Back in December 2009, Christopher Jenks ran an interesting roundup on immigration-related titles in the New York Revew of Books. His lead paragraph touches on an important subject:
"Many rich countries have tried hiring foreigners to do their dirty work. Few have been happy with the results. Hiring immigrants for unskilled jobs seems a good deal for the employer. Immigrants will usually accept lower wages than natives, and at least in the United States most employers report that immigrants are more diligent, more reliable, and less prickly than the Americans who apply for such jobs. But hiring unskilled immigrants does not make unskilled Americans disappear; it just depresses their wages. In the long run, moreover, hiring unskilled immigrants has another significant cost. Most immigrants eventually have children, and while many of these children thrive in their new homeland, many do not."
Hiring immigrants to do dirty work is nothing new, even in America. The question is what happens next, and especially in the next 2 generations.
The net effect of failure is toward a permanent underclass that grows organically, as well as from continuous restocking. Hence additional reports like the Washington Post's report "Second-generation Latinos struggle for a higher foothold."
The story doesn't have to end that way. But the current combination of bad policies and laxness sure biases the odds to that end. It's an issue that isn't confined to Latinos, either currently or historically (vid. the Irish experience, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan's critiques), and it needs to become a prominent part of the way we frame modern discussions around both immigration and education policy.
Throw in a massive number of illegals as a renewable way to press down 2nd-generation wages and those of existing lower-class communities, and the net effect is an inhumane, toxic trap. If we don't arrest or short-circuit those trends, the template is Mexico - where middle class people can live like kings, because servants are so cheap and plentiful. That's something I've seen up close. It's convenient for the skybox and the corporate sets, and definitely takes some of the edge off of membership in a withering middle class.
It's also absolutely un-American, and if we sacrifice that principle, we'll have given up most of what America is and has fought to be.
We all deserve better. And we should demand it. (h/t The Corner)
Good peice Joe.
I lived in Phoenix for about 5 years, and got a lot closer to the debate than I was before. One of the problems is this immigrant debate has clearly led to very strong anti-latino backlash (which is a common problem, as you noted historically).
I had a number of 2nd generation students who were completely fit into the American school system (no spanish, strong achievers etc) but had their identity used as a club against them (employers/teachers who enforced low expectations because of their cultural identity) causing their self-esteem to be battered and bruised when it was most important.
At the same time, some club themselves. A friend taught 8th grade ESL, and every June talked of scheduling teacher parent conferences. She was desperate to convince parents that 8th grade graduation was NOT important, but merely a stepping stone. It was a tough sell.
Whatever you think of our immigration/migrant worker levels, we should all be able to agree that we should have control of our borders and know who is coming and going.
The lengths our government has gone to make a kabuki show of the fairly straightforward task of fencing off the border is astonishing. 60 minutes did a program on the make believe 'virtual border' that was supposed to be in place by now and (surprise!!!) has ended up being an endless sinkhole of billions of dollars on sketchy unreliable technology that they still haven't gotten to work in the 23 miles of experimental stretch, when we were promised the whole border would be done by now! Its beyond outrageous.
Give me a few billion dollars, barbed wire, concrete, and some bull dozers and i'll put tens of thousands of Americans to work and have that border closed in 3 years. The Chinese figured it out 2000 years ago and that damned thing is still standing. Its not anything like the rocket surgery the demagogues who don't want any border control claim it is.
And for the record i'm in favor of basically unlimited work stays for any of our neighboring states so long as they have clean records and pay taxes.
It is not a common problem, Alchemist, since there weren't so many Irish. The US haven´t faced anything like this before.
The political concept of border, lines drawn without any geographical support, lies well behind what reality is.
Human brain works linking concepts. It tends to do so, even if it is not correct: a wall does not mean you better know who is coming and going. Truly, it might be the contrary.
Since de-linking concepts it is a far more costly task (our brain does not like chaos when finally has gotten some order), this constitutes a usual form of manipulation and deception. IMHO the wall along the Mexican border was just a way to move Hispanic voters away from the GOP. Now the job is done, who needs it?
The offspring of the emigrants coming back from America (Latin America) were sicken to find in Spain that from their exclusive club, they had become just a part of a big middle class. As we say, they lived there as a rajah (who, it is widely accepted, had more servants than a king, at least in modern times). I think they never really liked their parents' country.
Economic growth - it is left a lot to be done but the situation is better than decades ago - may reduce this question.
