Bush and Immigration

With most of his second term intiatives in shreds already President Bush is still trying to get immigration laws overhauled. His latest effort is reported in the New York Times here: Bush to Press Immigration Plan in Arizona.

The problem we face is that we cannot live without immigration and the laws we have are completely ineffective in face of the swollen number of illegal immigrants now either resident here, or trying to get here. Immigration is now an explosive election issue especially in the states that border Mexico. Bush is trying to press for work visas, which makes sense from an economic perspective: the food industry in California would collapse without illegals. The wider problem is that illegals use local resources, but because they are illegal they do not contribute to the tax base that supports the locality. Work visas would bring the illegals into the system so that this drain is diminshed. Whether Bush can get his extreme right wing to go along is a different question.

Immigration will remain an issue for the rightists to exploit as long as the current law is perceived to ‘allow’ illegals to ‘live off the locals’. Unprincipled politicians in the border states are jumping on the bandwagon to eliminate illegals by sending them home. This is a bit like trying to plug a bursting dam. It won’t work as long as the payoff for taking the risk of getting into America is less than the impact of poverty [or lack of opportunity] back in Mexico [or wherever]. So we need not just immigration reform here, but we need solid development elsewhere. Maybe Bush can be sensible for a change and get a bi-partisan effort to head off his own extremists. If he can’t then this will be an issue to watch closely in the elections next year and in 2008. But we can always hope!