serious enforcement and control of the illegal inflow at the border—a combination of incentives and disincentives—will significantly reduce over time our population of illegal immigrants.

Lastly, we should remember Reagan’s commitment to the idea that America must remain open and welcoming to those yearning for freedom. As a nation based on ideas, Ronald Reagan believed that that there was something unique about America and that anyone, from anywhere, could become an American. That means that while we seek to meet the challenge of illegal immigration, we must keep open the door of opportunity by preserving and enhancing our heritage of legal immigration—assuring that those who choose to come here permanently become Americans. In the end, it was his principled policy—and it should be ours—to “humanely regain control of our borders and thereby preserve the value of one of the most sacred possessions of our people: American citizenship.”

Reagan Would Not Repeat Amnesty Mistake | Human Events

A claim that "Ed Meese said",

"REAGAN WOULD NOT REPEAT AMNESTY MISTAKE"

does nothing to repair the damage that they did to the country. It changes NOTHING.