Berwyn, PA. Nobody wants to. Most politicians would rather appeal to platitudes about America as a “nation of immigrants” than confront their responsibility to attend to the common good of their own people. And, depending on the poll you examine, it would seem most Americans view themselves as sufficiently removed from the effects of immigration that they, at least, think of lax immigration policies as “fair” and “nice,” and would just soon not consider what it entails for their material or cultural well being. One recent poll, however, suggests that Americans are slowly coming to grips with reality, finding psychological strategies of maintaining a platitudinous openness while preferring to see an actual reduction in the inflow of foreign persons into our country.
Pandering to the heart of their party, many establishment Republicans draw the line that we ought to secure the border, breaking the floodtide of manual laborers who sneak cross the desert lands of the South West against the shoals of a fence, virtual or just plain literal. They then add that we ought to welcome those qualified with technical skills — because, of course, dumb Americans are just so dumb that they do not study such subjects in sufficient numbers. Well, as with nearly everything in establishment Republicanism, even when they are sincere they are still lying. A new study shows that the H1-B visa program for “highly qualified” foreigners is in fact being used to lubricate the wheels of off-shoring American jobs. There is in fact NO shortage of science, technology, and math workers, but rather a surplus. Certain companies and their wooden political spokes-models just pretend there is so that they may import foreign workers as consultants to help them prepare to send their call centers and information technology operations abroad.
Let me enumerate just a few premises and pieces of data that we ought to bear in mind as we ask those largely prudential questions about immigration — even as many of us refuse to recognize them as prudential, and with the usual obscurantism turn them into questions of human rights:
General Premises
1. The American birthrate is low. Unless more Americans come round to desiring to have more children, we shall have to allow or even invite immigrants of many stripes in to support our economy as we decline into old age.
2. It is obviously true that America is largely a nation of immigrants, but it is mere sentimentality to think this factual claim can so easily be turned into an imperative.
3. What is an imperative is that every people, if has any goodness to it, ought to seek to preserve and perpetuate that goodness by means of the having of children and rearing them to embrace, embody, and ultimately pass on that goodness. A culture flourishes only if it is cultivated; that which is truly good diffuses itself and sees its own preservation to immortality as an intrinsic expression of that goodness.
4. If our culture, in its goodness, entails a certain openness to new immigrants, it cannot possibly entail such openness that the culture itself would be essentially transformed. That is the equivalent (to make a rare nod to Hobbes, though Aquinas says much the same) of someone submitting, for the sake of his survival, to be ruled by a monarch who will immediately command the subject to commit suicide. The natural self-diffusion of what is good cannot rationally include self-dissolution.
5. But I should indicate that I think American culture could be nourished and enhanced, as it has been in the past, by an enlarged Catholic population, even as I also think that the Know Nothings and Nativists of the last century were outright prescient and justified to resist these changes. American cities, always riotous, became more violent and corrupt places in consequence of those influxes, and the fact that Irish, Polish, and Italian immigrants eventually assimilated and escaped to the suburbs cannot erase the disastrous effects their influx had, many of which linger despite, and apart from, that assimilation (I have reflected on this troubling claim elsewhere). And yet, let us recall the observations of that native American Catholic convert, Orestes Brownson, who suggests that Catholic intellectual and cultural traditions make American freedom intelligible to itself and, thus, capable of fulfilling its promise. Evaluating and sorting out this messy history is a matter for prudential wisdom.
Specific Observations
1. If the reports cited above are accurate, we do not require any additional highly skilled immigrants. To the contrary, their entrance into the country hastens our demise.
2. The Center for Immigration Studies has repeatedly documented that the abundant supply of illegal, low-skilled immigrants markedly lowers wages, and encourages brutal working conditions, in industries that would otherwise provide decent-paying respectable work to Americans. Its report on the consequences of illegal labor on the meat-packing industry is especially striking.
