White smoke from the Senate

The Judiciary Committee has approved a proposal. It includes a guest-worker program plus more enforcement. Details are still sketchy.

This game is not over by any means. The full Senate has to weigh-in and it must be reconcilled with the harsh House proposal.

Reynolds on immigration

Glenn Reynolds, to his credit, has a worthwhile piece on immigration out today.

Rivers of people....rivers of backlash?

The L.A. march was truly impressive. One does not see 500,000 people on the streets (peacefully) very often, anywhere. One wonders what will happen with this "people power" if Congress passes a harsh, enforcement-only immigration bill.

Will the Average Joe be offended after seeing so many immigrants, legal or not, waving Mexican (and U.S.) flags? Mickey Kaus certainly thinks so.

Certainly, it is hard for me to gage the antipathy of U.S. natives to Latinos, although I'm increasingly pessimistic. It seems shocking, for instance, that most white Americans believe that Mexicans do not and will bother to learn English (something that is true only of the most recent arrivals).

What seems fairly certain is that the huge gulf between both populations will lead to a very suboptimal result if indeed some sort of immigration reform comes to pass.

Crunch time

It seems that next week the Senate will determine the shape of its immigration reform proposal. The politics are rather complex, as this article starkly shows.

The sticking point: Republicans are split. These paragraphs summ it up quite nicely:

For Republican presidential candidates, immigration offers up a difficult choice: Appeal to conservatives eager to clamp down on illegal immigration who could buoy your position in the primaries, or take a moderate stand to win independents and the growing Latino vote, which could be vital to winning the general election.

"The short-term politics of this are pretty clear. The long-term politics are pretty clear. And they're both at odds," said Mike Buttry, a spokesman for Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), another potential GOP presidential candidate.

In other words, Republicans are tempted to use immigration as their new "Southern strategy", which paid handsome dividends for them over the last three decades. However, demographics argue that over the long-run turning Latinos into yellow dog Democrats is suicide for the GOP.

This situation explains why GOP extremists, like Tom Tancredo, are pushing for massive deportations. They know that this is their last chance: if they can't push the 12 million illegals out of the country, the political weight of Latinos will grow very quickly in the future, making it very unlikely that harsh reprisals will be taken against them.

Needless to say, I believe their efforts are doomed. The U.S. would lose its soul if it undertook massive deportations. Even in these troubled times, I don't believe most citizens, even conservatives, would be willing to make that sacrifice for illusory security

The Senate debate

The Senate has been debating on immigration this month. I'm on holiday and haven't had time keep up, but I did run into this piece, which examines the efforts of the Republican right, namely Bill Frist, to reduce the whole issue into enforcement.

100,000 on the march

Yes, that was the turnout in a massive march held in Chicago to protest the anti-immigrant legislation currently making its way through Congress.

While it is encouraging that immigrants are making themselves heard, I do wonder how the anti-immigrant right will respond.

In any case, given the prevailing climate (see Dan Drezner on this), I'm pretty sure that nothing good can come out of Congress right now.

If the U.S. border region was the 51st state.....

See for yourself here.

I'll mention a few highlights of this descriptive study by the Border Counties Coalition. Compared to the other 50 states, the 24 U.S.-Mexico border counties would rank:

2nd in the percentage of its population under 18
5th in unemployment
13th in population
16th in violent crime
22nd in home ownership
39th in infant mortality
51st in per capita income

Needless to say, some indicators are not good, while others (say, infant mortality) are surprisingly good.

Economists on immigration

Gary Becker and Richard Posner, two lining legends in economics, debate the issue of illegal immigration in their blog (Becker's view here and Posner's here). Worth checking out, as they clearly show that this is a complex issue with no easy solutions.

California is relaxed, but what about the rest of the nation?

Interesting results from a poll of Californians. The headline numbers are that the percentage of persons "extremely concerned" with illegal immigration dropped from 53% to 46% between 1996 and 2006. At the other end, the percentage that were "not concerned" jumped from 12% to 26%.

One would think that this can be explained by the growing proportion of Latinos in the population, but that seems not to be the case: 49% of Lainos were "extremely concerned", versus 42% for whites.

Of course, the meaning of "extremely concerned" likely is very different in each group. For Latinos, it probablly reflects concern about the backlash against immigration, while for whites it likely means that they see negative consequences of high immigration.

Too many immigrants?

Yesterday I linked to the Pew Hispanic Center's study about the number of immigrants and immigration flows. The figure of 12 million illegal immigrants obviously grabbed the headlines. Yet, the study also provides many other interesting tidbits.

Take for example the fact that the decade between 1991 and 2000 saw the estimated arrival of nearly 14 million immigrants (legal and illegal. That is 40% higher than the total for the previous decade and nearly three times higher than the total for the 1970´s.

This fact really jumps about because it does hint at why there's a growing backlash at immigration: most Americans who grew up in the 1950´s, 60´s and 70´s, precisely those who nowadays dominate politics and the media, had little contact with immigrants because....there were few of them. This has changed radically in a decade and a half. And change often makes people uneasy, specially since Hispanics, who make up the bulk of immigrants, have started to spread out to areas where they basically had never lived in (see this example).

Yet, the 1990´s were fairly tame in historical terms. The flow of immigrants that decade amounted to 5.6% of the total population of the U.S. as of 2000. Between 1901 and 1910, that flow reached an all-time high of 11.8% of the population.

