WSJ laments “Immigrant Scapegoats”
I’ll confess I’m at a loss about how to respond to the WSJ’s Jason Riley, who is coming out with a new book called “Let Them In:The Case for Open Borders”. His column today argues against what sounds to me like a straw man–the rising “anti-immigrant” tide that accompanies tough economic times.
While I don’t expect Riley to respond to every argument against open borders in a single column, he has framed the problem in a typically annoying way. He elides the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants because, hey, if the border were truly “open” there would be no such thing as an illegal immigrant, right? And if he doesn’t believe in that distinction, he won’t grant it to his opponents either. At least for this column, opposition to illegal immigration is conveniently lumped into an ugly wad of “anti-immigrant” sentiment.
Which is par for the course in the Wall Street Journal’s boardroom. Last year during the shamnesty debate, they posted an unbelievably condescending and damaging video of their editorial board on the subject. It’s since been taken down (and I can’t say I blame them) but clips of it were used in this Vent video at Hot Air. Jason Riley’s there, regretting crackdowns on businesses that might force illegal aliens to self-deport.
It looks like the issue is basically a matter of labor markets for Riley, and the opposition he sees is all fundamentally protectionist. He makes some decent points in that regard, but then no one I know has ever disputed that open borders will give us cheaper lettuce and lawn care. The AFL-CIO might complain, but most conservatives support some degree of free trade, and that includes a free market in labor. Hey, I used to agree with much of the WSJ’s laissez-faire approach on borders myself. Then things happened, and border security seemed a bit more pressing.
Most everyone I know who disagrees with Riley supports legal immigration. They also support a system that is able to keep out people like this guy, and worse. Fred Thompson (sigh) memorably described the ideal system as having “high fences and wide gates”, and whether you like Fred or not, that phrase still resonates a lot more than the WSJ’s proposed constitutional amendment.
So, now that he’s handily dispatched that straw man, I hope Riley’s book will begin to address the arguments that really drive opposition to open borders. I hope, but given his paper’s record of smearing their critics as “irrational” and “nativist” instead of answering them–plus given the demonstrable success of border enforcement and employer crackdowns, which his own paper admits–my hopes aren’t very high.
{Post by See-Dubya.}
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I knew there was a reason that I dropped my subscription to that rag.
Wonder when they’re gonna start running stories on three headed alien babies??
.
see-dub you dreamer! The WSJ has aspirations to be the intellectual equivalent of USA Today, while maintaining the journalistic integrity of The NY Times.
Which other laws would The Wall Street Journal prefer we not enforce?
AlohaGuy
with apologies to aj and his Faux News Service
“Businesswoman Paris Hilton supports Open Borders - Decries ‘Bitter’ Racists”
He tried to go off on some interesting tangents, such as the number of existing jobs are not a zero-sum game. But this depends much more on the risks and rewards for capital, unless he wants to repeal the minimum wage (where his open borders buddies won’t agree).
Lincoln had it right on the true cost of devaluing labor. A lot of jobs low–paid illegal immigrants do should be done by automation, serviced by high-paid technicians. Technology makes the economy grow, cheap labor makes it stagnate.
We already let them in. Our country accepts legal immigration. What the hell is wrong with people?
MM I read that this morning on the train and couldn’t believe this guy.
See-Dubya, the Rodney Dangerfield of bloggers
Hey, that’s a great idea! No borders - no illegal aliens! I think Jason Riley is on to something, but he shouldn’t stop w/just eradicating law-breaking by illegal border crossing. How about getting rid of **all** laws? Then nobody would be guilty of breaking any, and we could set the prisoners free! Everyone would then make peace and not war? Right, Jason???
ROFL even with a “by” line and “post by”.
No respect I tell ya, no respect.
Great job see-dubya. I was in the bank yesterday and I had a choice of WSJ and Women’s Home Journal. Moments later I was whistling “I feel pretty”.
Oh yes so we can have more illiterate peasants in our mist.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352025,00.html
Once again, these are not immigrants. They are foreign nationals illegally inside the boundaries of US territory. I could care less if they came here to blow up Congress or pick fruit. There is no reason for discussion. They have to leave. True immigrants have legal permission to be here.
How about letting in a few million doctors and engineers instead of day laborers? Elected officials and their employees who won’t do their jobs need to be fired.