Regarding Hispanic immigrants, they are a blessing here, given the alternatives. In the Spanish region of Catalonia, where its elites are embarked in a nation building process and do not want Spanish speaking immigrants, far right parties are growing as their citizens just get tired of Africans and Moors.
Without a language barrier, Hispanics do usually better than other immigrant groups, - and better than some Spaniards - in middle education, except eastern Europeans. They usually take advantage of a public education they don't have in their home countries. A closer and better structured family might help in this.
Of course, problems arise in the cost of public health and low wages, but the only racial aggressive reaction I know comes from Spaniards who had left school and though they could keep afloat having sporadic jobs in the real estate bubble.
The political concept of border, lines drawn without any geographical support, lies well behind what reality is.
At least 2000 years of human history belies that. What's a 'German'? Europe spent several hundred years fighting over where to set those imaginary borders, but today everybody knows what a German is compared to a Pole, and Austrian, or a Gaul. I'd say the opposite is true- people take to ideas over physical borders like ducks to water. The only thing stopping these attachments are other ideas (religion, tribe, etc).
"Human brain works linking concepts. It tends to do so, even if it is not correct: a wall does not mean you better know who is coming and going. Truly, it might be the contrary.
Which is exactly the kind of overthinking I take issue with. How can a wall do worse than a completely open border in separating? Fences work. Its one of the oldest inventions there is. It doesn't need to be 100% effective to be quite effective indeed, and it doesnt need to be very effective at all to do better than what we have now, which is nothing.
The U.S., of course, is a nation of immigrants. Successive waves of immigrants have come, not because they were pulled by American demand to have someone do our dirty work, but because they wanted to escape miserable conditions where they came from. It strikes me this is true for immigration from Latin America: they are looking for better opportunity in The Land of Opportunity.
Successive waves of immigrants have struggled against prejudice and sought to gain a foothold on the economic ladder. The Irish, Catholics from other parts of Europe, the Chinese, the Japanese, Jews from Poland, Russia, and later from the Third Reich, all arrived to enter the melting pot in concentrated clumps. Immigration from Latin America, it seems to me, fits into that tradition. Each successive wave has had its struggles, and presented its challenges to the country. It has always taken a few generations for new groups of immigrants to gain equal footing with earlier arrivals. The Washington Post piece suggests that second generation offspring with Latin American roots are following the pattern of far exceeding the educational background of their parents--even if not as quickly as they need to.
Is the boat full so that future immigration should stop? As long as we have vastly disproportionate wealth compared to other parts of the world it seems inevitable that immigration, weather legal or illegal, will continue. Laws and border fences can affect the rate of this influx, but eliminating the influx of new arrivals does not seem possible anytime soon. As long as there are jobs to be filled in the construction industry, agriculture, hospitality, etc., immigrants will be part of the mix.
Joe's idea, if I understand it correctly, of stopping immigration in order to reduce the labor supply of unskilled workers, thereby increasing the cost of such labor, and that this is the American thing to do, is interesting. I agree that, as a society, we owe it to those at the bottom to facilitate their efforts to improve their lot. Minimum wage laws play a role in this. Education plays a role in this. Social programs geared at guiding youth away from gangs into school and productive jobs plays a role in this. Prison reform plays a role in this. Controlling illegal immigration so that it doesn't distort the labor market is a part of it too.
No, it is not so easy. For Germans, first of all, one of them is somebody who speaks perfect German, and that can only be accomplished if you have born in Germany-north of Switzerland-Austria, lived in a German family abroad or spent a lot of years in one of such places and therefore you are completely assimilated. That is a very restrictive condition, but cannot be applied to English or Spanish speaking people, for instance.
Moreover, many Germans look like Slavonics and even have the same surnames.
When I think of what would happen building a fence, I am thinking about the prohibition. Harder enforcement would not reduce the problem, but increase it, as clandestine networks would grow more sophisticated.
And the US has not faced this problem before, since most immigrants have now the same culture in origin.
Roland,
We don't need to stop immigration. We do need, very badly, to stop illegal immigration, and ensure that the immigration we do get is the one our public policy has set.
We also need to re-emphasize the American melting pot and America's culture, which includes different ideals of education, aspiration, and classless society. You come to America, you commit to these things. That's part of the bargain.
