make peace with national sovereignty. Nations can put their interests first without threatening liberal democratic institutions and norms. Defenders of liberal democracy should acknowledge that controlling borders is a legitimate exercise of sovereignty, and that the appropriate number and type of immigrants is a legitimate subject for debate. Denouncing citizens concerned about immigration as bigots ameliorates neither the substance nor the politics of the problem. There’s nothing illiberal about the view that too many immigrants stress a country’s capacity to absorb them, so that a reduction or even a pause may be in order. No issue has done more than immigration to feed populism, and finding a sustainable compromise would drain much of the bile from today’s politics.
Galston is likely to be regarded by the left as a traitor, much as David Brooks is viewed as a traitor by the right. If so, then this reinforces my view that if we had a proportional-representation parliamentary system, the center-left and center-right parties would be collapsing.
The left lost credibility when they began ordering up mass immigration at election time, a favorite Pelosi trick. Obama once publicly voiced suspicion of the plot pointing out the new immigrants all end up in California, which votes left anyay
Another example of disconnect.
The mayor of LA declares LA and state to be sanctuary.
Voters in California miss a major peculiarity, people around the world pay us Californians good money for the right to wander homeless. Camping in California is fun, even long term camping. rural camping, urban camping, mountain, beach. Even mobile RV camping while one has skilled work. In Minnesota this lifestyle is called being frozen. Not a left right issue, i dunno how to get a simple theory to explain the disconnect.
“The Left” does no such thing.
Add on: the same people who scale the very pinnacles of moral righteousness when discussing rule of law suddenly go mute when the topic is immigration and rule of law.
And if a border wall helps enforces law, why such a condemnation of a reasonable action?
BTW there are already 600 miles of border wall.
Call a spade a spade: the upper-class wants cheap labor and rule of law and sovereign perogatives mean nothing in that quest.
It is not just the lefties who want an open border .
The benefit of a wall is that it would be there doing its job no matter who is president. One downside – at least along the Texas-Mexico border – is that it would cut our farmers and ranchers off from the Rio Grande River.
“Galston is likely to be regarded by the left as a traitor, much as David Brooks is viewed as a traitor by the right. ”
Possibly. Although that may be a bit strong. As far as I can tell (not being as WSJ subscriber) he’s not saying anything that Jonathan Haidt hasn’t already said:
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/10/when-and-why-nationalism-
beats-globalism/
Haidt does come in for criticism from the left, but he hasn’t been demonized or excommunicated (nor, really, has Brooks on the right).
Haidt, by the way, offers a deeper insight into when “too many immigrants stress a country’s capacity to absorb them”. It really doesn’t have to do with economics or a scarcity of land or housing or anything of that sort. This is a very good paragraph:
“Legal immigration from morally different cultures is not problematic even with low levels of assimilation if the numbers are kept low; small ethnic enclaves are not a normative threat to any sizable body politic. Moderate levels of immigration by morally different ethnic groups are fine, too, as long as the immigrants are seen as successfully assimilating to the host culture. When immigrants seem eager to embrace the language, values, and customs of their new land, it affirms nationalists’ sense of pride that their nation is good, valuable, and attractive to foreigners. But whenever a country has historically high levels of immigration, from countries with very different moralities, and without a strong and successful assimilationist program, it is virtually certain that there will be an authoritarian counter-reaction, and you can expect many status quo conservatives to support it.”
I have actually visited part of the border wall here in AZ. Anyone who thinks it is a detriment to people trying to enter the country needs mental help.
Sure, throw some armed guards along the entire border and that might change the equation, but then you could not even estimate the costs of such maintenance.
Not to mention that half a million people a day cross from Mexico into the US every day, legally. You really think that a wall will solve illegal immigration?
You should visit the wall before you talk about it.
The prototypes for new wall construction are vastly superior to the current barriers and fencing, which were purposefully designed to be easily circumvented by administrations with no desire to efficiently impede unlawful migration. Good border walls work, as one can see in dozens of other countries.
As for illegal immigration via visa overstay, that too is obviously a solved problem and completely easy, cheap, and straightforward for any capable nation to accomplish if it wants to, which again can be easily proved by using numerous international examples.
Name a country that has such a wall, please. Y’know, one that people might actually want to go to.
This illegal immigration problem is easy to solve. AZ showed how when they went after employers of illegals. Whole neighborhoods emptied out, and that was just with the threat.