Yeah, you need to make that “By see-dubya” and “{Post by See-Dubya.}” flash or something.
Maybe have an animated gif of the ‘Angry Monkey’ from family guy grit his teeth and point at the ‘post by See-Dubya’ line.
… something.
As long as people like what I write, I don’t care that much. The job of guest bloggers is to make the host look good.
If someone is to be flamed, though, please do check the byline. I don’t want to bring any extra heat on the Boss.
Thank you.
Illegal immigrants when found in Mexico are kicked out of Mexico. Doesn’t matter if they plan to live in Mexico or keep heading north. But the Mexican government assists their people breaking our laws to enter our country. And the lamest excuse? It’s our fault that we don’t have a secure border so they break our laws easily.
Illegal immigrants when attempting to break into the vatican (if they tried) so they can live in the Pope’s house are kicked out by the Swiss guard. And the Pope tells us how to treat uninvited foreign law breakers in our country.
Perhaps if you prefaced each thread title with a by line?
Let’s let everyone stay and then we can add a variety of languages to the “press one for english” menu! Whoopieeeee!
I can agree with the labor as free trade item argument, but even with free trade we still (or at least we should) inspect items entering our country for contraband and bad products, which would equate to terrorists and criminals respectively in a cross border labor market. Wanting inspect imports (i.e. background check immigrants) is not protectionist, it’s just self preservation.
I can understand the NYTimes advocating open borders, but who’s WSJ’s audience? And, does anyone who hawks open borders think that they have the slightest chance of changing anyone’s mind? And, what does a social issue have to do with a business paper?
What open borders advocates are apparently too stupid to understand is that everytime they advocate the illegal invasion they increase the resolve of those of us who adamantly oppose it.
Let’s see there are 6B people in the world. 98% of them have a standard of living below our welfare recipients. Assuming only half would come here with open borders, that would be 3B. Setting aside for a minute jobs and economics, does this guy really believe all Americans would be better off with a population of 3B? How about 1B? At what point do we close the doors? Last I checked our land mass is not growing and everyone is bemoaning the pollution as it is. The more people the higher the pollution, the more crowded, the more loss of habitat for wildlife, the less wide open spaces that we all can enjoy today, more water rationing…etc. I mean come on. There are LIMITED RESOURCES whish is taught in econ 101, otherwise we would not place value on different goods. Milton Friedman once said, and I paraphrase, ‘you can not have open borders and a welfare state’. And if the door is wide open, does he really think the majority will be educated? Most will be uneducated low skilled workers. Come on, how many dishwashers or landscapers do we need? In fact, many recent independent studies have shown that on the whole, immigrants on average cost the US taxpayer more money than they pay in. In other words, they are a net drain on Americans. Studies refuting these always conveniently ignore many of the facets like education, earned income tax credits, food stamps, etc. Why won’t the GAO do a study to prove or disprove that? PC and tired cliche’s is why.
I am of the opinion that legal immigration numbers should be limited to some set population growth target. Something like .5% per year and base the immgiration numbers on the net outlfows against said target. Additionally, set standards for god’s sakes. Like say, college educated, high IQ, or has some extraordinary skill. At least have a plan. Otherwise, we go blindly into the future without considering the potential consequences in the generations to come of importing millions of low skilled people. And nobody has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that America still benefits from MASS immigration (I did nto say no immigration). in any case, to think we can grow our poulation ad infitum is nonsense. It is common sense to plan ahead. Needless to say, illegal immigration must be zero. Sorry for the rambling but this is my biggest issue.
Mixing your metaphors, NYTimes style:
Maybe the WSJ is over more than one line, eh? And maybe, the someone, Roger Lowenstein at any rate, gets it at the NYTimes
LOL. Was that the same guy that called teen mothers sluts?
Did any of you see this story today?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352378,00.html
You’re doing a stupendous job. Oh, you mean your writing…
In other news, Northern California is asking East Bay residents to cut back on water use due to shortages, unemployment in some areas of Southern California is at or above 7%. All California governments are facing sever buget shortfalls. Yea, they need more unskilled laborers and their drain on resources…
The problem I have with MSM, open border advocates like the WSJ is that when politicians/markets start pandering to illegals, the sense of fairness that used to exist in the US erodes. When you have illegals offering themselves up for cheaper labor, the result you get is the labor of American workers worth much less than it used to be.
