Immigration and the Logic of Globalization
In September 2001, Mexican President Vicente Fox visited Washington to discuss with George Bush the status of million Mexicans living and working illegally in the US.
Each president sought what he thought would be the keystone of his presidential legacy—a border open to people as well as goods with a guest worker program to allow Mexicans temporary legal employment in the US. Additionally Fox wanted amnesty for illegals, while Bush wanted to see more effective enforcement measures using "smart border" technology to expedite shipping, frequent travelers and prevent illegal crossings.
Days later the 9/11 attacks swept immigration from the national consciousness. But now it’s back on the national radar screen and dividing Americans across party lines.
In 2006 there are some 11 million Mexican immigrants in the US, most here illegally. In 1970, there were less than 800,000. This increase is not just due to the push factor of a Mexican economy still weak after years of NAFTA but to the pull factors emanating from US businesses that, balancing the potential risks (low) against the obvious benefits of low wages, a docile work force, and weak labor unions weak, actually prefer to hire illegals.
Big business joined moderates of both parties to support what should be properly called the Bush-Fox plan, described by the President in his Oval Office immigration address
There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program of mass deportation. That middle ground recognizes there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years and has a home, a family and an otherwise clean record.
Social conservatives and right-wing populists, nominally Bush’s base who believe with Samuel “Clash of Civilizations” Huntington that Mexican immigration presents “a looming challenge to our cultural integrity, our national identity, and potentially to our future as a country,” are not buying it. They want to build walls, make it a felony to be here illegally, and round up and return all undocumented residents.
Thus politics has forced Bush to temporarily replace smart border strategy with dumb border strategy by deploying National Guardsmen to “beef up” the Boarder Patrol. But the truth is neither Minuteman wackos nor National Guardsmen on the border, nor a 3,000 mile wall, nor a guest worker program, nor amnesty will solve the problem of economic migration from Mexico and elsewhere.
Bush uncharacteristically spoke of finding a “rational middle” but, his good intentions notwithstanding, he and all of the participants in this debate have ignored the operative rationality—that of globalization. For untold centuries people have voted with their feet, leaving oppressive regimes and broken economies in search of a better life. Only from the mid-19th, century, that period of imperialism, national economies, protective tariffs, and isolationism, were countries able to regulate who came and went.
The logic of globalization, which promotes the free movement of goods, capital, services, and ideas, and allows American businessmen to locate service centers and factories where ever costs are lowest, must also allow the free movement of labor—that is people. Globalization, followed to its logical conclusion, then also requires that barriers to immigration and emigration fall.
The logic of globalization is that America return to its greatest tradition as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free (subject to criminal background checks). If America opens its borders to all, oppressive regimes everywhere will tremble and throw up barriers to prevent the Exodus of their people. Immigrants who risk their lives to come here are voting for America with their feet. And the last time I checked America needs all the friends it can get.
Each president sought what he thought would be the keystone of his presidential legacy—a border open to people as well as goods with a guest worker program to allow Mexicans temporary legal employment in the US. Additionally Fox wanted amnesty for illegals, while Bush wanted to see more effective enforcement measures using "smart border" technology to expedite shipping, frequent travelers and prevent illegal crossings.
Days later the 9/11 attacks swept immigration from the national consciousness. But now it’s back on the national radar screen and dividing Americans across party lines.
In 2006 there are some 11 million Mexican immigrants in the US, most here illegally. In 1970, there were less than 800,000. This increase is not just due to the push factor of a Mexican economy still weak after years of NAFTA but to the pull factors emanating from US businesses that, balancing the potential risks (low) against the obvious benefits of low wages, a docile work force, and weak labor unions weak, actually prefer to hire illegals.
Big business joined moderates of both parties to support what should be properly called the Bush-Fox plan, described by the President in his Oval Office immigration address
There is a rational middle ground between granting an automatic path to citizenship for every illegal immigrant and a program of mass deportation. That middle ground recognizes there are differences between an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years and has a home, a family and an otherwise clean record.
Social conservatives and right-wing populists, nominally Bush’s base who believe with Samuel “Clash of Civilizations” Huntington that Mexican immigration presents “a looming challenge to our cultural integrity, our national identity, and potentially to our future as a country,” are not buying it. They want to build walls, make it a felony to be here illegally, and round up and return all undocumented residents.
Thus politics has forced Bush to temporarily replace smart border strategy with dumb border strategy by deploying National Guardsmen to “beef up” the Boarder Patrol. But the truth is neither Minuteman wackos nor National Guardsmen on the border, nor a 3,000 mile wall, nor a guest worker program, nor amnesty will solve the problem of economic migration from Mexico and elsewhere.
Bush uncharacteristically spoke of finding a “rational middle” but, his good intentions notwithstanding, he and all of the participants in this debate have ignored the operative rationality—that of globalization. For untold centuries people have voted with their feet, leaving oppressive regimes and broken economies in search of a better life. Only from the mid-19th, century, that period of imperialism, national economies, protective tariffs, and isolationism, were countries able to regulate who came and went.
The logic of globalization, which promotes the free movement of goods, capital, services, and ideas, and allows American businessmen to locate service centers and factories where ever costs are lowest, must also allow the free movement of labor—that is people. Globalization, followed to its logical conclusion, then also requires that barriers to immigration and emigration fall.
The logic of globalization is that America return to its greatest tradition as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free (subject to criminal background checks). If America opens its borders to all, oppressive regimes everywhere will tremble and throw up barriers to prevent the Exodus of their people. Immigrants who risk their lives to come here are voting for America with their feet. And the last time I checked America needs all the friends it can get.
posted by Bill Schell at 9:53 AM
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