Moderate Restrictions
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Ross says:
Americans want border security and they want a lower immigration rate; what they don’t want is to feel like they’re being asked to vote for “Operation Wetback, Part II.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there are any Republican politicians who actually believe in the moderate-restrictionist position. Instead, there are politicians who make restrictionist promises they don’t intend to keep in the hopes of keeping the yahoo vote appeased, and politicians who sound like, well, yahoos themselves.
One of the reasons why there are no (or virtually no) Republican politicians who believe in a “moderate restrictionist” position is that such a position presupposes that a stronger restrictionist position is essentially a “yahoo” view that must receive some lip service, but never under any circumstances should it dictate policy. In other words, to hold the “moderate” position is to take for granted that the people most energised by the issue, the voters who are most likely to make your immigration position an important basis for their vote, are cretins who must be kept under control, which means that there is no political advantage in holding the “moderate” position when you can adopt a more “hard-line” view that you have no intention of supporting in meaningful legislation. The average GOP House member knows that he will get no credit for taking a more “moderate” position and will suffer a backlash if he appears to “soften” on immigration. Also, there are few people the politician could turn to in the conservative movement who would want to help his “moderate” position, since the debate long ago broke down into globalist/capitalist defenders of mass immigration in all its forms (for whom existing restrictions are the problem), opponents of illegal immigration and a relatively smaller, but vocal, bloc of opponents of most or all forms of immigration. In theory the “enforcement-first” bloc, the second on this list, is the “moderate restrictionist” position, but as matter of intra-party politics the pro-amnesty forces have pushed together enforcement-first and all other restrictionists and deliberately try to obscure the differences between all positions to their right.
Symbolic border fence bills (such as the one the President signed in ‘06) are perfect for such politicians, since it sends the message back home that you are appearing to take a strong restrictionist position, all the while knowing that the bill is pure symbolism and even if constructed will be insufficient in the absence of greater internal enforcement. It’s rather like Republican politicians who intervened in the Schiavo case to get credit for their allegedly staunch pro-life convictions, but who otherwise do little or nothing substantive on matters of life. There are no political advantages from what might be called a “moderate pro-life” position, and obviously there are no penalties for making pledges on an issue that are never kept. The old logic of “where are they going to go?” applies to pro-life voters just as it does to restrictionists. Knowing that these voters will always come back to the party in the end, Republican pols have every incentive to use absolutist rhetoric and essentially do nothing after the election, except for the occasional symbolic gesture (“pardon Compean and Ramos!” they cry).
However, it all depends on how you define the “moderate restrictionist” position. Was the Pence compromise bill an example of a “moderate restrictionist” view? In the view of most restrictionist activists and voters, the Pence plan was an unacceptable compromise and was seen as little more than delayed amnesty. All of this relates to a basic lack of trust in the political class. Supposing that there is a ”moderate” position that could satisfy most restrictionist voters’ concerns, anything that seems to water down or weaken a “hard-line” position at this point appears to these voters to be a kind of trick. Washington’s general neglect of immigration policy for the last two decades has created intense distrust, and the insistence by supporters of amnesty that they do not support amnesty (as Bush and McCain keep insisting to this day) reinforces that distrust and strips all compromise plans, including Mike Pence’s, of all credibility. Pence also insists that his plan has nothing to do with amnesty, but having been lied to for years these voters are in no mood for the subtleties of guest-worker schemes (which they would regard as basically unworkable and unenforceable anyway).
To overcome this credibility gap, Republican pols have to stake out very strong restrictionist views to reassure voters who will cease to trust them if they are seen to move very much at all towards a “moderate” position. This dynamic is reinforced by the tendency of genuinely open borders and pro-immigration advocates within the GOP of denouncing any restrictionist position that goes beyond “securing the border” as bigoted. Even if a “moderate” position existed that could conceivably address the concerns of restrictionists, no one would want to risk going out into the middle of the no man’s land between the WSJ and the establishment and the rank-and-file restrictionists, because they know they would take heavy fire from both, have very few allies and endanger their re-election over what a “moderate restrictionist” is likely to regard as a second-tier issue anyway. In other words, if you are inclined to take a “moderate” position on restricting immigration, you probably aren’t concerned about it enough to risk the political suicide that adopting a “moderate” position would entail.
