Several items on immigration I have been meaning to post:
(1) From D&S collective member and frequent author Alejandro Reuss, an op-ed about immigration that was part of the Progressive Media Project of The Progressive magazine. Some tidbits:
Restrictions on immigration are big government intrusions on the rights of people to move, live and work where they please.
If conservatives really believe in small government, they should not favor border walls or patrols, workplace raids or deportations. In fact, they should call for the elimination of all restrictions on immigration.
Conservatism in the United States is really an amalgam of two different points of view.
Economic conservatives have used free market rhetoric mainly to justify pro-business policies, attacking organized labor, opposing social-welfare programs and undermining government regulation of business. Social conservatives, meanwhile, yearn for an imagined past of “traditional values” and ethnic and cultural homogeneity.
The two groups, however, are not completely distinct, and both make heavy use of the rhetoric of individual liberty.
Overall, the ideology of free markets has been a terrible guide to economic policy over the last thirty years. It has left us with a tattered social safety net, a gravely weakened labor movement and the reckless deregulation of industry and finance that helped detonate the Great Recession. Such policies have also facilitated income and wealth inequality unseen since the 1920s.
On immigration, however, it would be better if the free-market conservatives were truer to their professed principles. Free-market conservatives denounce restrictions on international trade as protectionism. They argue against restrictions on international investment. Why should the international movement of people be any different? Restrictions on living or working where one wants are among the greatest government intrusions against individual liberty.
Even cultural conservatives who pine for an early 19th-century style minimalist federal government should consider that the traditions of that time did not include restrictions on immigration.
“Before 1882, immigration to the United States was barely regulated at all,” notes Claire Lui of American Heritage magazine. "The concept of illegal immigration did not yet exist. Almost anyone who wanted to move to America was free to do so.”
In U.S. politics today, nobody would tolerate border patrols demanding proof that an individual from, say, Oregon had the right to cross into California. Were anyone to suggest such a thing, conservatives would surely raise hell about government “thugs” robbing us of our freedoms. Somehow, though, there is no hue and cry from conservatives when it comes to restrictions on people crossing from Mexico into California.
Instead, what we hear from conservatives are calls for more walls, barbed wire, surveillance cameras and armed troops — all to keep people from moving and living where they please.
So why don’t conservatives favor free immigration? Perhaps they do not really mind government power so much, as long as it is pointed at someone else.
Ok, that was all of it. But it ran three weeks ago. Here's the original version on the website of The Progressive (but it ran as an op-ed in a bunch of papers, apparently, via McClatchey, I think).
(2) As if they'd read Alejandro's op-ed, Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg are joining together with a bunch of CEOs to push for immigration reform. (Read the fine print, though, to see what kind of "legal status" they want--I'd bet it's some kind of guestworker status.) Part of the Huffpo article:
The group includes several other big-city mayors and calls itself the Partnership for a New American Economy. It seeks to reframe immigration reform as the solution to repairing and stimulating the economy.
Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., appeared together Thursday on Fox News to discuss the effort.
"We're just going to keep the pressure on the congressmen," Murdoch said. "I think we can show to the public the benefits of having migrants and the jobs that go with them."
Bloomberg added, "Somebody has to lead and explain to the country why this is in our interest."
The CEOs said Thursday in statements that their companies – and the nation – depend on immigrants.
Read the whole article.
(3) Something funny from Stephen Colbert:
Farm workers are tired of being blamed by politicians and anti-immigrant activists for taking work that should go to Americans and dragging down the economy, said Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers of America.
So the group is encouraging the unemployed--and any Washington pundits or anti-immigrant activists who want to join them--to apply for the some of thousands of agricultural jobs being posted with state agencies as harvest season begins.
All applicants need to do is fill out an online form under the banner "I want to be a farm worker" at http://www.takeourjobs.org, and experienced field hands will train them and connect them to farms.
Read the full article.
--Chris Sturr
