Fewer Illegals, More anti-Illegal Sentiment
By Anthony Gregory • Wednesday September 1, 2010 2:05 PM PDT • 15 Comments
Recent data suggest that there has been a decline in illegal immigration into the United States, according to the Dallas Morning News. At the same time, “the national debate over illegal immigration grows more vigorous and polarized.”
This trend is not isolated to the issue of immigration. Often, just as a real or perceived problem is in retreat, hysteria and concern swell. Lots of activists and government busybodies in the 1920s and 1930s condemned the horror of child labor, for example, just as it was disappearing.
With immigration, however, the situation is very different, as even most opponents of illegal immigration say they don’t generally oppose immigration itself. Yet they do not seem to want to make all immigration legal simply by ending immigration controls.
But why is it that this issue has become a hot button, once again? It appears to becoming more of a national controversy than in many years. Even as illegal immigration is declining and Obama has increased deportations, nativist frenzy has ballooned. Perhaps there is cynical politics at play? George W. Bush was the most rhetorically pro-immigration president, probably, since Ronald Reagan. While many conservatives complained about America’s alleged “open borders” during the Bush years, the concern seems to have stepped up as a priority quite a bit. For many folks, the need to crack down on illegal immigration is one of their top of issues. It is particularly unfortunate for conservatives to have fallen for this, as so many of the first anti-immigration activists in the modern era were radical environmentalists, population controllers, and unionists on the left. There is nothing free-market, individualistic or Constitutional about border walling—it is, and should be, the domain of economic collectivists.
And what’s the supposed solution? Even more deportations? Arizona-style crackdowns on all of us? Prohibitions against employers hiring who they want to? It is to be hoped that if opponents of Obamunism cannot embrace immigration, they can at least stop worrying about aliens coming here to work and instead focus on the federal government that’s looting from all of us.
Tags: Civil Liberties, Constitution, Immigration 
The conservatives constantly cry about welfare entitlements for these immigrants. But instead of trying to eliminate the entitlements so the immigrants are not subsidized, the conservatives misdirect their anger toward the immigrants themselves. Their anger should be at directed at the feds
Ken Camp | Sep 1, 2010 | Reply
“Yet they do not seem to want to make all immigration legal simply by ending immigration controls.”
Ending all immigration controls would mean guaranteeing refuge to foreign outlaws, as well as others crossing the borders with contagious diseases or terrorists. But having any controls at all, even if it is to allow all immigration aside from cases such as those, requires that the government have some means of monitoring border crossing and to demand that all immigrants submit to that with some consequence, such as deportation, for those that don’t. A problem with passing amnesty laws is that they encourage future immigrants to think that the easiest way for them to get guaranteed citizenship is by evading that process.
It’s hard for me to see how all the people who are for more legal immigration and still against illegal immigration are part of a “nativist frenzy.”
Eric | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
For some time, two political issues on which it has been utterly impossible to conduct a rational public discussion in this country have been immigration and Israel. I have a hunch as to why these two topics in particular resist rational discourse, but I leave it to the readers as an exercise to draw their own conclusion.
Robert Higgs | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
Foreign outlaws can get in America anyway, and not all foreign outlaws should be unwelcome.
Anthony Gregory | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
Granted, not all foreign outlaws should be unwelcome. But should any at all be unwelcome?
One possible answer is that of total elimination of border security from the purview of the state, meaning that none at all should be unwelcome. I can respect that view.
But another possibility is that at least some foreign outlaws should be unwelcome, which brings us back to my above point. I don’t point it out to say that it’s the clear correct position, only to say that someone need not be in a nativist frenzy to reserve for the state such modest aspects of immigration control.
In denying that people who are against illegal immigration can possibly be for more legal immigration as they say they are, since, according to you, anybody who is for more legal immigration must be for complete elimination of all immigration controls, I think you’re creating a false dichotomy.
