Immigration: R.I.P.?

GUEST EDITORIAL Immigration: R.I.P.?

Gregory Curtis Laurel Foundation

According to most estimates, immigration into the United States, legal and illegal, will reach its highest levels in history during the 1990s, at least in terms of absolute numbers (Teitelbaum, 1992). The historic Immigration Reform Act of 1986 has proven to be largely ineffective in reducing illegal immigration, the 1990 Immigration Act dramatically increased legal immigration (though somewhat changing the rules of the game) and, to add insult to injury, the unholy (and faintly ridiculous) alliance of Senators Ken- nedy and Hatch is trying persistently to eliminate employer sanctions. How, then, might a sane person argue that immigration may soon slow, that the forces which will cause it to slow are already marshalling?

A rational person might argue along these lines:

(1) The unusual political alliances which have impeded immigration reform are breaking down. It is useful to remember that overwhelming majorities of the American public want much smaller levels of immigration than we are receiving, and that these majorities persist even in Hispanic and black communities (Roper Organization, 1992). The will of this majority has been frustrated for many years by an unusual alliance between the political right and the political left, an alliance which has successfully frustrated the will of the much larger political middle. In the past, this alliance consisted mainly of (on the right) employers who wanted cheap, docile

Please address correspondence to Mr. Gregory Curtis, Laurel Foundation, Three Gateway Center - 6 North, Pittsburgh, PA 15222.

Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies Volume 14, Number 6, July 1993 © 1993 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 495

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sources of labor and (on the left) a hodgepodge of ethnic separatists, civil rights organizations, and political liberals, some of whom based their posi- tions on various forms of abstract generosity, while others sought actively to transform a society they viewed as unjust.

But I suggest that these alliances are beginning to crumble. On the right, conservatives have become increasingly concerned about America's ability to assimilate--culturally and economically--vast numbers of new arrivals, especially as we face stiff economic competition from more ho- mogeneous societies such as Japan and Germany. The destabilization of American society, much desired by certain groups on the left, is beginning to occur, and this cannot be countenanced by conservatives, whose key values include stability and tradition (Brimelow, 1992; Sunderland, 1992).

Corporate managers, another important constituency in the opposition to immigration reform, have found that the cost of training an uneducated, unacculturated workforce (which, among other things, does not speak En- glish) usually outweighs the benefits of maintaining low wage structures. The pro-immigration "business lobby" is therefore increasingly reduced to small, marginal companies operating primarily in the construction, agricul- ture, and furniture assembly sectors, along with a few very small employers offering jobs which are dirty, dangerous, and low-paid. (Donald L. Huddle's paper is particularly graphic in its description of some of these companies.) There are, indeed, entire industries in the United States which have been brain-dead for decades, surviving on a life-support system con- sisting chiefly of cheap imported labor and protective import duties. Con- sider, as an ethical matter, the fact that foreign workers making competitive goods would be earning, in their own societies, a living wage. As Philip L. Martin points out in his paper, we pay immigrants nonliving wages to produce goods which cost us more than the same goods would cost if made by the same workers in their homelands.

On the left, political liberals are also beginning to desert the pro-immigration ship, in part for the same reasons conservatives are leaving: They, too, have become fearful that American society cannot remain intact if levels of diversity increase much further (Miles, 1992). Under circumstances of very rapid social and political change, those at the bottom rungs of society--the traditional concern of liberals--fare worst. Specifically, liberals have become increasingly convinced that new immigrants are tak- ing jobs from America's domestic minorities, especially blacks (Miles, 1992). Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., for example, has been in the forefront of the • argument that immigration reduces opportunities for domestic low-skilled workers. In his paper he states bluntly, "The stark reality is that the ]United States] already has a chronic surplus of workers who are poorly prepared" for higher-skilled jobs. Finally, liberals and the civil rights lobby are begin-

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ning to be uneasy in the face of the new ethnic brinkmanship which arises under our civil rights laws when no group represents a "majority," when some "minorities," mainly Asians, seem to compete well with the white majority but still claim minority privileges, or when blacks are replaced by Hispanics as our largest unassimilated minority group. When the special case of black Americans became diluted by adding to the official list of the disadvantaged more problematic cases--Hispanics, Asians, women--the political clout of the "disadvantaged" increased, but its moral ,claim on society virtually evaporated. As in the case of the political right, liberal defections have reduced leftist opposition to immigration reform to isolated factions, mainly ethnic separatists and a few national leaders in the minority communities who are out-of-touch with their own constituencies.