3. One must either bear the mark of a secularized conception of sin, sometimes called “white guilt” (in which one vows to make one’s countrymen pay for one’s personal sense of social injustice: you may feel the guilt, but you sacrifice a scapegoat who looks a bit like you for the purposes of being shriven), or simply lack the capacity for complex thought to believe that the dysfunction of the countries to our south can be solved by importing them into ghettos here. Our personhood entails duties to other human beings simply in virtue of their personhood, but we tend to cut the Gordian knot of prudence by way of a sulky and simplistic ideology that does not truly respect the personhood of ourselves or those we claim to be helping. A sense of guilt rarely provides a solid foundation for love. And the programs of secular guilt bear but little resemblance to a serious moral theology that recognizes our fallenness and our capacity to embrace and share the love of God.
As I complete this brief, insufficient list, I wonder if it is even possible to debate immigration honestly. The Democratic party has bet big that the continued use of contraception among white Americans and the admission of peoples from the Latin south will, in the long term, tilt demography permanently in favor of its version of the welfare state, and, consequently, its sustained power. Moreover, the turning away of Americans from marriage and the having of children suggests a lack of investment in, an apathy regarding, the future character of their country. It is no more surprising that Americans should be resigned regarding the future of their culture than it is that Americans should desire immigrants to labor for the welfare state in lieu of the children who could have been. These trends are a tacit vote of assent to the Democratic strategy vastly more significant that any election-day tally. Further, neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to be capable of giving voice to a genuine love of country: one that does not base itself on being a jingoistic bully abroad, but rather on a reverent care to preserve and cultivate what we have, here, now, at home. But, I shall, for the moment, maintain hope that facts are stubborn things, including the fact of goodness; it may be just the smelling salt to rouse us from the more suicidal platitudes of the American dream.
I see the problems somewhat different than you. I will state up front that I am not a Christian (I worship Odin, Thorr and Freyr) but I appreciate Catholicism being the torchbearer of (pagan) Roman and Greek philosophy. I am actually for more immigration for a surprising reason that will become clear later.
The fundamental problem is that we have, for eighty years now, sought to liberate people from everything that matters, particularly place and family. This liberation comes at the price of slavery because it means that without local and family support, each of us is dependent on a formal corporate or government job. The results are all around us.
Liberals congratulate themselves on a job well done and they believe honestly (from my many conversations) that immigrants coming here will see our wonderful, liberated culture and immediately seek to adopt it.
Fortunately for everyone this does not happen. My Chinese-Indonesian wife asked me many questions over and over about how we retire in the US. Why don’t people move in with their kids when they retire? Isn’t that lonely? Her questions were the reason I eventually had to conclude that Dorothy Day was right about social security.
Right now the US needs immigrants, not so much to keep our grotesque economy going (although if we do that we need them there too), but to remind America what we have lost in terms of an emphasis on family. Anyone who has spent time overseas and lived overseas with people from other cultures, particularly in less well off countries, will immediately know how important family is to economic survival in most of the world.
The problem with the immigration debate is that the debate is about what is best for the immigrants, and we treat allowing immigration as a favor we do for them. The truth is that if we are willing to listen and to encourage people to listen, we may find that the immigrants do us a greater favor still. It is not in the factory or farm work, but in the conversations about family, that we may derive the greatest benefits yet.
Chris, unfortunately the data do not support this theory of family-oriented immigrants. Immigrants to the US engage in anti-family behavior at rates equal to or surpassing that of Americans. Immigrant illegitimacy rates resemble Americans’ very high rate and, among many immigrant male workers from south of the border, there is the popular habit of maintaining two marriages: one back home and one in the United States. Although one might argue that the latter practice is a highly pro-family behavior: two is more than one!
What’s more, there’s a disturbing trend among newcomers to this country. A recent poll showed that more than 80% of immigrants to the United States want to see government programs expanded, compared to around 40-50% of Americans. That’s not the response of healthy, family-oriented, self-sustaining communities.
If I have time later, I’ll try to include links verifying a few of my claims. If not, you can quickly verify them online.
