Balkinization: Immigration Reform III: Resetting after the Collapse

Immigration Reform III: Resetting after the Collapse

Anonymous

Since last week’s collapse of the immigration bill in the Senate, the conversation has shifted predictably from policy to politics. The collapse certainly underscores the diminished status of the Bush presidency, and it may spell electoral disaster for Republicans, at least as far as the Latino vote is concerned.

The current government’s failure to pass a bill will also heighten the significance of the issue to the 2008 campaign. And this confluence—of the Grand Bargain's collapse and the now center-stage political story of who will be our next President—presents us with an opportunity to restart the debate from new premises. If we are truly serious about addressing illegal immigration, restoring confidence in the immigration bureaucracy, and harnessing the economic and cultural benefits of immigration, an attitudinal shift must occur, and a presidential campaign focused on the future can help secure it.

Last week, I began articulating the outlines of that shift: as a society we must come to terms with the economic and demographic factors on both sides of the border that have produced hemispheric interdependence. The first step would be a program that gives legal status to and encourages the integration of undocumented workers already here. But the more difficult policy problem is what to do about the inevitable future flow that I described in my last post.

The answer proposed by President Bush and the Senate leadership—a large-scale guest worker program—certainly has its appeal, if only because it acknowledges the future-flow dilemma. Such a program would facilitate the flow of remittances to Mexico and Latin America, provide employers with the labor supply they need, help prevent the deaths of migrants crossing the Arizona and Texas deserts, and give future migrants a legal means of improving their economic lot.

But as I have argued elsewhere, a truly temporary worker program promises Americans too much and asks of them too little, and it is not the approach we should take to managing future flow, now that we have some time to rethink this issue.

The false promise of a temporary worker program is best summed up by the oft-recited statement: “There is nothing more permanent than a temporary worker.” The final Senate bill would have given guest workers a two-year visa, renewable once, with a requirement that they leave the country in between visa periods, but with no path to permanent residency or citizenship. The bill thus assumed that guest workers could be rotated out of the country easily.

But all social science and historical evidence belies this assumption. Evidence that guest worker programs last longer and grow larger than anyone ever expects abounds. Employers and markets become dependent on the labor, and migrants sink roots into society, particularly through attachments to U.S.-citizen spouses and children. What is more, guest worker programs consistently result in the isolation and exploitation of immigrants—an experience born out by our own history in the decades after World War II, when the U.S. admitted so-called braceros as temporary agricultural workers, as well as by current conditions characterizing the small-scale H-2 guest worker programs that already exist, as documented recently by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Why would the United States, with its commendable history of integrating immigrants, restructure its system to resemble European systems, where experiments with guest work have resulted in entrenched but socially marginalized and unintegrated immigrant populations?

In light of this evidence, the future-flow issue, like the legalization debate, should be conceptualized as an integration question. But a guest worker program is likely to thwart the integration of future immigrants, because it will constrain the two key mechanisms of immigrant integration: mobility and reciprocity.

Integration depends on immigrants emerging from isolated sectors of the economy, moving in and out of ethnic communities, and developing the social and cultural capital necessary for interacting with society at large. Guest worker programs, particularly the increasingly complex one contemplated by the Senate, impose bureaucratic requirements that keep workers mired in immigrant sectors and increase the chances that they will become illegal by running afoul of visa requirements (whether those requirements are to remain with a particular employer or government-certified set of employers, or leave the country for six months after a visa cycle). And because guest worker programs like the one contemplated by the Senate provide immigrant workers with no right to remain inside the U.S. long-term, they provide no security to help facilitate the difficult-to-navigate process of assimilation.

But integration also depends on members of the receiving society treating immigrants as repeat players, rather than as foreigners. The United States’ relative success at assimilating large groups of immigrants over time has depended on our willingness to treat immigrants as potentially permanent members of society, but the Senate and President’s final guest worker proposals attempted to address the inevitability of future flow without calling on that willingness. By treating immigrants as a temporary fix for the economy’s needs, guest worker programs give Americans no incentive to adapt to demographic changes, which in turn contributes to intolerance of the cultural pluralism immigrants generate.

But even if we could implement a truly temporary worker program that would obviate this need to integrate future immigrants, such an approach to the future flow question is inconsistent with the reciprocity and social cooperation that should characterize relationships in a democratic society. As Michael Walzer has famously put it, immigrant workers perform “socially necessary” work. Just as the legalization question is about the obligations we owe to past migrants, the future-flow issue concerns the obligations we owe to future migrants with whom we will come to associate, because of our shared need for that association. But guest worker programs, particularly of the type proposed by the Senate, treat workers entirely as means, as inputs, rather than as people, making contributions, who might develop attachments to and expectations of the society that “hosts” them. The Senate proposal's failure to treat these immigrants as potential members reflects an astonishing willingness to accept the presence of a laboring class with no participation rights in the society of which they would be an integral part.