Filed under: immigration, politics
“In other words, if you are inclined to take a “moderate†position on restricting immigration, you probably aren’t concerned about it enough to risk the political suicide that adopting a “moderate†position would entail. ”
My own “moderate” (I think of it as moderate, anyway.) Is to secure the border (with a real fence, please and thank you) mildly step up interior enforcement, and let the remainder of the problem suffer from benign neglect. Even the “deportation by attrition” option srikes me as on wobbly legs, likely to collapse under the weight of the first You Tube moments of kids of illegal immigrants, born in the US and English speaking, sitting on a street corner in Guadalajara without a job, home, etc.
The hard-line restrictionist position is seen an not being an ‘adult view.’ I agree with this sentiment. The random enforcement and they’ll leave by attrition view is seen as arbitrary, meaning unfair. If the restrictionists want to be seen as part of the adult debate they need to:
1) Have a plan that effects its goals within a reasonable time period. I think most would define this as a year, two years tops.
2) Address the issue of illegal immigrant parents with under age US citizen children. Many restrictionists have chosen to demagauge this issue rather than address the not so pleasant legal ralities, most notably that these children are U.S. Citizens with the rights of all US Citizens. Addressing the hard truths of children citizens would go a long way toward establishing credibility in mainstream circles.
3) Be honest about what it will take to remove the illegal immigrants presently here, if that is the goal. Making every traffic stop into an immigration check is probably not going to be popular for long. How is the first hard luck story of the high schooler who was brought over when he was 4 going to be addressed? I realize persuasion isn’t about putting every negative scenario out there, but honesty does require addressing at least some of them.
M.Z. Forrest writes:
The hard-line restrictionist position is seen an not being an ‘adult view.’
Ironically, you accurately describe the attidude of a congressman I happened to see at a town hall meeting this year. He took many questions, but the only question he treated with discourtesy was a question on securing the border. He answered it wearily, as though not an `adult view.’
Naturally, feeling that the nation is in deep trouble for ethnic reasons, I disagree with your sentiment profoundly, but you do accurately describe the attitude.
Daniel writes:
Symbolic border fence bills (such as the one the President signed in ‘06) are perfect for such politicians, since it sends the message back home that you are appearing to take a strong restrictionist position, all the while knowing that the bill is pure symbolism and even if constructed will be insufficient in the absence of greater internal enforcement.
I thought that the bill was symbolic only because, basically, the president refused to implement it. Was I mistaken? Short of impeachment, what can Congress do to make the president actually follow the letter or spirit of such a law as the Border Fence act? And why should Congress bother to follow up with more legislation when the legislation already passed is more or less being ignored?
The old logic of “where are they going to go?†applies to pro-life voters just as it does to restrictionists.
Unfortunately you are right. My wife and I mean to vote third-party this year to register a protest in a countable way, but history suggests that it is not easy to rally large numbers of such voters against their party. We shall see.
Howard
The children of illegal immigrants are extremely unlikely to be strictly English monolingual; almost all will either be Spanish monolingual or bilingual given that the vast majority of their parents will have fairly low levels of English proficiency (or no proficiency at all).
I have a hard time seeing the difference between this concept of an “adult view,” whatever that means, and the familiar charge of “unseriousness” that interventionists throw out at their enemies when they’re losing a debate. As far as I can see, both attempt to diminish their interlocutor’s position without bothering to provide actual arguments as to why their own positions, at a substantive level, are correct and beneficial for the country.
This is a patently ridiculous demand, as practically no one expects anything even vaguely resembling a solution to take effect in only “one or two years.” Would amnesty meet its goals in one or two short years? How long did it take 1986 amnesty to meet its goals? Did it ever meet them?
What is there to address? American citizen children of illegal aliens are already being deported along with their parents, and have been for decades. I can’t understand why this would be a legal obstacle for either mass deportation or attrition through enforcement, as the law already allows for it.