Mr. Wilson: Aside from all red-blooded patriotic Americans getting to work having more children, what is it you think we should actually do about immigration? Because your article seems weighted with criticisms but light on solutions; and while it may not be your obligation to produce “solutions,” you risk leaving the reader so demoralized that he or she may not feel up to (so to speak) the procreational activities you advise.
It may be a stupid idea, but with 300.000.000 + people in the USA, do we really have room for immigrants?
Corporations love immigrants, because it provides a cheap labor supply that has no rights to speak of.
As pointed out, immigratin may nor be very good for the USA period.
Perhaps forward to a (neo-) isolationism?
Just a dumb idea, probably.
It’s good to know that low wages are entirely the fault of immigrants, and not the greed of corporations or the lack of bargaining power on the part of workers.
But immigrants ARE driving down wages.
See:
http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature
and
http://www.cis.org/node/1582
..
Mr. Médaille,
Nowhere in the essay did Mr. Wilson say that low wages were entirely, in your words, a result of illegal immigration. Nor did he blame illegal immigrants. Your comment was unfair. It is true that “greedy corporations,” again your words, use immigration to bring in workers, foreign workers, to drive down wages and conditions for workers in America. It is not unreasonable for Mr. Wilson to state the obvious. And it is, I would argue, a moral imperative that we reduce immigration in order to address the lack of bargaining power, once again your words, of workers in America. I am extremely disappointed by your flippancy. Mr. Wilson had the courage to begin a very important conversation. Your comment does nothing to advance that conversation.
I agree. We need to acknowledge social reality. A related (although off topic) issue is women in the workforce, who also have the strong potential to drive down wages.
With due respect to Dr. Wilson, I stand by my comments. The clear implication is that if we restricted immigration, wages would rise, and no other cause was mentioned. This appears to blame the immigrants, and it is untrue. Efforts to control the border have been, in fact, counter-productive. The average Mexican really did not wish to be here permanently; he was forced to do so by circumstances. The norm was to come for a few months and earn dollars while accepting hard work and great hardships, then return to the home village with a pocketful of dollars and live like a patron for the rest of the year, and then repeat the process. But with all the border “security,” the costs of re-entry are too high. The fence fences the immigrant in more than it works to keep them out. Now instead of returning, he must bend all his efforts to bring his family in.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
Anymouse, true, but the order of causality is not clear. Median wages began to stagnate in the mid-70’s, which provided a big incentive for women to enter the workforce to keep up the family’s income. But as more women entered the workforce, the law of supply and demand worked to keep wages down, providing further impetus for women to work.
Anymouse raises a valid point, though I agree it does take us off topic. What is germane to the discussion is the reality that households that have a stay-at-home mom (or dad) are becoming increasingly rare for middle and lower income Americans. Immigration is contributing to that trend. We can argue how much immigration drives down the price of labor, but we cannot ignore the fact that it does. Even those who favor increased immigration recognize that immigration drives down wages. Their solution is boosting the level of government support for those who can’t earn a living wage in an economy that provides little opportunity for working Americans.
Mr. Médaille,
What keeps immigrants in the United States is the availability of employment opportunities and easy access to public benefits. Efforts to secure the border have not been counter-productive; they have been counter factual. After 9-11, illegal immigration increased three-fold. Are you seriously suggesting that everyone could get in, but no one could ever leave? Hotel California, indeed! Why then have several million illegal aliens left the county since 2007? That several millions have left the country is the reason that the illegal alien population has remained steady, not increased, despite all the border security measures you decry. You may have theories about illegal immigration, but there are some among us who actually rely on available facts. The Center for Immigration Studies referenced by Mr. Wilson is a good source. So, too, is the Federation for American Immigration Reform. So, too, is the Pew Hispanic Center. Or, you might try the Department of Homeland Security’s Statistical Yearbook.
