TUCSON (Economist) December 2, 2005 — There is a state of emergency on the border between Arizona and Mexico, with all the confusion that entails. The radio hisses: “We've got a ‘failure to yield'.” A Border Patrol agent has ordered a vehicle to pull over and seen it speed off instead. He needs back-up. Patrolman Jim Hawkins races towards the scene. Passing a suspicious-looking pick-up truck en route, he sighs that he doesn't have time to stop. A few minutes later, however, the patrolman who called for help manages to catch his prey unassisted, though the driver assaults him, so Mr. Hawkins goes looking for the suspicious pick-up truck. There was someone in it using what looked like a Border Patrol radio, he explains, which could mean that it was a people-smuggler.
Mr. Hawkins's instincts are shrewd, but wrong. The pick-up's driver is using a Border Patrol radio because he is, in fact, a Border Patrol agent, who had impounded the vehicle after finding two dozen illegal aliens squeezed in the back. Their disguise was averagely cunning. They came in a convoy: two pick-ups, each with a sheet of plywood over the bed, painted the same color as the truck itself to make it look like the bed was empty, when in fact it was packed with Mexicans. Some 40 of them—men, women and children—sit glumly beneath a mesquite tree, waiting to be processed. The one smuggler who failed to escape into the roadside bushes stands even more glumly to one side, in handcuffs.
A few miles away and 11 days later, on November 28th, George Bush gave a speech about illegal immigration. “America has always been a compassionate nation that values the newcomer and takes great pride in our immigrant heritage,” the president told patrolmen at an air base in Tucson, Arizona. “Yet we're also a nation built on the rule of law, and those who enter the country illegally violate the law. The American people should not have to choose between a welcoming society and a lawful society. We can have both.”
He then outlined a plan to curb illegal immigration without starving the fruit-picking and construction industries of labor, and without offering “amnesty” to illegals currently on American soil. Given how upset people get about this issue, how hard it is to tackle and how deeply it divides Mr. Bush's own party, political strategists might doubt Mr. Bush's wisdom in making it the last big domestic battle of a wretched year. For Americans outside the Beltway, however, the questions are: “Is it a good plan?” and “Will it work?”.
The problem is familiar. Unlike other rich countries, the United States shares a long border with a poor and populous neighbor. According to the Pew Hispanic Centre, nearly 500,000 unskilled migrants arrive every year to do the kind of strenuous, low-paid jobs that Americans shun. Yet the United States issues only 5,000 visas a year for unskilled foreigners seeking year-round work. As Tamar Jacoby of the conservative Manhattan Institute explained to the Senate in July: “A Mexican without family in the US who wants to do something other than farm work has virtually no legal way to enter the country. And even a man with family here must wait from six to 22 years for a visa.”
So they come illegally, as the stampede of sandy footprints at popular crossing-points attests. Many are caught, but most aren't. Since the penalty for capture is repatriation, the only deterrent to trying again is the $1,500 a head the “coyotes” or smugglers charge. Coyote gangs do not hesitate to beat, rob or kill migrants who enter “their” territory without paying.
Meanwhile, many other foreigners enter America legally but then either stay on after their visas have expired or work when they are not supposed to. All told, there are an estimated 11m “illegal aliens”.
Many Americans do not mind. The illegals undoubtedly boost the economy. They wash dishes more cheaply than locals would, benefiting anybody who ever goes to a restaurant. Without Mexicans, vegetables would go unpicked and nursing homes would be filthy. But others object strongly to illegal immigration. Three reasons are usually cited.
The first is economic. The middle classes may love illegal gardeners, but many unskilled Americans fear being displaced by them, or forced to accept lower wages. “Keep them fools out,” says Alvin Pablo, an unemployed landscaper in Tucson, who says that Mexicans took his job. A recent study by the Congressional Budget Office found that the negative effect of migrants on the wages of unskilled Americans was less clear, and probably lower, than people imagine: it reduced them by something between zero and 10%. But this will hardly comfort Mr. Pablo, who favors erecting a huge fence along the border.
The second gripe about America's porous borders is that they might let terrorists in. A Texan lawmaker claimed this month that al-Qaeda operatives have moved to Mexico, learned Spanish and been caught slipping into the United States disguised as economic migrants. Mr. Bush mentioned terrorism twice in his speech in Tucson.
The
third complaint about illegal aliens is that they are illegal.
The failure to enforce immigration laws undermines the rule of
law itself. Or, as many employers would put it, the fact that
America does not issue enough visas to unskilled workers forces
them to break the law.
Mr. Bush is trying to please as many grumblers as he can. His plan is two-pronged: he wants to tighten controls at the border, while simultaneously relieving pressure on it by “creating a legal channel for those who enter America to do an honest day's labor,” through a new temporary worker program.
