James Jay Carafano
It is really difficult to take the president seriously on immigration when he talks as he did Tuesday in El Paso.
First, Americans have serious concerns about border security. If he thinks making cracks about “alligators” and “moats” is going to address them, then he needs lessons on appropriate humor.
Obama’s assurances are cold comfort when on the other side of the border there are criminal cartels (fueled by billions of dollars) willing to kidnap, rape, and murder to stay in business. Furthermore, we know that border security is woefully inadequate as is. Providing additional incentives to immigrate illegally — which is the ultimate effect of the DREAM Act — is no way to improve matters.
The DREAM Act, which fosters dreams of amnesty, will encourage more unlawful entry, just as it did in 1986 — the last time we tried amnesty. The president also neglected to mention the cost of these legalization measures. Does he really think taxpayers are eager to shell out tens of billions of dollars to legalize 11 million illegal aliens?
This is not a problem the president can solve with tired ideas that have been rejected by the Congress and the American people again and again. Another speech, or even SEAL Team Six, won’t make a difference. What is needed is a real commitment to border security, workplace and immigration enforcement, and temporary-worker programs that get employers the employees they need, when they need them, to help grow the economy.
— James Jay Carafano is director of the Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies.
James R. Edwards Jr.
The president’s El Paso speech boils down to this: claiming the Obama administration has delivered on a secure border and challenging Congress to pass “comprehensive immigration reform.”
There was little said here that George W. Bush couldn’t have said (or did say at one time or another). Obama invoked E pluribus unum and talked about the 11 million illegal aliens who “live in the shadows” (like in front of the local 7-Eleven).
One twist: “comprehensive immigration reform” (i.e., amnesty) as a job-creation solution. In focusing on gains in competitiveness were we to hand green cards to every foreign student, the president left unaddressed the fact that legalizing 11 million illegal aliens, most of whom lack education and skills, would impose an immediate fiscal drain on the U.S. welfare state. And their eligibility to work lawfully here would flood the labor market, making struggling Americans face an even tougher job market, because the former illegals would undercut them on wages.
Obama claimed he has secured the border. Not so. The Government Accountability Office says we have operational control of only 129 miles of the 2,000-mile southern border. Apprehensions are down because of Washington’s orders not to take illegal crossers into custody.
The president’s “solution” is the same amnesty package that was beat back in 2006 and 2007: mass amnesty, the same ineffective “penalties” as in previous amnesties, and more legal immigration with chain migration left intact.
What can be done in this political environment? If Obama led with a phased-in requirement that businesses use the E-Verify employment-eligibility system, this would prove the most viable, acceptable means of demagnetizing the jobs magnet and disincentivizing illegal immigration.
A critical step in getting public buy-in for dealing with the illegal-alien population down the road would be to eliminate the chain-migration visas — the very reason for prolonged separation of spouses and of immigrant parents and minor children.
— James R. Edwards Jr. is coauthor of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform.
John Fonte
Ah, good old civility. President Obama refers to “the very Republicans” who support border enforcement — “Maybe they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat.” He tells us with a straight face that the “fence is now basically complete.” What to make of the El Paso speech? Try political, partisan, divisive, and dishonest. The substance? He proposes a rehash of old “comprehensive reform” proposals: Illegal immigrants should pay taxes, pay a fine, learn English, and then “get in line for legalization.” But other non-citizens have been in line for decades. What happens to them? He says “businesses have to be held accountable” but never endorses the employment-enforcement program that works: E-Verify.
But Obama is not really serious. So let us start thinking about how conservatives should approach immigration. Comprehensive immigration reform should include comprehensive assimilation reform, with an emphasis on patriotic assimilation. Obstacles to patriotic integration such as multicultural/bilingual education, multilingual ballots, and dual citizenship should be abolished before we consider another amnesty. Even the Europeans are starting to sour on multiculturalism. A Harris poll conducted for the Bradley Foundation project on American national identity revealed that 75 percent of all registered voters believed that naturalized citizens should be “required to give up all loyalty to their former country” (that means no dual-citizenship voting). Could conservatives, who may differ on the “comprehensive” issue, at least stand with three-fourths of the American people and work to end dual citizenship?
— John Fonte is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of its Center for American Common Culture.
Victor Davis Hanson
I was disappointed by the president’s tone more than the specifics of his proposals. Once again, he proves true to character: politicizing the issue, citing straw men, and then accusing those with whom he disagrees of political demagoguery.
In truth, the political situation is this: A president who once demonized his election-time opponents by advising Latinos to “punish” their “enemies,” and who for 27 months ignored grandiose campaign promises of immigration “reform” due to political reality, now suddenly turns to immigration as (a) reelection looms and he desperately needs the Latino vote, and (b) he has a bounce from the killing of bin Laden. And so he demonizes opponents and issues calls for the audience to go to the White House website to rally political support for the his plan.
And of course we then get the usual straw men (“they”) so characteristic of Obama’s rhetoric. “So we’ve seen a lot of blame and politics and ugly rhetoric.” And, “They wanted a fence. Well, that fence is now basically complete.” And, “I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time. They’ll say we need to triple the border patrol. Or quadruple the border patrol. They’ll say we need a higher fence to support reform.” And this: “Maybe they’ll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat.” And this: “They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics.”
