"Immigration - Let Them In"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“Immigration – Let Them In”

March 8, 2011

For a nation of immigrants, surprisingly the United States has periodically undergone severe bouts of xenophobia: The Know Nothings was a political party formed in the mid 1840s, in response to the large-scale arrival of a large number of Catholics. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, an eponymously named law that was the only piece of U.S. legislation to name a specific group. In 1893, a group of nativist Americans formed the Immigration Restriction League to pressure Congress to sharply curtail immigration. The National Origins Act of 1924 not only restricted the number of immigrants into the U.S., but assigned quotas based on national origins – giving preference to those from northern and western Europe.

A consequence of that law was to limit the number of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Between 1938 and 1939 more than 300,000 German Jews sought U.S. visas; about 85,000 were admitted. In an infamous result of that Act, the S.S. St. Louis, carrying 900 Jewish refugees from Europe, was denied entry into the United States, condemning the passengers to almost certain death in Hitler’s death camps, as they were returned to Antwerp in June 1939. Belgium fell to the Nazis the following May. The conscience of Americans did allow refugees to emigrate from Hungary, after their failed 1956 revolution, and from Cuba, following Castro’s takeover. The National Origins Act remained in place until 1965 when the Hart-Celler Act finally removed many of its restrictions, stimulating immigration from Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Once again, there are rising voices in the United States claiming an immigration crisis. It is principally a result of an estimated twelve million Mexicans who have crossed the border illegally. There are others who cite the attack on 9/11 and their fear of Islamic terrorism. That may be a cause, but I am not convinced it is a major reason. In 2005, the largest number of Muslims immigrated to the U.S. in the previous twenty years, suggesting that the War on Islamic Terrorism being waged by the United States is not seen by the global Muslim community as a war against Muslims, despite fears to the contrary from the editors of the New York Times. Even so, the number of Muslims admitted to citizenship in 2005 was 40,000 – not a number that threatens to overwhelm a population north of 300 million.

In the 2010 gubernatorial races, twenty candidates for governor from both parties endorsed an Arizona-style law, in states ranging from Georgia to Massachusetts to Illinois to Michigan. It has been the failure of the federal government to act on immigration reform that is the genesis of these legislative actions. In 2005, President Bush introduced legislation that would strengthen borders, issue guest worker permits, and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. President Obama proposed a virtually identical bill. None of these Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bills have made it through Congress.

Borders cannot be wide open. The United States needs to improve its ability to validate immigrants, checking their backgrounds for criminal behavior or terrorists associations. Today’s technology should make such a task easier. The history of the United States is one of assimilating many people from very diverse backgrounds. As long ago as the American Revolution, Noah Webster noted that fifty languages were spoken in the state of Pennsylvania.

Immigration reform is a policy need whose time has come. An obvious place to start is to offer citizenship (or at least a path toward that goal) to all foreign college and university graduates, subject to a detailed background check. But we also need to consider those millions of people who come here to perform the type of work many Americans believe is beneath their dignity – mowing lawns and housekeeping. We need these people to become part of our fabric, contributing positively to our economy.

The United States is faced with an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. Deporting them (assuming one could find them) would be an impossible task, not to mention distasteful for many of us. On the other hand, granting them immediate citizenship would be unfair to those who emigrate legally and then must wait about eight years to become a citizen. But a middle ground should be possible. Beginning in 1942 and until 1964, a guest worker program (the Bracero Program) permitted the hiring of thousands of mostly Mexican workers. While some have called the Bracero Program an indentured servitude program, illegal immigration fell by 90%. A guest worker program, like the one envisioned in Utah makes sense.

Immigrants have been good for our economy and good for our country. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, following the devastation of Katrina, warned the press not to ignore the contributions made by immigrants in the recovery. Many of them were presumably illegal; however he added, “I don’t know where we would have been without them.” The Michigan League for Human Services recently released a report indicating that a third of all high-tech start-ups in the state were begun by immigrants. The Utah Compact, a statement of principles on immigration reform compiled by the state attorney general states: “Utah is best served by a free-market philosophy that maximizes individual freedom and opportunity.”

Those periods of restriction, whatever the motivation, did not mark our finest hour. In 2008, Jason Riley, a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, wrote Let Them In (the title of which I borrowed for this essay,) a case for open borders. He writes, “No self-respecting free-market adherent would ever dream of supporting laws that interrupt the free movement of goods and services across borders. But when it comes to laws that hamper the free movement of workers who produce these goods and services, too many conservatives abandon their classical liberal principles.” A free-market capitalist cannot disagree.