I have written a great deal on what I think is good immigration policy over the last 30+ years. I haven't actually changed my position on the issue much. The longest, most comprehensive piece, appeared in Commentary Magazine "What to Do About Immigration," in which I argued for a skills-based approach, which gave preference to those whose skills the American labor market lacked, including at both the high-skills end and the lower-skilled end (e.g. poultry and meat workers, farmworkers, domestic workers, etc. I would make the numbers market driven, and as I suggested in this piece, we need about 1.4 million people added each year in good economic times, largely because of the dependency ratio of older Americans. Here are some links to what I've written in the past, and also to an earlier piece I wrote about Trump's immigration policy in 2015. Trump has always wanted to shut down legal immigration, not just illegal immigration. https://www.commentary.org/articles/linda-chavez/what-to-do-about-immigration/
Correction: Trump will probably be "cruel" to illegal immigrants. Not to immigrants, such as me and the ca. million who come to this land each year.
It is a common, and often preferred, mistake to mix the two. But even those who practice this follishness know that legal immigration is as different from illegal immigration as lovemaking is different from rape.
There is no greater authoritarian threat to the US than the Democratic party. I'm going to quote a reply from another Unpopulist article here because they say it so much better than I could have:
"An awful lot of politically engaged Americans appreciate that the true threat to liberty in America has always come from the Left. Progressive theory and policy is unapologetically authoritarian. We also recognize the appalling depth of corruption in both establishment parties, but especially the Democrats. Biden is the proud equal of the Clintons in corruption, but not a single Democrat cares one bit about it. These are the two primary reasons for Trump’s appeal. Democrats have no answer for either concern. The Democratic Party is now devoid of liberals. What remains are Progressives--in other words, authoritarians--and the unabashedly corrupt. The progressives continue to reelect the unabashedly corrupt because the only thing they can see is Trump. They support the “Palestinian” cause because there is no room for the rule of law on the Left. On the left, the animating belief is “by any means necessary,” leading to such brilliant moves as removing Trump from ballots. They are not even trying to hide it. So MAGA is a rational response, not a crazy one. "
"Our broken immigration system...our outdated immigration laws". I'm less interested in what Trump would do (a lot of speculation here) and more interested in what Biden and our legislature should do at the present moment. Should the Ukraine aid bill, that addresses the current immigration issues we are facing, be passed? If so, why? If not, why? Linda, as a Senior Fellow at the National Immigration Forum, what are your suggestions for addressing our "broken" immigration system and "outdated" immigration laws? I was looking for some hint of that in this article but was disappointed when I couldn't find it.
See my post above, which links to my views on legal reform. I’ve written dozens of articles on the topic but the two I linked are most relevant. As for Ukraine aid—I wish I believed border security were the key, but MAGA opponents are just being dishonest. If Paris was worth a Mass, saving Ukraine would be worth asylum reform. Alas MAGA wants neither actual immigration reform (they’d lose most potent election issue) nor a free and indepdent Ukraine.
I get it that you are pro-immigration and fully behind the immigration advocacy of the NIF. Could it be that a significant number of US citizens see you (and the NIF) as ideologically extreme as you characterize your MAGA opponents? This polarization certainly could hinder seizing the moment at this politically opportune time to do something about both legal and especially illegal immigration. One could say both sides are being dishonest, and both sides play the game of holding the other hostage during critical decisional junctures. It is, however, an opportunity for compromise and, who knows, an opportunity for creative win-win solutions. Just curious about how far you would go to improve the situation at the border...which of your policy stances do you feel you could compromise on...or, give up? Wouldn't it be better to have a pragmatic politically tenable set of actions in place to reduce the tension at the border and preempt Trump if he is elected? There are other social forces operating in this dynamic other than the MAGA adherents and they could overwhelm this rather small faction; why not make them lose this "potent election issue" and thus undermine Trump's election chances. Time to UnPolarize.