Without the support of the larger, "respectable" elements of the pro- immigration alliance (corporate executives, mainstream liberals and conservatives), I suggest that the days may be numbered for this alliance, faced as it is with overwhelming opposition from the broader American public.

(2) Economic conditions in the United States and Mexico are significantly altering the push-pull factors which generate most immigration to the United States. Whether or not the current recession in the United States is ending, or has ended, it surely will end at some point. Beyond this, however, there is a fundamental unease in America which constitutes the gradual recognition that post-World War II growth rates in the American economy are unsustainable. This has in part to do with the rise of formida- ble competitors--Germany and Japan, especially--whose economies were devasted by the war. But it also seems to have a more fundamental basis, having to do with the sustainability of modern technological society. At the very least, there is a consensus that the 1990s will see slower economic growth, slower job generation, higher entry-level skill requirements, lower returns on capital and, perhaps, lower interest rates and lower infla- tion, than Americans have been used to. In such a society, the need for, and tolerance of, large numbers of unskilled immigrants entering the Amer- ican workforce is likely to decline precipitously. American companies will not need these new workers (see, particularly, Dr. Brigg's powerful table showing occupational growth patterns in the U.S. economy between 1978 and 1990), and traditional notions of American generosity will be under duress. The recent discovery that the Immigration and Naturalization Ser- vice is issuing work permits to immigrants faster than the entire United States economy is creating jobs is an example of the type of practice which the public will find increasingly intolerable (Federation for American Immi- gration Reform, 1992).

In Mexico, opposite trends are at work. Economic reforms introduced

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by President Salinas have invigorated the Mexican economy, demolishing hidebound socialist bureacracies, reducing rampant corruption, and encouraging foreign investment, even in the traditionally untouchable agri- cultural sector. Moreover, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, if ratified, will accelerate the process of converting Mexico from a third world to a second world, and, ultimately, a first world, economy. In the early stages of Salinas' privatization program, and in the early stages of NAFTA, dislocations might well serve actually to increase economic migration from south to north, but in the Iongterm it is apparent that the push and pull factors will both wither, and that migration will wither along with them.

After all, the mobility of labor is quite different from the mobility of capital. Economic migration from Mexico to the United States occurs not so much because of "pull" factors (this is the main reason why antipull mechanisms, such as employer sanctions, are rarely successful in and of themselves), but because of "push" factors: mainly economic hopelessness for many workers in Mexico. Workers are reluctant to leave their homes, families, villages, and cultures for a foreign place. They will do so, however, in circumstances where the home economy is truly hopeless (or dangerous), or where migration has been made less disorienting, for example, by the creation of immigrant networks. (Martin points out that a particularly unfortunate effect of "immigrant takeovers" of low-skill jobs "is to cut the bridge between disadvantaged Americans and low-wage jobs which was once the first step up the economic ladder.") The important point is that the Mexican economy need not develop to a point of parity with that of the United States in order for immigration to slow; it need only offer reasonable hope for economic progress to its citizens.

(3) Americans are annoyed by strident calls for multiculturalism and political correctness, and these phenomena are increasingly, and correctly, linked to massive immigration. When the mindless excesses of political correctness, or PC, spilled over the boundaries of the academy and into mainstream public life, Americans of all political and ethnic persuasions reacted violently. Political correctness has become the butt of jokes by talkshow hosts, and has aroused the ire of editorialists from the Washing- ton Post to the Mechanicsburg (Ohio) Telegram.

The PC phenomenon, which seemed at first to arise out of nowhere, has been traced intellectually to the legacy of Vietnam, the deconstruction- ist ideas of Jacques Derrida and others, the attacks on capitalist notions of justice by the Critical Legal Studies movement (headed by Roberto Man- gabeira Unger at Harvard Law School), and so on (Bell, 1992). The prime

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importance of this intellectual legacy was to raise enough questions about the legitimacy of American culture to leave it vulnerable to politically mo- tivated assaults which, in another era, would have seemed laughably un- principalled. As it was, however, mired in affluent guilt and intellectual confusion, American intellectuals could not muster the strength to defend their culture from even the most preposterous charges.

