Justus For All

George Will on Immigration (via Running for the Right)

Investor’s Business Daily reports a new study demonstrating that “over the past 30 years rising immigration led to higher wages for U.S.-born workers. Cities that served as migrant magnets did better than others. Why? Hiring one worker creates wealth with which to hire more workers.”The president, who has not hoarded his political capital, spent some trying to get the nation to face facts about the bleak future of an unreformed Social Security system. Concerning which: In 1940 there were 42 workers for every retiree; today there are 3.1. By 2030, when all 77 million baby boomers have left the work force, there will be only 2.2. And that projection assumes net annual immigration, legal and illegal, of 900,000, more than double the 400,000 foreigners who, under the terms of proposed Senate legislation, could come here to work each year.

It seems to me that support for increased immigration should be a natural Republican position.

Social Conservatives should be happy with immigration from Catholic Mexico because of increased support for the social issues that are dear to them.

Fiscal Conservatives/Big Business Republicans should support increased immigration for the reasons Will points out, as well as the increased pool of labor that immigration provides, especially with a fairly tight labor market.

Libertarianish Conservatives should support increased immigration based upon the freedom to choose where one lives, the whole ‘vote with your feet’ ideal.

Lastly, Republican Partisans who care more about being on the winning team than any particular principle should support immigration because of the huge pool of potential Republican voters that latino populations represent.

Unfortunately, there is one group (which I hope is small) of Republicans who will not ever support increased immigration.  They are the racially motivated set of Republicans.  Hopefully, the fact that they seem to be winning the debate within the Republican party on this issue is based upon promoting fear and ignorance and not upon having a naturally large constituency.

On the other hand, immigration seems like a natural wedge issue within the Democratic Party, that would appear if the Republicans would get together in support of it.  Unions and the extreme anti-population Environmentalists would both be fiercely against increased immigration while in general the netroots ‘progressives’ would be for it.  The political implications of Catholics immigrating in large numbers could cause issues for other factions of the Democratic party if these immigrants were not viewed as being reliably Democrat (something that is only likely to remain if Republicans continue and anti-immigrant stance.)

Admittedly, dealing with illegals already here is a slightly different issue with many Republicans feeling a need to support law and order and not reward illegality.  Will also addresses this issue though, and Republicans need to face the facts on this:

Of the estimated at least 11 million illegal immigrants — a cohort larger than the combined populations of 12 states — 60 percent have been here at least five years. Most have roots in their communities. Their children born here are U.S. citizens. We are not going to take the draconian police measures necessary to deport 11 million people. They would fill 200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska — where, by the way, 26,000 Latinos live. And there are no plausible incentives to get the 11 million to board the buses.

Facts, a conservative (John Adams) said, are stubborn things, and regarding immigration, true conservatives take their bearings from facts such as those in the preceding paragraph.

George Will also supports a fairly draconian border policy.  Perhaps we will need that.  I think that a fairly open immigration policy, demanding documentation but not tied to quotas and increased penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers will largely solve this issue.