Immigration

At last an economist who states a comprehensive and comprehensible position on immigration control which Progressives could and should and support and endorse.

This is Robert J. Samuelson's plan, Build a Fence -- And Amnesty. Excerpts with added boldfacing below:

It's time to build a real fence or a wall along every foot of the 1,989 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border. There can be only two arguments against this approach to keeping out illegal immigrants: (1) it won't work -- possible, but we won't know unless we try; or (2) we don't want it to work -- then, we should say so and open our borders to anyone but criminals and terrorists. Either way, we need more candor in our immigration debates. Now is the time, because Congress is considering its first major immigration legislation in years.

In 2005 the Border Patrol stopped 1.19 million people trying to enter the United States illegally; 98.5 percent of them were caught along the southern border. Of those who got through and stayed (crude estimate: some 500,000 annually), about two-thirds lack a high school education. Even a country as accepting of newcomers as the United States cannot effortlessly absorb infinite numbers of poor and unskilled workers. Legal immigration totals 750,000 to 1 million people annually, many of them also unskilled.

I do not like advocating a fence. It looks and feels bad. It's easily stigmatized as racist. It would antagonize Mexico. The imagery is appalling, but it beats the alternative: a growing underclass and social tensions. Moreover, a genuine fence would probably work. The construction of about 10 miles of steel and concrete barriers up to 15 feet high in San Diego has reduced illegal crossings in that sector by about 95 percent since 1992, reports Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a supporter of a U.S.-Mexico fence. Sure, there will be tunnels and ladders. But getting in will be harder. Policing will be easier.

.... If there are "shortages" of unskilled American workers, the obvious remedy is to raise their wages. A Texas roofing contractor testified to Congress that he couldn't get enough roofers at $9 an hour. Okay, increase it to $10 or $12. Higher wages will bring forth more workers. Perish the thought. Business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, clamor for more guest workers. That's a euphemism for cheap labor. These business groups seem unperturbed by extravagant increases in chief executives' pay. But they're horrified by anything that might raise the wages of maids, waitresses, laborers or gardeners.

As for assimilation, it's true that millions of Hispanic families are moving into -- and reshaping -- the American mainstream. But average trends look less encouraging. Since 1990 about 90 percent of the increase in people living below the government's poverty lines has come among Hispanics. That has to be mainly immigrants and their U.S.-born children. In a report, the Pew Hispanic Center notes:

• Residential segregation is increasing. In 2000, 43 percent of Hispanics lived in neighborhoods with Hispanic majorities, up from 39 percent in 1990.

  
  

• The median net worth of Hispanic households is about 9 percent of that of non-Hispanic whites (net worth is what people own minus what they owe).

  
  

• Only about a quarter of Hispanic college students graduate compared with about half for non-Hispanic whites.

Assimilation takes time. The big difference between today's Hispanic inflows and past immigration waves is that those stopped. History or restrictive laws intervened. There was time for newcomers to adapt. Left alone, there's no obvious reason why the present Hispanic immigration should even pause. Today's unskilled arrivals make it harder for yesterday's to get ahead. The two compete. In 2004 the already-low median wages for foreign-born Hispanics dropped 1.6 percent, reports Rakesh Kochhar of the Pew Center.

There's a paradox. To make immigration succeed, we need to curb some immigration. That's why it's vital to control our border. It also explains why it's important not to "solve" that problem merely by legalizing these huge inflows. Unfortunately, the legislation being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee would do precisely that. Among other things, it would create a virtually open-ended guest worker program.

If we control new inflows, we should legalize the illegal immigrants already here. Many have American-born children, who are U.S. citizens. It is not desirable or ethical to force most illegal immigrants to leave. Yes, they broke the law, but we were complicit by making the law so easy to break. Their present shadowy status deprives them of rights and exposes them to exploitation. We should want the melting pot to work -- and fear that it might come to a boil.

This is what I think Progressives should get behind.

What're We Bleeding for in Afghanistan?

(Poll!)

The Taliban's spring offensive has begun, with the insurgency significantly increasing its activities.

In the meantime, here's this Reuters news item...

US President George W Bush and other Western leaders have latched onto the case of Abdul Rahman, 41, who was arrested last month and accused of apostasy for converting to Christianity in 1990, saying that the issue was one of "honoring the universal principle of freedom".

