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WALL STREET JOURNAL
(Editorial): Fortress America?
July 20, 2005; Page A12
The calendar says 2005. But the U.S. immigration debate still seems stuck in 1986, the year Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act that criminalized the hiring of illegal aliens and boosted funding for Mexican border patrols.
After nearly 20 years and numerous enforcement escalations, the undocumented immigrant population continues to grow -- and restrictionist lawmakers continue to insist that throwing ever more money, men and material into border enforcement is the key to fixing the problem.
Yesterday, Senators John Cornyn (R., Texas) and Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) introduced legislation that would authorize $5 billion over five years "to acquire and deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, camera poles, vehicles barriers, sensors" and other technologies. They'd also create a new 10,000-man army to raid businesses across America and make sure there are no illegal chambermaids working at Marriott. For this, we need Republicans?
Never mind that since 1986 the U.S. strategy of spending more and more money on militarizing the border hasn't worked. According to a recent Cato Institute study by Princeton sociologist Douglas Massey, "By 2002, the Border Patrol's budget had reached $1.6 billion and that of the [Immigration and Naturalization Service] stood at $6.2 billion, 10 and 13 times their 1986 values, respectively."
Over the same 16-year period, the number of border patrol officers tripled, and the amount of hours spent patrolling the border increased by a factor of eight. By 2002, Professor Massey notes, "the Border Patrol was the largest arms-bearing branch of the U.S. government next to the military itself."
Meanwhile, the illegal immigration flow has only increased, and all of this extra "enforcement" is arguably one reason. When illegals felt they could more easily cross the border, they'd enter the U.S. on a seasonal (or sometimes even daily) basis or when they needed the money. Then they'd often return home. But with the difficulty of re-entry so much higher in the last 20 years, many more migrant workers choose to remain here permanently. The risk of staying is lower than the price of re-running the border gantlet.
Messrs. Cornyn and Kyl aren't immigrant bashers, and they both support President Bush's concept of a guest worker program. They argue that this enforcement escalation at the border is necessary to gain enough public support to pass such a guest-worker plan, and they may be right about the price of winning over some Republicans. But no one should think that pouring billions more into enforcement will stop Mexicans from crossing the border for economic opportunity, much less induce those already in the U.S. to come out of the shadows.
A more promising reform was introduced in May by Senators John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.). Their approach is a welcome acknowledgment of certain realities -- namely, that enforcement-only policies have failed repeatedly and that wiser uses of limited government manpower and tax dollars are in order.
Based on the fact that the vast majority of migrants come here in search of work, Senators McCain and Kennedy aim to lower the level of illegal immigration by expanding our relatively few channels for legal entry to meet the demand. Giving economic immigrants legal ways to enter the U.S. will reduce business for human smugglers and counterfeiters. Moreover, it will allow our border authorities to concentrate their resources on chasing down real security threats instead of nannies and gardeners.
In short, the McCain-Kennedy bill would enhance homeland security without harming the immigrant labor market so essential to the country's economic well-being. But the measure's guest-worker initiative, which would allow undocumented migrants already here to work legally if they first pay sizable fines and undergo criminal background checks, has brought charges of "amnesty" from Republicans who call any "work and stay" provision a poison pill.
This "amnesty" charge may be potent as a political slogan, but it becomes far less persuasive when you examine its real-world implications. If paying a fine isn't good enough for illegals already here, what are the restrictionists proposing? Mass arrests, raids on job-creating businesses, or deportations? No illegal settled in a job or U.S. community is going to admit his status if he will then immediately be jailed or sent home to wait in line for years before he can get his old U.S. job back. Those who wave the "no amnesty" flag are actually encouraging a larger underground illegal population.
Republicans in Congress may well decide to push an immigration "reform" that militarizes the border and harasses more businesses. But we doubt they have the votes to pass it without a guest worker component, and in any case it won't work. The only reform that has a chance to succeed is one that recognizes the reality that 10 or so million illegal aliens already work in the U.S. and are vital to the economy and their communities. More enforcement is a slogan, not a solution.
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