The American Spectator

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p> JUST HOW ILLEGAL? br> Re: Jed Babbin's Rebuilding the Welfare State (Illegally) : /p>

I like Jed Babbin's work a lot. When he was on a public-radio talk program recently, I was cheering in my car as Jed put a leftist professor in his place regarding the lawfulness of terrorist surveillance activities.

I mention my appreciation for Mr. Babbin because I have to disagree with his take on the immigration debate. Jed asks, "Why is it so hard for politicians to understand that the differences between legal and illegal immigration have to be real and carry real consequences for those who break our law?" He asks the question rhetorically as though there could be no meaningful answer. But there is. The answer is that three factors muddy the distinction between legal and illegal immigration: (1) the tremendous disproportion of legal-immigration quotas for Central- and South-American countries in relation to the number of citizens of those countries who strongly desire to come to the United States to work; (2) the relative ease with which legal restrictions have been and are evaded by many of those same people; and (3) the importance those immigrants, illegal though they may be, have come to have in our economy. It is all very well to stand on the principle of respect for law, but it is well known that respect for law can and will be eroded when the rewards for violation are great and enforcement is made more difficult by the prevalence of violations. When 55-mph limits were being widely disregarded, Jed was probably not spilling ink over the difference between legal and illegal driving speeds and the need for tough enforcement. Instead, I'll bet he was in favor of adjusting the law so that the rate of violations would go down, allowing enforcement efforts to be concentrated on the remaining few who really do drive at unsafe speeds.

I have no problem with anyone from anywhere wanting to come to America to work. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty should be taken seriously, rather than (as now) honored only in the breach. I understand that the knee-jerk response to an open-door policy concerns the supposed effect of an influx of relatively poor people on government-sponsored or government-mandated freebies. If that is the problem, then we should address it on that level rather than by blocking the door to people who will mostly provide a net benefit to our economy. I completely agree that free health care through emergency rooms is a ridiculous burden on hospitals, but that is true whether the patient is an immigrant or native born. Let's just tell hospitals they can stop subsidizing those who don't want to buy insurance. Let's make health insurance affordable by loosening restrictions on the kinds of insurance products people are allowed to buy.

An argument I've heard from others (Jed wisely avoids it) is that immigrants drive down prevailing wages. That argument is nothing more than protectionist malarkey; most of us conservatives don't buy into protectionist drivel when the issue is imported goods and we should reject it on the same grounds in relation to imported employees. Moreover, all sides of the cost-benefit ledger need to be examined; the only thing that is going to save Social Security from the collapse it probably should suffer will be the influx of younger workers to pay the cost of all of the free lunches we aging hippies want to be given as we go out to pasture. Since it is long past the time for us to create those younger workers the natural way, the only remaining choice is to bring 'em in from outside.

p>I agree with Jed that employers "should have to withhold state and local taxes from their pay." The only way to get that to happen is to regularize the status of those employees, either through a guest-worker program or by liberalizing immigration restrictions generally. Immigrants, as such, have never harmed this country. Just the opposite is true. We should recognize that historical fact and act accordingly. br> -- Leighton M. Anderson br> Whittier, California /p>

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