What We Need is an Ellis Island for the American Southwest

One of the big issues in this year's mid-term election is immigration. As usual there is a lot of bluster on both sides of the issue. But one thing that I haven't seen is a lot of ideas for actually controlling immigration in an orderly manner. Conservatives, when not jumping up and down screaming "What part of illegal don't you understand!" tend to focus on enforcement, calling for border fences and putative action against employers who hire illegal aliens. Liberals tend to focus on legalizing illegal aliens, talking about "a path to citizenship" and using the word "comprehensive" a lot. And Libertarians call for open borders.

The problem with enforcement is that it doesn't work. While it is not a particularly well known fact, president Obama has actually increased the rate of deportation of illegal aliens and auditing of businesses which hire illegals. And yet the screams of the opponents of illegal immigration have never been louder. The truth is that we'll never be able to deport 12 million illegal immigrants and until we as a nation admit that, we'll never solve our problems with immigration.

That's where the liberal "path to citizenship" comes in; whether you call it an amnesty, a pardon or whatever; an illegal would come forward, pay a large fine, and "go to the back of the line" where after a period of time they would be eligible for citizenship. While it seems like a fairly good idea to liberal ears, the major problem with it is that the average Democratic politician doesn't have the guts to actually go through with it. For example the DREAM Act which was a relatively modest version of this idea (applying only to young people with no criminal records who agreed to join the military or attend college) was proposed but will not be voted on until the Senate's lame duck session largely because Democrats were afraid of blow back in the election. With large Republican gains and possibly an outright Republican takeover of one or both houses of Congress expected in tomorrow's election, it seems unlikely that the lemmings in Congress are likely to approve any kind of comprehensive immigration reform.

In the very unlikely case that our government does grow a spine however what's wrong with the open borders policy advocated by Libertarians? Nothing really except that it removes a lot of control from the government. And Americans would fear increased competition for low-paying jobs from cheap, illegal immigrant labor. And of course it makes it easier for terrorists, drug dealers, and other assorted nogoodnicks to get into the country. The truth is that no country has truly open borders and the United States will not be the first.

So here's my idea. Politicians love to idealize the past and pander to voters who long for the "good old days." So why not reach into the past and create another Ellis Island, this time for the American Southwest.

Basically, the United States would create one or more processing centers on its border with Mexico. They would be places where potential immigrants could go, get some papers and maybe a lead on a job. They could also be searched, vaccinated, and be subject to background checks. The upside would be that the United States would know who is entering the country and would be able to track them more easily if it needed to do so. It would also eliminate the dangerous crossings of the border which have led to the death of many illegal aliens. With thousands of illegal immigrants removed from the other parts of the border, drug runners and terrorists trying to cross the border would be more likely to stand out and border enforcement would be more likely to work.

This would be a small part or of a truly comprehensive reform of our immigration system. A single processing center on our southern border would not resolve the problem of immigrants overstaying their visas. And it certainly wouldn't do a thing about the 12 million illegals who are already here. But it could resolve the emotionally charged issue of people crossing our border illegally.

Of course this is all just spitting in the wind if our politicians continue to be either gutless talkers or mendacious panderers on this issue. And the current election cycle doesn't give me much hope. But if America's politicians do ever grow up and actually fix this problem, it would help if they'd look the story of Ellis Island for inspiration.

Border Patrol—A Frontier Comedy

Dr. Horrible is now available on Hulu and it's not the only web show around. It's not even the only web show around that stars an actor from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Border Patrol is a pseudo-reality show which stars Tom Lenk who played the wannabe supervillain Andrew (and perhaps was an inspiration for the Dr. Horrible) in Buffy's sixth and seventh seasons as one of three overzealous anti-immigration crusaders who decide to go to the border and protect it from illegal aliens. If you like Comedy Central's reality show parodies like Reno 911, check out Border Patrol as it's done in much the same style.

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The Economics and Politics of Immigration

Here's and interesting article that appeared on Fark the other day. The subject was illegal immigration and the article talked about the money which illegals pay into the government in Social Security and payroll taxes. There was also another pretty good article linked in the comments section on the costs of illegal immigration in terms of crime and education costs.

I personally felt that the second article (first published in Investor's Business Daily and republished on CNN Money) had a kind of alarmist/sensationalistic tone but that could also be that being of Mexican-American descent, I tend feel less sympathetic to anti-immigration arguments. Still it's interesting to take a look at the numbers. They estimate that illegal immigration costs the country $3.9 billion in bilingual education costs, $1.5 billion in costs of incarcerating illegal alien criminals. It also tells us that,

"The economic burden they impose on victims, including loss of income and property, uncompensated hospital bills, and emotional pain and suffering, has been estimated at $1.6 million per property and assault crime offender," [Edwin S. Rubenstein, the author of the study quoted in the article] found.

but does not give a total cost for the country of this economic burden. The article also tells us that

Washington has been paralyzed for many years on immigration policies because advocates of restricted immigration are routinely accused of nativism and racism.

Yeah and no one ever talks about an invasion by foreigners who won't learn English and assimilate into this country and suggests that we keep them out by doing something drastic like building a wall at our border.

The other article which was from Associated Press and published on the Houston Chronicle website gave a more matter of fact presentation of its numbers:

The Social Security Administration estimates that about three-quarters of illegal workers pay taxes that contribute to the overall solvency of Social Security and Medicare.

The agency estimates that for 2005, the last year for which figures are available, about $9 billion in taxes was paid on about $75 billion in wages from people who filed W-2 forms with incorrect or mismatched data, which would include illegal immigrants who drew paychecks under fake names and Social Security numbers.

The article also explains how illegal immigrants can go about filing their taxes without getting themselves deported and points out that many illegals never collect money from the Social Security system which they are paying into.

My own personal opinion on the subject is that it simply isn't possible (or even desirable) to deport 12 million illegal aliens so we need to find a way to bring them into our society. President Bush and Senator John McCain actually had a pretty good plan for doing just that but backed down because of opposition from their own party. It's a shame—especially given the very generous amnesty for illegals which was passed in the 80s by Ronald Reagan.