Immigration: The Bush dimension

Reader Paul Donnelly writes in:

FWIW, there's a kind of embedded confusion in your post about immigration extremists. It really is difficult to get a handle on the mess without some reference to the facts of the debate, which is why libertarians, lawyers and the ethnic letterheads with foundation grants are so reluctant to talk in terms of the facts. But they have good reason:

Basically, lawyers like complex rules that don't work. A system with more exceptions than rules is one that rewards lawyers. The key to making more exceptions than rules is Congress making more promises than it keeps.

Liberals (and ethnic based organizations) want more promises. They care somewhat less about delivering on those promises, because to do that would require rules that work -- and thus, choices about things like worksite verification and who gets green cards vs. who gets thrown out of the country, or even kept out in the first place. Liberals and advocacy groups are not in the business of forcing Congress to make choices between more of this, and less of that.

Libertarians don't much care what the rules are, so long as they don't work, because in practice that means employers get to hire cheap labor. They make common cause with both lawyers and liberals (contradicting in the first place, their principles, and in the second their ostensible politics) on immigration issues, primarily because on these issues they are bought and paid for lobbyists for employers who want a subsidy.

The constellation of low-immigration groups ranges from the population control folks (Zero Population Growth, etc.) to the environmental crowd (including, almost, the Sierra Club) to the various anti-foreigner know-nothing folks you talk about, chiefly FAIR -- but it also includes the Center for Immigration Studies, which while it is Scaife-funded has scrupulously tried to "wash the stain of FAIR" out of its drawers, as its director said to me once. They're not all white supremacists, and so the dynamic of how bigotry gets into the mainstream isn't quite how you picture it.

The simplest tests, I suppose, are whether a group that opposes current levels of LEGAL immigration also supported the welfare ban, and if their reasons for opposing a guest worker program is that guest workers and illegals are not allowed to vote.

I know of a CIS guy who approached a CATO fellow not long ago, and challenged him: Look, he said, you guys are proposing to bring in literally millions of low-earning 'immigrants', who sooner or later are going to vote for the kinds of high-tax, high government spending government that you oppose. What gives?

To which the CATO guy responded: Just because we let 'em in, makes you think we're going to let 'em vote?

That's the very effective compromise between the groups you describe and the 'mainstream', because it's not news that the know-nothings are being taken for a ride. What OUGHT to be more widely known is that -- so are the 'pro-immigration' folks who actually give a damn about citizenship and family values.

Paul's point is very well taken. Obviously, not all of these groups are white supremacist. Indeed, the very lack of that characteristic is essential to their "reasonable" front.

The far right has become extremely adept at cloaking itself in recent years. It's become very adept at fronting "conservative" organizations that are adept at echoing their own agendas. You can, however, see the far right's influence in the end result of these groups' positions. As with other "transmissions" where extremist beliefs are advocated in the mainstream, the underlying origins of the organizations, or their funding sources, or their open associations with extremists, or any combination of these, reveals the core agendas at work.

After awhile, it becomes clear enough what is happening with a large number of the anti-immigrant groups. White supremacists have been going to great pains to camouflage their activities since the early 1990s, and this is one of the important ways they do it. In the meantime, you have guys like Michael Savage and Jared Taylor getting on the airwaves and reminding everyone what degraded, nasty citizens those brown people are.

Of the examples Paul cites, it is also important to note that though the CIS -- which indeed has taken pains to distance itself from the know-nothings -- nonetheless is the brainchild of the extremist John Tanton, whose activities and advocacy have on several fronts exposed the racism lurking beneath his modus operandi. If the CIS is trying to wash out its "stain," then perhaps it should avoid activities like this:

Patrick McHugh of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which purports to be a squeaky clean think tank that rejects racism, was there pressing the flesh along with Barbara Coe, head of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform, who repeatedly referred to Mexicans ? as she has for years ? as "savages."

In any event, it should be clear that anyone who assumes that Bush's plan will actually help Hispanic immigrants become citizens with full rights is being suckered. I didn't really delve into what was wrong with Bush's plan -- if only because it is so reasonable in contrast to the anti-immigrant folks. However, even if we take it on its face as a good-faith effort to resolve the problem, its problems are more than abundant. Other bloggers, including It's a Crock and Nathan Newman [notably here, and here] and Daily Kos have delved those issues admirably.

I can't say I've studied the issue thoroughly enough to know exactly what policies I favor when it comes to immigration, in no small part because the issue is profoundly complex. I have no problem with reasonable reform, and I remain convinced the problem will never change as long as the autocratic forces that are responsible for the economic mess in Mexico remain in power. The obvious solution is to ameliorate the "push" aspect of illegal immigration. Unfortunately, some of those same autocrats -- especially the American contingent -- are the people who are footing the bill for these anti-immigrant groups.

All I know is that I know exclusionism, bigotry and selfishness when I hear it. And the far right's reaction -- even under cover of "reasonable" racists like Jared Taylor and John Tanton -- is, at the end of the day, all of the above. Not even all of the examples Paul cites are free of this taint, either. The Sierra Club's near-descent into anti-immigration policy, in fact, was the product of a covert Tanton campaign.

If nothing else, the Bush plan should give impetus to a serious national debate. If we cede the field to the corporatists and the know-nothings, everyone is going to lose.