NIF is anything but extreme. Their Bibles, Badges and Business coalition is made up of people across the political spectrum. They work in the Evangelical community and with elected officials on both sides of the aisle and run a monthly Center Right coalition. As for me, I am a conservative on economic issues, national security and defense—as you undoubtedly know I served in the Reagan White House and was the Republican nominee for US Senate from MD. In my personal view—not speaking for NIF—I think asylum should be available to persons who have credible
fear of state persecution not fleeing poverty or crime. If we had a viable program to admit more temporary workers as well as permanent residents and a functioning immigration court system we would see numbers drop at the border. We saw it when Biden offered humanitarian parole to Venezuelans and others earlier this year. The problem is less the numbers that are coming in each month but how they are coming. We’ll probably never see a stop to all illegal migration, but we managed to keep the numbers sufficiently low to see no large increase in the population of undocumented living here in almost two decades (peaking at 12 million and dropping to under 11 million before the most recent surge). The numbers may change as a result of the large numbers in the last several months, but maybe not as much as you think. Older
cohorts die and many leave when the life they imagined doesn’t pan out.
Thank you for taking the time to respond...it's more than generous for a forum such as this. Granted, no one tends to feel that they or their 'side' is extreme...but, isn't that part of the problem and one of the many forces that generates polarization among people and groups? I appreciate your promotion of "a viable program to admit more temporary workers as well as permanent residents" and the "skills-based approach" mentioned in your December 21st post...as long as it is done through legal channels. I believe there should be significant bipartisan agreement on such approaches. However, you have really not proposed mechanisms for dealing with illegal immigration. I would argue that the "numbers" have not been "sufficiently low"...and that it is not something that has happened in the "last several months." Rationalizations such as "cohorts die and many leave" are rather weak arguments. Back to your original article, "hysterical hair-on-fire predictions" and "Trump as dictator jeremiads" (to use Holman Jenkins words in his WSJ opinion piece in today's paper) are tiresome and dysfunctional (see polarization above). Instead, the problem needs to be addressed now while the opportunity is ripe.
Plenty has been written on the "matter." I guess I am a bit weary at this point reading another article on the dangers of Trump that rehashes what has already been written on the matter...including suggestions to "hire more immigration judges and process claims faster, admit more legal immigrants." Pretty simplistic suggestions...a doubling down on the system we currently have in place? Isn't this just a tad bit idealistic? Doesn't it need to be tempered by a bit more realism... by pragmatism?
Thank you. Many viable reform suggestions...likely these three-year old right-leaning libertarian suggestions have gotten little traction in the current administration. What you may have missed is that I was asking the author for her suggestions for immigration reform given her position as a Fellow at NIF. I also asked for her view on the viability of the Ukraine aid bill. It's clear that she is not willing to address these two issues...and that's OK...it's a big ask.
Yes, given the nature of your reply I would expect my comment to be perceived as vague. Think about it a little longer and consider what needs to happen across the isle in our legislature to generate a politically wise solution to the problem.
The vast majority of the citizens of this country want our immigration laws enforced. They want walls and barriers and border patrol agents putting a complete halt to unauthorized crossings. Anyone sneaking across the border gets fingerprinted, DNA sampled, detained for two months and shipped back to their country of origin. The voters of America want the abuse of refugee and asylum claims to stop. They want all illegal immigrants shipped to sanctuary states, pending deportation to their country of origin. Allowing illegals to flood into the country is an insult to all who came in legally and to those waiting in line to get in the right way.
We need e-verify to ensure every employer has legal employees. We cannot use illegal immigration to make up a labor shortage. Change the law or its implementation to allow more temporary guest workers.
Trump did get a lot done, but he didn’t fo enough. He too long to reduce illegal immigration to low levels. He never got around to deporting large numbers or making a law permanently prohibiting citizenship to those who came illegally. He never pushed a bill to end birthright anchor baby citizenship.
Many American citizens of all ethnicities wish Trump gets in and really gets the job done on immigration.