What those who study the issue closely tell us is that between 30-40 percent of illegal aliens have overstayed their visa. A good many of them are not Mexican, and would not return to Mexico if they had the chance. Yes, it is true that some Mexicans, and immigrants from other nations, have worked very hard in America. I don’t think anyone would deny that. But your comment implies that native-born workers will not do the work that needs to be done in their own “home village.” The argument you advance here is simpleminded. You can and should do better. We have a “comprehensive immigration reform” bill pending in Congress. Your panegyrics lead me to believe that you support this legislation. I do not. Not because I don’t like immigrants. I oppose the bill because I understand that immigration levels are too high. We should admit fewer foreigners to the United States than we currently do. One result would be higher wages for American workers.
74.7% of Mexican immigrants with children use some form of welfare in the USA:
http://cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011
PG:
I am looking at two very specific metrics. The first is:
1. Percentage of people living with their kids on retirement. New immigrants are major drivers of the current upward trend. Do you have any evidence to second guess this? This is important because it re-closes the cycle between parents caring for children and the grown children caring for aging parents. We’ve lost this. Immigrants are now the only ones doing this in much of the country.
2. Rejection of the liberal idea that family is something to liberate people from. Of the immigrants I have known, only one has had a heavily liberal view of family and he wasn’t technically an immigrant (an American/Mexican dual citizen who had lived most of his life in Mexico).
Great article, Dr. Wilson!
As I read this and other articles on the immigration issue, these thoughts occur:
1. Why do foreigners have the “right” to come here?
2. Why do I, a direct descendant of Revolutionary War soldiers and settlers, need to buy into the whole “nation of immigrants” idea?
The proper adjective “American” used to mean something; it increasingly does not, due in large part to its dilution through the influx of people who care nothing about the founding culture, its ideals, history, and traditions. Don’t misunderstand, I am not particularly hostile to the Other; it’s just that I am primarily loyal to those of my own family, kith and kin, and then in concentric circles outward to the extended community of my locality and state (although even that has been inundated by what I consider to be foreigners, aided by the overweening meddling of an intrusive government). This of course used to be the idea of patriotism, not the pledging of one’s allegiance to a multi-colored flag and some accompanying abstractions.
So why in the world should I support any kind of continued assault on my community by outsiders who will naturally tend to want to form their own communities along similar lines to what they left back in the Old Country? Mine certainly did! We settled these shores and then proceeded to organize ourselves the way we did back in the various parts of the British Isles from whence we came, culminating in a variation and refinement of those traditions and ideas in the Articles and subsequent Constitution. The fact is I don’t wish to live in Bombay, Baghdad, or even Mexico City, but that’s precisely what I am expected to embrace according to the “vibrancy” and diversity-is-our-strength argument.
No, thank you!
Mr. Medaille, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agrees with you. Perhaps you can become a platinum donor? The Chamber recognizes mass immigration as the ultimate form of creative destruction. It has spent approximately $125 million in the last year alone lobbying for open borders and amnesty, against E-Verify requirements, and litigating against State and local legal authority to regulate illegal immigrants who adulterate their community. Won’t you please join them in your cause?
Sir, you are glossing over some very important cultural differences between Anglos and Hispanics. These are the numbers that nobody wants to talk about.
Across the board, Hispanics are much more likely to commit crimes than Anglos. In 2011, Hispanics accounted for only 16% of the population, but were responsible for 51% of all federal crimes. This same 16% of the population is responsible for committing an astounding 46% of all federal drug offenses.
As you likely know, 53% of all births occurring outside of marriage are to Hispanics, compared with only 24% for Anglos.
In welfare, Hispanics (again only 16% of the population) comprised 34.7 % of all Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipient children in 2010. Some 31.4 % of TANF recipient children were black and only 27.1 % were white.
70% of American Hispanics vote for pro abortion Democrats.
Of course, 100% of all undocumented Hispanic immigrants have openly flouted the laws of the United States. I could go on and on.
How is any of this good for America? Please do tell. “Immigration reform” that includes amnesty is an unmitigated disaster from a political standpoint and from a cultural standpoint and (given their disproportionate use of government dollars) from a fiscal standpoint. It is sheer madness.
The pending Senate immigration bill would bring a minimum of 33 million people into the country during its first decade of operation, according to an analysis by NumbersUSA, a group that wants to slow the current immigration rate.