The comments on this blog make it abundantly clear why immigration reform efforts (and the “harder line” of no amnesty, etc.) failed to catch fire, even though a majority of Americans favor greater security and limiting immigration.
What starts off as a discussion about border security winds up as blithely talking about mass deportation of” American citizen children of illegal aliens.” What starts as a rational discussion about soverignty and economics winds up being about some people’s hysteria about too many brown people in the neighborhood.
So your average, mainstream citizen (and even Republican) who is not a racist and regards himself as a decent person becomes very UNEASY at the red-meat rhetoric. Yes, control our borders (for real) and yes, limit immigration – but keep us away from this scary, hysterical nationalist blatther about barbarian hordes – we need these people to wash our dishes, cut our grass, and put in our drywall.
Zarathustra
With the caveat that anecdote is not the plural of data, I’d like to
My wife is an elementary school teacher (2nd grade) in Columbus, OH. I would say that her student population is 75% hispanic, 15% white/caucasian, maybe 10% Somali. There is (in her experience) a pretty radical difference in the language abilities of those studends who were actually born in the US, vs. those who came here/were brought here at some point. The majority of her kids may speak some Spanish, but overwhelmingly they do speak English.
“. I can’t understand why this would be a legal obstacle for either mass deportation or attrition through enforcement, as the law already allows for it.”
It’s not a legal obstacle at all, as you correctly noted, but it could/would be a pretty serious political obstacle, for the reasons I described above.
You cannot deport a US citizen. If the child is born here, they are a U.S. citizen. The child has the right to leave with their parent, but if they do not do so, they are placed with another family member or in the foster care system.
The case exposes a recurring quandary for immigration authorities as an increasing number of American-born children of illegal immigrants become caught up in deportation operations. With the Bush administration stepping up enforcement, the immigration agency has been left scrambling to devise procedures to deal with children who, by law, do not fall under its jurisdiction because they are citizens.
New York Times
M.Z. Forrest
How many parents are seriously going to a) pawn their kids off on relatives (assuming that there are any) as they go off to another country or b) give their kids up to total strangers? Again, I’m only talking about the political salience such images and stories would have.
From what I’ve read over the past couple years the answer to a) is nearly all of them and b) I haven’t seen an anecdote yet of it. As far as political saliance, the story I linked was of an illegal immigrant mother who had her baby ripped from her breast. The baby is now staying with relatives here. The story was enough for ICE to change alter their procedures.
Firsr, let me say that I’d like to see more of these types of posts, and less horse race posts. I come here for post which challenge my world view, not reinforce it, and Daniel does that well. So more immigration, more agrarianism, more on alternatives to mass democracy, etc. And, given the apparently large moderate/liberal/libertarian readership of this blog, one would think that Daniel would like to expose his readers to some ideas that they most likely haven’t seen intelligently articulated.
Onto the substance of the post. Let me quote:
Naturally, feeling that the nation is in deep trouble for ethnic reasons, I disagree with your sentiment profoundly, but you do accurately describe the attitude.
Now, I’m going to stay away from loaded language, but I think this quote gets to the heart of the real issue. The fact is that many, perhaps most, restrictionists make their arguments in explicitly ethnic or racial grounds. Set aside whether these views are “racist.” That definitional argument doesn’t really matter in terms of what I’m talking about. The fact is this: there is a constellation of opinions regarding the racial/ethnic makeup of the United States that are considered (for good reason IMO, but set that aside for the moment) beyond the pale. Those opinions are pretty tightly bound with the restrictionist position on immigration.
Now, one can construct other justifications for restrictionism, and not everyone who is a restrictionist has opinions on race and ethnicity which are considered beyond the pale of polite opinion in the United States. But empirically they are bound together, and that’s why the restrictionist view will likely always be considered not “adult.”