Wanna solve the problem by spending a whole lot less? Modernize social security systems and make it easier for employers to verify the legality of workers. Then go after the employers who still hire illegals. Problem would end in a NY minute.
Do you even
liftgoogle?Israel has such a wall and gets nearly 4 million visitors a year.
Hungary had to rather hastily build an effective fencing system lately thanks to negative externalities of German policy, and also gets over a million tourists a year. Budapest is glorious.
And of course the US also has hundreds of miles of wall, and gets a lot of tourists too, and, indeed, is such a desirable place to be that for this reason precisely it has a tough time keeping people out.
The nice places without walls usually don’t have them because they are lucky and don’t need them because 1. Natural Barriers, or 2. Geographically Intermediate Buffer Countries which effectively perform their border protection jobs for them. The islands among them do, however, need Coast Guards and Navies, and indeed, use them quite aggresively to accomplish this purpose.
Israel has illegal immigrants. Most of them from Russia, some from Africa.
Managed to avoid the wall.
@EMichael, Yes, Israel has illegal immigrants from Africa, but far fewer than Israel would have had without such sophisticated border fencing.
http://www.france24.com/en/20180320-netanyahu-says-african-migrants-worse-threat-jihadists
“Netanyahu said a tide of non-Jewish immigration would threaten the very fabric of Israel.”
‘”After a million, 1.5 million, we might as well shut up shop,” he added. “We did not close down, we built a fence.”‘
And when you’re done with AZ, go to Texas and check out the Rio Grande. Mexico certainly isn’t going to let us put a wall on their side of the river. So are you going to wall off Americans from access to the river? And what about the flood waters that need to drain into the river? Or is the wall going to do double duty as a dam?
Of all the arguments against the wall, this has got to be the lamest I’ve heard yet. I’m thinking of a device that lets water through, but not people…
Yes, there will be civil engineering problems to solve regarding drainage and river access, but these are straightforward problems with proven solutions.
I’m thinking of a device that lets water through, but not people…
Right. Say iron grates with spacing too small for humans to get through? That will quickly catch and get clogged with debris during a flood? Thereby turning the wall into…a dam. For a little while. Maybe just long enough to flood some towns near the border. Until the whole thing bursts. Like this:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2011/08/border-fence-arizona-flooding-washed-away.html
Funny how that trivial civil engineering know-how wasn’t applied in the design of the wall in Arizona. Why do you suppose that was?
(I’d bring up a wall ruining the spectacular Big Bend National Park or all the cross-border animal species whose habitats would be screwed up by a wall. But I’m pretty sure you don’t give a god damn about that)
I keep on pointing out to anyone who’ll listen that Turbo, Colombia, holds a huge number of immigrants, many of whom are from Africa, all of them looking north to get to the US. The only thing stopping them is a fairly rough trip and Central Americans’ desire to keep US goodies for themselves. So they have to cross the Darien Gap.
That’s going to change one way or the other, and then we’ll get swamped by immigrants from South America, Cuba, and Africa, beyond our wildest imaginings. And they won’t all be looking for work.
We need the wall, if we don’t want to become Europe.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/migrants-stranded-colombia-route-closed-160707092815421.html
The U.S. isn’t Europe. There are no ‘goodies’ waiting for immigrants who don’t want to work. Especially not for illegal immigrants.
Completely false.
One example. In-state tuition and scholarships for illegal immigrants to attend college in the US (!)
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2014/08/15/how-immigrants-without-legal-status-can-pay-for-college
Since my daughter is about to start college and isn’t eligible for ‘lack of need’, this annoys me. Greatly.
…this annoys me. Greatly.
Why? We’re talking about in-state tuition for kids (‘dreamers’) who’ve grown up in the state and graduated high-school. They are people who have lived their lives as Americans and will continue to do so (even under Trump, there is zero chance that millions of sympathetic, telegenic youngsters who look and sound 100% American are going to be rounded up and deported to countries they may never have visited and whose language they may not speak).
Given that — don’t you want them to be educated & productive? And, after all, they’re not being given an advantage over your daughter (who is also an in-state student presumably) — just equal treatment.
So many reasons. A few…
>Why?
Fundamentally, because they are here illegally.
+Their parents are not contributing to the state taxes that subsidize their education. So actual taxpayer citizens are subsidizing them.
+It puts the lie to all the ‘it’s too hard to deport them all.’ These kids self-reported.
+Self-deportation is more humane than forced deportation. This makes the future deportation harder.