But whatever the intellectual roots of the multiculturalists phenomenon, its political strength clearly derives from the vast numbers of non- Western, unassimilated immigrants who have congregated in gigantic ethnic ghettos, mainly in the American Southwest, Florida, California, and New York. These concentrations of immigrants are the source of cultural and political change well beyond what America, or probably any coherent society, will likely tolerate. If a society lacks the vigor to demand assimila- tion, or at least acculturation, from its new members, its only remaining defense is to limit the numbers of new arrivals to levels which will assimilate naturally. The growing awareness of how fundamentally, and how rapidly, American society is being changed by continued immigration is a powerful factor in insuring the demise of large-scale, ethnically concen- trated, immigration.

(4) The major pro-immigration advocacy organizations, though pre- senting themselves as representing broad public interests, are in fact re- markably narrowly based. Recent research has disclosed the surprising nar- rowness of the pro-immigration lobby in the United States (Hawkins, 1992). Funding for this lobby, far from being broadly based, seems in fact to have been provided by a very few large foundations which have taken a largely unpublicized interest in pro-immigration lobbying, research, and public education (Puenta, 1991). While no one, to my knowledge, has suggested anything improper in these activities, the recognition that what appeared to be a broad-based coalition is in fact the creature of a few program officers, mainly in New York, has important implications for the credibility of the pro-immigration lobby. (I say "program officers" because it seems likely that the foundations' boards of trustees have been largely ignorant of their organizations' prominent, and lonely, role in advocating dramatically increased immigration levels.)

The pro-immigration lobbying effort has been managed, naturally enough, by groups which have had a traditional and understandable interest in freer migration, particularly the Hispanic groups such as MALDEF and LULAC, and the National Catholic Congress and the American Jewish Committee. The Hispanic groups, however, (and their handmaiden, the profoundly leftist National Lawyers Guild), at least in their pro-immigration

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activities, appear to be little more than creatures of the foundations, and this has placed the major burden on the Catholic and Jewish lobbies. But with the fall of Communism, the argument for greater Jewish immigration has been seriously weakened. That anti-Semitism persists in the former So- viet Union can hardly be doubted, but the case cannot be sustained that Russian Jews are less safe or more economically deprived than, say, Hait- ians, Somalis, Croatians, or black South Africans. Much the same argument can be made against special pleading for Catholics in Nicaragua or El Salvador. The Catholic and Jewish lobbies are therefore reduced to arguing not for special consideration for Catholics and Jews, but for greater immigration levels from all sources, including Catholics and Jews. But unless the United States plans to commit social, cultural, and political suicide, the country simply cannot become the haven for all the world's oppressed masses. The pro-immigration message, originally more compelling for these groups, is therefore reduced to something verging on insanity.

(5) Anti-immigrant feelings can become a potent political force when persistent domestic unemployment coexists with high levels of immigration. Americans have looked on with distaste as German skinheads attack immigrants in the former East Germany. Deplorable as these actions are, they arise not because Germans harbor greater ethnic hatreds than Ameri- cans, but because dormant ethnic conflicts can be inflamed anywhere when immigrants are welcomed into societies characterized by joblessness and cultural disorientation. The beginnings of similar anti-immigrant feelings can be seen in the United States in the open conflicts between blacks and Salvadorians in Washington, D.C., between blacks and Hispanics in Los Angeles and Miami, and between blacks and Koreans in New York and Los Angeles. Black Americans bear the brunt of high immigration levels, and it is not surprising that they should be the first to react violently. But if immigration continues to expand, anger, and actions based on that anger, will surely expand to poor Americans of all races. Anti-immigrant violence has already caused alarmed Germans to tighten immigration re- strictions, setting a prudent example for American politicians. Unless a need for unskilled immigrant labor can be fully demonstrated, tolerating high levels of such immigration merely plays into the hands of the intol- erant.

