Poor Memento Moron must have been horribly dissapointed when your humble Smallholder took a respite from blogospheric conflict. Our buddy Brian is so beside himself with joy at my reappearance that he had a response to my immigration missive posted before my keyboard cooled.
I acknowledge that there are a few bad men who come to this country illegally. But the VAST majority of people are the hardworking types I described above. It takes intiative to cross the border. Working in Harrisonburg, I encounter a huge number of immigrants, legal and otherwise. My impression is that the higher levels of crime associated with immigration is not caused directly by the immigrants themselves. So many of the immigrants in Harrisonburg are so busy working two and three jobs that they are not home with their children and their children often do a lousy job of raising themselves - though honesty forces the concession that somehow stopping illegal aliens would also preclude the creation of the antisocial American-born second generation. However, a fair amount of the crime pronbably results from people preying on immigrants who literally cannot seek protection from the authorities. Giving immigrants legal status would alleviate a small proportion of that crime.
The greatest criminal activity associated with illegal immigration is largely ignored: the American business communties’ prfit-driven motivation to look the other way and not check “papers” too closely. The unspoken reality behing the immigration debate is that the only real way to slow immigration down is to convince employers to stop giving immigrants jobs. And, aside from poorly skilled nativist high school drop outs, no one wants that.
Companies like immigrants because they hold down unskilled wages.
The middle class likes low wages because it reduces the cost of consumer goods and services. We like our cheap lettuce, grapefruit, chicken, landscaping services, and home construction.
There is no political way that Congress will actually pass legislation that would create enforceable penalties that would actually deter companies from hiring illegals. The Democrats are known for drinking at the corporate lobbying trough, but the Republican’s successful conquest of K-Street is even more impressive. Neither party wants to incur the wrath of the business community. Additionally, actually taking immigrants out of the labor pool would force companies to compete for unskilled American labor, driving up the cost of production. The higher production costs would be passed on to the consumer. The American economy already has serious inflationary pressures due to oil prices. Add higher production costs to the mix and we will have an ugly inflation monster knocking at Grandma’s door*. Stagnating home appreciation means that Americans won’t be able to continue to tap equity wealth to fuel spending, so consumer demand would fall.
Companies faced with a harsher business climate would start looking at their operations. If cheap labor based on illegal Mexicans can’t be found in America, the outsourcing trend wil accelerate. Instead of helping poorly educated Americans get higher wages, removing illegal aliens from the workforce will simply result in the elimination of jobs that poorly educated people can do. Many of our right-leaning readers will object to this. But consider this, my righty friends: this is exactly the same (and valid) argument made by the right against raising the minimum wage. If the logic opposing raising the minimum wage holds, so does the logic of welcoming immigrants.
Costs up + lost jobs + sales down = Recession. Bush and the Republican leadership know that a recession and disheartened middle class is a sure recipe for electoral disaster. Americans as a group won’t make the link between cracking down on immigrants and the recession. They’ll just vent at the ballot box**.
People like my esteemed friend Polymath like to highlight the “cost” of immigration. But those costs are more than offest by the economic benefits.
In conclusion:
Support illegal immigration to avoid a recession.
* Yes, I know that “ugly inflation monster knocking at Grandma’s door” is a terrible phrase. But the ugliness of my original language amuses me to the point that I won’t try to craft a better sentence. Inflation is so sucky that even describing it requires sucky language. ‘Sides, do you really think a poor sodbuster like the ig’nant Smallholder can be troubled to put together fancy words for all you snooty college types?
** Witness the public’s anger at Bush over gas prices. High gas prices are manifestly not the fault of the administration, despite what panderers like Nancy “No Blood for Oil!” Pelosi say (not that she is not mirrored by Bill “I’m a dishonest, opportunistic moron” Frist). Perhaps I’ll write a post defending Bush from gas-based attacks. If nothing else, it will give the Minister of Propaganda an aneurism.