For many Afghans, though, it is just another rallying point to step up pressure for a broader alliance against the presence of foreign forces in the country, while for the Bush administration and its allies it is an opportunity to rethink their position on Afghanistan.

US President George W Bush and other Western leaders have latched onto the case of Abdul Rahman, 41, who was arrested last month and accused of apostasy for converting to Christianity in 1990, saying that the issue was one of "honoring the universal principle of freedom".

The United States has more than 18,000 troops in the country, while the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force numbers about the same. Germany and Italy have already hinted they may reassess military support for Afghanistan. And German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble suggested that Afghanistan could lose aid or technical support for reconstruction because of the case. The US begun reducing its troop strength in Afghanistan this year and has indicated that it will continue to do so.

So, all of this raises a question in my mind:

What do we really care about in Afghanistan?

• Preserving the rights of Christian minorities?
  
  
• Controlling the poppy production and winning the war on opium?
  
  
• Building a national and republican government there?
  
  
• Defeat of the Taliban?
  
  
• Capturing Osama bin Laden?
  
  
• Because we have enough time, assets, personnel and treasury left over from Iraquagmire that we can accomplish all of the above?

Two Archetypes of Demagoguery: Bush and Lieberman

There are two kinds of people who cannot be counted on to lead us out of the wilderness of the Iraqi desert: George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman.

Lets take the first, more obvious demagogue, Bush:

By fighting these terrorists in Iraq, Americans in uniform are defeating a direct threat to the American people. Against this adversary, there is only one effective response: We will never back down. We will never give in. And we will never accept anything less than complete victory.

Bush gives this message to a captive audiencee, like a class of midshipmen at the Naval Academy. His overarching message was the same as it ever was: We'll stay in Iraq as long as we need to and not any longer - a message that really is a dodge.

This is totally noninformative. After all, nearly everyone wants to stay in Iraq as long as necessary - where people differ is in what constitutes "necessary."

The U.S. presence in Iraq is fueling a large part of the insurgency, and that withdrawing troops could actually help make that country more secure. Pragmatic considerations - elections (in Iraq and in this country), the economic costs of the war, and the increasing strains on the military - are also forcing all sides to think and talk about ways to leave Iraq, and signposts as to when.

The wild card in this picture, though, is Bush, the guy who got us there is the first place. Bush is the guy who risked the global war on terrorism (GWOT) in order to settle old scores with Saddam. Bush's goals in Iraq are "maximalist": The president doesn't just expect success in Iraq, he wants "complete victory," and to eradicate the insurgency and build a democratic state that's a beacon to its neighbors. Bush is, furthermore, immune to the political pressure that other leaders in Washington face: he doesn't have to run again. It's not a concern for him how thin the American military gets stretched or how depleted our treasury becomes. For Bush, this struggle is personal: "God [his 'real father'] put me here" to fight. And fight on is what he must do to redeem his presidential legacy of having laid to rest the notorious Vietnam Syndrome.

Don't count on Bush to measure continued occupation of Iraq against American national interests.

Secondly, we have Momentum Joe Lieberman:

History will judge us harshly if we do not stretch across the divide of distrust to join together to complete our mission successfully in Iraq. It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.

This viewpoint that we need to put behind us the lies, promises and deceptions that manipulated congress and the MSM to endorse Bush's invasion and occupation behind us is held by many GOP and Democratic office holders, or stakeholders. Some of these aspire to national elected office: they do not want to be ripped in the future for having been 'soft on terrorism'.

The first problem associated with this view is that the magnitude of the consequences from these 'lies, promises and deceptions' approaches that which constitute war crimes. A second problem is that the individual authors of these 'lies, promises and deceptions' have never been censored, fired, or indicted for their felonies. Some of the obvious suspects have been promoted or awarded by the president.

So, once fooled, are we now to believe the same people who tell us that 'progress is being made', that 'redeployments will begin in 2006, or that 'a democratic nation can be built in Iraq and become a beacon to its neighbors'?

So, Senators Lieberman, Clinton, and Biden are no more credible and Bush himself.

There is nothing transparent about this war party and its fellow travelers, other than the lies that got us into Iraq, and the lies by which they currently contrive to keep us there.