Republicans introduced two immigrant-bashing bills in the House this week.  One would change the intent of the 14^thAmendment and the other would make it difficult for undocumented residents to get lower “in-state” college tuition .  These two ill-timed and seemingly spiteful bills may insure that the Democrats maintain control of the House of Representatives in the November election.

Here is a link to an important article by Elliott Abrams What Haiti Needs: A Haitian Diaspora  It appeared in the Washington Post this morning and has already spawned a massive outpouring of anti-immigrant bile.  The opposition is related to no jobs, lack of skills, what's in it for us and some racism.  For those who think that it is possible to reform immigration this article and the response it has engendered should give pause. 

Abrams states "One of the best ways to help Haiti is to allow some Haitians to move abroad." And yet we who have so much don't want to allow it.  Including as he points out Janet Napalitano.  I am heartened that Abrams, an intelligent, successful, conservative proposed an idea that makes so much sense.  And I'm disappointed that the knee jerk anti-immigrant comments probably show the actual mood of the country.

It will be a long struggle before we again allow reasonable levels of immigration into the United States.

The Novenber referendum in Switzerland that outlawed the construction of new minarets was disheartening to advocates of increased migration.  It shows again that the “western street” when given a choice doesn’t want to live with unassimilated foreigners.  Proposition 187 in California in 1994 taught the same lesson.  The successes of the British National Party, the Minutemen in the USA and the National Front in France reinforce the lesson.  People are instinctively tribal and conservative about change.   In the USA we are protected somewhat from these tribal instincts by the Constitution, which constrains legislative or populist ballot initiatives.  New legislation must pass a test of its “Constitutionality” before it can become law.  This was the case with prop 187.  Courts ruled that it violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution and it was effectively gutted. 

The minaret ban, however enforceable it ends up being after its test in the Swiss courts, illustrates how much the elite’s opinion on what to do about immigration has diverged from the electorates.  Voters have shown time and again that they don’t want unassimilated strangers living in their neighborhoods changing their way of life and imposing cost on there institutions.  Elites see migration as a long-term good that requires some short-term pain and since they are mostly insulated from the pain they promote getting on with it.

How can these two views be reconciled?

Immigrants Your Country Needs Them

By Philippe Legrain

Almost everybody can agree that, over the long run, the world is better off because of human migration.  Think about North America.  And they can also agree that people should be able to leave a place without opportunity like Buffalo, NY and move to a place like San Jose, CA where they can have a better life.   But the rational agreement ends when the immigration is happening now and the immigrants are foreign. At an emotional instinctive level people don’t want strangers in the neighborhood.  This discordance between people’s philosophy and their politics is one of the themes of Philippe Legrain’s excellent book about Immigration.