Immigration “reform” and the problem of trust

Last updated on: February 12, 2014 at 9:12 am by Jane the Actuary

Immigration “reform” and the problem of trust 2014-02-12T09:12:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Can Barack Obama, or his successor, be trusted to fully implement and successfully enforce border controls and internal restrictions on working without valid authorization, and to keep new guest worker and H1-B visa programs at levels appropriate for labor shortages, rather than to surpress wages? According to The Economist, he is absolutely trustworthy because of his splendid track record at deportation and because he is willing to deport people even when it creates hardship, just to establish his bona fides. (Not sure if these articles are behind a paywall . . . sorry!)

At the risk of citing a non-credible source, Numbers USA tells us that Obama’s supposed record number of deportations are not due to increased enforcement, but to finessing the numbers by labelling those caught at the border and immediately sent back as a “deportation”/”removal” vs. a simple “return” as they had been labelled in prior administrations. (The only reason I cite Numbers USA is because I’ve read the same thing in multiple sources in the past, but can’t find those references easily.) This has the added bonus of meaning they can claim that, since “returns” are down, that means that fewer people are trying to cross the border and worries about new illegal immigrants are overblown.

Anyway, illegal immigration is one of my pet issues and is bound together with a number of other issues: concern about the rule of law and the feeling that our usual ways of understanding the economy aren’t working in this time of sustained unemployment and wage stagnation. But I thought it would be useful to try to work out the question of “why is Barack Obama uniquely untrustworthy in an immigration compromise?”

Now, I was no great fan of the Bush administration’s proposal for an amnesty program, though it makes somewhat more sense at a time of economic boom when it seemed as if jobs would be plentiful indefinitely. And the way that supporters responded to concerns that their plan wouldn’t stop illegal immigration was honest, if nothing else: they intended to give guest worker visas out so liberally that no one who wanted to work illegally would ever need to come illegally. Essentially, for all intents and purposes, they would have erased border controls and work restrictions just as completely as is the case in the EU (when, admittedly, concerns about “Polish plumbers” putting Germans out of work proved to be overblown), though I don’t recall if the plan was for liberal guest worker visas exclusively from Mexico or for applicants from any country.

When did Obama lose my trust specifically on this issue? First of all, in the administration’s response to Arizona’s statewide immigration law, in which the attorney general argued that, though American law says that these individuals are illegally in the United States, it is a matter of administration policy to refuse to enforce the law, and likewise a belief that in a certain “moral” sense, these individuals have a right to be in the U.S. after all.

Second, in their DACA amnesty, done completely without any legal authorization and, indeed, when the equivalent bill was voted down in (a Democratic-majority) Congress.

Third, in the way they’ve handled the ACA/Obamacare, with continual waivers and deferrals that speak to a broader disregard of the law as written.

Fourth, the fact that every immigration proposal out there provides for immediate legalization, with enforcement of borders and work authorization to follow at a later date. They may dance around this and claim that legalization is “temporary” but every “reform” advocate in the news insists that immediate legalization is nonnegotiable.

But it’s not just the Obama administration per se. The laws mandating fencing along the border were passed during the Bush administration, weren’t they? And yet neither administration has had much interest in implementing this law.

So no more games with deportation numbers. Pass a law mandating E-Verify, and fully implement the law, and then we can talk legalization. Personally, I’d even be fine with shifting resources away from deportation — as long as individuals illegally in the United States aren’t taking jobs with fake IDs or working under the table, I don’t have a problem with them living here, if some family member, for instance, or a kind-hearted neighbor, is supporting them.

As to legalization supporters: You say you don’t trust the Republicans to implement a legalization program, for humanitarian reasons, if we’ve already gotten our way on enforcement? Then tell me why we should trust you, but not the other way around.

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