Both of these are anathema to the Left, because they believe that opposing them will (a) bring them future votes, and (b) facilitate a key component of the hate Western culture meme. But the resulting failure on these 2 fronts of border control and culture is a wholesale betrayal of our least fortunate citizens.
Weighed against power, I guess our least fortunate can go screw themselves, as far as the left is concerned. I wish I could say I'm surprised.
If you allow a constant flood of illegals because enforcement is a joke, and undermine efforts to inculcate different expectations among people who come here, you get 2 predictable consequences. One is a constantly-replenished beat-down that goes a long way to reducing opportunities for advancement, and keeping the lower class in place. Two is a deteriorating rate of improvement among 2nd and 3rd generations. Minimum wage, Roland??? Illegal immigration has already made that a joke. Education? Without melting pot emphasis and insistence on the cultural component, no amount of spending matters - and the added burden of illegals will sap the education system you do have. So these things stop working. Are, in fact, stopping.
Which leads to the Mexican Raj for the middle class, plus all kinds of predictable social problems. That is not America.
As for J Aguilar:
This is sort of like saying that fighting terrorists only encourages them. Yes, clandestine networks might grow more sophisticated. But there are many responses - most prominently, relentlessly targeting and punishing the employers who exploit illegal labor dynamics by hiring them. If the jobs dry up, and you offer no-penalty relocation back to Mexico to self-reporting illegals (I don;t support GOP proposals that would put them in the back of the line for subsequent legal immigration), I think you'll find that the dynamics start moving in a positive direction.
A fence may still be useful, but it would hardly be the only part of a real solution. Or even the most important one.
Joe:
This left-right businesss, without defining terms, is not very helpful, especially when you start throwing around invectives. I understand you are married to a liberal. Does she profess and spread the hate of western culture ("hate Western culture meme.") I doubt it. I'm a liberal, I'm also married to one, and I have many friends who are liberals. I assume this is left in your book, no? None of these lefties, and none that I know of, hate western culture: they embrace it, advocate for it, love it. Remember that "cultural elite." What the hell culture do you think this refers to? So I don't know where you get this nutty idea that the left hates western culture, spreads the hate of western culture, and advocates illegal immigration because "it will bring them future votes." Last I checked illegal immigrants don't vote. So you will need to do some more explaining here because I think this is pretty delusional drivel.
You should start by explaining what you mean by the left because it does not appear that you mean folks who voted Obama.
More serious enforcement of illegal immigration would target employers, but INS eforcement (under Republican and Democratic administrations) has focused primarily on workers. Here is a report in a lefty sounding publication that is critcial of some INS raids. I assume this hints at the dynamic you are thinking of. The objection here, I think, is that enforcement is focused on workers. This is not effective because as long as these factories are willing to exploit the low wage illegal immigrant labor pool, there will be a supply of illegal workers. I think this is so even if we hand over billions of dollars to Mark Buehner personally so he can fix that fence. If you want to control illegal immigration it would be a lot more effective to charge the CEO's of Tyson Foods, and Holiday Inn with felonies and lock them up for significant amounts of time; throwing a few busloads of illegl workers in private prisons for a while, and then back across the border, is not effective. Neither I nor the lefties I know would oppose effective enforcement of immigration laws by cracking down on employers. We can ask Pew what the left thinks as a whole.
I also don't see the left being against promoting melting pot culture. The Washington Post article you linked to in your original post indicates that the melting pot is working as well as ever; by the second or third generation many offspring of latin american immigrants no longer speak spanish.
So, in terms of my views, and the views of every lefty I know, you are simply incorrect in your statement that controlling illegal immigration, or promoting the melting pot, are anathema to the left.
I don't understand what you mean by your statement that illegal immigration makes minimum wage a joke?? I also don't follow what point you are trying to make about education. Perhaps you can explain further.
Roland: The ad hom attack on Joe's motivations is unworthy. Engage with his ideas if you can, digging at his personal life suggests that you can't.
Your post works hard to ignore political, cultural and economic realities as they apply to illegal immigration. Since you won't apply the politically incorrect specifics, allow me:
With Howard Zinn less than a week in the grave, it seems very unlikely that the meme of decrying the evils of Western civ, America's most specifically, has coincidentally died at the same time. The leftist / Marxist narrative of class, ethnicity and victimization by the West is alive and well, and is deeply engaged in the struggle over immigration.