Of course, in a sense that just shifts the argument – people holding those racial/ethnic views would like such views to be considered a legitimate part of the national conversation. Rightly or wrongly (rightly IMO) I think that such hope is going to be disappointed.
addendum: I am perfectly aware that it is possible to argue that cultural/ethnic (and perhaps even racial) homogeneity (sp?) is a desirable national characteristic even absent any arguments about racial inferiority. Our host has made those arguments more effectively than I’ve seen elsewhere. But (1) many, many restrictionists (not all) do make explicitly racist arguments in support of their position, IMO poisoning the debate, and (2) such arguments run against 240 years of American history (though I realize this is at least somewhat contested ground), and perhaps more to the point, a powerful and widely accepted national image, “give us your tired, your poor,” etc., which, like it or not, makes it very hard to make those kinds of arguments.
Addendum 2: of course, this applies to the restrictionist position; it doesn’t apply to the anti-illegal immigration position. That position tends to be seen as tainted by the restrictionist position. I agree that that is unfair, though one can certainly understand how it came to pass.
I might add that none of this really disagrees with the dynamics of Daniel’s argument in this post. It’s more a question of why the restrictionist position isn’t seen as serious, and why it probably won’t be. Now, given public opinion, which probably isn’t quite as restrictionist as Daniel posits, but is certainly much more restrictionist than the “elite’ consensus, there is certainly a political tension which could prove rather explosive. It hasn’t, yet, and I’m not going to venture to predict whether, or when, it will, or what form such explosion might take.
And the quote I cited was from a comment, not Daniel’s post, of course.
Generally the racial arguments make the restrictionist position difficult for polite company. I would tend to agree on many of the cultural preservation issues. I think they can be addressed in other ways.
What I mean when I say adult position is fully accepting the practical, political, and logistical complications of ridding the country of 12 million illegal immigrants and preventing new ones from arriving. Take the position of stopping illegal immigrants from being able to receive work, generally at the top of the list. Preventing that requires significant cooperation and coercion of employers. It means more investigations into cash transactions, possibly lowing the threshold from $10K to $5K. It means probably upgrading the driver’s license to basically an internal passport. This is just one facet of improved enforcement. Some may not find any of these things offensive. I think as you go down the line, the number of people who say this is too much grows. When you have Minutemen on TV saying if you just enforce our present laws, they’ll all go bck on their own, this is what I mean by it not being an adult view, because they won’t all just go home; they’ll find new ways to support themselves.
MZ:
I oppose the more draconian suggestions vis a vis current illegal immigrants myself. But I don’t think you are really addressing why such positions are not merely unpopular, but are considered not “adult.” And I think the reason, rightly or wrongly, is that the same people who favor such draconian measures tend to also hold racial/ethic views that are not considered socially acceptable. Which is a point that Ross Douthat has made on other occasions, to bring us back to where this post started. Again, all this is true independently of what one thinks of such views, and independent of the fact that it is perfectly consistent to favor a culturally heterogeneous society and still want to enforce immigration laws.
And is your statement of the position of the Minutemen a fair one? My understanding is that they do, in fact, support a very strict application of current law that might well result in most illegal immigrants leaving (albeit for the most part not voluntarily). Now I personally have many problems with such a solution, starting with the fact that it would IMO lead to far greater social disruption than (arguably) is caused by current lax enforcement of immigration laws. That being said, it IS rather odd that enforcement of current immigration laws is considered beyond the pale of polite opinion.
” It means more investigations into cash transactions, possibly lowing the threshold from $10K to $5K. It means probably upgrading the driver’s license to basically an internal passport.”
Amen. Even with the best of intentions and for the best of reasons, a nationwide ‘deportation by attrition” campaign is going to have a severely inimical impact on liberty, for the reasons you described.
M.Z. Forrest
“The hard-line restrictionist position is seen an not being an ‘adult view.’ I agree with this sentiment. “
Nice of you to agree with your own “sentiments”, but that hardly consittutes any sort of argument. I’d say that it is your sentimental approach to matters which is “not adult”.
“Address the issue of illegal immigrant parents with under age US citizen children.”
Send the illegal immigrants home. Send their children home with them. That can’t stay here, clearly. When they are adults perhaps thay can return. Change the statutory law which makes the children of illegals American citizens.
