Immigration Persuasion

B-Daddy here. Immigration seems like such a hot button issue for this column, I thought I would try to break it down a little. Unlike your regular BwD host, I feel somewhat dispassionate about the issue. I thought I would take Deep Throat's advice and "follow the money," and look at the self-interest of the key players involved. Under most circumstances, political constituencies vote their self-interest, so analyzing it is necessary to understanding the problem and working towards a solution. (Also, we want to "Seek first to understand" and "think win-win" in 7 Habits terminology.)

On the Democrat side, I often wondered why the labor unions would favor amnesty. It seems that a steady supply of undocumented workers would cause competition for their members. However, if undocumented workers are granted legal status, then their pay would have to be raised to at least the minimum wage. This increase in pay would mean that the undocumented workers would have less competitive advantage on price than union workers. See the Cato Institute article on the union's relationship with the minimum wage. Further, bringing the undocumented workers into the legal world would make them available to be organized by the unions. For the Democratic Party in general, there is a belief that those granted amnesty would then vote Democrat because the illegal immigrant population is largely poor and Hispanic, a demographic (there's that word again) that tends to vote Democrat. Interestingly enough, it seems that the people who are harmed by an amnesty would be poor, Hispanic legal residents. However, one abstract of a study on this subject "suggests that Latino support for immigration is primarily a function of ethnic identify and symbolic politics" In simpler language, Latinos identify with the immigrants and cheer the expansion of their own group. Interestingly enough, listening to talk radio and reading other forums, this is also the reason cited by conservatives in opposing illegal immigration and for opposing increased legal immigration.

On the Republican side, the business interests that generally support the Republican Party see a steady supply of low-wage labor from continued high immigration illegal or otherwise. As a result, business tends to be on the side of working out a solution that doesn't stop the flow of workers, so the enforcement first, reform later concept is non-starter for them. However, there is a significant number of voters (mostly Republicans) who see illegal immigration as a threat to their way of life on a number of fronts. First, the widespread violation of immigration law is seen as a precursor to the general breakdown of law and order. A return to the crime rates of the 70's and 80's is not in the general public's best interest. And this theory has legs. It is akin to the "broken windows" theory of crime that Willy Bratton and Rudy Giuliani successfully applied to reducing crime in New York in the 90s. (As an aside, I trace a goodly portion of our current trouble in Iraq to the wave of looting that got out of hand after the initial victory. That created the same kind of "tipping point" from which we are only now recovering.) The second and more powerful issue appears to be cultural and linguistic. Seeing large numbers of immigrants who do not speak English and therefore seem incapable of taking part in the common dialog on what it means to be an American is threatening. Even if historically, the same charge was applied to Italian and Eastern European immigrants at the turn of the last century, this issue strongly resonates with those who have a certain cultural vision of America. And culture seems to dominate all political discourse these days, on both left and right.

So right now we have a stalemate on the issue. The anti-amnesty crowd has the passion and the numbers to prevent any amnesty legislation from being signed. (Remember that most big changes in American society require consensus.) But they are probably not a majority, (my opinion, not yet supported by research) and certainly don't have the power to get the kind of strict enforcement needed to stem the tide of illegal immigration. I continue to see hard liners on illegal immigration lose elections, even in places like southern Arizona in 2006, where illegal immigration has a high impact. Until a win-win solution is developed, I see no end to this stand off.