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July 03, 2007
The Green Lantern Theory of Border Enforcement
I think EJ Dionne gets this wrong:
the strongest arguments in the restrictionists' arsenal played on a widespread belief that the federal government was too incompetent to enforce whatever tough provisions the bill contained. Bayh pointed to poor planning for the Iraq War and the failure to rebuild New Orleans after Katrina as leading inevitably to skepticism.
It wasn't a question of incompetence, but of will. Nobody believed the government would enforce the border provisions. During Katrina, the government failed because it operated poorly. Immigration enforcement fails because the government is actually subservient to the desires of corporate America, who don't want constant enforcement, or INS raids, or an end to illegal migrant labor.
The American people intuited, rightly, that the enforcement provisions were a political move, rather than the start of an actual commitment to end the employment of illegal immigrants in this country. It would not in fact be hard to create a biometric national ID card and deploy some sort of verification system, particularly in the industries most heavily populated by illegals. It's not being done because the relevant parties don't want to do it, not because they can't.
July 3, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
The American people intuited, rightly, that the enforcement provisions were a political move
RE: SBInet and its implementation--lots of yummy Homeland Security dollars went to defense contractor giant Boeing in the process.
I'm not sure I'd call that political, not in the true sense of the word (of or pertaining to citizens and their governments). Profiteerish, definitely.
Posted by: litbrit | Jul 3, 2007 12:49:50 PM
I actually mostly agree with Ezra on this one, although I'll point out that "INS raids" - along with the INS itself - ceased to exist over four years ago.
Dionne also gets other things wrong. I'm sure there was some "ugly anti-Latino agitation", but it was insignificant. Second, while business groups are generally aligned in favoring the importation of massive amounts of cheap labor, the same isn't true of "Latinos", no matter how people like Dionne or Dick "the Hispanics" Morris want to pretend. Third, GOP Senators weren't eager to "declare their independence from Bush", they (aside from diehards like Graham and Kennedy) just realized that the jig was up and they weren't going to be able to get away with the scam.
Showing how Dionne is wrong with the remaining paragraphs is left as an exercise.
Posted by: TLB | Jul 3, 2007 12:51:04 PM
Quite Right. The existing immigration system is, in its way, a comprehensive immigration compromise. Business gets cheap, easily exploitable workers, nativists don't have to recgonize the illegal workers or worry about being out voted by them, and the immigrants get just enough money to induce them to come over and a chance to give birth to US citizens.
Posted by: AJ | Jul 3, 2007 12:56:28 PM
It would not in fact be hard to create a biometric national ID card and deploy some sort of verification system, particularly in the industries most heavily populated by illegals.
Yes, let's put THAT provision into the immigration bill and see how the nativists react to it. Considering that there's an awful lot of overlap with the crowd that thinks biometric national ID card == Mark of the Beast, I can see that going over quite well.
Posted by: NonyNony | Jul 3, 2007 1:33:15 PM
This immigration bill was the same IRCA bill that passed in 1986. IRCA legislated all kinds of new enforcement measures, and guess how much of it was actually implemented/enforced by the executive? ZERO.
This is why I hate McCain and I'm glad his campaign is dying a slow death. I cant stand his smirk on his face every time he gets up to proclaim "this bill has all kinds of new enforcement measures"
No, John it doesnt. Quit lying to the American public. Quit trying to pull a fast one on us. It worked in 1986, and as a result the illegals increased by over 500%. You are lying, John and americans dont like liars and thats why your campaign is now a disaster.
Posted by: joe blow | Jul 3, 2007 1:33:48 PM
It kind of blows me away that people who see and understand the civil and human rights abuses of the Bush Administration can want to facilitate future abuses with a comprehensive tracking system.
But anyhow, let's suppose that we did have one. Okay, now what? John Q Public gets flagged by some kind of check as being an undocumented worker. John, however, insists that he is a citizen. What do you do at that point?
We presumeably still believe in due process (right?) so even if it's an open-and-shut case, John needs to stand before a judge. Then we need to deport John. The biometric card that he doesn't have doesn't tell us where he should be deported to -- maybe it's easy to figure out and maybe it's not. Then we presumeably go to the expense of deporting him.