+”Now we need a Vice Dean for Dreamer Affairs.”
>kids (‘dreamers’) who’ve grown up in the state…
Appeal to emotion. I don’t care. They have to go back.
>Given that — don’t you want them to be educated & productive?
If they are getting STEM degrees, then their home country needs them. If they aren’t, they aren’t getting a useful & productive degree and it’s irrelevant.
>And, after all, they’re not being given an advantage over your daughter
+So? That’s an admission slot the child of a taxpaying citizen can’t use. (It’s irrelevant in my case as my kid is out of state and got into her first choice.)
+I do a lot of things that don’t directly benefit me. Like pay taxes (accurately) and pick up litter that misses the basket.
I think in systems and so I think in terms of actions that benefit or corrode the system. A system in which one side acts illegally (dreamers) and another side is prevented from acting legally by illegal/pseudo-legal acts (HI judge putting a hold on immigration changes) is doomed to failure.
Essentially, these kids are an ostentatious symbol of what got Trump elected. You want more Trump? ‘Cause that’s going to get you more Trump.
Appeal to emotion. I don’t care. They have to go back.
It doesn’t really matter if you, personally, don’t give a damn about the human cost — these people are *never* going to be rounded up and sent back.
The political optics of arresting and deporting all these kids would beyond terrible. No politician with two functioning brain cells will continue support it once these heart-rending stories start hitting the news. The most you can ‘hope’ for is deporting of those who’ve committed crimes. But the rest will be staying.
There is a decided difference between theoretically being in favor of secure borders in the U.S. and actually doing something about it. We have other values too, and securing our borders would fundamentally make our relationship to our government more authoritarian, to say nothing of the impossibly large costs. We enjoy a mostly free society, and generally like the benefits of having 75 million visitors each year energizing our economy.
This reminds me of the gun debate, but in reverse. Some people want the government to protect them from guns and some people want the guns to protect them from government. If you really want the government to control the borders, you are buying into a whole different federal government. Most people who are for more secure borders probably wouldn’t want to take that medicine.
“There is a decided difference between theoretically being in favor of secure borders in the U.S. and actually doing something about it.”
“Theoretically” supporting something but opposing “actually doing something about it” is dishonest trickery and manipulation.
The words and “theory” match the actions of an honest person. Politicians often do the opposite and deceive people and tell them one thing and do another. But that’s unsavory dishonest behavior.
The preamble to the Constitution says that the United States was designed for “ourselves and our posterity”. In other words, blood and soil. The US was designed under principles of self-government not under anything like open borders.
People don’t fully reconcile their beliefs all the time. Its far more often about laziness or complexity than it is dishonest trickery and manipulation.
And I don’t buy the idea that the writers of our Constitution had any kind of workable theory on controlling borders either.
Since absolutely zero people are arguing against legitimate exercise of US sovereignty over its borders and almost no one is arguing for actually open borders, I find this concern completely specious.
The “debate” is between “pro-immigration” Democrats who want to illegalize 90-95% of immigration and “anti-immigration” Republicans who want to illegalize 93-98% of immigration. Anyone who was actually pro-immigration would look back to the first three centuries of American history, when there were no quotas and no employment prohibitions on immigrants.
The liberal position on immigration today is completely self-serving and unprincipled, just as the liberal position on immigration was completely self-serving and unprincipled a couple decades ago when they were against illegal immigrants because they undercut union wages. As bad as some conservatives are becoming on this topic, it’s really unfortunate that liberals are called pro-immigration. They should be called out on their unprincipled stances at every opportunity.
Ross Douthat eloquently explained, “Liberalism’s current relationship to open borders is asymptotic: Not for it, but for every step toward it.”
Hillary Clinton explicitly advocated for “Open Borders” and she used those specific words in a private speech. When that leaked and came under criticism, Hillary said she was referring to trade, but no, she absolutely meant immigration, and was just deflecting.
Damon Linker also explains that yes, the Democrats are basically for open borders: http://theweek.com/articles/716164/lefts-immigration-problem
Where do you get the idea that “pro-immigration” Democrats want to illegalize 90-95% of immigration? That sounds detached from reality and simply wrong.
The 90-95% number comes from an estimate of 10-20 million or so prospective immigrants a year, of which only 1 million are able to legally immigrate.
