We Need Immigration

As sheltered an enclave as the university campus is, it would take a veritable hermit not to be aware of the emergence of immigration as an important national issue. It is so ubiquitous that even the locals might know something about it; their town, after all, is prepared to evict some immigrants from overcrowded housing. Perhaps, though, your exposure to the issue is cursory, and maybe, like many Americans, you lean to the right in your views on it. After all, it seems quite logical that if hordes of people keep streaming across our borders unchecked, there is bound to be some unhealthy social and economic consequences. Sure, we would like to let in anyone who needs opportunity and who wants to be an American, but this wouldn't be practical.

This, however, is an oversimplification. One of the most overused and incorrect ideas about immigration is that its proponents have only emotional arguments on their side. However, immigrants actually contribute to our nation more than they take from it.

The issue of immigration was brought to the front burner of national politics in the early 1990's, when California Governor Pete Wilson sponsored Proposition 187 - a bill which sought to deny public education, non-emergency health care and welfare to illegal immigrants. Not only did an astonishing sixty percent of Californians voted for it, its anti-immigrant discourse was in fact the key to Wilson's win in the gubernatorial election.

The event was shocking to many; a lot of Americans never imagined that ideas as draconian and reactionary as these would move to the forefront of American politics. Unfortunately, 187 was just the beginning. In the past Presidential election primary season, the more extreme right-wing Republican candidates, like Patrick Buchanan, spewed much nationalistic rhetoric about protecting our borders, both economically and physically. This idea spawned some particularly invidious thoughts on immigration. Throughout the campaign, Buchanan routinely pandered to those in our society who favor severe restrictions on both illegal and legal immigration. Besides crackdowns on illegals, Buchanan called for a five year moratorium on most legal immigration, drawing on a perception of foreigners as thieves of Americans' jobs.

Any belief that these sentiments were confined to fringe groups in the American political spectrum were quickly erased during the Republican primaries, as Buchanan and his flunkies encountered tremendous public support for their efforts. Buchanan commandeered twenty-eight percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary and swept up millions of Americans in his wave of divisiveness. A New York Times poll conducted in late February confirmed that Buchanan supporters were attracted more to his stance on social issues such as immigration than his economic ideology.

As time progressed, however, it became clear that these sentiments were merely precursors to the tide of support for immigration reform that has enveloped the nation. Politicians, recognizing the anti-immigrant trend as politically useful during this key election year, have swooped down on this issue like vultures upon a carcass and exploited it for their own gain. This has perpetuated the movement and has spawned new opinions and ideas that have been both more mean-spirited and more widely accepted. Over the summer, Republicans in Congress attempted to pass an anti-immigration bill that would force the children of illegal immigrants out of public schools. (Fortunately, that provision was removed from the bill last week.) Additionally, in a horrifying endeavor to retract a law that has become the cornerstone of the American dream, the Republican platform called for an amendment to deny the guarantee of citizenship to those children of legal and illegal immigrants born on American soil.

Nor has this current anti-immigrant fervor been limited only to the G.O.P.; many Democrats have also made vocal calls for this type of reform. With eyes fixed on the polls and maybe an occasional thought or two about its consequences, President Clinton signed a welfare bill in August that ended all kinds of benefits for tax-paying legal immigrants.

The dialogue surrounding this debate has been reflective of the negative atmosphere encompassing it. In particular, this negativity has been directed towards those arriving and who have arrived from south of the border. During a Senate debate over his proposed immigration bill, Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, clearly referring to Latinos, off-handedly and openly wondered whether it is "in the national interest to bring in people through chain migration with no skills, who do not learn English, who join their extended family but don't join our society."

All of this activity has made it quite obvious that immigration restriction enjoys widespread support among citizens of our country. Americans are evidently convinced that immigrants have a detrimental effect on our society. But popular opinion cannot be taken for the hard truth. Is the flow of people across our borders overwhelming? Are immigrants, legal or illegal, taking away jobs from other Americans and reducing the average wage in this country? Are they an excessive and disproportionate burden on our welfare systems?

Statistics clearly show otherwise. The Urban Institute, a non-partisan research organization, says that 250,000 to 300,000 illegals come in to the United States and stay each year. The Center for Immigration studies, a conservative research group, quotes the number 400,000. The Immigration and Naturalization Service, says it is 300,000, a figure the Census Bureau corroborates. Any of these numbers is a mere fraction of the 2 to 3 million people that many hysterically claim cross and stay within U.S. borders each year. Perhaps surprisingly, fewer than half of the illegals living in the U.S. crossed the Mexican border to get here; most came by plane with valid student or tourist visas and simply overstayed them. Similarly, legal immigrants amount to only 800,000 persons per year - under .4 percent of the total population. Finally, the notion that our borders contain gaping holes exploited by illegal entrants is a misguided one. The Border Patrol logged 1,094,718 apprehensions in 1994; the I.N.S. estimates that for every illegal immigrant, eight are apprehended.

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