Today’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Donna Martinez, associate editor of Carolina Journal.
It’s no fun being in a spat with people you like and respect. But that’s the fix I’m in with some of my conservative friends who’ve taken on illegal immigration with a vengeance.
I support their resolve to reform this country’s — and this state’s — immigration-related laws. Problem is, since I believe the solution to this mammoth problem is a federal policy package that marries border security with a guest worker program, I’m often the target of raised eyebrows and an overused retort: “What part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?”
Every part. Which is why the U.S. Congress had better get its act in gear and end the enticements to violate immigration law offered by a broken system. And it’s why my Build A Wall conservative friends should stop pining for a 2,000-mile barrier that will never be built and instead look for a bridge to bring them back to conservative principles and economic reality.
That’s right—mainstream conservatism does embrace comprehensive immigration reform. You can read the rationale in policy papers, congressional testimony, and editorials from the gold standards of conservative and libertarian thought: The Heritage Foundation, The Manhattan Institute, The Cato Institute, and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.
No conservative disputes the benefits of increased border security in this post-9/11 world. We must know who is entering the country, why, where to find them, and when they are scheduled to leave. It’s when the conversation turns to economics that the great divide appears. For me, this is a no-brainer. The benefits of full participation in the global marketplace are just as tangible and critical to our short- and long-term prosperity as are efforts to control the borders.
Inexplicably, my Build a Wall friends choose to ignore thoughtful, realistic economic policy positions from organizations they typically hold in high regard. They do so in favor of sound-bite size rhetoric that sounds as if it originated from protectionist labor unions.
It is true that the influx of low-skilled workers has some negative effect on wage rates of American citizens, particularly high school dropouts. There are myriad studies on the issue. A 2005 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper discussed by co-author George J. Borjas in an April 18 Wall Street Journal column puts the negative impact of the 1980-2000 immigrant influx on wages of native U.S. dropouts at 8 percent in the near term, and 5 percent over time.
That’s nothing to ignore. Regardless, the answer to helping a high school dropout improve his or her life isn’t to restrict competition for low-level work. The answer is to improve that person’s opportunities by building marketable, in-demand skills. This is at least one reason all levels of government spend billions each year on education and training programs. There are 58 community colleges in North Carolina that offer an abundance of courses in growing labor fields. The fundamental step—a GED—can be earned as well.
To my alarm, however, some conservatives have turned into protectionists who demand artificial barriers and “living wages” that would, in effect, trap the under-educated in back-breaking, often unpleasant jobs like slitting chickens in food processing plants, harvesting crops in the midday sun, cleaning up after motel guests, or clearing debris at construction sites.
We do our hard-working neighbors no favors by “protecting” their labor-intensive jobs. Protectionist policies on labor, like protectionist policies on products, are rooted in good but misguided intentions to shield Americans from a global marketplace that brings far more positive effects to most Americans than negative effects to a few.
Yet, the Build a Wall contingent pushes the argument further, insisting that Americans will flock to the fields and processing plants if wages climb as a result of walling off the supply of low-skilled competition. Perhaps some would, but not enough to fill our economy’s continual need. Agricultural and domestic service jobs are tough and dirty. How much one is paid doesn’t assuage a chronically aching back or blistered fingers.
At least one North Carolina industry leader is begging policy makers for help. In a December 16, 2005, letter to the editor of the Raleigh News & Observer, Laurel Spring’s Patricia Gaskin of the National Christmas Tree Association laid the economics bare. “If Congress acts to do enforcement without providing us a legal workforce, you will see whole industries fail. It would be economic suicide,” Gaskin wrote.
I only hope my Build a Wall friends haven’t decided that’s OK, too.