Over at NRO, Richard Nadler has gotten into an
exchange with a whole bunch of people on the subject of
whether Republicans are hurting themselves with their immigration
stance. Nadler says yes, his interlocutors say no. For the
purposes of this post, I'll confine myself to Ramesh Ponnuru's
response since he comes closest to my own views: he basically
agrees with Nadler that the GOP's immigration position has to
some extent hurt the party among Hispanic voters but is closer to
Nadler's critics as to what constitutes sound immigration policy.
We're in particular agreement on two points. On policy, Ponnuru
writes: "My principal concern about immigration is the extent to
which immigrants assimilate culturally and economically. Toward
that end I favor a reduced level and more varied sources of
immigration." From a political and moral perspective, he writes:
"Republicans also should be careful not to let hostility to
illegal immigration come across as hostility to illegal
immigrants as people, let alone to Hispanics generally."
Unforuntately, crafting a political message that takes both
points seriously is a lot easier said than done.
Ponnuru criticizes restrictionists for pointing out that most of
the victorious Democrats in 2006 and 2008 claimed to support
enforcement and oppose amnesty: "But most advocates of
'comprehensive reform' say exactly the same things. President
Bush said that he favored enforcement and opposed amnesty, and so
did Senator McCain. Opponents of that reform never take those
statements at face value - except when they are trying to spin
away political defeats."
But the fact that virtually nobody outside of safe liberal
districts openly campaigns in favor of amnesty or against
immigration enforcement is not politically meaningless. It
suggests that the pro-amnesty, or if you prefer "comprehensive
reform," position carries its own political costs. Activist
restrictionists don't take the pro-enforcement rhetoric of
pro-amnesty politicians at face value, but a lot of voters do.
Restrictionist sentiment has proven fairly easy to co-opt;
harder-core restrictionists have found themselves vulnerable to
triangulation by politicians whose rhetoric better represents the
nuances of public opinion on immigration.
Almost nobody of consequence advocates mass deportation. Perhaps
restrictionists would benefit from using rhetoric that makes that
clearer. But immigration enforcement isn't painless: to the
employers, friends, and families of any illegal immigrant denied
entry or asked to leave the United States, the act of enforcing
the law is going to look a lot like a mass deportation. Ponnuru
suggests we should worry less about the illegal immigrants who
are already here than those who would join them. But the illegal
population may be as large as 20 million people. If we do nothing
to reduce that number, it will take some time for a reduction in
illegal entries to catch up. Second, up to 40 percent of that
illegal population came in legally and overstayed their visas. So
any serious effort to reduce illegal immigration is going to
require some level of interior enforcement. Interior enforcement
is not painless or politically cost-free.
Conservatives are thus caught between a rock and a hard place. If
Nadler is right, and I think he is, immigration enforcement has
the potential to alienate the country's fastest-growing
demographic group and push it to the left. But if the
restrictionists are right, and I think they are, failure to enact
sound immigration policies that better integrate newcomers will
also have the effect of pushing the country to the left. It's not
an easy dilemma to resolve.
