The Wall Street Journal did a piece called Immigration and Welfare | Most of them will pay at least as much as they collect. [May 24, 2007] , which was an attack on Robert Rector’s work on the economic impact of immigration. Robert Rector’s work on the economic impact of immigration. [The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer, by Robert E. Rector and Christine Kim, May 22, 2007] Rector has sent them an angry letter in reply, pointing out their errors, one of which is that they’re putting productive immigrants, (H-1Bs who are taking good jobs from Americans) in with the agricultural laborers, who are a net loss, and the other one being a specious claim that immigrants are not eligible for welfare.

They are in fact eligible for all kinds of government benefits, whether legal or illegal, and amnesty, if it’s allowed to happen will make the current illegals eligible for ordinary welfare.

But it’s simply obvious that the Journal is wrong. I could tell that without even reading the article.

• Most immigrants these days are from Mexico.
• Mexico is a poor country, and the people who emigrate from Mexico are not the crème de la crème of Mexican society, but the people who are poor in Mexico, including Indians who can’t even speak Spanish.
• Every one who comes north of the Border is automatically entitled to free emergency room care, education for all his or her children, legal aid, and a host of other things that are paid for by the American taxpayer.

It simply boggles the mind that the Wall Street Journal thinks the Treasury is going to recover all that from the taxes of a man who makes eight dollars an hour.

Elizabeth Sullivan writes at Common Dreams and the Cleveland Plain Dealer[May 26, 2007]:

No immigration compromise can ever be fair for everyone. That’s why Congress is about to take the big duck, again. That’s why the system will continue to be driven by lawlessness, exploitation and fear.

And that’s why this nation will fail to retool its immigration laws for a 21st-century economy that demands higher skill sets to compete for the jobs and inventions of the future.

Max Payne commented:

My professor in Politics 101 always said that when people are stuck with a government that flips them the bird, they’d normally get rid of it and build a new one. The trouble with our US Government is that it was created by the elitists at a time when they could easily frame democracy as somehow “bad” for our nation. The Founding Fathers knew that very well and whether we’re talking Jefferson or Hamilton, they took Shays’ Rebellion and used it to create a somewhat centralized government. By now, Hamilton would be blushing !

Gregory the Great

Our overburdened social systems will not be expanded to deal with millions of uninvited and unwelcome who come here without skills. It is not part of our Capitalist nature to erect a massive socialist infrastructure to alleviate poverty. We barely do it for “our own” now. Burdened with massive debt and trade imbalances, great disparities in wealth and a declining middle class, the US will become a “third-world’ nation. Probably a fascist one at that.

Adele the Czech

The title of this article is telling: “With More People Coming …” Yes indeedy, the country that built the Panama Canal is incapable of securing its borders. We’re defeated before we start. Nonsense!

No, it’s not amnesty. It’s insanity.

My own comment

This article makes a good point, that there is no plan with the attention of the political movers and shakers that has any connection to maintaining or improving the lives of Mexicans(or other major source countries of immigration) and Americans.

Part of the issue is that the science of economics is fundamentally politicized and flawed in recent years. The other, is that many prominent economists that do specialize in the economics of immigration aren’t even being seriously considered by political or economic elites Hispanic economist George Borjas at Harvard is a prominent example).

I’ve written extensively on the topic of immigration-and like Thom Hartman, I am a progressive that supports immigration restriction-and I have written extensively on that topic.

One fundamental problem here is that no one of any real power is looking at the economics here pragmatically. To understand the motivation to immigrate, we need to look at the value of citizenship in one country compared to another. We then need to consider what incentives are in place and whether the disincentives actually give a realistic possibility that the law will be obeyed.

I’ve recently written what is the only vaguely realistic estimate of the economic value of US citizenship (it is imperfect-but is at least a start). I put the theoretical value at about $300,000 in today’s market/situation (the actual market value is closer to $100,000-which is about what some of our immediate neighbors sell citizenship for). I would expect Mexican citizenship has considerably less economic value-and the value of dual citizenship is considerably greater than either alone.

What illegal immigrants-and guest workers-are largely working for isn’t their meager wages (which make life difficult given the US cost of living) but shot at a green card-which is highly valuable. That means that a company that can facilitate a green card-by giving an illegal immigrant employment until the next amnesty, can fully expect lot of otherwise uncompensated labor.

A realistic policy needs to have penalties for the employers-particularly the wealthy ones-that have enforced penalties that are high compared to the economic benefits involved. The Bush administration has actually reduced enforcement of existing immigration law-which was low since the Reagan era.

Immigration is simply not essential to a robust economy. Japan and Korea are examples of countries without the US resource base and ability to borrow internationally that have highly developed economies that are growing faster in terms of productivity per worker-and Japan has higher levels of income equality than the US-and neither country has high levels of immigration compared to the US.

When you look at other countries that do have high levels of immigration, many are in fact extremely heavily socially controlled (the only nations with higher immigration that are a vaguely attractive compared to the US from my perspective are Canada and Australia -which may have an even higher natural resource base per capita than the US has).

