The Border Wars

From Reuters: Bush admits broken border, to send [6,000] Guard troops

I have so far studiously refrained from expressing any opinion, here or anywhere else, on the immigration issue. And, I (again studiously) did not listen to Bush's speech tonight. But I got the following e-mail from my brother after the speech:

Friends - I'm frightened!

I agreed with Bush on most of the things he proposed on immigration tonight. This is frightening, because I don't trust him, and don't agree with him on anything else.

What have I misunderstood? Please tutor me!

So, (fool that I am) let me venture in where angels fear to tread.

The gist of Bush's proposal is this I gather: beef up border enforcement by sending in 6,000 national guardsmen and deal with the illegals already here by adopting a "guest-worker" program (i.e. make them legal and provide some sort of a path to ultimate citizenship). Have I got it about right?

Does anyone think 6,000 (or even 60,000) national guardsmen is going to make any difference? Does anyone think there is any alternative to legalizing (in some way or another) the millions of illegals already here?

Bush is caught between the two components of his "base": the business side that wants -- needs -- the illegals and the non-business conservatives that want to enforce the law. He'd love to make the latter happy, but he knows it's impossible, So he has come up with this "compromise." Trouble is, the compromise will no more stem the tide of illegals than it will stop the tide from coming in.

Trying to stop illegal immigration is absolutely hopeless. It is like trying to stop the flow of illegal drugs. So, so long as we continue to kid ourselves that we can stem the flow, every 5-10 years we will have another "crisis" where we have to try to figure out what to do with the millions of illegals that have come to this country since we last dealt with the issue. And, just as we have done now and 5 years ago, we will make them legal. There is just no alternative.

If all of that is true (and I defy you to argue that it isn't), you have to ask yourself: why bother? Why not just open the borders and let anyone come in who can get a job, pay taxes, etc. The principal downside of this is the downward pressure it would put on American wages. Well, what of it? American workers are going to have to learn to compete in the global economy anyway. We can build all the fences and deploy all the soldiers we want and it will make no difference. The fact is, we are losing maufacturing jobs becuase American labor has priced itself out of that market. We need to get over the idea that we are ever going to return to the days when you could make $25-30/hr doing work a robot (or immigrant or Vietnamese) can and wants to do for 10-20% of that. We have to focus instead on training/educating our people so that they can do things they Mexicans or Vietnamese or Indians, or Chinese can't do. Or we have to accept the fact that, if we want to make clothes or computers or anything else you can buy at Wal-Mart, we are going to have to compete with Chinese, Mexican, Vietnaese, Idian workers on the basis of prodcutivity-adjusted labor costs.

It's a tough world, but there is little point in denying that it is what it is. Indeed, continuing to deny reality does nothing to change the outcome. It just makes the outcome much more painful once it happens (as it inevitably will).

Just a thought. Have at 'er.