Of course, after 1920 the U.S. drastically cut the flow of immigrants (in the 1930´s only half a million arrived) and many opponents of immigration want to the same thing today, arguing that the current wave of immigrants needs "time" to assimilate without the disruption of newer waves. This argument may or may not have merits, but even if it did, a shutdown like the one described is not warranted by the data.

Bottom line: In relative terms, the U.S. had nearly 100 years of proportionately higher immigrant flows than the one observed in the 1990´s and it did just fine.

My purpose

I’m not a big fan of elaborate introductions or lengthy purpose statements. However, I do feel the need to state why I started this blog and to summarize my personal beliefs (and/or biases, depending on how you look at it). This is useful, but not fun. Feel free to skip it! But in any case, thanks for stopping by.

First off, I’m interested in immigration and the complex relationship between the U.S. and Mexico mostly for personal reasons. In this sense, I believe I can add value to this discussion because I do have a fairly unique background.

Although born and mostly raised in Mexico, I’ve lived on and off in the U.S. (legally, if you must ask) and my family has straddled both sides of the border for generations. Curiously, a good chunk of my ancestors were Americans, or rather mad Englishmen who originally moved here and somehow ended up in Mexico. As such, in the odious American ethnic classification system I’d probably be called an American-Mexican.

I’d also add that my academic background is in economics, but I have a passionate interest in other disciplines, such as history and finance.

That’s enough about me. What I’m interested in are ideas and facts. Having watched the ongoing debate about immigration from the perspectives of both nations, I’ve become increasingly alarmed and thus compelled to add my two cents worth.

What worries me so much? On the U.S. side, opponents of immigration are growing increasingly bold and shrill. For the record, I believe that people can be in favor of restricting immigration and controlling the border for very legitimate reasons, such as the impact of incoming migrants on the wages of native workers, security concerns and even on the grounds of assimilations and social cohesion.

Yet, many of those who are in this camp are clearly motivated by rank xenophobia/racism. Simply put, they dislike Mexicans and other Hispanics and want them out. Their arsenal, besides shrillness, consists of any number of unproven clichés, half-truths and distortions. Most notable among them is the canard is that Mexicans want to take back the territories lost in the War of 1846. Or trying to cast illegal aliens as simple criminals. Incredibly, they don’t acknowledge that they have long border with a nation of 105 million people and, no matter what they do, a sizable population of Mexican-Americans.

On the Mexican side, immigration has also become a huge topic, but mostly for the wrong reasons. The negative impact, such as the consequences of splitting families, are hardly ever discussed. Meanwhile, Mexican politicians never miss the chance to chastise the U.S. for the ill treatment of migrants, while evading all responsibility for the reasons that make them abandon their communities. To this I would add the fact that very, very few Mexicans have any idea about how the U.S. really works or about general U.S. opinion.

What should be done? Clearly, the current situation is not sustainable. Even if the backlash against immigrants fails to gain ground, it’s a matter of time before the anarchy in the border leads to a very nasty event (such as terrorist infiltration). To remedy this, both nations need to talk in good faith and negotiate. I’m convinced that a decent agreement that is good in the long run for both nations can be reached.

Mexico should recognize that the U.S. has legitimate concerns about the consequences of the current huge, uncontrolled wave of immigration and that it has the right to control or even stem it. Also, it will have to swallow the fact that any solution will involve tackling Mexico’s many problems with serious, painful (in political terms) reforms and that the U.S. will have a strong voice in this process.

The U.S. can begin by recognizing that it cannot impose a unilateral solution, such as the one advocated by those who want a 2,000 mile fence on the border and the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants. In other words, it has to realize that Mexico’s concerns and needs have to be addressed. Needless to say, it will have to assume a much more prominent role in pushing Mexico to reform while at the same time doing more to help and integrate the millions of immigrants who are already here.

I’m afraid that I’ve gone on long enough. Soon I’ll try to post the basic principles which any mayor immigration reform and agreement should be based on. In the meantime, I’ll be posting about new developments

The moderates' voice

One of the main problems immigrants have in the U.S. is that, by definition, they don't have a political voice to make their concerns heard or defend their interest. This unsustainable vaccum is filled, for better or for worse, with many loony, far-left types (or nakedly self-interested groups, such as the Catholic church. Don't get me wrong: many of them do excellent, praise-worthy humanitarian work. Yet, their extremism makes it difficult to influence the opinion of the average American.

For that reason, it's always welcome when articulate, moderate people chime in with sane opinions about this issue. Ruben Navarrete's latest in the SD Union Tribune is a good example.

12 million illegals

That's the total that the Pew Hispanic Center comes up with based on a survey. Here's a summary and you can find the original here.

Samuelson goes for the wall

Usually, Robert Samuelson is a smart, sensible writer who does a good job of explaining economic issues to the average dude (well, ok, to the average newspaper-reading dude). Today, he goes off-topic and jumps into the immigration fray.

The results are not pretty. He favors building a cheap copy of the Great Wall along the Mexican border to: 1) keep unskilled Mexicans from competeing with unskilled Americans; and 2) to push the Mexicans already here (and he favors an amnesty) towards faster assimilation, so they will not become a new permanent underclass.

The purpose of this blog is to explore better alternatives --for eveyone-- than building the border fence, as I firmly believe it would be a catastrophe for the U.S., for Mexico and, dare I say it, for the world.

That is not the only thing I disagree with in Samuelson's piece, but that'll have to wait for another day. To his credit, he at least doen't favor mass deportations and is not a racist.