Immigration and the Decline of the West

By Mark Steyn,

[T]he shifting rationale for mass immigration may not illuminate much about the immigrants but it certainly tells you something about the natives: Originally, European leaders said, we needed immigrants to work in the mills and factories. But the mills and factories closed. So the new rationale was that we needed young immigrants to keep the welfare state solvent. But in Germany the Turks retire even younger than the Krauts do, and in France 65 percent of imams are on the dole. So the surviving rationale is that a dependence on mass immigration is not a structural flaw but a sign of moral virtue. The evolving justification for post-war immigration policy — from manufacturing to welfare to moral narcissism — is itself a perfect shorthand for Western decay. 

 Read the whole thing here.

Globalization 101

Sebastian Mallaby notes an interesting shift taking place. He starts by telling the plain truth:

Anyone who understands Globalization 101 knows that immigration, including large-scale unskilled immigration, is a fact of the modern world. Mexican laborers who migrate to the United States stand to see their wages triple or more: No amount of border security is going to keep them from coming. Chasing down and deporting illegal workers is costly to U.S. taxpayers, cruel to immigrants, disruptive for U.S. employers, expensive for U.S. consumers -- and, most of all, futile. People who yell "amnesty" merely reveal that they don't understand the world we live in.

The immigration issue has scrambled the usual positions of the parties. Regarding the Republicans he writes:

[T]he Republican Party, which prides itself on understanding globalization when it comes to capital flows or trade, is blind to the global labor market.

He points out that, while Bush and McCain are talking reasonably about immigration, the other candidates are not. The current front-runner, Mayor Giuliani, suggests with every speech he gives on the subject of immigration or health care that he is a total economic ignoramus.

And what about the Democrats:

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is sounding less bad on globalization than might have been expected. After last year's midterm elections, the Democrats seemed ready to turn against trade and foreign investment. They have duly forced dubious labor standards into trade pacts with Peru and Panama, and they have failed so far to renew the president's authority to negotiate trade deals, which expires at the end of this month. But the bill emerging from Congress on the process for putting inward investment through a security review resists the temptation for paranoid obstructionism. And leading Democrats have indicated that they'll support the Doha round of global trade talks if negotiators can revive it.

And what about immigration?

Compared with the immigrant bashing that has dominated Republican presidential debates, Democratic presidential hopefuls have sounded sweetly reasonable. With the exception of the no-hoper Dennis Kucinich, none has pressed protectionist themes. There is no equivalent to the Dick Gephardt of 1988, who won the Iowa caucuses on an anti-trade ticket.

Instead, the Democratic candidates are focusing on helping the economy's losers without restricting trade, which is exactly what they should be doing.

Indeed! It's been a long time since the Democrats have taken a reasonable position on much of anything, but maybe, just maybe, they are beginning to realize that with the power of governing comes great responsibility.

We can hope.

As the Republican Party spirals into the swamp of nativist insanity, Democrats are beginning to sound reasonable. If this keeps on, I may have to reconsider my vote.

Read the whole article here.

UPDATE:

One of my readers makes strong objections to my use of the term "nativist insanity". Perhaps that's too strong a term, but the similarity between the rhetoric of today's restrictionists and past nativist movements is unmistakable and the political divisiveness the movement has engendered threatens to marginalize the entire Republican party. In political terms, that is insane.

The situation raises a ticklish dilemma. Either we must marginalize the restrictionists or we must reassess nativists movements of the past. How many of you would be willing to say that the anti-immigration movements of the past had good and legitimate reasons for wanting to keep the Italians, the Jews, the Irish and other immigrant groups out of the country or the Blacks down on the farm and out of the cities?

Think about it.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Peggy Noonan, high priestess of the Cult of Reagan, feels that her peeps aren't getting enough respect from the Bushies. She writes:

For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.

But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."

The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."

Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement.

Read the whole thing here.

The arrogance of these people -- indeed! Not President Bush and his supporters, but the "movement conservatives" who presume to judge them.