Did you come here legally? I'm going to guess the answer to that is "no", and you're actually native born, since you claim there's a way to "wait in line." There is no line. The immigration system is a Kafkaesque maze. I navigated it successfully back in the early '90s, and do not feel insulted by "illegal" immigrants.
I know several American citizens who did come through legally. They are much more upset than I am about illegals. The immigration system may be broke. Letting illegal immigration run rampant is not the way to fix it.
A decrease in labor supply equals in increase in wages. I'll worry when we get to $30 for min. Freeing up all those houses might bring rent and housing costs down too. Cost of schools and Medicaid. No harm to US citizens.
By your logic if women were kept at home and we cut down on the number of babies people have to shrink the labor supply, wages would go up. Actually, that's not how it works as companies start automatizing. But also the economy is a complex thing and immigrants actually don't compete for native jobs. Do read the link supplied.
Yeah, and increased wages mean everything is more expensive for everyone. You thought inflation under Biden was bad? Wait and see what happens when Trump and his cronies drastically decrease the productivity of the U.S. economy.
Not for those of us who don't buy services, the trade off is in our favor. Fix our own cars, clean our own houses, mow our own lawns, cook our own food. Inflation is great if wages rise faster, all those loans worth much less.
That would be the case if you can't use your time for more productive (and lucrative) ends. If you are a mechanic, it might be cheaper for you to fix your own care but not clean your own house or mow your own lawn. If you can get that done by paying less per hour than you make as a mechanic, you'd be able to make more more AND live better. Minimizing the opportunity cost is the key to economic growth and a better quality of life for individuals.
I enjoy keeping up my house and yard, I like gardening and hunting, fixing things when they are broken instead of throwing them away. We cook our own food, entertain our friends. Life is free.
I have written a great deal on what I think is good immigration policy over the last 30+ years. I haven't actually changed my position on the issue much. The longest, most comprehensive piece, appeared in Commentary Magazine "What to Do About Immigration," in which I argued for a skills-based approach, which gave preference to those whose skills the American labor market lacked, including at both the high-skills end and the lower-skilled end (e.g. poultry and meat workers, farmworkers, domestic workers, etc. I would make the numbers market driven, and as I suggested in this piece, we need about 1.4 million people added each year in good economic times, largely because of the dependency ratio of older Americans. Here are some links to what I've written in the past, and also to an earlier piece I wrote about Trump's immigration policy in 2015. Trump has always wanted to shut down legal immigration, not just illegal immigration. https://www.commentary.org/articles/linda-chavez/what-to-do-about-immigration/
https://www.commentary.org/articles/linda-chavez/donald-trumps-america/
Correction: Trump will probably be "cruel" to illegal immigrants. Not to immigrants, such as me and the ca. million who come to this land each year.
It is a common, and often preferred, mistake to mix the two. But even those who practice this follishness know that legal immigration is as different from illegal immigration as lovemaking is different from rape.
You really ought to read a piece and get some facts before commenting. (And Miller launched an all-out assault on LEGAL immigration in the first term): https://reason.com/2019/02/06/three-reasons-why-trump-is-not-serious-a/
There is no greater authoritarian threat to the US than the Democratic party. I'm going to quote a reply from another Unpopulist article here because they say it so much better than I could have:
"An awful lot of politically engaged Americans appreciate that the true threat to liberty in America has always come from the Left. Progressive theory and policy is unapologetically authoritarian. We also recognize the appalling depth of corruption in both establishment parties, but especially the Democrats. Biden is the proud equal of the Clintons in corruption, but not a single Democrat cares one bit about it. These are the two primary reasons for Trump’s appeal. Democrats have no answer for either concern. The Democratic Party is now devoid of liberals. What remains are Progressives--in other words, authoritarians--and the unabashedly corrupt. The progressives continue to reelect the unabashedly corrupt because the only thing they can see is Trump. They support the “Palestinian” cause because there is no room for the rule of law on the Left. On the left, the animating belief is “by any means necessary,” leading to such brilliant moves as removing Trump from ballots. They are not even trying to hide it. So MAGA is a rational response, not a crazy one. "
"Our broken immigration system...our outdated immigration laws". I'm less interested in what Trump would do (a lot of speculation here) and more interested in what Biden and our legislature should do at the present moment. Should the Ukraine aid bill, that addresses the current immigration issues we are facing, be passed? If so, why? If not, why? Linda, as a Senior Fellow at the National Immigration Forum, what are your suggestions for addressing our "broken" immigration system and "outdated" immigration laws? I was looking for some hint of that in this article but was disappointed when I couldn't find it.
