It’s Not About Immigration and It’s Not About Jobs

Well, if Bush’s immigration reform proposal isn’t about either, then what is it about? Special interest politics, of course. Please pardon the redundancy — for all politics in the US today is about special interests.

This fact may be an ineluctable flaw inherent in mature democracies, due to what economists call “marginal disutility.” A smaller group of people with a large incentive will be far more politically motivated and thus pandered to by politicians than a larger group of people with a small incentive.

This is what makes government subsidies almost impossible to get rid of. The folks who get the subsidy will lobby tooth and nail for it as it’s worth a fortune to them — but for the rest of us, it’s not worth much or any effort to oppose the subsidy as the average cost among us is so small.

The danger of the flaw, threatening economic viability and political stability, increases with the scale of the groups. 40 million Greedy Geezers (excuse me, Senior Citizens over 65) get a multi-trillion dollar Medicare subsidy that the other 250 million Americans have to pay for. This is especially true when the scale is not simply demographic but political. That is, when a group has high “political marginal utility” — like Hispanics.

This explains the puzzle of why neither Republicans or Democrats will do anything to really stop illegal immigration when the overwhelming majority of American voters want them to. The Hispanic vote can be the marginal difference between defeat and victory in a good many electoral districts now, so neither party has the guts to take it on.

Instead, what we get is a chorus of “the-toothpaste-is-out-of-the-tube” arguments from politicians and pundits across the political spectrum. “We can’t turn the spigot off,” claims Toby Jacob of the New York Post, so the best we can do is manage the illegal migrant flow, not interdict it. Todd Lindberg of the Washington Times views opposing illegal immigration as “an exercise in futility.” Pandering to the Hispanic special interest vote is inevitable, folks, no matter how many millions of other voters oppose it.

“Nonsense” was the response I received to these claims from a powerful United States Congressman. “Although no specific legislation has been proposed by the White House, I can assure you that Bush’s immigration proposals as he has put them forth will fail in the House. We cannot and will not reward those who have cheated the system and provide enormous incentives for cheating in the future.”

“Let me tell you something, Jack,” the Congressman continued. “These estimates you read about there being 8 million illegal aliens in this country — that’s baloney. There are 7 to 8 million illegal aliens in California alone. The reality is that we have between 15 and 20 million illegal aliens in America today. And you know what? They are going to have to leave.”

I envisioned them being hunted down and loaded into boxcars back to Mexico, but he knew what I was thinking and laughed. “No, Jack, we don’t need reverse cattle drives, herding them back across the Rio Grande. What we need — and what we in Congress are going to provide — are disincentives for them to stay.”

For example:

• HR908: The Chain Gang and Porridge for Illegal Aliens Act. Many illegal aliens have committed crimes, been deported, and then snuck back in to the US. This bill, currently in Congress, amends the Immigration and Nationality Act “to specify that imprisonment for reentering the United States after removal subsequent to a conviction for a felony shall be under circumstances that stress strenuous work and sparse living conditions, if the alien is convicted of another felony after the reentry.”

• HR1631: No Social Security for Illegal Aliens Act. This bill would “amend title II of the Social Security Act to exclude from creditable wages and self-employment income wages earned for services by aliens illegally performed in the United States and self-employment income derived from a trade or business illegally conducted in the United States.”

• Requiring Hospitals to Report Illegal Aliens to Federal Authorities Act. One of the best examples of lunatic pandering to Hispanics is Washington mandating that hospitals cannot turn patients away, even if they are unable to pay and even if they are not U.S. citizens. This bill, to be offered up later this month, will require hospitals to report to federal authorities within hours of treatment that health care is being provided to illegal immigrants. The Border Patrol would then be required to put the illegal immigrants on a list for expedited deportation. The bill will specify that mandated health care services to illegals will be restricted to genuine emergency care to treat an immediate problem, prohibiting long term care requiring lengthy hospitalization.

“American citizens have no obligation to provide education, health care, or other public services to those who are breaking the law,” the Congressman explained. “Proposition 187 in California, which banned illegal immigrants from collecting such services, was passed by almost 60 percent of the vote. The liberals got their buddies in California Superior Court to reverse it and Democrat Governor Gray Davis never appealed it to the Supremes. We’ll have Prop 187s all over the country this November. The vast majority want the invasion of their country by illegal aliens stopped and reversed, and Bush or no Bush, they are going to get it.”

You may be tut-tutting me right now, wondering if I’m not Hispanic-bashing, especially when there are lots of illegals who are not Mexican or Hispanic at all.

This is a valid point. The reason I am a hard-case here is that I think the Mexican invasion of illegal immigrants to the United States is the single greatest threat to our national security and sovereignty.

Yes, America is such an irresistible magnet that half the population of the world would come here if they could, so we have to have strict laws preventing such a flood. But the most critical problem is not illegal immigration as such, or even Hispanic immigration as such. The problem is Mexico.

Just contrast two Hispanic immigrant populations: Cuban and Mexican. Cubans control, politically, economically, and linguistically large areas of South Florida. So what? They have no desire to have southern Florida secede from the United States and become a part of a post-Castro Cuba. Cuban-Americans are Americans and proud to be so. For far too many Mexican-Americans, their loyalty is divided.

Read the Guest Editorial, Of Gringos and Old Grudges: This Land Is Their Land, by Tom Weiner of the Mexico City Journal. Reflect on Mexican President Vicente Fox’s call earlier this week (January 11) for completely open borders between Mexico and the US. Then remember how Texas was able to secede from Mexico in the 1830s because American immigrants began to outnumber native Mexicans.

Here’s what I believe: That the Mexican government and ruling elite have a conscious agenda to regain the Southwest US they believe was stolen from Mexico in 1848 by doing to America what American immigrants did to Texas via a tidal wave of illegal immigration.

So ultimately, it’s not about illegal immigration or jobs or Hispanics. It’s about Mexico’s goal to break apart the United States, those Mexican-Americans who support this goal, and politicians in Washington and throughout the country who will risk their country breaking apart in order to get elected.

There are, of course, many, many Mexican-Americans who abhor this and are as loyal to America as anyone else. We must depend upon them to demand the Mexican Government end its promotion of illegal immigration to America, and to convince US politicians they have nothing to fear at the ballot box by doing what is necessary to stop the alien invasion.

[Note: This is the third in an occasional series of articles on Mexico by Dr. Wheeler in To The Point. The two previous essays are: America’s Curse, and Traitors To Themselves.]