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Unintended consequences muddle Hayworth's bill

Robert

Robb
Republic

columnist
Oct. 2, 2005 12:00 AM

The problem with J.D. Hayworth's immigration bill isn't, as critics will allege, that it won't work. The problem, instead, will be some of the consequences if it did.

Hayworth's legislation, announced last week, incorporates the prescriptions of the immigration restrictionists: tough border and workplace enforcement.

Immigration expansionists contend that enforcement alone won't work, that some sort of accommodation to the demand for relatively unskilled immigrant labor is necessary. They point out that illegal immigration has increased despite substantially increased border enforcement.

That, however, doesn't mean that there isn't a critical mass of resources that can control the border. Certainly border enforcement has seemed to be at least somewhat successful where resources have been massed, such as in Texas and California. In fact, the success of those efforts is part of what has exacerbated Arizona's problem.

More importantly, workplace enforcement hasn't really been tried.

Hayworth's bill corrects that.

All employers would have to verify work eligibility electronically. A new Social Security card, with a digitized picture, would be issued. Employer sanctions for hiring illegal immigrants would be substantially increased, and 10,000 new agents would be dedicated to workplace enforcement.

Regardless of the level of immigration that policymakers decide to permit, the United States, with sufficient resources, should be able to enforce it and largely eradicate illegal immigration.

After 9/11, doing so is imperative. If we cannot control our borders to exclude illegal busboys, we cannot exclude terrorists.

The question is, what level of immigration is optimal for the United States? That is not an easy question to answer.

Expansionists say that illegal immigrants do work that Americans won't. In some industries - agriculture and perhaps some hospitality jobs - that's probably substantially correct. But in other industries, such as construction, it's probably substantially incorrect. Traditionally, construction has been an important bridge to a middle-class standard of living for native-born workers.

The real incomes of native-born workers without a high school education have been declining, and the real incomes of native-born workers with just a high school degree have been stagnant. There are lots of reasons for this, but a high volume of illegal immigration by largely unskilled workers is undoubtedly an important factor.

The fairest conclusion is that the United States would be best served by a level of legal immigration somewhere between what is now permitted legally and what is actually occurring, legally and illegally.

Restrictionists argue that enforcement of existing laws should precede any kind of guest-worker program. But that makes no more sense than the expansionists' argument that enforcement cannot succeed without a guest-worker program. There's no reason that enforcement cannot occur simultaneously with new legal-immigration provisions that better suit the needs of the American economy.

Hayworth's bill, in fact, nearly doubles the permanent work visas the United States allows annually. So he recognizes that the American economy needs a larger number of legal-immigrant workers. Yet he denounces, in very harsh terms, guest-worker programs of any sort.

There's no logical basis for this. Why insist that the need for immigrant labor be met exclusively by permanent workers rather than at least partially by seasonal or temporary ones?

A guest-worker program, at a size modulated to minimize adverse effects on the incomes of native workers, that restored a circulatory pattern of immigration - where Mexican workers come here temporarily to work but return periodically and ultimately permanently to Mexico - would be in the best interests of both the United States and Mexico.

There is, however, a counterproductive penal approach to Mexico in Hayworth's legislation. For a period of three years, Mexicans wouldn't be eligible for any employment or family-based visas. This is supposedly to get Mexico's attention and get it to start enforcing the border on its side. Moreover, unskilled workers get a very small slice of Hayworth's expanded permanent work visas.

There's reason to be frustrated with Mexico's toleration and even support for illegal immigration to this country. But aligning interests, as a properly designed guest-worker program would, is a quicker, more reliable path to the kind of cooperation that would make a difference.

Hayworth's legislation might, indeed, stop illegal immigration, but at a likely cost of severe economic dislocations in some parts of the American economy, and the certain cost of a poisonous relationship with Mexico.

There are better ways to achieve the important objective while avoiding the unnecessary costs.