The current immigration debate has succeeded in providing, to quote President Bush, a "comprehensive" look at its legal, cultural, and economic aspects. The problem is most of the solutions proposed are political, with Democrats doing everything to paint Conservatives as racist and some Republicans more concerned about the Hispanic vote than law enforcement. What it so ignored amongst the protest rallies, and allegations of racism is the need for simple law enforcement.
America has a vital interest in legal immigration, given our declining birth rate, along with immigrants that can assimilate to our culture easily. Further, America also requires that its both native born and immigrant citizens can take advantage of our countries economic opportunities. This would all happen in a more effective manner if our government was more active in enforcing our current immigration laws. The current fix we find ourselves in is mostly due to outright negligence of government officials to do that.
The numbers back this up. The Center for Immigration Studies reports that anywhere from 700-800,000 illegal immigrants come here per year, and amongst those, 50,000 are deported, 150,000 leave. Enforcing the 1986 ban on hiring illegal workers would increase the amount of deportations and the amount of illegal immigrants that simply leave. And actually enforcing our borders would decrease the amount of illegal immigrants that attempt to come here.
Instead, common sense enforcement of the ban has been held back due to Congress supplying a voluntary, rather than mandatory employee verification form that only took effect in a few states. When the INS began enforcing the law by interviewing alleged illegal employees in 1998, the alleged illegal's evaded the interviews. But when Congress was lobbied by employers to stop the investigation, the INS gave up. The stats back this up, according to the INS, the number of companies fined for hiring illegal workers fell from 1,063 in 1992 to three in 2004. This lack of common sense extends to our "border security" as well, which places only one border agent roughly every mile.
Now, in theory, President Bush's guest work plan makes practical sense, and is politically advantageous to the Republican Party and the Hispanic vote. But signing on to it before we've actually enforced our immigration laws, which have proven to work when and where enforced, is premature and rejects the idea that we can enforce our laws and not seem anti-immigrant
We need to support our policies which respect the human dignity of illegal immigrants, and look out for the interests of native born Americans. Creating a "guest worker" program for immigrants gives those that come to the U.S. under it no incentive to advance economically. Rather we would be creating an immigrant underclass that's sole purpose is to, as President Bush says, "fills jobs American's don't want." This is contrary to the American dream, which allows American's to start small and advance up the economic ladder. Further, it goes against the salient advice of former President Theodore Roosevelt who rejected viewing immigrants as "primarily a labor unit" and encouraged native born Americans to treat immigrants that assimilate "on exact equality with everyone else." If we want a truthfully compassionate immigration policy that looks out for individual rights and family values, we need to enforce our current immigration laws. Doing so would lower illegal immigration and provide more benefits and economic incentives to those within our country.
Some argue that actually enforcing our immigration policies make us racist, and according to Senator Durbin, un-Christian. In fact, it's just the opposite. Not having real border security allows for drugs to continue flowing into our country, diseases because no one is there to examine illegal immigrants, and lets smuggling go virtually unchecked. There is nothing Christian about any of that. There is however in making use of the qualified Americans for both high tech and service-based jobs in our economy. For example, there are roughly 100,000 plus Americans qualified for high tech jobs that don't have jobs because politicians work around our immigration laws to help bring in foreigners. This is not within our interest in developing and furthering American culture and keeping our market genuinely free.
America's best chance for immigration enforcement is in just that, enforcement. We have laws on the books that allow for economic opportunity, and the continuation of our culture. These policies will benefit both immigrants and native born citizens over the long haul. And given that most immigration reforms, whether they are the restrictive policies of the 1920's, or the open door policies of 1965, have responded to the current economy, it will be best if we were finally forward looking.
Will Haun is a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, and a conservative columnist for the Eagle.
