Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Arizona, Congress, and the Immigration Mess
In an essay, posted on Public Discourse this morning, I weigh in on the immigration law recently enacted in Arizona, putting that problematic law in the context of a quarter century of failure by the federal government to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Recognizing the dignity of every human being and the duty of the state to protect the common good of its citizens, I then offer a three-pronged solution to our current immigration mess.
Comments are welcome!
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2010/05/arizona-congress-and-the-immigration-mess.html
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It's a good article, and one I largely agree with. I'd add only two points: 1) The increased number of illegal immigrants in the US now is due mostly to people not going back, rather than more people coming. This might make us suspicious that a temporary worker visa program can't work, but that's not warranted, I think. Rather, as Massey and others have shown, it was the massive hardening of the border, and the increased difficulty and expense in crossing, that made people who formerly went back and forth across the border as needed for work stay and put down roots. So, a sensible temporary worker program can help stop this problem, I think. 2) Employer sanctions turn out to be hard to do well. This was the reason they were watered down in earlier attempts. If employers face real sanctions for hiring illegal immigrants, then many will refuse to hire anyone they suspect of this. But this will predictably lead to discrimination against citizens and legal immigrants, discrimination that is also illegal. I'm less optimistic that we can craft an ID based solution to this problem, especially in the US, where there's a sort of paranoid fear of a national ID. So, while there are things to be done in this area, I'm not too optimistic that it's an easy fix to a very difficult problem.