(6) Encouraging high levels of immigration by unskilled workers per- petuates unproductive sectors of the American economy, dragging it in a direction opposite from that desired by most Americans. International com- petitiveness has become a rallying cry in America, cutting across all politi-

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cal parties, socioeconomic levels, and ethnic groups. As Asia and Europe have recovered fully from the effects of World War II, traditional American industries have come under severe stress. The automobile and steel industries, once the backbone of American industrial might, have been humbled by Japanese and German competitors, while industries requiring unskilled labor have found it impossible to compete with third world labor rates. The only realistic response to powerful international competition is for America to focus its remarkable energies on industries where postindustrial economies maintain a competitive advantage: highly skilled blue collar jobs, professional and managerial occupations, high technology, health care, and communications, for example. In any other direction lies economic decline, and the continued admission of massive numbers of unskilled la- borers therefore pushes America toward decline and stagnation, rather than toward growth and vitality. (As Professor Martin notes, "The earnings of some immigrants catch up with the earnings of similar Americans, but i f the . . . Amer icans they catch up to are poor, then the average income o f al l Amer icans can fall . . ." [emphasis supplied]. As the public comes to associate immigration with economic decline, demands for an end to immigration can only become more insistent.

(7) Immigra t ion is increasingly v iewed as an env i ronmenta l issue. If Americans consume more resources per capita than any other nation, then adding significantly to the number of Americans must, ipso facto, be an environmental issue. Domestic birthrates in the United States have been approximately at replacement levels for some years, and hence the primary generator of continued population growth in the United States, especially looking forward, is immigration. The typical intellectual route to immigration for the environmental organizations begins with the recognition that population growth is at the root of the environmental morass. From here, it is only a short intellectual leap (though often a long emotional one) to the conclusion that domestic environmental problems are directly related to high levels of immigration to the United States.

Smaller environmental groups, such as Population-Environment Bal- ance, have long called for immigration reform. Larger organizations, such as the Sierra Club and the National Audubon Society, have struggled with the environment-population-immigration nexus in recent years, and it seems likely that one or both will add immigration to their agenda in the near future. At the same time, the Pew Charitable Trusts have recently issued challenges to the so-called "Group of Ten'--the ten largest environmental organizations--to add population concerns to their programming. As these organizations become familiar with the population dimension, the

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immigration factor will have to be dealt with. Given the collective clout of the American environmental movement, it would seem that reform of current immigration practices can be only a matter of time.

SUMMARY

I have, for the sake of argument, ignored the many factors which tend to perpetuate high levels of immigration into the United States. These factors are, after all, well known. (Perhaps the least known factor, and the most important, is the effect of new policies implemented by the Clinton Administration.) What we rarely hear about are those factors, discussed above, which work against the persistence of large-scale immigration.

The papers which follow are in the vanguard of what is likely to become, in a few years, the conventional wisdom about the economic im- pacts of immigration. Researchers who persist in the attempt to view high levels of immigration as a positive force--though now, perhaps, in the majority--are likely to find their work condemned by history to that special circle of academic Purgatory reserved for professors who see what they wish to see, rather than what is. As a society, we would do well not only to heed the message of the following papers, but also to take constructive action before the day is seized by less constructive forces.

REFERENCES

Bell, Daniel (1992). The cultural wars: American intellectual life, 1965-1992. Wilson Quar- terly, Summer, 74-107.

Brimelow, Peter (1992, June 22). Time to rethink immigration? The National Review, pp. 30-64.

Federation for American Immigration Reform (1992). Influx of foreign workers outnumbers new U.S. jobs. Immigration Report, 12 (9), 1.

Hawkins, William (1992). Immigration: Two decades of issue exploitation. U.S. Industrial Council Educational Foundation.

Miles, Jack (1992, October). Blacks vs. browns. The Atlantic Monthly, 270 (4), pp. 41-68. Puente, Teresa (1991, May 6). "Group of 7" gives 75% of foundation money. Hispanic Link

Weekly Report, pp. 1-2. The Roper Organization (1992, April). American attitudes toward immigration reform. Sunderland, George (1992, August). Immigration myths and facts. Conservative Review, pp.

5-7. Teitelbaum, Michael S. (1992). Advocacy, ambivalence, ambiguity: Immigration policies and

prospects in the United States. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 136 2, 208-225.

Documents

Immigration: R.I.P.?