I am not persuaded by Zaid Jilani's argument about immigration

This piece by Zaid Jilani at Persuasion suggests that both the right and left have a mistaken impression of immigrants, but only makes the case halfway. Let's start with the headline:

Well, surely at a publication named Persuasion, Jilani will back up this assertion with some evidence, right?

Kind of.

Fearmongering about the ways in which immigrants will transform America is a hallmark of the conservative movement in the age of Donald Trump. Ann Coulter, the far-right provocateur, recently warned that “legal immigration is going to destroy this country.” The more moderate Hudson Institute has claimed that the country’s “patriotic assimilation system is broken.” Even Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has argued for a “cultural distance nationalism” which effectively leads to the conclusion that “our country will be better off with more whites and fewer non-whites.”

Makes sense. Now, as for the left?

Despite their righteous defense of immigrants, many leftists share a remarkably similar view: they too assume that most immigrants are antagonistic to American culture. Trying to appeal to a group of immigrants in Tennessee during his abortive run for the presidency, for example, Beto O’Rourke told them that “this country was founded on white supremacy. And every single institution and structure that we have in this country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow.” Like O’Rourke, many left-wing activists simply assume that immigrants will be sympathetic to a worldview that describes America as a “failed social experiment.”

Now: It's unfair perhaps to ask a paragraph to make an expansive case for an idea. But Jilani did a pretty good job with conservatives, selecting four examples of people and institutions that are influential among conservatives.

With the left, though, he found ... one comment from a failed presidential candidate. And that statement doesn't tell immigrants not to be patriotic! It just offers a pretty typical left-of-center argument about the history of this country. The Cornel West quote Jilani offers has nothing to do with immigration, either. 

Basically, Jilani just assumes the left is unpatriotic. He bases this more on his own college-era reading of Noam Chomsky than anything else. Perhaps it depends on your definition of patriotism -- if it includes "turning a blind eye to America's sins," as a lot of conservatives seem to think, maybe he's right. But I suspect this is just false evenhandedness -- both conservatives and liberals are wrong! -- in the name of trying to ... persuade. But that actually makes it unpersuasive.

If Trump were merely competent...

... he would be a lot more dangerous. And a bunch of DACA recipients would probably be preparing for deportation today.

SCOTUS today overturned Trump's decision to end DACA because he didn't follow procedures required by the Administrative Procedure Act, which guides executive branch rule-making. If Trump and his lackeys had simply crossed their Ts and dotted their Is, it's a good bet they would've won today.

This is the pattern: 

I'm not sure that it's possible to elected a version of Trump that is more competent and less given to shortcuts -- Trumpism, to a large degree, is a set of impulses more than an ideology -- but just imagine if that actually happened. If somebody with Trump's inclinations and a bit of self-discipline took the White House (say, somebody like Tom Cotton or Tucker Carlson) they would probably be much more successful at turning their inclinations into actual public policy. We're not dodging Trumpian bullets because he's wrong, but because he's so bad at the actual business of governing. That's too close a call.

Reader response: Are immigrants 'invading' America? (No.)

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán from Pexels

In response to my "End the Border Patrol" column for The Week, a reader who identifies himself as a retired Air Force colonel writes:

What we have on our nation's southern border is no less than an invasion. An invasion of people trying to enter this country illegally--i.e., against the law. And who makes the laws of this country? You know good and well--Congress. So, we obey the laws that exist and if Congress wants something else, than they should DO THEIR JOBS.

Attila the Hun invaded Western Europe with fewer people and this nation cannot let its borders and sovereignty be disregarded as being done by these modern day invaders.

There's more, but you get the idea.

My response, in part:

I thank you for your letter, but I must strenuously disagree with your use of the word "invasion." As a member of the military, you surely know better.

If war is politics by other means, than an invasion is pointedly and purposefully political: A concerted attempt to commandeer the rule of people and land from the current owners.

The current wave of migration we see is no such thing. People and their families are fleeing poverty and violence in order to pursue better lives. They seem willing to work for that chance at improvement; I see no evidence they are trying to usurp American self-government, that they're trying to take property that isn't theirs, or even that they're really all that organized, "caravans" notwithstanding.

