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.   

The debate about how to organize healthcare in the USA should not hinge on the minor issue of how it affects immigration. 

A similiar situation occurred in the 1850’s after the Mexican War.  Santa Anna the then President of Mexico offered to sell the USA almost all of what is today Sonora and Baja California.  The US Senate refused because the purchase would have upset the precarious Missouri compromise about slavery.  So unresolved issues about slavery kept the US Senate from growing the nation.  In the same way unresolved issues about immigration may keep us from passing healthcare reform. 

This link will take you to a show on the BBC Radio with Philippe Legrain about immigration. 

Philippe Legrain on BBC Radio

Legrain does an excellent job of making the ethical arguments for open immigration.  The politician and the English minuteman disagreed of course.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mgwhy

Philippe Legrains Blog

http://www.philippelegrain.com/