I don't wish to belabor the latest kerfuffle with Chad Schuldt. Arguing with Chad is something like playing tennis against a wall (an analogy I heard Prof. Blanchard use the other day in an entirely different context). I simply ask readers to peruse the original post here and the one I linked to above and then to read Chad's latest cogitations and decide for themselves whether Chad is accurately representing my views. For now I'll just say that Chad is once against incorrectly assuming that I paint with a broad brush "those who might take a more compassionate approach than Schaff." Also, as Prof. Blanchard points out below, it is hard to tell what "compassion" means in this situation. It is hardly compassionate to allow people into your nation illegally, relegating them to the lowest rungs of society and without any recourse to legal protection should they find themselves misused. That's why Prof. Blanchard and I both support some method of legalizing the illegals. Also, Chad worries about racism. Well, so did I in the original post (linked above), only I called it nativism (a more capacious term). Again, read the posts and decide for yourselves who is more thoughtful on this issue.
If anything, the immigration position staked out by Prof. Blanchard and me on this site leans toward the more liberalized view. It may disappoint some of our more ideological critics, but as witnessed by this editorial yesterday by the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, there are large elements on the right who are very pro-immigration. I think it is fair to say that this site has more in common with the Wall Street Journal position than with the Tom Tancredo position. But it is not a lack of compassion to concern one's self with porous borders or lack of assimilation.
I have no idea who Froma Harrop is and don't know her politics, although I think her name is quite fun. But she has written the wisest piece I have read on this issue of late. She argues:
The cheap-labor crowd and their liberal collaborators try to stop the debate by smearing all who disapprove of illegal immigration as xenophobes. Note how they smudge the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. The gloves are off in this debate, however, and Americans troubled by illegal immigration -- including many liberals -- are hitting back.
In more lawful times, the Senate bill's virtual amnesty might seem a reasonable trade for a promise that, henceforth, the labor rules would be honored. Trouble is, the public no longer trusts politicians on this matter. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act granted a blanket amnesty for 2.7 million undocumented workers, but also made hiring illegal immigrants against the law. There have been six amnesties since that one. The amnesties always come off without a hitch, and the law against hiring illegal aliens is never enforced. What exactly would be different this time?
And so the House's "enforcement only" approach deserves some respect, if only because everything that's come before has been effectively amnesty only. Any effort by the Bush administration to actually punish employers who break the law would go far in making Americans more comfortable about some sort of amnesty. But don't count on it. For this president, business interests are always first in line.
Most Americans are sensible and humane people. They want an orderly immigration program and have nothing against foreigners. But what they've been offered thus far is a House bill too mean to become law, and a Senate bill that will worsen the chaos. The American public deserves better than this.
I say three cheers for Froma Harrop.
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