If you found your family threatened by violence, and yourself unable to financially support them, I daresay you might try to move to someplace you could. You would not be invading that new place.

Anti-immigration activists try to treat migration in militaristic terms, as invaders. Actually, they more closely resemble the pilgrims whose migration to America planted the seeds for the holiday we collectively celebrate tomorrow. That's no invasion.

The Ceaseless Importation of Third World Foreigners With No Taste for Liberty (Part 2)

“The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle." Michael Anton, AKA "Decius," The Flight 93 Election.
HuffPo:

A 22-year-old undocumented immigrant arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday after speaking to the media about her family’s detention, is set to be deported without a court hearing, her attorney said on Thursday.

Daniela Vargas, who came to the U.S. from Argentina when she was 7 years old, previously had a work permit and deportation reprieve under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Her DACA status expired last November, and because she was saving money for the renewal — which cost $495 — her new application wasn’t received until Feb. 10.

If Trumpista worries about immigration were truly about liberty and "culture" you'd think that something could be done about the so called "Dreamers" — adult immigrants brought here as children — short of deportation. After all, these are a group of people largely raised as Americans;  they have spent lives immersed in our country and its traditions, and they do have the taste for and experience of American variety of liberty. With rare exception, they are assimilated.

So why is it so important to deport them? Why the resistance to any legal framework that lets them become citizens?

The Ceaseless Importation of Third World Foreigners With No Taste for Liberty

“The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle." Decius, The Flight 93 Election.

Here's one of those Third Worlders with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty:

"One night last fall, when the Fire Department was battling a two-alarm blaze, Mr. Hernandez suddenly appeared with meals for the firefighters. How he hosted a Law Enforcement Appreciation Day at the restaurant last summer as police officers were facing criticism around the country. How he took part in just about every community committee or charity effort — the Rotary Club, cancer fund-raisers, cleanup days, even scholarships for the Redbirds, the high school sports teams, which are the pride of this city."

Mr. Hernandez is being deported. Thank Jesus he'll no longer be able to make his community less American.

Why Does Mexico Have to Pay for the Wall?

One question I've not really seen asked or answered:Why is it so important that Mexico pay for our wall? We're the ones who want it — I say "we" loosely here — and will build it. If I build a fence on my property, I don't make my neighbor pay. I don't even ask! So why is that so important, except as a means of demonstrating that "making America great" means forcing neighbors to do our will?

FYI: Trump, Immigrants, and Crimes

NYT:

A central point of an executive order President Trump signed on Wednesday — and a mainstay of his campaign speeches — is the view that undocumented immigrants pose a threat to public safety. 

But several studies, over many years, have concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States. And experts say the available evidence does not support the idea that undocumented immigrants commit a disproportionate share of crime. 

“There’s no way I can mess with the numbers to get a different conclusion,” said Alex Nowrasteh, immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, which advocates more liberal immigration laws.

Conservatives? Want tougher enforcement of immigration laws? You're going to have to grow the federal bureaucracy

To listen to Republicans in the presidential primary debates, you'd think Barack Obama had thrown open the borders to the United States to every Tom, Dick, and Juan who wants to stream over the southern border. That's not true, of course: Obama's deported nearly as many illegal immigrants in less than three years than George W. Bush did in eight. 

But there are still illegal immigrants in the United States, so clearly he's doing something wrong. Right?

Maybe you can ship all 11 million illegal immigrants out of the country. But here's the thing, conservatives: You're going to need a much bigger federal bureaucracy to get the job done. According to a Washington Post profile this morning, the U.S. only has the budget to deport 400,000 illegal immigrants a year.  At that rate, it'll only take 27.5 years to ship everybody else—assuming, of course, you can keep everybody else out.

If you want tougher enforcement that includes deportation of any immigrant found to be here illegally, you're going to have to raise the budget for border enforcement considerably. You're going to have to hire a lot of new immigration agents. That's going to expand the federal workforce—something conservatives seem to hate—and spend a lot of money, something conservatives undoubtedly hate. If bigger government is an evil in its own right, then the only solution here is more evil.