All too often movement conservatives have rallied in defense of narrow ethnic or class interests and against the general welfare of the nation. Their willingness to stir themselves into a towering outrage at real or imagined slights betrays the insecurity of their position. They know, deep in their hearts, that their objection to immigrants has little to do with national security concerns, or illegal status, but with the simple fact that they want to restrict the number of Hispanics in our society. Their solution to the innumerable problems caused by immigration -- get rid of the immigrants. They use the outrageous actions and positions taken by an activist minority to tar the entire immigrant population, not realizing that their own extremism and irreconcilable stance is doing real damage to both the movement and the Republican Party generally.

A recent e-mail summarizes the arguments -- I quote it in full and preface it with a note that I know the author. He is a good, intelligent, educated and patriotic man, deeply concerned about the future of his family, his community, and his country. The views he expresses are widely shared among movement conservatives and [Noonan is right on this point] should not be dismissed out of hand. But, they are ultimately self-defeating and pose far greater dangers than the writer and restrictionists in general appreciate.

Here goes:

You better spend some time in the real world. Crime is up in the "illegal"
immigrant portion of the crime reports, hospitals are complaining about the
cost of treating undocumenteds, anchor babies are contributing nothing to
the system.

Don't give me that crap about paying taxes, etc. Do you really think the
day laborers have their SS paid by their employers? And why is 60% of
Mexico's GDP from foreign money transfers?

You need to talk to some real people sometimes. Learn about the bodegas
that sell SS cards, drivers licenses, etc.

And Bush's plans are totally unenforeable and the tax consequences are
staggering with no guarantees they'll ever pay anything.

Read the bill. I have. All 128 pages (with amendments, earmarks and various
errata).

Close the border. Identify the current "undocumenteds". Find out how they
work and fine the shit outta their employers.

What part of "illegal" don't you understand? If someone forced their way
into your home, took your food, took your clothes, your car, your money,
wouldn't you call the cops? Simplistic I know but consider the source and
the audience.

Press 1 for English my ass.

the local yokel now has classified help wanteds in SPANISH which is vaguely
discriminatory cause Rufus and Remus can't read English half the time and it
is exclusionary to a vast portion of the population. Employers aim for
these peeps knowing they can pay them less, get labor on the cheap and not
have to worry about paying their withholdings over to Uncle Sam.

Rant over. Let them wait in line. How many Ft Dix 6 do we need?

These are legitimate concerns and deserve a respectful hearing, but so too are the concerns voiced by immigrant workers who are trying to make a better life for themselves and their families. Today I was talking with just such a person -- an immigrant who works here in the city. He, too, is an inhabitant of the "real world". I have known him for some time. He is a good man, a hard worker, and a concerned father who remits much of the money he earns back to his family in Mexico. He is trying to build a better life for his wife and children, and he worries terribly about the current political climate. He too deserves a respectful hearing.

And, faced with competing legitimate concerns, President Bush and Senate leaders are trying to forge a humane compromise. Of course the result is messy and often inconsistent and problematic -- how could it not be -- but it, too, is deserving of a respect. This is not a time for outraged sensibilities and temper tantrums and tribal rants. This is a time to come together to forge a decent and humane set of policies that will accommodate the legitimate concerns of all.

I applaud President Bush for his efforts in this regard. He knows, and takes seriously, his charge to be president of all the people, not the leader of a narrow and exclusionary movement. He is a good man -- a better man than many of his critics.

A question for Ms. Noonan, and my correspondent.

When you watched "Gangs of New York" which side did you root for?

Hazleton on Trial

Testimony has concluded in the ACLU’s suit against Hazleton’s “Illegal Immigration Relief Act.” A federal judge will hand down his decision in June. It will probably go against the town. In the meantime we can consider some of the things that have come to light regarding the case.

Steve Chapman, writing in Townhall, notes:

The trial… has not shed flattering light on the competence of those who drafted the law. Mayor Lou Barletta said he was compelled to act when a resident was shot to death, allegedly by two illegal immigrants.