In truth, nearly 70 percent of Americans, including millions of Mexican Americans, want the border fenced because it is still in large part currently porous and open, and we are in a time of high unemployment, rising drug violence spilling in from Mexico, a tottering Mexican government, and weariness with an identity politics that seeks to equate enforcing federal law and opposing blanket amnesty with racism. And note that Obama did not, as he claims here, “basically complete” (note that key word “basically”) the fence, but stopped it. In fact, as of May 1, 2011, about 650 miles of the 1,900-mile border are fenced.
Otherwise, some of Obama’s proposals make sense, but he doesn’t say how he would implement those that do. For example, to say, “They have to admit that they broke the law, pay their taxes, pay a fine, and learn English. And they have to undergo background checks and a lengthy process before they can get in line for legalization” means what?
Where exactly are illegal immigrants to be processed — here, or in Mexico? What happens if they do not learn English or pay taxes or pay a fine or have a background check? Summary deportation? Are we suddenly going to begin detaining illegal aliens, repeal current sanctuary laws, compel cities to enforce federal law, and then do what — as we check their criminal records, examine whether they paid their fines, and quiz them on English?
The suspicion among “some,” to use the president’s words, is that he will push things like amnesty, which is what the euphemistic “DREAM Act” is, talk grandly about paying fines, learning English, and sending home those who don’t pass “background checks” (felonies, misdemeanors, etc.?), but then never follow up on the enforcement part.
Finally, the president is right in the following: “And fourth, stopping illegal immigration also depends on reforming our outdated system of legal immigration. We should make it easier for the best and the brightest to not only study here, but also to start businesses and create jobs here. In recent years, a full 25 percent of high-tech startups in the U.S. were founded by immigrants, leading to more than 200,000 jobs in America. I’m glad those jobs are here. And I want to see more of them created in this country.”
But again, there is a sleight of hand. Immigration is not infinite; does the president mean that we should begin predicating legal immigration on skill sets and education and not just on border proximity and family relations — which is precisely what one would infer from a fair reading of the president’s entire speech and his emphasis on the issue in Hispanic terms? Is one Ph.D. from India or South Korea to mean one fewer cousin of a U.S. national without skills and with a high-school diploma from Oaxaca?
In sum, there are some sensible proposals here, deliberately obfuscated and kept murky since their full implementation would be too complex for most pro-amnesty liberals, and might rile base constituencies — all amid the usual Obama boilerplate about “they” who want alligators along the border.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.
Heather Mac Donald
Comprehensive immigration reform, Version 2, is as bad as, if not worse than, comprehensive immigration reform, Version 1. As President Obama described it, illegal aliens will receive amnesty simply by learning English and paying back taxes; they do not have to return to their home countries and get in line behind legal immigrants. Thus, this amnesty guarantees more illegal entry, since a potential illegal alien has nothing to lose by trying to get in, but instead can gain a geographical head start on legal immigrants.
Obama’s speech even suggested that in the future there would be no grounds for deporting illegal aliens who have not been convicted of a crime. I can only hope that this suggestion was simply the result of sloppy drafting. Deporting illegal aliens is a “tough issue,” he said. “But as long as our current laws are on the books, it’s not just felons who are deportable but students and families.” Meaning that under Obama’s ideal immigration reform, illegal students and families will not be deportable even in theory?
As usual, the president conflated high-skilled, educated immigrants who start tech companies with low-skilled, uneducated immigrants. He wants more of both, and both — ludicrously — in the name of global economic competitiveness. Not only is Obama not proposing to reduce family chain migration (the primary source, along with illegal immigration, of America’s unskilled, welfare-absorbing immigrants), he wants to accelerate it by “reuniting families more quickly.”
It seems indisputable that the Obama administration has increased resources at the border, but the notion that the borders are now secure is preposterous.
Proponents of an immigration policy that strengthens the rule of law and positions the country to compete with education superpowers such as China need to tackle the chain-migration issue head on. They should hold up Canada as a model, where immigrants, selected by their skills, not their family ties, assimilate quickly and rank among the top earners. And they should contest the idea that legalizing illegal aliens will help the middle class.
— Heather Mac Donald is a contributing editor of City Journal and co-author of The Immigration Solution.
Andew Yuengert
The president makes an odd claim about the recent “success” of border enforcement: First, that better border enforcement has increased drug, currency, and gun seizures; second, that enforcement has decreased seizures of immigrants, who have given up hope of getting across the closely guarded border. So while potential illegal immigrants have wised up and given up, the drug/gun/currency runners haven’t gotten the message that there are agents at the border?
The reason seizures of guns, drugs, and currency are up is that running these things across the border has become more profitable. The reason fewer illegal immigrants are crossing the border is that they have fewer opportunities for employment in the recession-bound U.S. economy. The flow has always been driven by economic opportunity; the difficulty of crossing a heavily guarded border has always paled next to the prospect of increasing your income sixfold and gaining access to vastly better health care, education, and police protection. When the jobs come back to the U.S., the illegal immigrants will return in the millions. I think the U.S. can afford to let in more immigrants legally, but if the U.S. wants to become serious about reducing the flow of illegal immigrants, it will have to get serious about keeping track of legal immigrants once they are in the country, and keeping illegal immigrants from working. Neither of these things is hard to do.
— Andew Yuengert is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University.