Both pragmatics and political obligation thus seem to point in the direction of allowing more permanent migration of unskilled workers. But several factors make this solution unrealistic. First, many migrants who set out for the United States with temporary intent do retain their desire to return to their home countries after a period of years. Circular migration, were it facilitated by expanded legal channels for temporary entry, might be in everyone’s long-term interests. It is arguably crucial to economic development in Latin America, and it would help alleviate pressure on our border and lessen the integration imperative, which might be better for social peace.

But it is inevitable that some migrants’ temporary intents will become permanent, as the historical and empirical evidence I just discussed suggests. Some migrants may find that the wage differential is too great to give up. And even temporary migrants develop new social networks and family ties, through spouses and U.S.-born children. What is more, there are civil society implications to permitting migrants to “use” the U.S. economy without investing in the world they inhabit—if we fear the creation of a laboring second class, why should we permit the migrants themselves to contribute to its creation? Instead, it makes sense to give migrants incentives to be effective and responsible social actors, one of which could be the security that the United States is truly a society to which they can belong. This may lead more immigrants to form a permanent intent to remain, but a policy that accepts this possibility and attempts to prevent an isolated laboring class from arising is preferable to a policy that encourages the creation and perpetuation of a laboring class with no sense of obligation to the society around them.

Second, and perhaps more to the point given the state of American politics, there does not appear to be much popular support for increasing the amount of permanent unskilled immigration to the United States. The promise of a temporary program may be all voters can be convinced to accept, at least initially. And, the current system of processing legal immigrants is so beset by backlogs that channeling the migrants needed to respond to labor market dynamics through that system would be highly inefficient (as would be channeling the same migrants through guest worker programs laden with bureaucratic requirements, as economists have pointed out).

As a policy matter, perhaps the best strategy going forward would be to open up two separate paths. As a complement to increasing the number of permanent visas for unskilled workers—a long-term strategy that will require reforms in the bureaucracy and major attitudinal shift—we might create a provisional visa that enables the quick entry of enough workers to meet current labor market needs, but that carries with it the presumption of adjustment to permanent status at the end of one or two visa cycles, if that’s the course the individual migrant chooses to follow. President Bush and some of the architects of the Grand Bargain gave up on the path to citizenship in the interest of compromise. But now that we have the opportunity to reset the debate, the case should be made to the American people that it is in everyone’s long-term interests to make permanent status an option.

The immigration debate is about a lot of things: how to secure our borders while enhancing our competitiveness, how to promote economic growth while protecting the American worker, and how to harness the benefits of immigration without causing social cleavages and cultural upheaval. But the debate is not just about us—about what is good for Americans in the short-term. It is also about the United States’ role in the world and the responsibilities Americans have as a result of that role. An effective, administrable, and legitimate immigration policy must recognize hemispheric interdependence.

A non-punitive legalization program is the first step toward curing an inexcusable dysfunction. And an admissions system that addresses the future-flow question with an appreciation of certain economic and demographic inevitabilities in mind represents the essential way forward. Americans can persist in their resistance to greater immigration, and we can throw more money at trying to enforce a broken system, which Congress is now likely to do. But in the meantime, immigrants will keep coming. Our commitment to certain political principles—to living in a democratic society without castes and to the desire to live in social peace—requires that we come to terms with this reality by opening ourselves up to new forms of economic and political association.

Happy Fourth of July.

Posted 3:28 PM by Anonymous [link]

Comments:

The future of the debate on immigration is all too obvious. Not all Republicans oppose immigration, nor are all opponents of immigration bigots. Nonetheless, the most bigoted opponents of immigration are the most noisy and conspicuous. For now, Tom Tancredo is the face of the Republican party for millions of immigrants and their children.

Anyone can see where this leads. The immigrant vote will be heavily Democratic. Both parties must know this and will behave accordingly. Their debate will be increasingly partisan, and increasingly driven by politics rather than policy. Democrats will seek to naturalize immigrants as future Democrats and Republicans will seek to block naturalization for the same reason. Neither will give a moment's thought to how our society will be affected.

# posted by

Essayist-Laywer : 5:32 PM

I continue to be amazed at the way advocates of immigration 'reform' simply will not address what really killed this effort. It wasn't that the mix of compromises in the bill wasn't quite right. It was that nobody in their right mind trusted the government to actually carry out many of the features of the bill.

