Back in 2006, before I joined this forum, I wrote a long speech for President Bush that I wanted him to deliver regarding illegal immigration. I sent it to all my friends at the time. I don't think any of them read it. This speech still represents my best arguments on this issue, so I am going to post it here.
My fellow Americans:
Good evening. Tonight, I come to you to address the issue of illegal immigration. This is a complicated and divisive issue, but I want first to stress that this issue has very little to do with the subject of legal immigration. Legal immigration is something most Americans perceive as a positive good which has done much to build our country. Illegal immigration is something a good number of Americans do not perceive as a positive, for a number of varying reasons. There has never been a recent issue for which there are so many misconceptions. Tonight, I’m going to discuss four separate points: first, all of the misconceptions and why these exist; second, all of the proposed solutions and why most of them as they are currently construed either won’t make any difference or will actually make things worse; third, what the two primary reasons for illegal immigration are; and finally, what are my proposed solutions. So bear with me:
The first misconception is that we are currently doing nothing to prevent illegal immigration. The actual truth is, according to government figures, 1.7 million people attempt to sneak in from our southern border every year. Each year, we send about 1.2 million back, and the other half million get in. The question is: if we increase border control, or if we put up a fence, can we significantly decrease these numbers? I don’t believe so, and I will explain why shortly. But it is important to note that the effort in this direction is already prodigious.
The second misconception is that we need to secure our borders for national security purposes, especially in the wake of 9/11. This argument on it’s face should be ridiculous to any thinking American. There is no way we could ever secure our borders enough to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is not a great army coming to attack us. It has unfortunately been successful in the past because so much damage can be done by such small numbers, such as the 19 men who hijacked the planes. The only way to combat terrorism is through solid intelligence, and acting swiftly upon that intelligence. In the case of 9/11, we had intelligence, but didn’t act properly upon it; the fault for this lies evenly on my administration and the previous administration: quite simply, as in the case of Pearl Harbor, we were psychologically unprepared for such an attack. Hopefully this situation has been rectified. But it has nothing to do with the securing of our borders.
The third misconception is that the problems associated with illegal immigration far outweigh the benefits. We all know the problems: the costs to our schools, our emergency rooms, our police is tremendous. Illegals are the main carriers of narcotics into America. In the border states, the public cost for all this is overwhelming. On the other hand, illegals perform services that legal Americans can’t or won’t perform, for ridiculously low wages that keep our costs low. Imagine, for example, what grocery prices would be if employers paid minimum wage to all the fruit pickers. So there are obvious benefits to the illegals as well. Do they far outwieigh the minuses? Or do the minuses outweigh the positives? This depends on your point of view. I’m going to give my point of view n three parts: first, in no case do the negatives so far outweigh the positives so that illegal immigration is the critical issue that it is often represented to be. It is not, in my opinion, at the core of any of our overall economic problems. Second, in the case of the border states, (California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas), the negatives of illegal immigration generally outweigh the positives because of the high economic costs to those states. Third, in the case of all other states not on the Mexican border, the positives of illegal immigration generally outweigh the negative, as the economic costs to these states is minor (although it is growing, as illegals migrate to the Northeast and South.)
The next misconception is that this is an issue of our sovereignty, and that the growing Hispanic population in the southwest as a result of illegals will change the demographics so significantly in the next few decades that these areas will belong more to Mexico than to the United States. The people who argue this are mostly nativist by nature, and they are quick to complain about parts of cities where every storefront is written in Spanish. While the arguments against the high economic costs are perfectly legitimate, these arguments are not. The Hispanics that come to America, whether legally or illegally, even though they bring their culture with them, desire overwhelmingly to be Americans and to be treated as Americans. To complain about their culture is quite simply, a bigoted attitude and should be condemned.
The final misconception is that the politicians interest in this matter is the same as yours. As in most cases, the majority of politicians care only about increasing their own power base and avoiding any controversy. The Republicans are split into two camps. The populist Republicans are anxious to please their base by advocating draconian solutions: no amnesty, build a fence, fine employers, deport who you can. They are safe to propose these because they know they can shout loud and be angry and gain popular support, while they also know that most of their views will never be enacted. The big business Republicans offer symbolic tightening of the border, and call for Amnesty or guest worker programs (basically the same thing) and ignore the Republican base, figuring on the old Nixonian formula that in the end, the base has nowhere to go but to vote for them. The democrats are delighted to see this rift in the Republicans, and offer no solutions to this issue, except to criticize any Republican idea. They believe that the end result of this issue will be a vast majority of Hispanic voters as a solid Democrat bloc. (and they might be right.) Somehow, amidst these flawed motivations, we’ve got to find a solution that truly benefits the American people.
So what are the proposed solutions? More people at the border? I was going to suggest 6,000 National Guardsmen, but in the end I changed my mind because such a small number is so symbolic and ludicrous, given the size of the border, that I was afraid I’d be considered a laughingstock. But suppose I suggested 30,000 more people at the border? This would win me my base back, and probably the support of the majority of Americans, but would such a simplistic solution solve the problem? I don’t believe it would, and I’ll explain why below. How about a fence along the border? What effect would this have on our relations with Mexico? A disastrous effect in my mind. But would it be worth that, if it would succeed in stopping the flow of illegals? No it would not. The result of a fence would be to effectively make us an adversary of Mexico, which would be a far greater disaster than the illegals represent. Unfortunately, there are no securing the border proposals that would have any positive effect on this issue.
