SAN DIEGO — It is always a mild irritant when I go to my bank’s
ATM and have to tell it whether I want to do my transaction in
English or Español. But I’ve learned to deal with it. As a
result, I don’t have a knee-jerk negative reaction to every
immigration reform proposal that comes along. Indeed, in these
pages I recently outlined
why the Bush guest-worker proposal could, if properly designed,
have a very positive impact on our problems with illegal
immigration.
That piece played to mixed reviews. Those opposed fell into two
camps. One gentleman wrote that right is right and wrong is wrong.
In his mind, it was immaterial if Bush’s proposal might help solve
the problem if it didn’t deport all current illegals. That would
just be wrong, so he won’t vote for Bush again for having brought
it up. Instead of taking the “mass deportation or nothing” approach
(which means “nothing”), these would-be Heroes of the Cause would
do better choosing as their Alamo the more defensible, and more
meaningful, position of Senator McCain that a guest-worker program
should include a provision for a $1,500 (or so) fine to be levied
on people currently working illegally in the country who want to
take advantage of the legal protections provided by the program.
But I’m not going to try to argue any more with that crowd, though
I am curious as to whether these highly principled people have ever
found anyone running for any office that they have been able to
vote for.
The second camp took the position that since illegal immigration
is a problem, a guest- worker program is also wrong because it is
somehow synonymous with illegal immigration. The argument is that
Bush’s proposal would encourage more illegal immigration as people
would rush in to take advantage of the “amnesty.” You can read my
reasons for skepticism in my previous piece. But this seems to be
the primary argument leveled against the concept of a guest-worker
program, with its proponents now claiming “evidence” to support the
charge.
Fed by members of the Border Patrol’s labor union, the National
Border Patrol Council, the argument that the Bush proposal was,
indeed, already leading to a “surge” in illegal immigration started
hitting the radio talk show airwaves here in San Diego within two
weeks of his announcing it on January 7. By the end of the month,
the charge was being echoed in the editorial pages of the San
Diego Union-Tribune. I would have thought that most thinking
people would have thought reports of this sudden “surge” a bit odd.
But when they’ve got an agenda to push, some thinking people stop
thinking and instead will grab on to anything that helps their
position, no matter how suspect.
NUMEROUS NEWS STORIES in recent days (including a front-page story in the February 20 edition of
the Washington Times entitled “More aliens try to enter
for amnesty”) have continued to push this argument, again relying
on information from the National Border Patrol Council. The
Times leads its report as follows: “The number of illegal
aliens caught crossing into the United States increased
dramatically just days after President Bush proposed a guest-worker
program that would give legal status to millions of illegal
immigrants [if they have a regular job] now in this county,
according to the union that represents the Border Patrol’s 9,000
field agents.” It goes on to say that “apprehension totals
increased threefold in the San Diego area alone.” The problem with
reports like these is that they are willful distortions of the
truth.
I have some shocking news. The National Education Association
does not exist to promote better education, and the National Border
Patrol Council does not exist to solve our immigration problems. We
are talking about labor unions, folks. Labor unions want to
increase the number of people in their unions. The National Border
Patrol Council is interested in pushing the “deport ‘em all”
mentality that will translate, it thinks, into the more new Border
Patrol jobs. The fact that the National Border Patrol Council is so
vehemently opposed to the guest worker program (“a slap in the face
to anyone who has ever tried to enforce the immigration laws of the
United States”), and is using underhanded tactics, is a good
indication to me that the union leadership thinks that the Bush
program could actually work, and hence reduce the call for big
increases in Border Patrol personnel.
Now I am inclined to believe that we could use more Border
Patrol agents even if we did have a successful guest-worker
program. But that’s not the point. The point is that the National
Border Patrol Council has been knowingly putting out false and
misleading information to try to derail the Bush proposal.
AS I SAID, ALL THIS talk about a “surge” in illegal immigration
didn’t make sense to me. So I looked a little further into these
stories. The fact is, for a variety of reasons, including the
seasonality of the agricultural industry, patterns of illegal
immigration are also very seasonal. And as it happens, December has
always been a very low month, and January has always been a very
high month. Hence, the “surge.” If you want a true comparison, you
have to look at the year-over-year monthly numbers. You can see
this historical data by going to a website run by the Department of Homeland
Security at .
Here are the apprehension numbers along the Mexican border:
January 2001: 125,090
January 2002: 79,793
January 2003: 86,925
January 2004: 92,634
Yes, year-over-year, there was an increase in January 2004 from
January 2003. But this “surge” was in reality 6.5%. There was an
increase of almost 9%, however, from January 2002 to January 2003.
And we still aren’t even close to the January 2001 number. If I
were as intellectually dishonest as The National Border Patrol
Council, I could even argue that the Bush proposal has caused a
drop in the year-over-year rate of growth of illegal immigration!
But I’m not.
What about the Border Patrol “surveys” supposedly showing that
“the vast majority of aliens detained along the border told
arresting agents that they had come to the United States seeking
amnesty”? Think about that, just for a minute. Year-over-year,
January apprehensions increased 6.5%, but “the vast majority” of
illegals in January ‘04 were crossing encouraged by Bush’s
proposal? Doesn’t that sound just a little odd? Are we to believe
that if Bush had not made his proposal that instead of a 6.5%
increase we would have witnessed an unprecedented drop of 50% or
more?
THE FACT IS, in Mexico, the popular press has clearly reported that
Bush’s guest-worker program would not be a general amnesty. Vicente
Fox has had to back away from his initial lukewarm endorsement of
the Bush proposal because the popular perception in Mexico is that,
far from being an amnesty plan, Bush’s outlined guest-worker
program does not signal a significant liberalization of
U.S. immigration policy. Indeed, in Mexico the issue has revived
interest in the accusations of the “Braceros” — Mexicans who took
part in a similar guest-worker program in the 1940’s and 1950’s —
who claim that they never received the money withheld from their
paychecks that they were supposed to get when they returned home to
Mexico.
Now I am willing to admit that some people may be lured to cross
the border illegally thinking that Bush’s proposal is, or will lead
to, a general amnesty. As I am continually reminded, some people
are ill informed and irrational. But any such activity will likely
be minor and, more importantly, temporary. Arguing that we should
shelve a potentially helpful program on the basis that it might
lead to a minor temporary increase in illegal immigration is no
argument at all.