What immigration can do is cause a nation to “grow” by simply adding bodies. Making that nation grow in terms of real productivity requires very careful planning. That problem is compounded because the benefits to wealthy interests are immediate-and the costs are long term and socialized.

Also the current legislation is simply not clearly a compromise bill in terms of immigration numbers. There are some polls suggesting that the public wants elements of the legislation (i.e. avoiding an immediate and rapid mass deportation). However, I have seen no compelling poll suggesting that existing US citizens really want an increase in future immigration numbers–which is intrinsic in the current legislation-and this comes after promises have been repeatedly broken over a 40+ year period by government officials-including prominent supporters of this legislation.

I’ve written a couple years ago on what I think might be a sensible immigration policy(one thing that needs updating that is how to apply resettlement allowances to illegal immigrants that return after a long stay in the US). We need a policy that is good for both US and Mexicans, economically sound-and which has broad popular support. It isn’t clear to me the current legislation has any of those features.

I am also skeptical of current approaches on skills based immigration that the US has used recently. I will be publishing a significant article the next couple weeks that deals specifically with how I would structure a program in that area.

I have articles that will be published soon that specifically address the immigration record of Mitt Romney(hint: despite tough talk there is compelling evidence he favors loose immigration). I will also expose some other powerful interests behind mass immigration.

I welcome feedback-and thoughtful questions/suggestions- from common dreams readers.

VDARE.COM readers can add their own comments at Common Dreams–please consider, this is a very progressive audience for some of whom consideration of immigration restriction is new-and often quite painful/frightening for them.

I think we can create an immigration policy that is more fair to a lot of Americans-and Mexicans-than the current legislation, but I suspect the wealthy interests supporting the current legislation won’t like it one bit.

A reader recently sent me this link
that reports decreasing sales of existing homes and another that reports increasing sales of new homes. Now, what is going on here? Well, I expect a lot of those existing homes are either in areas that are getting a lot of recent immigration(i.e. California) or areas in which economic opportunities are being curtailed via mass immigration.

Immigration is a funny thing, short term, it can prop up real estate prices by cramming more people into a given area, but longer terms, those areas get unlivable–and those that can leave(as the case of California shows).

I suspect the recent attempted Kennedy/McCain/Bush immigration expansion is largely an attempt to prop up real estate prices in specific areas like the East Coast, California and South Florida.

A snobbish European once surprised me by conceding that the Americans have made a great capital out of George Washington’s swamp, and in the spring sunlight of late May, it looks glorious. But Washington D.C. is also, to a surprising extent, a little town—a city-state like Athens or Venice, where people meet on the street or bump into each other in restaurants, all the while mutually preoccupied with the affairs of what is, in fact, the greatest empire in the history of the world. “Inside the Beltway” is a world of its own—an intoxicating world, essentially unaware of the extraordinary demographic catastrophe being brought about by its own laws, which indeed it is trying to exacerbate.

I was in Washington to check on the progress of the Senate Sellout. Short answer: it’s in trouble. At the end of last week, D.C.’s little band of immigration reform patriots in Washington (we all know each other) was almost euphoric. The White House/Senate Democrat juggernaut, seemingly unstoppable only a week earlier, was bogging down badly.

Eagerly, they traded reports of private Capitol Hill meetings where Administration spokestraitors had met hostile receptions. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was said to have responded with particular bad temper. No serious defeats have been inflicted on the legislation—yet. But the original plan, to force it through before the Memorial Day recess, has had to be abandoned. There will be another week’s debate when Congress comes back into session on June 4.

This will be critical. Americans as a whole may think that Washington just imposes its will on them. And with reason. But in Washington, they all genuinely see themselves as victims, clinging to the flotsam and jetsam of elected and appointive office, at the mercy of huge waves of public opinion appearing without warning from Out There.

Supporters of the Senate Sellout are apparently shocked at the ferocity of America’s reaction to their plot. But so, much to my surprise, are the D.C. immigration patriots. Which just goes to show how deceptive the Beltway environment can be.

This is why the immigration enthusiasts manufacture their “pollaganda” with such determined shamelessness. (Steve Sailer will be refuting their latest Kool-Aid on Monday night). And it’s why this sort of story is so important:

Sylvia Warner, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Brighton, said the lawmaker’s office has been receiving lots of telephone calls, faxes and e-mails about the immigration reform proposal.

Warner said 100 percent of the calls, faxes and e-mails oppose the legislation. [VDARE.COM emphasis]

“They see it as amnesty,” Warner said.

Immigration proposals hit a nerve, By Jim Totten, DAILY PRESS & ARGUS (Livingston, MI), Sunday, May 27, 2007.

Back outside the Beltway, I feel a longer perspective creeping over me once again. As I said last year, the passage of the Bush-Kennedy Amnesty/ Immigration Surge will be the beginning, not the end, of America’s immigration Calvary.

But right now, it can be avoided. Everything hangs on what Americans say to their elected officials when they ambush them outside the Beltway this week—and how loudly they say it.