Yesterday I walked you through the reality of current immigration policy: that since the 1970s the labor unions have successfully turned the right into enforcers of their wrongheaded cronyist policies which created todays circumstances. As Vernon Briggs noted: At every juncture and with no exception prior to the 1980s the union movement either directly instigated or strongly supported every legislative initiative enacted by Congress to restrict immigration and to enforce its provisions." The result is todays uneven unfair and unfree system which breaks up families and incentivize law-breaking by employees and employers.
The President apparently likes this situation just fine: hes now weighed in with his own framework for an immigration plan which does absolutely nothing in terms of meaningful reform targeted at the root cause of the problem (the persistent black market in unskilled labor) and instead amounts to Simpson Mazzoli 2013.
Why would the president do such a thing making passage of an immigration plan less likely by coming out in favor of an even more obviously political ploy in lieu of a real policy solution? Isnt it obvious? What would be better for the president: the right tearing itself apart in an attempt to pass a controversial reform like Marco Rubios… or the right tearing itself apart as they kill a completely ill-thought approach like the presidents? The mission isnt a reasonable solution for very real immigration policy problems its political destruction of the enemy. Thus Democrats benefit either way even if the nation doesnt.
What should Republicans do? When it comes to message they should stop defending the current immigration policies and instead attack them as the nonsensical bureaucracy they are which split families ignore realities and cater to the interests of politicians and labor unions not the economy or the individual. On the policy front they must separate the argument about citizenship from the rest of the conversation: there is a clear demand for a solution but polls even of Latinos consistently show us that Americans believe there ought to be a penalty for those who broke the law to come here (that they shouldnt be able to skip ahead in line essentially). So long as the conversation is about a path to citizenship and amnesty" Republicans lose their aim ought to be legalizing people not granting them citizenship.
My own preferred approach would be a reboot of the Bracero Program into a guest worker opportunity which retains some of the best aspects of the program and updates it for todays economy. Another larger approach than this would be a permanent non-citizenship approach which as Peter Skerry outlines would preclude them joining the citizenship track: To strike this balance we should offer lenient terms of legalization to illegal immigrants but prohibit them from ever becoming eligible for naturalization. They should instead become permanent non-citizen residents. ... The conditions for eligibility should be minimal for example excluding only those undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records. This new legal status should be granted on a one-time basis to as many of the undocumented as possible as quickly as possible… The key to this proposal is the straightforward credible penalty that would be imposed."
Benjamin Domenech is editor of The Transom. Click here to subscribe.
Yesterday I walked you through the reality of current immigration policy: that since the 1970s the labor unions have successfully turned the right into enforcers of their wrongheaded cronyist policies which created todays circumstances. As Vernon Briggs noted: At every juncture and with no exception prior to the 1980s the union movement either directly instigated or strongly supported every legislative initiative enacted by Congress to restrict immigration and to enforce its provisions." The result is todays uneven unfair and unfree system which breaks up families and incentivize law-breaking by employees and employers.
The President apparently likes this situation just fine: hes now weighed in with his own framework for an immigration plan which does absolutely nothing in terms of meaningful reform targeted at the root cause of the problem (the persistent black market in unskilled labor) and instead amounts to Simpson Mazzoli 2013.
Why would the president do such a thing making passage of an immigration plan less likely by coming out in favor of an even more obviously political ploy in lieu of a real policy solution? Isnt it obvious? What would be better for the president: the right tearing itself apart in an attempt to pass a controversial reform like Marco Rubios… or the right tearing itself apart as they kill a completely ill-thought approach like the presidents? The mission isnt a reasonable solution for very real immigration policy problems its political destruction of the enemy. Thus Democrats benefit either way even if the nation doesnt.
What should Republicans do? When it comes to message they should stop defending the current immigration policies and instead attack them as the nonsensical bureaucracy they are which split families ignore realities and cater to the interests of politicians and labor unions not the economy or the individual. On the policy front they must separate the argument about citizenship from the rest of the conversation: there is a clear demand for a solution but polls even of Latinos consistently show us that Americans believe there ought to be a penalty for those who broke the law to come here (that they shouldnt be able to skip ahead in line essentially). So long as the conversation is about a path to citizenship and amnesty" Republicans lose their aim ought to be legalizing people not granting them citizenship.
My own preferred approach would be a reboot of the Bracero Program into a guest worker opportunity which retains some of the best aspects of the program and updates it for todays economy. Another larger approach than this would be a permanent non-citizenship approach which as Peter Skerry outlines would preclude them joining the citizenship track: To strike this balance we should offer lenient terms of legalization to illegal immigrants but prohibit them from ever becoming eligible for naturalization. They should instead become permanent non-citizen residents. ... The conditions for eligibility should be minimal for example excluding only those undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records. This new legal status should be granted on a one-time basis to as many of the undocumented as possible as quickly as possible… The key to this proposal is the straightforward credible penalty that would be imposed."
Benjamin Domenech is editor of The Transom. Click here to subscribe.
