5. Mexico. The largest ethical myth of illegal immigration is the notion of a Mexico morally concerned about the treatment of its expatriates. Of all the players in the illegal-immigration tragedy, the government of Mexico has proven the most heartless. It facilitates its own citizens’ leaving, going so far as to publish comic books on how to do it (apparently assuming both that its potential emigrants are illiterate and that they should act illegally). It counts on remittances as its second-largest source of foreign exchange, apparently cruelly calibrating that while it won’t fully support its own people, they should help support it once they leave the country. It has opened dozens of new consulates to facilitate help for illegal aliens in the United States, when Mexican citizens in Mexico are in far more need of such government concern. And while Mexico is far more interested in luring wealthy Americans southward with prospects of selling vacation homes in Baja California than it is in helping its own people find housing in Oaxaca, it somehow poses as the protector of the rights of Mexicans in America, whom it never troubled to help when they were in Mexico. Without illegal immigration, Mexico would lose American cash, have to reform its own social and economic policies, and forfeit leverage on U.S. social and foreign policy.
6. Poverty. We do not know how many billions of dollars leave the U.S. economy each year bound for Latin America. Before the recession, the number was estimated at anywhere between $25 billion and $50 billion, more than half of it believed sent to Mexico. If it is true that millions of illegal aliens, who are the primarily remitters, are poor and at some point in need of public assistance for their housing, sustenance, and health care, then their sending dollars home is a direct subsidy by American taxpayers to foreign governments. In California the cost of providing support for illegal aliens ranges from $8 billion to some $12 billion a year, a figure that might roughly match the amount of money sent to Mexico from California each year. In a moral universe, illegal aliens would not remit money home and then expect their hosts to make up the difference; a moral Mexico in turn would not expect its most impoverished to work abroad and live cheaply, in order to send billions home to alleviate Mexico City’s responsibility for its own poor. And in a moral universe, to suggest all that would not be deemed a thought crime.
7. Moral racketeering. One of the most disturbing aspects surrounding illegal immigration is the attempt to silence debate with charges of racism, nativism, and bias. In fact, there are legitimate concerns that have nothing to do with race or ethnicity, but simply are not being voiced about the consequences of millions arriving illegally, without capital or education, and without English. At present, there may be anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 illegal aliens incarcerated in the California penal system (exact figures are rarely released). The high-school dropout rate among first- and second-generation Hispanic males in California now nears 60 percent. To say out loud that millions of illegal aliens have some connection to California’s declining test scores, its insolvent finances, and the exodus of California citizens from the state is absolutely taboo, but it is generally and quietly assumed. More disturbingly, an entire edifice of victimization has been built on American culpability for purported oppression on the basis of class and race. It has now reached the point of an eerie Orwellianism, in which many in the Hispanic political establishment make moral claims against an America unwilling to grant blanket amnesty, and yet must simultaneously assume that such a morally suspect entity is a far more desirable place than is Mexico — though the reasons for that tacit assumption must never be voiced. A disturbing example of how this plays out was the recent booing of the American national soccer team in the Los Angeles Coliseum by the “hometown” crowd. A psychiatrist is needed to explain why thousands were booing symbols of a country that they risked their lives to reach, while cheering on a country that they were dying to leave. That schizophrenia was inculcated largely in America.
8. Politics. The Republican candidates have been advised to tread carefully in talking about illegal immigration, in fear of the wrath of Hispanic voters, which has so effectively been massaged by President Obama (“punish our enemies,” “alligators and moats”). Indeed, even to talk of illegal immigration in any but the vaguest terms is considered near suicidal to one’s career and reputation. But such a calculus ignores long-term reality. Closing the borders will hasten assimilation, integration, and intermarriage, as the success of third- and fourth-generation Mexican-Americans attests. Compliance with the law is the only mechanism to allow the full expression of a naturally conservative Hispanic culture. The Mexican-American community deals first-hand with the chaos of massive illegal immigration and is not always happy about the consequences. In contrast, open borders and amnesty will ensure a constant influx of illegal immigrants who become constituents of those who facilitate illegal entry and residence.
There are ways that are both moral and practical to deport recent arrivals, felons, and those entirely on public assistance, while offering mechanisms for long-residing aliens, employed and not convicted of felonies, to apply for citizenship — without automatic approval, however, and only after meeting logical criteria and paying fines. The only real issue is whether the qualified should obtain temporary residence cards while waiting for adjudication of their requests, or must return to Mexico to apply; but that is a decision that follows, not precedes, an end to open borders. A fence, changed economic conditions in both the United States and Latin America, and new public doubts about illegal immigration are already beginning to slow down the influx, suggesting that it is time to address the issue in ways that will lay the groundwork for better policies in the future.
But for now, it is also time to change the entire tenor of the discussion, and accept that the proponents of illegal immigration have lost all moral credibility.
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