In need of an honest debate on immigration reform
This debate over immigration has degenerated into a tiresome slander fest.
From the far reaches of one side comes the charge that immigration reformers only want to destroy our values by throwing open the nation's doors to moochers while feathering their own political (Democratic) nests.
From the other side's remote boundaries come accusations that opponents of "comprehensive immigration reform" are xenophobes, so lacking in compassion and decency that they care only about preserving their racially, ethnically and culturally constricted world.
This is nuts.
If all the words devoted to maligning the other side were actually devoted to discussing the issue itself, we might get somewhere. But the argument has become so rancorous that basic questions and first principles have become lost.
Many issues that bog down today's debate over immigration are malleable, negotiable. For example, since 1986, we've given at least seven general or group amnesties to illegal immigrants. Has it destroyed the Republic? No. Neither has it stopped illegal immigration. Strikes me that the importance of some of today's hottest issues are overblown.
If we're to have a real, meaningful debate about "comprehensive" immigration reform, then let's get to the heart of the matter: What is the optimum level of immigration? Is it the 1 million or so who arrive here legally every year? Or should it be more? Or less? What will it cost? What can we afford?
How should those who are allowed in be picked? Should we lift all immigration restrictions and let in everyone - akin to the idea of free trade, except the commodities in this case are people? Should we return to the pre-1964 days when immigration policies were designed to preserve the nation's ethnic and racial profile? Or should we strive for something in between?
To me, immigration law is as complex and impenetrable as the IRS code. The public policy purposes of immigration law, just like those of the IRS code, have been so diluted and obfuscated by the myriad exceptions, bureaucratic contrivances and baffling details that few can really say what the aims of our immigration laws and regulations are supposed to be.
Did you know, for example, that under the law's EB-5 program, foreigners can get preferred immigration treatment if they invest at least $1 million in an American company (or $500,000 in companies located in a "high unemployment or rural area")?
Maybe giving rich foreigners green cards to help create American jobs is a good idea, but one also can argue that it's unfair to immigrants who don't have that kind of cash.
Fundamental questions flow: Should immigrants with special skills get preference or should we make the American dream equally available to all who want in?
Or this: The law effectively favors immigrants from certain countries - Mexico, India, China, the Philippines and Dominican Republic are generally at the top of the list. Why them? Should there be national quotas to more equally welcome the "tired, the poor," etc., from all nations? Or should our immigration policy be strictly set by what's in America's best interests and let the chips fall where they may?
My concern is not that immigration could alter the ethnic makeup of the country. It will happen; it always has. We're the better for it, as each new wave has brought with it new strengths and renewed energy.
My concern is that people who come here share America's historic (albeit not always practiced) values of liberty, economic freedom, self-sufficiency and self-government. That they accept a formulation that has birthed and renewed a nation that rescued democracy from the jaws of tyranny three times in the last century. That under them, the social compact called the United States of America will endure.
I'm not so worried about immigrants, who historically have shown themselves more than willing to commit themselves to our mutual endeavor. What concerns me more are America's already embedded multiculturalists and bilingualists who insist that we must do the adjusting. People who value ethnic and cultural "diversity" more than unity of purpose. The people who would atomize America into the kinds of warring realms, spheres and fiefs that constituted the Europe from which so many of our forbearers fled.
So, if we're to have an argument about "comprehensive" immigration reform, let's have the kind of exhaustive, all-embracing debate it deserves instead of the self-serving political mudslinging that has worn us down.