More guards, more permits
For the first prong, Mr. Bush is relying on cash and technology. He boasted this week of having increased funding for border security by 60% since taking office. True enough, but, as Ms Jacoby told the Senate, the number of Border Patrol agents has tripled since 1986, and their budget risen tenfold, without noticeably staunching the flow of illegals.
Mr. Bush argued that “cutting-edge equipment like overhead surveillance drones” can give agents a “broader reach”. The border patrollers agree. An unmanned spy plane can hover over the border for 10-12 hours, beams Michael Nicely, the Border Patrol chief for the Tucson sector. His men have all manner of gizmos, from “stop sticks” that slowly deflate the tires of fleeing cars to “pepperball launching systems”—glorified paintball guns that immobilize rowdy smugglers.
Captured migrants sometimes have no idea how they were spotted. Carmen Vasquez, interviewed in a holding pen in Nogales, says she was tip-toeing through the mountains with her family after dark when she was suddenly surrounded by Border Patrol agents on roaring quad bikes. Agent Hawkins explains (though not to Ms Vasquez) that she was seen through an infra-red camera on a distant hilltop. “Don't let anyone tell you we can't control our borders,” says Mr. Nicely, “We just need more resources.” He mentions lights, fences, infra-red cameras and helicopters (of which he already has 53—four times more than are available to help feed Sudan's stricken Darfur region).
As well as catching more illegals, Mr. Bush wants to deal more rationally with those who are caught. He wants to end “catch and release”, the policy whereby four-fifths of non-Mexican illegals, when caught, are released pending an appearance before a judge, to which 75% of them fail to show up. He also touted the success of a pilot scheme in west Arizona where illegal Mexicans, instead of being repatriated to border towns, were flown and then bused back to their hometowns. With further to walk, only 8% of the 35,000 deportees so dealt with were caught again.
But can more gadgets and tougher rules beat market forces? As she waited to be “voluntarily repatriated”, Ms Vasquez said she would like to come back soon. Her sister, she said, makes $1,000 a month cleaning hotel rooms in Florida—ten times what she could earn back home.
Which brings us to the more controversial, and promising, part of Mr. Bush's plan. To “match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do”, he proposes letting illegal aliens currently in America register for legal status. After paying fines and back taxes, they would then be allowed to work for a fixed period, after which they would have to return home. He insisted that this would not constitute an “amnesty”. Right-wingers said it did. “Now we've finally caught the president in a lie,” fumed Neal Boortz, a talk-radio host.
Whether a temporary worker scheme gets off the ground depends on Congress. The Senate is soon to consider two bills. One, sponsored by John McCain (an Arizona Republican) and Ted Kennedy (a Democrat from Massachusetts), calls for a guest-worker program much like Mr. Bush's. The other, sponsored by John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona, both Republicans, lays more emphasis on enforcement. This week, Mr. Bush praised both Mr. McCain and Mr. Kyl.
However the bills are blended together, a guest-worker program will work only if it meets two criteria. First, it must allow a realistic number of temporary work permits—enough to match the demand for migrant labor. Second, employers who hire illegals must be punished, as they rarely have been in the past. Mr. Bush touted a program called “Basic Pilot”, which allows firms to check with a federal database to see whether a prospective worker is legal. And he boasted that swoops on worksites under “Operation Rollback”, which was “completed” this year, resulted in the arrest of hundreds of illegal aliens and convictions against a dozen employers.
Hundreds of arrests, when the total number of illegals is around 11m? That is the kind of number that enrages Chris Simcox, the head of the Minutemen, a group that patrols the border and organizes protests much further inside the country (such as outside a day centre for illegal aliens in Virginia, where they can hook up with employers). He fumes at the “hypocrisy” of “a federal government that will not enforce the rule of law”. He adds: “That's going to lead to anarchy, [and] out-of-control cultural change in this country.”
The mainstream media paint the Minutemen as spiteful and clueless vigilantes. One of them dressed an illegal alien in a T-shirt with the slogan: “Bryan Barton caught me crossing the border and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”. Against this, Mr. Barton was expelled, and in parts of conservative America Minutemen are heroes. A recent CBS poll found that 75% of Americans—and 87% of Republicans—think more should be done to keep illegal aliens out. That is why Mr. Bush has to sound tough.
But not only tough. For a start, the Republicans are keen to woo Latino voters, who are quick to punish politicians who bash their immigrant cousins. Moreover, conservative whites are not as xenophobic as their bumper stickers. They may wax indignant about the need for higher fences, but when asked detailed questions about what should happen to the illegals already in the United States, they quickly turn pragmatic. A recent poll of likely Republican voters by the Manhattan Institute found that only a third favored mass deportations, and only 13% thought it was possible to deport all 11m illegals.
Most encouragingly for Mr. Bush, when asked if they would favor a comprehensive bill that included both tougher enforcement (at the border, and in workplaces) and a way for illegals to get temporary work permits that might, with good behavior, lead to citizenship, 72% of these Republicans said yes. The tired, poor, huddled masses are still welcome.