By 2024, the inflow would include an estimated 9.2 million illegal immigrants, plus 2.5 million illegals who arrived as children — dubbed ‘Dreamers’ — plus roughly 3.4 million company-sponsored employees with university degrees, said the unreleased analysis.
The majority of the inflow, or roughly 17 million people, would consist of family members of illegals, recent immigrants and of company-sponsored workers, according to the NumbersUSA analysis.
Virtually all of these 33 million people will be Mexicans. This is an obvious, but somehow under-acknowledged fact. We are not talking about refugees or asylum seekers. These tens of millions of people already have a country. They are Mexican citizens. To import 33 million Mexicans (approximately one quarter of Mexico’s population) would transform the United States in ways that we cannot begin to foresee. It would certainly have a greater impact on the United States than any event since the Civil War.
And why, exactly, would it be a good idea for us–not for the proposed immigrants, but for existing American citizens–to import 33 million or more Mexicans, the vast majority of whom would be either low-skill workers or welfare recipients? I can think of one category of Americans who would benefit from such an extraordinary influx: pro-abortion Democratic politicians. They would add millions of Democratic voters to the rolls; moreover, the addition of millions of welfare recipients would inevitably swell the size and scope of government. But if you are not a Democratic politician, why on Earth would you view this massive demographic change positively? It will inevitably drive down the wages of unskilled and semiskilled labor, to the grave detriment of existing Americans who are already struggling to make a living.
“One must either bear the mark of a secularized conception of sin, sometimes called ‘white guilt’ (in which one vows to make one’s countrymen pay for one’s personal sense of social injustice: you may feel the guilt, but you sacrifice a scapegoat who looks a bit like you for the purposes of being shriven), or simply lack the capacity for complex thought to believe that the dysfunction of the countries to our south can be solved by importing them into ghettos here.”
I’m not sure any comment I’d make would improve on the preceding remark of Dr. Wilson’s, so I’m just repeating it.
An excellent essay.
“A sense of guilt rarely provides a solid foundation for love. And the programs of secular guilt bear but little resemblance to a serious moral theology that recognizes our fallenness and our capacity to embrace and share the love of God.”
You speak truth here, so thank you. You don’t say it directly, but you seem to suggest, rightly I think, that the left’s (or maybe more accurately, mainstream) immigration policies/attitudes are motivated by two things:
1. a dehumanizing pity
2. an intention toward the preservation of political power
I think you are correct, even as I don’t have the “answer,” and as usual, it is so hard to watch.
Chris,
Of the pro-family priorities, moving aging parents back in with their children is a lower one. Divorce, extramarital sex and illegitimacy are much greater concerns. These are almost entirely within the realm of children and non-elderly adults, and thus are not likely to be improved by an emerging trend among the elderly who are moving home with their children. What’s more, on the three points I list, immigrants are not significantly better, and in some cases are in fact worse, than Americans.
The biggest family problem we face is children who don’t have a father living at home, and that’s going to be fixed by incentivizing the elderly to move home with their adult children.
Update:
The biggest family problem we face is children who don’t have a father living at home, and that’s not going to be fixed by incentivizing the elderly to move home with their adult children.
David Smith,
While your overall points are correct, the picture of concentric circles of loyalty is subtly misleading. It would not explain why men die to defend their countries. To defend the family alone, it would have been better to stay with the family and meet the danger as it came.
The ways one’s family, one’s nation and one’s faith claim one’s loyalty are qualitatively different. As man is a political animal, he finds fulfillment in the organized society we may call City or nation. That is only possible, if he is willing to sacrifice for the City, even as a family is formed by the sacrifice of the individual.
The bonds in the City are of friendship but in family of affection. Friendship, by its very nature, is between equals while hierachy is built into family.
PG,
It is not the question of incentives but the attitude towards family and scarifices required to maintain it.
There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about immigration. And the sources everyone seems to be mostly quoting are dubious, highly dubious.