The left does not equate to all who voted for Obama, thank heavens. It does seem reasonable to identify it with those ideologues that would turn the US into more of a collectivist entity, with a strong state as the necessary mediator among interest and ethnic grievance groups.
In this setting, saying "illegals don't vote" is disingenuous. We're not supposed to notice that the Democrats in particular want to use 'reform' (legalization) as a wedge issue to get the Hispanic population onside with their agenda? You do realize that the average commenter at Winds pays a little closer attention to politics than the general public, yes?
As to the minimum wage and education issues, it's evident that you don't live in California. Minimum wage for unskilled or semi-skilled labor here is what you can get the guys standing around at Home Depot to take. Education budgets are broken even worse than the general California debacle, in part due to the mandate to take in children of illegals whose tax payments (if any) come nowhere near supporting the costs. The same could be said of healthcare in some locales.
There are positive things about the Hispanic illegals: They come here to work, they work hard when they can, and the culture has deep respect for family and religion.
The problem is that there's no way that an un- or poorly educated manual laborer can create value equal to the costs of what Mickey Kaus calls the 'social minimum' of living standards and services expected in this society. As long as public services at that level are mandated for all comers, legal or not, the illegal and his family are going to create a net cost to the hosting society.
In that setting it's perfectly appropriate to ask, as Joe does in the OP: What value, if any, may we expect to gain from the future generations of that illegal? As we warranted in eating the costs now, in hopes of gaining net contributing citizens in the future? When the natives are reproducing at less than replacement rate, it's a fair question.
The bad news is that the culture of the illegals is not terribly respecting of education, and education is half of what's needed to rise in an information based society. It's particularly stark when compared to the attitudes of Asian immigrants (who are generally legal). Combine that with the continuing economic drag on those working their way up, which Joe identifies, and you do have a recipe for a two class society.
If only there were some historical precedent for keeping people on their own side of imaginary lines... even if one of those lines is a huge river. Apparently it's never been done before.
Tim:
Joe has discussed on this site how he is married to a liberal so I don't think I'm picking at Joe's personal life in an ad hominem way by referencing this. [Joe, let me know if you object to that because I don't think I was treading on sensitive ground there.]
I did and do take pretty strong exception to the statement that the left is pro illegal immigration, they're not, and that the left hates western culture, which is plain silly. I'm sure Joe can take it, or will let me know if I've hurt his feelings.
So who is the left? You suggest we "identify it with those ideologues that would turn the US into more of a collectivist entity, with a strong state as the necessary mediator among interest and ethnic grievance groups." You allude to Howard Zinn. I don't know the man and have not read "A People's History of the U.S" but I understand he was a Marxist. I don't know, but I suspect if you have Pew do a poll on this definition you'll come up with a pretty small sample of Americans as "the left." If that's what Joe means by "the left" it's pretty trivial. I understand Joe to have a broader (non-trivial) category in mind.
David Horovitz, another radical (flip-flopping-from-one-extreme-to-the-other variety) accuses Zinn of being a lifelong Stalinist. I don't know about that. But of course, being a Marxist does not make you a Stalinist, and it does not equate to being hateful of western culture. [In fact, Marx himself was a big fan of the U.S.--Armed Liberal will know more about this] Neither does taking a critical view (even a very critical view, e.g. Chomsky) of U.S. history make you hateful of western culture. Islamists are hateful of western culture, political radicals not necessarily so. [Even when they are very annoying]
Certainly Latino voters helped to elect Obama, as you might expect. The fact that the Democratic Party [are we conflating the left now with DP for this purpose??] courted the Latino vote does not equate to being hateful of western culture, or pro-illegal immigration. Are you defending this claim? Can you link to any Democratic candiate who is on record in support of illegal immigration.
This seems to be a contention that unskilled labor costs society more than they contribute to society. According to FactCheck.Org the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that "illegal" immigrants have a small net cost for the country. People armwrestle over the question.
In any case, noone is advocating we should not enforce illegal immigration laws. As I suggested, above, this will be a lot more effective if we go after the employers.
Not sure what native birthrate has to do with any of this. Is this mildly xenophobic?
The opposite, if anything. It's quite observable - see Europe, Japan, Russia - that having an aging, declining population creates economic problems. Having a culture that's a lot more welcoming and able to assimilate immigrants than those places, we should be (and are) taking advantage to keep up our own population, if the native-born don't choose to do so.