But he had trouble explaining why, if illegal immigrants generate crime, they have been implicated in only about 20 of the 8,500 felonies committed in Hazleton in the last six years. ACLU attorney Witold Walczak also pointed out that amid this supposed crime wave, the city has reduced the size of the police force, despite having a budget surplus.

If Hazleton’s illegal immigrants are prone to crime, they’re the exception. Despite the growth of illegal immigration in the last decade, crime rates have dropped sharply across the country. This may not be a coincidence. In every ethnic group, reports a recent study by Ruben Rumbaut and Walter Ewing for the American Immigration Law Foundation, young men born in the U.S. are far more likely to wind up in prison than those who come here later.

In Hazleton, as elsewhere, the main reason Latino foreigners come is to work and stay out of trouble. In fact, those qualities are the same ones that get them accused of stealing jobs. Even those immigrants who work off the books contribute to the economic health of local businesses by buying goods and services. Hazleton has seen an expansion of its tax base.

So it’s too simple to blame all the city’s newfound troubles on illegal immigrants.

Read the whole thing here.

Chapman argues that the anti-immigrant legislation does not reflect prejudice so much as the strain on local resources caused by the sudden influx of thousands of new residents. He calls on the federal government to stem the tide of immigrants.

But then Julia Vitello-Martin, writing in the Wall Street Journal, reports:

Mayor Lou Barletta argued that some 10,000 undocumented immigrants have ruined Hazleton’s quality of life: Violent crime has doubled in the past two years, unreimbursed medical expenses at local hospitals have jumped 60% and the annual school budget for teaching English as a second language has soared to $875,000 from $500. Yet business owners and landlords argued the opposite–that immigrants had revitalized Hazleton’s moribund economy, filling once-vacant apartments and patronizing once-declining businesses. As a result, Hazleton’s budget has been in the black for three years–a far cry from its $1.2 million deficit in 2000.

So apparently the influx has had a beneficial effect on local resources. Ms. Vitullo-Martin notes that this has been a general pattern in other cities that serve as immigrant destinations.

Read it here.

So, if it isn’t an upsurge in crime, or depletion of local resources, then what is left? Sheer prejudice? I think not.

A friend of mine from Hazleton explains:

[T]he thing is not the sheer number of crimes, but the types of crimes that were committed. Very public ones, very frightening ones. It was the couple of drive-by shootings and, I think especially, the melees and assaults and alleged rapes in public schools, and the brandishing of guns in playgrounds and malls. There may not have been all that many of these events, but their symbolic import is out of all proportion to their actual numbers: they are the sorts of things that seem to indicate that anarchy is actually engulfing the place. And the cultural issues matter, too. It really does matter when people don’t bother to use garbage cans, and befoul neighborhoods that people had once at least tried to keep reasonably clean. The loud music that makes sleep difficult, the smarmy sexual come-ons to unescorted women on the streets. They matter. They aren’t felonies. In fact, they’re standard operating procedure in the barrios of San Juan. But they matter.

Indeed they do! Behavior that outrages mainstream middle-class sensibilities is an important element in quality-of-life issues and a clash of cultures can explain a lot of the anti-immigrant reaction, but even this is something of a fantasy.
My friend writes:

I see Hazleton as a place where a lot of ordinary, middle-to-working class people wanted nothing other than to be allowed to live the way they had lived for years.

I’m sure that a lot of people see things that way. However, as Ms. Vitello-Martin, points out — change was already taking place before the immigrant influx. The downtowns of small cities were already hollowing out as businesses and people moved away, and rather than precipitating decline, immigrants were responding to it, flocking to places were property values and rents had already declined to the point where homes were now affordable even to recent arrivals in the country. Immigrants are being blamed for a decline that they did not cause, and to which they may well represent a solution.

So what we are left with is outraged sensibilities, and as my friend pointed out, they do matter. The question is, do they matter more than the aspirations of the newcomers and the economic revitalization they represent?