Being able to easily identify a candidate for deportation is the beginning of an expensive, difficult-to-scale process, not the end of it. It's not at all clear how the technological or procedural changes you identify above will deal with the rest of the process.
Posted by: Michael B Sullivan | Jul 3, 2007 1:51:54 PM
There's so much wrong with NonyNony's comment and the stock "liberal" subtext that I'm sure I don't need to point all those things out, so I'll just point out that not only did the Bush/Kennedy bill further a NationalID (reason.com/news/show/121177.html), some have tried to claim that was the reason why the bill failed.
If "liberals" consistently reduce such a complicated issue to smarmy and false statements about what some opponents supposedly believe and consistently fail to answer objections to their positions, should anything they say be taken seriously?
Posted by: TLB | Jul 3, 2007 3:31:28 PM
Well, Ezra is the last person in the world I expected to admit this. He should know this is the exact reason why most of us refused to support this bill regardless of what little good it would do. The elite is full of shit, and we know it. We're not going along with any of your shit until you start solving some of the real problems in society. I'm sorry, but the plight of a few million illegal immigrants isn't the most pressing issue in front of the American people. Congress didn't put half this effort into the minimum wage, and they didn't put half this effort into ending the war. Instead, they tried to play those issues off against each other.
Posted by: soullite | Jul 3, 2007 3:44:25 PM
Immigration compromise bill:
1)legalize all parents and minor siblings of US citizens who are here illegally
2)draconian fines for employing illegal labor
a)phase the fines in over 5 years
b)put in a multiplier y amount for 1-5 illegals
y X 2 for 6-10, y x 4 10-20 y x 16 for 20+
3)double the amount spent on border enforcement
build a fence, hire more agents, whatever works
4)lottery system for all other illegals
a)register in the system and you have a 25% chance
of being put on a path to citizenship
b)those not chosen in the lottery can still remain
as permanent guest workers if they meet certain
criteria - length of residence, job skills, service
to community, etc
c) start deporting everyone else - I would ballpark
this at 35% of the illegal population or 4 million
people. I would be surprised if you ever actually
deported as many as 500K but it certainly should
deter new illegal immigrants
5) expel all illegal Canadians, Europeans and Israelis
Posted by: Modest Proposal | Jul 3, 2007 9:10:20 PM
The American people intuited, rightly, that the enforcement provisions were a political move, rather than the start of an actual commitment to end the employment of illegal immigrants in this country.
I don't think they correctly intuited this. That the enforcement provisions were a political move doesn't entail they wouldn't be enforced. The mere fact that for the first time they could be effectively enforced would have mattered. The availability of legal guest workers and newly legalized immigrants would have also made enforcement more attractive to businesses hiring such people, and not wanting to be undercut.
One sad thing about the collapse of the immigration bill is that some of the enforcement and restrictionist provisions probably will come about in other bills and other forms, making a compromise including amnesty increasingly unnecessary for the Right and moderates.
Posted by: Sanpete | Jul 3, 2007 9:30:26 PM
"The mere fact that for the first time they could be effectively enforced would have mattered."
Ohh bullshit. The fed could have used its power for a long time now to come down on businesses and illegals and it has CHOSEN NOT TO DO SO. Dont give me this crap about how their hands were tied.
"The availability of legal guest workers and newly legalized immigrants would have also made enforcement more attractive to businesses hiring such people, and not wanting to be undercut."
What dream world do you live in? Businesses view guest workers as "good" and illegals as "even better." Lets get real. They want both and under this bill they would have continued to go after BOTH. Businesses want labor at the cheapest price possible. If a guest worker makes $8 an hour but illegals continue to flood the border and are willing to work for $6 an hour they will take hte illegal in a fucking heartbeat.
Businesses dont want just "cheap" labor they want "cheapest" labor and have every incentive to continue to gobble up illegals, regardless of whether or not there is a guest worker program.
Posted by: joe blow | Jul 4, 2007 7:05:43 PM
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