To get some real numbers from one example, 116,000 diversity visas were chosen from 23 million applications in 2018’s lottery. (Surely a high proportion of those 23 million applications repeat their application annually.) Someone who was for open borders would allow all of them to immigrate. I don’t hear Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat arguing for that. If they don’t, then what on earth do they mean by open borders except not-open borders?
Supporting the current immigration regime, or anything close to it, is pretty obviously anti-immigration — at least for that 90-95% who can’t immigrate legally.
It is actually those — be they Democrats or Republicans — who claim that Democrats are for open borders that seem to be delusional.
I dunno, explain the No Person Is Illegal rhetoric to me, then. Or the refusal of west coast politicians and bureaucratic entities cooperate with federal immigration enforcement actions. It seems to me that if you think basically any unwilling deportation is wrong and you place no priority on enforcement of existing laws or controlling immigration flows, then you’re for de facto open borders, whatever else you might be espousing. That seems to be the position of, granted, not everybody on the left, but a good chunk of people who self-identify as left of center.
Liberal rhetoric is generally thoughtless and unprincipled. Most of those espousing such notions are unwilling or unable to think things through beyond the specific circumstance of the moment and the emotion they are supposed to exhibit.
In particular, immigration of the poor enables Democratic agendas for government control over economy and welfare. But if the borders were actually open to mass middle-class migration — people looking exclusively for opportunity and self-reliance — the liberal immigration tune would change rapidly to Trump-like complaints about driving down Americans’ wages.
Why not use the number of people that would come over based on surveys? That’s like 150 million!
Yeah. But they won’t all come in one year. If they knew there was an unlimited visa available for all future time, they would filter their way in and filter their way out over the next 5 to 20 years.
Like Bernie? Democrats view open borders as a dream, something to be hoped for in some distant future, not something that is pragmatic or realistic. A world where anyone can because no one wants to, rather one where no one can because everyone wants to. That isn’t open borders which is a libertarian fantasy.
Is not Galston committed to defending the old White Australia policy?
The only “open border” advocates I have ever come across are a few lonely writers at Reason.
Everything else is partisan hyperventilating.
There’s nothing illiberal about the view that too many immigrants stress a country’s capacity to absorb them, so that a reduction or even a pause may be in order.
Reasonable argument but I dont see any hard evidence that there is too many immigrants stress to country’s capacity to absorb them. There lots of claims and no evidence. Where is the evidence especially since the number of illegal immigrants has not really changed since 2008 so why in 2016 is this true? Where is the null hypothesis?
1) I live in an Immigrant heavy area and don’t see the evidence. And notice the three largest border states voted towards HRC (CA, AZ, TX) so I don’t see the states most effected by Immigrants having this problem. (Note it takes decades to vote as an Immigrants but most people in these states know lots of Immigrants.)
2) Some of the states moving towards Trump IA, MI, OH, WV are not Immigrant heavy so how would they know Immigrant problems.
3) I think there is a vast difference between most of Ross Douthat and the Trump campaign. Ross makes good arguments about society trust impacting people lives. Sounds fine. However, The Trump campaign looked to blame all our problems on the Immigrants with they are coming to get you politics. They take your jobs, create all the crime and bring their drugs. In terms of campaigning against Opoids, notice Trump administration blames Mexicans for the distribution.
Reasonable argument but I dont see any hard evidence that there is too many immigrants stress to country’s capacity to absorb them.
The evidence is this — Trump won the presidency pushing ‘the wall’ as a main position. The capacity under stress is not land or housing. What’s stressed is — unfortunately — the capacity for political tolerance. And even if you’re right that the people most often in daily contact with immigrants are the least worried, that also doesn’t matter. Many Trump supporters voted for him on the basis of stopping illegal immigration even if they almost never see any themselves:
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/11/trumps-supporters-dont-see-a-lot-of-immigrants/506066/
Does this seem illogical? Yes. Are is anybody going to fix it merely by pointing this out? Nope.
OK, so I do feel Trump can have Wall, cut downs on Immigration levels and the protection of DACA recipients. I don’t especially like that trade off but it is reasonable with the past election. The bizarre thing about the Immigration is we are close to certain deals to protect DACA, but both Parties don’t want to agree with it. So I don’t think Ross Douthat is not Ann Coultor nor are most Ds complete Open Borders. (And didnt Obama deport a lot his first term?)
However, most Democrats are the more Open Borders than Closed Borders (say 35 Yard Line here) and I feel the writers William Galston and Ross Douthat are exaggerating many of our opinions of complete Open Borders. (I love how they claim the H-A are not assimilating.) And that Sanctuary Cities are fairly reasonable for California because we do want certain lawful protections of illegal immigrants in our area. (In fact Sanctuary Cities control the MS-13 gang activities a lot more than anything.)