Read the NY Times and other articles about John Tanton, the founder of NumbersUSA, FAIR and CIS. Tanton is thought by many on the left and right to be a racist, pro-eugenics ideologue who is “the least-known-most-powerful man in America.” His three organizations have operated for decades, tilting the immigration debate towards closed borders. In all honesty, I’ve just begun myself to study the man after having been a “useful idiot” and an email subscriber for years.
As for the STEM study the author links to, does he really propose to make immigration policy on one study? I understand that we citizens don’t have the resources (like the senators and their staff) to do comprehensive studies on STEM or any other aspect of immigration. So a little intellectual humility is in order. Why not offer the ONE STUDY as a possible new trend hinting that the MANY STUDIES that have in the past said we’re in peril if we don’t get more STEM degree grads are possibly no longer valid? A single study is like an anecdote substituted by a skilled politician to tug at our heart strings and displace the massive statistical reality on the other side of the argument.
As to General Premises 1-4, mostly agreed. But I’m not sure where the author is going with 5. What “disastrous effects linger,” even though assimilation has moved all the Irish, Germans, Poles and Italians the ‘burbs? I’m scratching my head on that one.
As for Specific Observations, now the author is off the reservation. 1) His unproven assumption that one new study trumps all others is posited as a fait accompli. 2) He quotes a possibly very biased source with no clue it may be biased and no backup from non-Tanton sources. 3) He tries to make a very creative argument about “white guilt” that suffers from rhetorical density and says… well, not much… or too much… (I guess I got tangled in the “Gordian knot of sulky, simplistic prudence…” or was it “sulky simplistic personhood…?” WHATEVER. My purple prose alarm went off as I dove into the rabbit hole…
But then he began to make sense again with, “A sense of guilt rarely provides a solid foundation for love.” Agreed. And I’m back. I also agree the immigration debate is dishonest. But there’s a much deeper problem, ITS NOT COGENT. We’re all CONFUSED because it’s incredibly complex and we don’t have the time to dig deep into the issues and find our way morally.
But though I am a rock ribbed Republican, as a former cradle Democrat with all my family still on the left, and as a political activist embedded in party politics, I am quite sure there is no Democrat conspiracy, no “bet big that the continued use of contraception among white Americans and the admission of peoples from the Latin south will, in the long term, tilt demography permanently in favor of its version of the welfare state.” Puhleeze! They just aren’t that bright.
Rather, the Democrats have an alternative moral vision from that of the Republicans, a vision I am fully prepared to debate, to poke holes in, to call them on when I detect hypocrisy. They have a Rousseauian vision of the Noble Savage as Mexican which is racist and quite bonkers. And they have a vision of The Commons and of The Cooperative Society. There is a lot of disguised proto-Christianity in this; as many have pointed out Socialism is really a secular version of the share-all Christianity of the primitive church. And they think money grows on trees or can be squeezed from the Greedy Capitalists. But they do have a moral vision and it does mostly hold together, like ours does… mostly.
And, finally, I disagree that “… neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to be capable of giving voice to a genuine love of country: one that does not base itself on being a jingoistic bully abroad, but rather on a reverent care to preserve and cultivate what we have, here, now, at home.” Cynical hogwash dressed up in affected sadness.
Lots of Republicans I know love the good ‘ole USA and if they are noisy and boisterous about it, that doesn’t mean they’re jingoistic. And lots of Democrats I know get teary eyed… when Ray Charles sings Purple Mountained Majesty.
Well, thank you. No, this subject can not be debated fairly and lately it can not even be debated openly; it makes me crazy. I live in Massachusetts and when the subject of immigration is raised, people start whispering. They start whispering because if they disagree with the policies being discussed, they are accused of racism. Of course, the conversation is not honest! I have read in several respectable magazines that tech companies do not need HB-1 visas, including The New Yorker and The New Republic. We all know the construction industry does not need expanded visas and that Vermont can probably find some locals to instruct skiing. Some of what is being proposed is simply a fraud, a fraud many workers acknowledge in pained silence as they lose their jobs. Mark my words, this bill will come back to bite many of its supporters if passed as it is; it is far less about the border and more about business give-aways.
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