ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: THE SOFT UNDERBELLY
FROM THE DESK OF JAMES N. CLYMER
CHAIRMAN, CONSTITUTION PARTY NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Immigration reform is a hot topic in Washington these days, with President Bush, Senator John McCain, and Senator Pete Domenici, among others, proposing various pieces of legislation purportedly designed to solve America's illegal immigration crisis. Republicans Domenici and McCain have both introduced immigration reform legislation, while President Bush, in a January 7th speech, proposed sweeping new laws providing for millions of new immigrants to be hired for jobs that "American workers are not willing to take." While the President, unlike Senators McCain, Domenici, and many other Congressmen, claims to oppose amnesty for illegal aliens (or, in the politically correct parlance of Washington, "undocumented workers"), his policies amount to capitulation to a status quo that has allowed and even encouraged millions of illegal immigrants to live and work in the United States.
The Constitution Party has never opposed immigration per se; we recognize that enlightened immigration laws have allowed America to attract talent from all over the world. Most of us are descended from immigrants ourselves. But there is a false premise underlying all current immigration reform proposals that would in some way reward the millions of illegal aliens. This premise is that America's greatness is based ultimately on her ability to maintain a hard-working citizenry. Illegal immigrants, goes the argument, are simply taking jobs that Americans are unwilling to take. As the President put it, "some of the jobs being generated in America's growing economy are jobs American citizens are not filling."
The notion that worker productivity is the ultimate measure of a nation's greatness is an old socialist fallacy, reconditioned and revamped for a twenty-first century world being encouraged to worship without question at the altar of free trade. But in fact, people all over the world work extremely hard, as our own ancestors did in the various countries where they originated. The reason people come to America is not to work harder, but to enjoy more fully the fruits of their labor, in a comparatively open and free society where, in spite of the worsening burden of taxes and regulations, capital formation is still possible and risk coupled with hard work still yields rewards.
But why is it the case that the worker in Mexico, the Philippines, or India can work as hard as or harder than his American counterpart, yet seldom manages to accumulate any savings or acquire any reward except more work? The reason American workers are so much better off is that our laws historically, for all their failings, have generally protected private property and free enterprise, and punished graft, racketeering, extortion, and the like.
The basis of our prosperity, our system of free enterprise, is dependant on our remaining a nation of laws. No legal system can last long if laws are passed that encourage and reward illegal behavior or if laws that punish lawlessness aren't enforced.
But that is precisely what the sort of policies being proposed by Senator McCain, Senator Domenici, and President Bush will do. In the case of amnesty, does anyone seriously believe that granting amnesty to millions of illegals will not encourage millions more to sprint for our borders? It's already happening. The mere prospect of President Bush's "amnesty lite" proposal has resulted in an increase of thousands of illegal immigrants each month since it was first announced.
The President also promised to work with the leaders of other nations (read: Mexico) to encourage them to change policies that have driven their citizens to seek employment in the U.S. in the first place. In other words, we have no choice but to adapt to the consequences of government malfeasance in Mexico and elsewhere, and hope they change their ways eventually.
This is naive and foolish thinking. The more we accommodate illegal aliens, the less incentive we give to governments like Mexico's to change their corrupt ways.
It is not considered politically correct to say so, but the flood of illegal immigrants has brought many evils in its train, including a greater volume of drug smuggling, the trafficking in human beings destined to lives in unspeakable forms of bondage, and an epidemic of violent street gangs. The risk of terrorists infiltrating the United States via our porous southern border is very high. Lawlessness, it seems, encourages more lawlessness.
But what about those jobs that will supposedly go unfilled if illegals are not available to fill them? The primary reason that Americans are less willing to perform those jobs is that many employers prefer to pay much lower wages, and to require longer hours of work under appalling conditions, as long as they have a captive pool of illegal workers to hire. Moreover, the extraordinary levels of taxation and regulation imposed on American industry provide strong incentives to hire workers for whom employers need not assume the heavy costs of health plans, social security "matching contributions," and other crippling economic and bureaucratic burdens. If illegals were no longer available, wages and working conditions would quickly be bid up to reasonable levels, and pressure would mount for tax and regulatory relief, so that American industry could afford to pay American workers what they are worth.
What should be done? First and foremost - enforce the law! This means our borders need to be patrolled by much larger forces. This administration is making no serious effort to impede the tens of thousands crossing the border illegally each month. Rather than spreading our troops around the world, fighting battles that do not directly involve our security or our vital interests, we should be directing our troops to the border which is our soft underbelly for terrorist infiltration. A good deal of our military budget would be better allocated to pay for protecting our own homeland and borders instead of everybody else's.
Secondly, it means finding and deporting illegal aliens. We must send a message to Mexico and other miscreant regimes that exporting their problems to the United States will no longer be rewarded.
Thirdly, instead of revising our immigration laws to encourage more people to immigrate who may threaten our American culture, our stability and our form of government, Congress needs to reform and, in many case, abolish, the regime of taxes and regulations that penalize American industry for hiring legal workers.
While we may never live in a perfect world, we need to demand of our leaders that they stop ignoring the problem of illegal immigration, and that they take genuine corrective measures to remedy it. If we do not, our country and our laws will soon be completely overwhelmed, as law-abiding citizens become a minority in their own land.
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Lancaster, PA 17602
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