Why politics and rhetoric cannot solve America’s immigration challenges

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Robert D. Putnam, Malkin professor of public policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, published a well-written essay in The Washington Post * on Saturday. ‘A better welcome for our nation’s immigrants' set out to persuade the citizenry that America is a nation of immigrants and immigrants are a “not-so-secret edge in a competitive interconnected world economy.”

The essayists believe there should be more “low-cost English classes,” as well as investment in public education. We should also “assist communities experiencing rapid increases in immigration…”

The essay is eloquent, like the speeches President Barack Obama has delivered on the same subject. Obama will not admit that his Party could have already crammed immigration through in the same manner Democrats crammed healthcare and numerous other matters.

But government has failed on the matter of modern immigration and no amount of establishing political fact or penning well-crafted rhetoric will meet the challenge the US faces today.

What no political leader is doing is assessing immigration from a standpoint of cost or delivery of services.

If the problem is a backlog, you’d think someone in Washington would have the sense to direct dollars to speeding up the processing of applications—after all, for the past administration (Republican) and the current administration (Democrat), we’ve thrown tons of money at everything else, including millions to pay for signs reminding us the Stimulus is working.

What no political leader is doing is assessing immigration in a modern context, when federal entitlements must cover those who live in poverty and most of the middle class sees wealth diminish as government fees, taxes and costs of living increase.

 As political advocacy groups and political strategists angle for a vote that will come from a constituency ill-informed about US government and politics, no one is talking about facts.

Among matters of concern listed in non-opinionated fashion at the Center for Immigration Studies are the following facts about immigration:

•The proportion of immigrant-headed households using at least one major welfare program is 33 percent, compared to 19 percent for native households.

•The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children.

•34 percent of immigrants lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 71 percent of the increase in the uninsured since 1989.

•Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an illegal alien. Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal.

Since Obama took office, tax increases have been threatened or enacted at every turn. An increase in the cigarette tax, the tax on carbon the president desires, taxes on tanning beds, a considered VAT tax. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a talk in Pakistan, explained that in the US, we tax everything that moves.

What none of these leaders in politics will confess is that the American taxpayer will necessarily pay the costs of the amnesty they want, even as millions of jobs have been lost and the state of Illinois, among others, cannot pay her bills. California is a fiscal disaster.

What none of our political leaders will confess is that social services are already strained—in Jacksonville, the only dental clinic servicing the economically distressed who lack insurance as well just closed.

What none of our leaders is doing is admitting that the federal government has failed on every level to enforce the immigration laws the government established in the first place. As a result of open borders and the globalization so in favor for the last two decades regardless of who was leading the US, we have seen our country attacked, our financial structure implode and our healthcare system strained to the breaking point.

That Clintonesque globalization is to put it flatly not working out so well for Main Street.

America, 2010, is not the America our ancestors came to in centuries past. By all accounts the economic outlook is grim.

Until political leaders admit the tools and laws are there to deal with immigration—they’re just not being used—whatever bill Congress does pass will accomplish nothing more than the amnesty that is the goal advocacy groups seek.

Personally speaking I do not see how we can be any more welcoming than we already are. We feed you, we clothe you, we house you and we give you jobs. Our banks have written mortgages based on little documentation and the federal government insists on generous second-language instruction for Hispanic students, our largest nationality among immigrants.

It is a rather astonishing failure of leadership for the state of the nation to have more than 12 million undocumented people in this country. I’d think government would look within and re-route resources from non-vital agencies to get paperwork processed so that people who are here can legally apply and begin the effort towards citizenship if that is what is desired.

We don’t really need reform although both parties have established that as a political fact.

We need government to do the job we taxpayers pay through the nose to finance.

Rhetoric and vote pandering will certainly not address the issue of immigration. Our former governor should consider the state of Florida’s entitlement disaster,  and bear in mind today’s immigrant is far costlier than those of yesterday. Until we approach immigration from a standpoint of fiscal costs, and until we enforce US laws, nothing will change, even if Congress pushes through a bill under the guise of reform.--Kay B. Day

*Editor's Note: ’A better welcome for our nation’s immigrants’ by Jeb Bush and Robert D. Putnam;  The Washington Post, Sat. Jul. 3, 2010; A19. [TUSR does not link directly to WaPo, although we do cite small amounts of information from that source from time to time.]