Or we could reform our system to offer more guest-worker visas and generally allow more legal immigration. But that would make too much sense.

George Will's silly plan for Republican outreach to Latinos

George Will thinks the GOP can capture some of the Latino vote by ... making Puerto Rico a state. He uses his Sunday column to profile Luis Fortuno, the Republican governor of Puerto Rico:

Conservatives need a strategy for addressing the immigration issue without alienating America's largest and most rapidly growing minority. Conservatives believe the southern border must be secured before there can be "comprehensive" immigration reform that resolves the status of the 11 million illegal immigrants. But this policy risks making Republicans seem hostile to Hispanics.

Fortuno wants Republicans to couple insistence on border enforcement with support for Puerto Rican statehood. This, he says, would resonate deeply among Hispanics nationwide.

But why would that be the case? Latinos aren't abandoning the Republican Party over concerns about the citizenship of other Latinos 1,000 miles away from U.S. shores. They're abandoning the GOP because they don't like how Republicans are treating them right here in the lower 48 states. The Arizona immigration-enforcement law, as has been much noted, makes it likely that U.S. citizens and legal immigrants of Latino descent will have to go the extra mile to literally prove themselves to police -- all by virtue of their race.

Making Puerto Rico a state doesn't address those concerns. Using the rationale offered by Will and Fortuno, it frankly smacks of a "some of my best friends are Latinos" tokenism -- we're happy to bring a majority Latino state into the union, it seems, as long as that state can only be reached by plane or boat. Such factors would probably exacerbate the GOP's image problem among Hispanics, and probably deservedly so.

Arizona will stop enforcing a controversial law

No, not that law:

At the first tick of the clock Friday, an array of automated cameras on Arizona freeways aimed at catching speeders were to stop clicking.

There is no glitch. The state, the first to adopt such cameras on its highways in October 2008, has become the first to pull the plug, bowing to the wishes of a vocal band of conservative activists who complained that photo enforcement intruded on privacy and was mainly designed to raise money.

It was a tumultuous, impassioned run here. A man wearing a monkey mask racked up dozens of tickets, fighting them in court, to protest the system.

Some of the loudest critics were conservatives, who organized protest groups and prodded legislators to impose restrictions on their use, arguing the cameras amounted to, as one put it, the “government spying on its citizens.”

The data suggested that the system led to a 19-percent drop in fatal collisions. But it's good that Arizona officials see the wisdom of backing away from an intrusive law that seems likely to catch and penalize a fair number of innocent people in its sweep. If only that logic were applied more widely.

It all depends on whose ox is being gored, I guess.

The Arizona immigration law

Ben Boychuk and I debate the issue in our Scripps Howard column this week. My take:

When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will be immigrants.

That's the real problem in Arizona. There's obviously a great demand for the services of immigrant workers, or the supply wouldn't keep pouring over U.S. borders. If America would allow more legal immigration -- and more guest worker visas -- more of those workers could come in through the country's front door instead of over the back fence. There would be less need for the coyotes and traffickers who bring them into the country, and less opportunity for American employers to exploit their legal, documented employees.

Many of the ills we associate with illegal immigration would be reduced if only we had a sane immigration policy.

But that's Washington's job to solve. It's not doing that job. So you can't blame Arizonans for wanting to do everything in their power to fix their own problems. You can, however, blame them for the approach they've decided to take.

Sure, Americans are asked every day to produce identification. But we don't ask only Hispanic residents to provide their ID when boarding a plane, buying booze, applying for a job or for government benefits. Police enforcing the new law will surely single out Latinos -- legal or not, born here or not -- for such treatment. It's a demeaning, hostile act that will alienate and intimidate many Latino citizens, folks as American as you or I. It's treatment that the white majority would never stand for, but is willing to inflict on others.

Yes, America's immigration policy is a mess. Trying to fix its ills with a bad law will only make things worse. Doing so in a racially divisive and demeaning manner is unconscionable. The Republican Party that passed this law will pay the price as Hispanics become a larger part of the electorate. And Arizona will have to live with the self-inflicted smear on the state's good name.

Ben's got a cautious defense of the law. Read the whole thing!