What about the illegals already here? I was going to suggest a guest worker program. The critics in the Republican base see this as nothing but amnesty, and they are correct. It’s amnesty because I have no method of deporting these people. It’s also an insult to those people that get their citizenship legally. Why should the illegals get to cut in line? Also, can you imagine the huge bureaucracy that a guest worker program would cause? And you have to be naïve to believe that any of these people are going to go home after 3 or 6 years? It’s a ridiculous idea.
On the other hand, we can’t seriously consider deporting these people either. Do you realize how much money that would cost? And I don’t believe Americans would put up with the rounding up of thousands of people. We are not Nazis. Despite the fact that these people committed an illegal act by entering our country, they are not truly criminals for that action alone.
What about fining employers for hiring illegals? This appeals to our sense of justice, but what would it truly accomplish? It would increase the black market for fake identification. (For that matter, any national id card would result in the same thing.) It would be impossible to prove that the employer knew for sure the ids were fake. And again the bureaucratic costs in such a program would be overwhelming.
How about just ignoring the problem, opening up our borders? Unacceptable. The border states simply cannot afford the cost, and in the end, the whole nation won’t be able to afford it. Although this issue is not currently the crisis many believe it to be, it will eventually become one, and we have to act now to resolve it.
So I know what you’re thinking: I sound like a democrat, criticizing every proposed solution without coming up with any of my own. Touche! But the truth is, I do have solutions, both short range and long range, but before I can come up with them, we have to come to grips with the actual causes for illegal immigration. Although there are too many small contributors to this issue that I don’t have time to state, there are basically two overwhelming reasons for illegal immigration: price fixing and the economic and political situation in Mexico.
I am a capitalist and here is a simple rule of capitalism: you cannot fix prices, you cannot have tariffs, you cannot have fixed wages that do not represent market needs without creating a black market for the goods and services you have fixed. This was true in the Soviet Union and it’s true here. If you insist on high union wages for a factory in Detroit for example, that factory will simply relocate in India where they don’t have to pay as much. If you put up tariffs on foreign goods in order to protect American industry, it’s the same as taxing the American consumer, and while this might work in the short run, in the end the result will be the same: decreased sales and a black market. Minimum wage is nothing more than a tariff placed upon the cost of labor in order to protect the laborer, but the result is a black market in laborers- hence illegal immigrants. It’s not only that they perform work Americans aren’t doing, they work for less, and this one of the two main reasons they are here.
Mexico is the other reason. Some basic statistics: there is 40% unemployment in Mexico. 45% of the population live below the poverty line. (As a comparison, during the worst economic period in our history, the Great Depression, our unemployment was no higher than 30% at any time.) 8% of the population owns 90% of all the wealth. The government is completely corrupt. The only serious opposition to the current crop of corrupt leaders is a growing leftist movement, along the lines of Venezuela, that blames the U.S. for all of their woes.
And in point of fact, we are partly to blame. For the last 100 years we propped up one corrupt government after another, and ignored their poverty program, even though it is an issue of vital national security for the U.S.A. that Mexico be a stable and wealthy nation. We did this because of the short-sightedness and greed of certain big businesses in America. But we’re not solely to blame- Mexico must take a large share of responsibility for it’s own woes.
Until both of these problems are resolved in some way, illegal immigration will continue, no matter how much security you have at the border, which is why an extra 6,000 or 60,000 troops won’t matter. Again you could prevent illegals with a fence (or with 150,000 troops) but that would surely result in the leftists taking power in Mexico and an adversarial relationship with that countery which would in the long run be a much worst disaster for the U.S.A.
What then, are the solutions to this problem?
Short-term solutions:
- Distribute the high costs in the border states among all of the states. If we’re all going to partake in the benefits from illegals, we’ve all got to absorb the costs. Border states dealing with illegal costs to schools, hospitals, jails, etc, should be able to apply to a federal fund pooled from all the states.
- Streamline the current border patrol system. Perhaps we can tighten up the border by simply being more efficient. If we need to spend more money for border patrols, so be it. But this has to be kept low-key, so that we don’t antagonize Mexico. Perhaps we can quietly make significant reductions in the number of illegals.
- Don’t deport, don’t give amnesty, don’t have a guest worker program. Illegals should not be kicked out, but they should not be given full citizenship either. This would protect the rights of our legitimate new citizens, and not give these people something they don’t deserve. It would also avoid a new bureaucracy.
Long term solutions:
- Remove minimum wages, tariffs, price fixings. Try and revert to a more fully capitalistic society. This can’t be done immediately or it will be too disruptive to our economy. It has to be done overtime, as part of a long program. Reductions in spending will have to be part of the program. (As an additional point, if it’s too hard for these politicians to cut spending, let’s at least try to avoid increasing spending!! The only way to insure this is a divided government. If you have a republican president, vote for democrats for congress. If you have a democrat president, vote for republicans in congress. This is the only way to create gridlock and stop spending. Don’t believe in slogans, if you have one party in charge of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, that party, be it republican or democrat, will increase spending; they won’t be able to help themselves.)
- We need to solve Mexico. How to do this is a problem for which I don’t have an immediate solution, but it must be done. Throwing money at the Mexican government will do little more than solidify the existing corruption. What we want is a prosperous Mexico with a large middle class and room for advancement, where its people won’t seek to emigrate. This again is a long term plan, but it must be done.
As a final note, we have much bigger problems in America: the future of our energy supply, for one. In bad economic times, the illegals provide a convenient scapegoat for our problems. If the economy gets worse, the scapegoating will only increase, and it will get even more difficult to avoid more draconian solutions to this problem. We need to try to avoid this at all costs.
Thank you, and good night.
make it so