There, that was easy enough.
“The random enforcement and they’ll leave by attrition view is seen as arbitrary, meaning unfair. “
I notice you have the liberal habit of describing your own feelings as if they were immutable law. You mean “seen by me”.
What is the Catholic obesssion with open borders?
adam
My wife is an elementary school teacher (2nd grade) in Columbus, OH. I would say that her student population is 75% hispanic, 15% white/caucasian, maybe 10% Somali.
And what do you think of the government policy (much of it in defiance of the law) which has made this the case?
JonSandor
I think the government policy of ignoring mass illegal immigration for the last 40+ years is incredibly stupid and destructive.
“Send the illegal immigrants home. Send their children home with them. That can’t stay here, clearly. When they are adults perhaps thay can return. Change the statutory law which makes the children of illegals American citizens.”
My thoughts on the matter is that the political will to do this evaporates in about 30 seconds after the first news reports of those children (assuming they were born in the US, are citizens) airs.
JonSandar,
I don’t demand assent to my sentiments or my perception of the national sentiment. Some people find my sentiments help them understand the national debate. If they don’t do so for you, I take no offense.
You are wrong on the legal matter. Children born of illegal immigrants in this country are Citizens. While confirmed in Statute, it is a result of United States v. Wong Kim Ark and Plyler v. Doe, both ruling on the 14th Amendment. ICE legally cannot deport a U.S. Citizen, even if he is a minor child. I’m not even a US Senator, and I have grown weary of explaining what the law is presently.
And you are also wrong about teaching children even if they are illegal immigrants is a violation of the law. That was also decided in Plyler v. Doe.
LMaggitti,
My problem with the Minuteman position is that it continues the problem of treating people who have been here 10 years the same as those who have been here 10 months when under the exceptional cases they are caught. Law applied arbitrarily is not good law.
Until you can manage to show us some real evidence in favor of this absolutely hideous claim that goes beyond mere ex cathedra assertions I’ll just file this line along with another of my old favorites, that most everyone who’s not reflexively pro-Israel is a closet anti-Semite.
Bu oh well, if you can’t make a proper argument as to why your position is the superior one for the nation’s well being, and it’s getting harder by the year for both the Israel Firsters and the open borders lobby to do so, then win by smearing your opponent as a bigot. It’s not as if you have any other good options, and it’s not as if it doesn’t work.
Zarathustra,
I carefully phrased and qualified my comment, mainly in the interest of fairness and accuracy, but also partly to head off this particular objection, but oh well.
Can we honestly deny that most restrictionist arguments vis a vis immigration (i.e., arguments aimed at significantly stronger restrictions on even legal immigration) are based significantly upon fears that immigration will be problematic from a cultural perspective, because the potential immigrants will be of a different culture origin than the currently dominant cultural milieu? I mean, even our esteemed host, who has never (to my knowledge) made a racist comment in his life, engages in arguments arguing that large influx of people from other cultures is a bad thing for our nation. And such arguments, while not inherently racist, ARE inherently based upon ethnicity, if not race.
Now, as I said myself, arguments against illegal immigration are a different matter, but even there I think even a casual stop on, say, the Minuteman site, will suggest that such views often go hand in hand.
Yes, of course we can deny that contention honestly, primarily because it is absolutely not true. Although this is by no means dispositive evidence one way or the other, a quick perusal of the websites of NumbersUSA, FAIR, and the Center for Immigration Studies would reveal a far larger quantity of material on population, infrastructure, and jobs than on all these “cultural” issues. This pattern, for the most part, also holds true at the grassroots level amongst restrictionists; there’s more anger directed at the sentiment that gives us such bon mots as Bush’s “jobs Americans won’t do” and overcrowded hospital emergency rooms than toward immigrants themselves.
But this is all secondary to the larger meta-issue; namely that partisans of mass immigration are no longer able to argue the issue itself on its merits, so they demonize their opponents as bigots instead of engaging in an actual policy debate (that they would certainly lose).