See my post above, which links to my views on legal reform. I’ve written dozens of articles on the topic but the two I linked are most relevant. As for Ukraine aid—I wish I believed border security were the key, but MAGA opponents are just being dishonest. If Paris was worth a Mass, saving Ukraine would be worth asylum reform. Alas MAGA wants neither actual immigration reform (they’d lose most potent election issue) nor a free and indepdent Ukraine.
I get it that you are pro-immigration and fully behind the immigration advocacy of the NIF. Could it be that a significant number of US citizens see you (and the NIF) as ideologically extreme as you characterize your MAGA opponents? This polarization certainly could hinder seizing the moment at this politically opportune time to do something about both legal and especially illegal immigration. One could say both sides are being dishonest, and both sides play the game of holding the other hostage during critical decisional junctures. It is, however, an opportunity for compromise and, who knows, an opportunity for creative win-win solutions. Just curious about how far you would go to improve the situation at the border...which of your policy stances do you feel you could compromise on...or, give up? Wouldn't it be better to have a pragmatic politically tenable set of actions in place to reduce the tension at the border and preempt Trump if he is elected? There are other social forces operating in this dynamic other than the MAGA adherents and they could overwhelm this rather small faction; why not make them lose this "potent election issue" and thus undermine Trump's election chances. Time to UnPolarize.
NIF is anything but extreme. Their Bibles, Badges and Business coalition is made up of people across the political spectrum. They work in the Evangelical community and with elected officials on both sides of the aisle and run a monthly Center Right coalition. As for me, I am a conservative on economic issues, national security and defense—as you undoubtedly know I served in the Reagan White House and was the Republican nominee for US Senate from MD. In my personal view—not speaking for NIF—I think asylum should be available to persons who have credible
fear of state persecution not fleeing poverty or crime. If we had a viable program to admit more temporary workers as well as permanent residents and a functioning immigration court system we would see numbers drop at the border. We saw it when Biden offered humanitarian parole to Venezuelans and others earlier this year. The problem is less the numbers that are coming in each month but how they are coming. We’ll probably never see a stop to all illegal migration, but we managed to keep the numbers sufficiently low to see no large increase in the population of undocumented living here in almost two decades (peaking at 12 million and dropping to under 11 million before the most recent surge). The numbers may change as a result of the large numbers in the last several months, but maybe not as much as you think. Older
cohorts die and many leave when the life they imagined doesn’t pan out.
Thank you for taking the time to respond...it's more than generous for a forum such as this. Granted, no one tends to feel that they or their 'side' is extreme...but, isn't that part of the problem and one of the many forces that generates polarization among people and groups? I appreciate your promotion of "a viable program to admit more temporary workers as well as permanent residents" and the "skills-based approach" mentioned in your December 21st post...as long as it is done through legal channels. I believe there should be significant bipartisan agreement on such approaches. However, you have really not proposed mechanisms for dealing with illegal immigration. I would argue that the "numbers" have not been "sufficiently low"...and that it is not something that has happened in the "last several months." Rationalizations such as "cohorts die and many leave" are rather weak arguments. Back to your original article, "hysterical hair-on-fire predictions" and "Trump as dictator jeremiads" (to use Holman Jenkins words in his WSJ opinion piece in today's paper) are tiresome and dysfunctional (see polarization above). Instead, the problem needs to be addressed now while the opportunity is ripe.