While all citizens should be treated equally, that doesn't need to hold for prospective immigrants. Certainly we should prefer those who arrive legally to those who sneak in. Those who come with education and wealth are more able to make a contribution to the society immediately. In cases where consumed public services mean the immigrant generation is going to create a net burden on society, it's also reasonable to inquire whether the succeeding generations are likely to make a positive impact that 'pays off' that social investment. (I think, for instance, of the post-war Vietnamese immigrants.)
More later, dinner calls.
Joe Katzman (#7)
This is sort of like saying that fighting terrorists only encourages them.
No, it is Le Chatelier's principle. The terrorist would be the ones who would use those networks to enter into the US illegally once they be sophisticated enough.
"No, it is Le Chatelier's principle. The terrorist would be the ones who would use those networks to enter into the US illegally once they be sophisticated enough."
True- but this is to our benefit because it forces the enemy to utilize additional resources as well as expose himself by establishing new patterns.
Generally in warfare, forcing the enemy to react to you is more favorable than the opposite. Ideally you adjust faster than he can, getting inside what the military describes as his 'decision cycle' at which point a collapse becomes probable.
Consider it from the jihadis pov- would you have an easier time walking across the desert at a time of your choosing, or somehow reaching out to shadowy Mexican cartels, paying them, and hoping they aren't infiltrated by spies or trustworthy enough not just to either sell you out or leave you to die, and make a difficult transit without being being caught. The latter requires time and money, the former not nearly as much. Those are finite resources. Every sent spent on making the simple difficult is a cent less available for C4.
Roland,
My wife votes often for Democrats, but she isn't a leftist. She hates all politicians more or less equally, and has no time for leftist idiocies. Our friend Grim identifies as a Democrat, but again, is not a leftist. The 2 are not the same thing, though the Commander in Chief is one.
The Left's hatred of western civ is a matter of long record. Sorry, it's a given. It may not be 100% universal, but it's foundational in ways large and small. The Euston Manifesto was necessary for a reason - and remains unpopular among that set.
And it takes very little research to uncover quite open admissions among Democratic strategists (all political strategists are species of weasel, so not necessarily representative) and also, again, the Left, re: the political point of lowering barriers and consequences re: illegal immigration.
Some of us would call that betraying your country, and creating a subservient class, for political gain. Some might defend it. But the facts of it aren't in much doubt.
Nor is the Left's proclivity toward policies like promoting ethnically segregated dorms, or any number of other examples of fundamental opposition to the melting pot, both in practice and in theory.
So I'm simply going to treat statements to the contrary (hatred of western civ is not a major component of the left, there is not intent among many senior strategists and activists to shift the electoral map through illegal immigration, the left is not opposed to the melting pot) as either not true or dishonest.
With that peripheral discussion off the table, how about engaging some actual arguments and consequences re: the slide toward a REAL 2-class society?
Good start. We agree that targeting the employers is the most productive route.
Targeting workers and not businesses is like targeting drug users and ignoring the dealers. People can lie, and produce fake documents, and the approach has to be flexible enough to recognize that (and/or offer ways to make lying about status harder). But if you bust a place with 200 illegals working there, the consequences should be quite serious and attention-getting.
Here are some policies to promote a more equal society:
1. Invest in education at all levels. Don't pay for it with tuition raises.
2. Provide universal health care at an affordable cost for all.
3. Invest in programs designed to improve the lot of children in the bottom two quintiles of households.
4. Shore up safety nets for the unemployed and elderly.
5. Invest in inner cities and their people.
6. Invest in penal reform.
Such policies are, I believe, inherently social. They require public investment. There is lots of room for debate how this money should be spent, what programs are most effective, which motivate the target group the most, etc. But there is no getting around the fact that these policies require distributive justice . . . and a lot of money.
Where to get the money is the opposite side of this coin. Here are some thoughts about where to increase taxes.
1. Revise tax policy to eliminate some real estate tax shelters
2. Slightly raise progressive income tax rates;
3. Treat (some?) capital gains same as ordinary income.
Again, there is lots of room for debate as to which tax measures are more or less effective, which skew incentives in a positive or negative direction, and which are better or worse for overall GDP. Is it our goal to maximize ovreall GDP, or do we want to have focus on overall production just as one of several important factors to be weighed, including having the most educated, most just, most artistic, society possible?
A good starting point would be to acknowledge that the word social is not a dirty word.