Eric | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
In response to Robert Higgs’s contention that two issues are impossible to discuss: both the immigration and Israeli issues are tribal. However, I disagree with the implication that these are the only issues that are impossible to discuss rationally. Consider the drug war, which is also tribal. The drug war originated as racist hysteria, and it continues as a kind of racial and cultural war.
Brian Cantin | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
It’s pretty simple. If you believe in the concept of property rights, then you believe a property owner gets to decide who is allowed or not allowed to visit, live or work on their property.
If you don’t believe in property rights (for instance, if you’re a statist) then you believe a property owner must get permission from a group of men with guns before he invites someone to visit, live or work on their property.
You can’t be pro-property-rights and pro-state-immigration-control. They’re mutually exclusive.
Frank | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
I’ve got to agree with Ken. Nobody complained about getting cheaper melons or hamburger until the health care and education costs became unsustainable. Housing , education , health care , military hardware and bank stock prices have all been bubbled up nicely by the federal government.
daddysteve | Sep 2, 2010 | Reply
Jacob Hornberger, I think, put it nicely when he said that tougher immigration controls is a call for more Central Planning. Why do those who claim to be for free markets (conservatives) suddenly become statist central planners when it comes to immigration? In other words, this is a call for bigger and stronger government – more goons with guns, and the authority to bust down your doors in the middle of the night looking for “illegals.”
AND, I might add, in all the arguments I’ve had on Facebook on this issue, I’ve NEVER debated with someone who opposed illegal immigration who also promoted more immigration of the legal kind. MANY times I have made the point that were we to liberalize the immigration laws (thus encouraging more immigration), and then been told by the opponents that it wouldn’t work...they argue that we MUST HAVE tougher laws and enforcement.
Basic free market theory states that there is NOT a static pie to be carved up (Illegals are NOT taking OUR jobs), but an opportunity for each of us to “make his own pie,” i.e., the more people doing productive work, the more wealth is created. The so-called illegals ADD TO our economy, even when you factor in any supposed tits that they “suck” from.
Ed Burley | Sep 4, 2010 | Reply
amen Ken
Ed Burley | Sep 4, 2010 | Reply
That is an excellent point. there is no evidence that terrorists will walk hundred of miles across the desert just to blow themselves up. It would be so much easier on an airplane.
The problem is that the inti-immigrant lobby is able to exploit 9/11 for economic reasons and to get back at racial ethnic groups they hate.
John Beach | Sep 8, 2010 | Reply
I agree with Ed Burley and Anthony Gregory. We are becoming a police state. I have read with alarm in the NY Times that border patrol agents are searching buses and trains hundreds of miles from the border. This totalitarian practice was something we only saw in the movies and it always pertained to the other side-Nazi Germany or the USSR, but we are slowly seeping into this practice and what is frightening the people are actually demanding more “state power!” Its like the entire population has become like lemmings.
John Beach | Sep 8, 2010 | Reply
For those like me who aren’t clever enough to work out the answer to Robert Higgs’s riddle (posted on Sept. 2) I’d be grateful if he would disclose the answer. Thanks.
Jon | Sep 8, 2010 | Reply
An intriguing exercise, Dr. Higgs, and in your aversion to (too much) controversy, you’ve refrained from even saying that the two issues have anything more in common than the nondiscussability you correctly attribute to them both.
So I’ll take that PART of the bait (do they have anything intrinsic in common?). Yes, they do – both have racism and xenophobia at their hearts. Both entail building of walls, though the walls being built in the US don’t operate to expand controlled territory beyond established borders (as the Israeli ones do).
Both entail controlling an economic/cultural underclass, both concern sources of (menial) labor, and both claim control of terrorism as motivators, though the case in Israel currently seems better demonstrated than in the US.
Jett Rucker | Sep 9, 2010 | Reply
I join Jon in inviting Dr. Higgs to be a bit more forthcoming, acknowledging as I do that accepting this invitation may call down torrents of UNilluminating invective that could make him sorry for having done so. Covert enmity, too, which is FAR more-dangerous.
N. Joseph Potts | Sep 9, 2010 | Reply