Until the trust deficit is addressed, (And the only way to effectively fix it is for the government to actually make a serious effort to enforce existing law.) any attempt at a "grand compromise" is DOA.

# posted by

Brett : 8:39 PM

the only way to effectively fix it is for the government to actually make a serious effort to enforce existing law.

I personally can't see any way for the government to enforce the immigration laws unless the country adopts a relatively fool-proof national ID card. Do you agree? Do you support one?

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:06 PM

Not to drag the thread OT, because this is a great post, but, um... Libby commutation? No comment?

# posted by

A : 12:22 AM

I agree that truly effective enforcement would require a biometric ID for American citizens. I would normally be opposed to this, but we've been gradually implementing it piecemeal anyway, and at this point have achieved most of the drawbacks without the advantages. With the new demand for passports, and the Real ID program, we've achieved the worst of both worlds: Great potential for abuse, AND ID which is still capable of being forged. Almost by design; What moron decided to put RFID chips in passports?

By biometric ID, I specifically do not mean an ID card with biometric information you match against the holder. That's a joke. I mean a central database of biometric data, to which you could send someone's fingerprints or iris scan and SS number, and get back confirmation of their status, be it citizen or legal resident. The actual card should NOT have any sort of data or picture, lest people be tempted to rely on it without using the database.

However, that's something I would only back after the trust deficit had been addressed, since the potential for abuse does exist, and a government determined to keep illegal immigrants flowing could find some way to render it futile. The end of that determination has to be demonstrated.

While biometric ID would certainly be a help, it's not necessary to considerably increase enforcement, and prove that the government is actually willing to ACT on laws which might obstruct illegal immigration.

1. An actual end to "catch and release".

2. Legal challenges to local "sanctuary" laws, which stand only because the federal government doesn't WANT immigration laws to be effective.

3. Stepped up enforcement against employers of illegal immigrants.

4. Data mining of existing government records to find illegal immigrants engaging in identity fraud. For instance, when the same SS number is used for two jobs too far apart for commuting, alarm bells should ring.

# posted by

Brett : 7:30 AM

I never hear anyone talk about the notion that we once had a full-blown guest worker program in this country. It was called slavery.

I hadn't been aware of the earlier guest worker programs you describe in your post, but they appear to be prior to the Civil Rights movement.

I am as liberal as anyone, but I cannot understand an immigration bill that puts us anywhere on the road back to slavery.

I hope I'd feel this negative about a guest worker progam at any time, but given the state of polarization in this country right now, given the retrenchment of our government to ways of thinking that were last seen in the 50s (both the 1950s and the 1850s), I feel doubly apprehensive.

The difference between the sort of shadow world that many immigrants must feel they are in now, and a legalized second-class citizenship that is most likely to regard second-class people not by the content of their work papers, but by the color of their skin, is fundamental and profound.

I truly believe that no bill at all is better than a bill with any sort of guest worker policy.

In the meantime, we can work to try to change the people in government today

# posted by

B : 7:47 AM

Fair response, Brett. I am inclined to agree with you about the ID card.

# posted by

Mark Field : 11:11 AM

I would be interested in the author's evaluation of this study from the University of MX (2005) showing a hidden level of unemployment/ partial employment touching almost half of the workforce.

Viewing the guest worker recommendation I agree it has the appearance of a corollary of outsourcing, a kind of insourcing, or, as the commenter above aptly characterized it, slavery. The issue is less stratification by race in the US for these immigrants than the inequalities endured by African Americans, however the tradition-bound mores and narrow horizons of the current crop of immigrants' home countries' societies are larger factors in confounding mechanisms of integrative transcendance of barriers once here than even prior waves of European immigrants in times of hardship in countries of origin. My understanding is opportunity in Latin American countries is more stratified than in Europe; Latin America has less political freedom and shallower historical experience with open goverment than European countries of origin of immigrants. While we have many lessons to learn by abstraction, comparing the various influxes, the situation which is present now is unique, requiring immediacy in interpretation so our menu of choices for immigrants becomes more than hidden foreign aid.

# posted by

JohnLopresti : 11:54 AM

"I never hear anyone talk about the notion that we once had a full-blown guest worker program in this country. It was called slavery."

You probably don't hear that because most people understand that slaves,

1. Didn't have a choice about taking the job.

2. Don't get paid.

3. Don't have the option of quitting the job.

IOW, guest workers aren't remotely like slaves.

# posted by

Brett : 6:19 PM