Plenty has been written on the "matter." I guess I am a bit weary at this point reading another article on the dangers of Trump that rehashes what has already been written on the matter...including suggestions to "hire more immigration judges and process claims faster, admit more legal immigrants." Pretty simplistic suggestions...a doubling down on the system we currently have in place? Isn't this just a tad bit idealistic? Doesn't it need to be tempered by a bit more realism... by pragmatism?
Here ya go. No mention of Trump, and plenty of specifics, down to the sections of the U.S. code that need reform:
https://www.cato.org/study/reforming-immigration-system-brief-outline
Thank you. Many viable reform suggestions...likely these three-year old right-leaning libertarian suggestions have gotten little traction in the current administration. What you may have missed is that I was asking the author for her suggestions for immigration reform given her position as a Fellow at NIF. I also asked for her view on the viability of the Ukraine aid bill. It's clear that she is not willing to address these two issues...and that's OK...it's a big ask.
Yes, given the nature of your reply I would expect my comment to be perceived as vague. Think about it a little longer and consider what needs to happen across the isle in our legislature to generate a politically wise solution to the problem.
The vast majority of the citizens of this country want our immigration laws enforced. They want walls and barriers and border patrol agents putting a complete halt to unauthorized crossings. Anyone sneaking across the border gets fingerprinted, DNA sampled, detained for two months and shipped back to their country of origin. The voters of America want the abuse of refugee and asylum claims to stop. They want all illegal immigrants shipped to sanctuary states, pending deportation to their country of origin. Allowing illegals to flood into the country is an insult to all who came in legally and to those waiting in line to get in the right way.
We need e-verify to ensure every employer has legal employees. We cannot use illegal immigration to make up a labor shortage. Change the law or its implementation to allow more temporary guest workers.
Trump did get a lot done, but he didn’t fo enough. He too long to reduce illegal immigration to low levels. He never got around to deporting large numbers or making a law permanently prohibiting citizenship to those who came illegally. He never pushed a bill to end birthright anchor baby citizenship.
Many American citizens of all ethnicities wish Trump gets in and really gets the job done on immigration.
Did you come here legally? I'm going to guess the answer to that is "no", and you're actually native born, since you claim there's a way to "wait in line." There is no line. The immigration system is a Kafkaesque maze. I navigated it successfully back in the early '90s, and do not feel insulted by "illegal" immigrants.
I know several American citizens who did come through legally. They are much more upset than I am about illegals. The immigration system may be broke. Letting illegal immigration run rampant is not the way to fix it.
A decrease in labor supply equals in increase in wages. I'll worry when we get to $30 for min. Freeing up all those houses might bring rent and housing costs down too. Cost of schools and Medicaid. No harm to US citizens.
By your logic if women were kept at home and we cut down on the number of babies people have to shrink the labor supply, wages would go up. Actually, that's not how it works as companies start automatizing. But also the economy is a complex thing and immigrants actually don't compete for native jobs. Do read the link supplied.
Yeah, and increased wages mean everything is more expensive for everyone. You thought inflation under Biden was bad? Wait and see what happens when Trump and his cronies drastically decrease the productivity of the U.S. economy.
Not for those of us who don't buy services, the trade off is in our favor. Fix our own cars, clean our own houses, mow our own lawns, cook our own food. Inflation is great if wages rise faster, all those loans worth much less.
That would be the case if you can't use your time for more productive (and lucrative) ends. If you are a mechanic, it might be cheaper for you to fix your own care but not clean your own house or mow your own lawn. If you can get that done by paying less per hour than you make as a mechanic, you'd be able to make more more AND live better. Minimizing the opportunity cost is the key to economic growth and a better quality of life for individuals.
I enjoy keeping up my house and yard, I like gardening and hunting, fixing things when they are broken instead of throwing them away. We cook our own food, entertain our friends. Life is free.
Right, we'll all just retreat to autonomous enclaves and everything will be hunky/dory. Welcome to the 13th century. Dysentery much?
The more uspeakable factor: Those who will implement and execute Trump's cruel endeavors. Once done with the "illegals", who will be next?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller
A truly bizarre and logically incoherent extrapolation.