Not illogical.
Never see an illegal =/= not affected. We do live in a modern economy, after all.
See my post above for one example. Another example: If TX goes Dem due to immigration (illegal or otherwise) it will have a massive impact on everyone in the country.
Living in California my 15 year old kids dont believe me that when I was their age a Californian Republican was a popular President and he did not demonize the Hispanic-Americans about the Wall! I have shown them speeches on Youtube! (FYI although white family their best friends are H-A and the school is majority H-A.)
That is how far things have moved. While there has been Immigration but the real reason the H-A are a going portion of the population is they have the highest births! (Lyman Stone has the charts.) So in California the H-A were 25% of the population in 1984 and now 40% mostly by demographics. (Yes I know of the white flight stuff and knew people like myself for six years who moved.) The reality in Southern California is the H-A are the really hard working families sound a lot like the 1960s white working class families. (And go to any Catholic Church in the inland empire to see the reality.)
In terms of Texas:
1) Republicans can still win H-A votes. Bush Jr. in 2004 won 44% and was very popular with H-A in Texas. (Our state rep is a H-A Republican.) There was hope of winning their votes before 2012.
2) I bet there are some Immigrants in Texas but most 90% H-A are citizens and they have grown as portion of the population due to higher births. I wonder what % of oil fields are H-A citizens right now. (Texas aint going Blue although Ds may take some House seats.)
The reality of these demographic changes is H-A have more children so that is why Arizona half the kids in elementary schools are H-A citizens.
Not sure what you’re looking at, but a quick search found this:
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/pdf/cspan_fb_slides.pdf
Slide 4. You’re telling me birth rate drove the LatAm/Caribbean population from a million to 20M in 50 years? That’s fast work.
And 44% Repub = Dem win. I don’t really expect TX to go blue in the near figure, but (1) I didn’t expect CA to either and (2) my main point was that it is not illogical to have an option on immigration one does not see directly.
Just a suspicion, but I feel like the ongoing freakout over racism and white supremacy and white privilege across our fine institutions of higher education might be somewhat emblematic of larger issues related to having an ethnically and socially very diverse polity with diverse socio-economic outcomes. If this is correct, continued untrammeled immigration is throwing gasoline on a fire.
“And notice the three largest border states voted towards HRC (CA, AZ, TX) ”
Whites voted for Trump in AZ and TX, and roughly split in CA (50-45 Clinton). In fact, whites voted for Trump in all but about 8 states. The states where whites gave Hillary a commanding majority are notoriously vanilla, with very little immigration. Blacks vote 90% Dem regardless.
And if you live in an immigrant heavy state and don’t see the huge costs of education, then you’re not paying attention.
“I dont see any hard evidence that there is too many immigrants stress to country’s capacity to absorb them.”
Hard evidence = “no go zones” in a big city because of immigrants.
There are lots of European cities with no-go zones; Paris and the weekly tire burnings come to mind, but even places in Sweden.
The US is complicated by black racism — many no-go zones at night are that way more because of black citizens than because of immigrants.
If US schools emphasized learning English for immigrants even more, the US capacity absorb immigrants would be greater.
To think that lower paid immigrants don’t reduce wages of citizens is a bit stupid — the econ laws of supply and demand show that more supply of anything, like fracked oil, reduces the price. However, there is also the positive sum reality that most immigrants, legal and illegal, even if they work as a substitute for a citizen in a particular job, they are also local consumers and increase demand for local services.
Immigrants not on welfare are big positives.
But culturally, the issue is really whether Christian based Capitalism is worth assimilating into, or not. Dems implicitly and often even explicitly are so critical of the US and American history, that they’re basically rejecting “Americanism”. (Using American First Amendment rights to do so…) Such Dems oppose programs and cultural pressure to assimilate. They are attacking the patriotic / nationalistic Americans who most often accept legal immigration, but oppose illegals.
None can support “rule of law” while supporting illegals. Civilization with human rights & freedom is based on rule of law.
“Immigrants not on welfare are big positives.”
No, not really. They cluster and drive up both housing and education costs.
Razib Khan points out that arguments against gentrification share a lot with arguments against immigration, toward the end of a post filled with interesting observations.
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/03/26/open-thread-3-26-2018/