There’s no better expample of the downgrade of American wages than free trade agreements like NAFTA that favored Mexico. Mexico, like China, didn’t deserve that kind of economic favoritism but they got it anyways. You would have thought Mexico would have at least prospered economically from the agreement but more illegals keep poring into the US from their country. Why?
Honestly, rags like the WSJ don’t give a crap about the American worker when they favor the third world and their “rights.” How is favoring cheap labor for businesses going to keep the middle class intact and less people sliding into poverty in the US? Writers like Riley smack of elitism… the US worker doesn’t matter anymore it’s all about globalism and the one world economy.
Well, Mr. Riley, Americans are on to bozos like you. We’re tired of your constant guilt trips trying to make us feel like we’re bad for demanding sane immigration laws be enforced as well as order at the border. If this guy continues to piss people off, he, and the WSJ, will face the bitter sting of unemployment.
Yup. He was just stealing the BlackBerrie phones that Americans didn’t want to steal.
Now he’s a guy with a good idea. I could save a lot of money too.
STOP STOP STOP!!! you are making way too much sense. If a post like this ever got out to President Bush or John McCain, we might all be branded bigots and racists; soon not to even be given the option of pressing one for english. Oh the humanity…
On April 24th, 2008 at 5:42 pm, sbw999 said:
LOL. Nobody ever accused the bureaucrats of applying logic. It is much easier to use emotion when making crucial decisions affecting the futures of our children. Their heads would probably explode if someone acutally presented a logical policy.
Here… here, and 100% “Amen” to that. The fact is I should have just put under the quote of your post “yeah, what he said” . Apologies for not crediting you with the post in the quote; I thought I had copied all of it.
Michelle, a silly question: is the pic of the straw men from Stanford property,
behind Stanford University?
If we had deportation of Illegal Aliens in the Central Calif. area here, there would be more room in schools (so we wouldn’t need to spend more of the State budget on more schools), more money for police, more money for fire
depts. Oh wait, there would be less teachers (tell me how that’s a bad thing?). And less illegals to keep up the pretty Palo Alto yardss for all these old Socialists who are out with their placards on (Main St.) El Camino Real every rush hour.
Sigh. I wish they would here us. I’m tired of talk. I want action. Did you know the day after Prop.209 went into effect in Calif, the Clinic where I work was almost empty? they were afraid to come in. So the CEO had to put out a stmt saying, we won’t ask your status. Come back, come back. Yeah, for the freebies.
L.A. has never been much more than road kill connected by more freeways than God intended has now reaped the results of unmitigated Mexican invasion and the fruits of diversity and as such is gaining a reputation as a third world city. Hey, Jason Riley your dream city awaits your residency. You might try a stop over at Chicago and Detroit on your way in. Have at it baby. L.A. should make you feel very much at home.
This is part of the lead up to the May 1st marches, Ruben Navarrette Jr. has a similar column except of course Ruben just uses the word hate as described by NCLR Pres. Janet Murguia instead of scapegoat, which is what Riley rily means.
Is it hate?
To ticket speeders?
Is it hate to arrest thieves? If not, then its not hate to enforce the rest of our laws, as we see fit.
The terrible fact that our laws have been corrupted by our own leaders at the behest of the open borders lobby that no reason to be angry, is it?
The usurpation of the peoples will thats no excuse, is it?
The ongoing seditious agenda shouldn’t make anybody mad, should it?
La Raza’s unrepentant rants in blaming Americans for a full scale foreign invasion, thats no reason to get up in arms, how dare we even notice much less stand up and fight for our own land, culture or morals.
Shame, shame on us.
The funny thing is, if La Raza publicly apologized, if the large number of marchers on May 1st carried large banners proclaiming: We’re sorry, please accept us.
About half of the angst of invasion would go simply evaporate.
Somehow I’m not worried.
I wonder what would happen if a bunch of displaced workers showed up at Jason’s work place clinging to their Bibles and their guns. Would he tell the guards at the front door to “Let Them In”? I’m sure Mr. Riley has an “open door policy” for all North Americans.
The same people who want our country to have open borders never seem to want to practice this concept in their own private lives. They usually live behind locked doors in gated communities and work in guarded office buildings. No visitors get in without authorization or without at least showing ID and signing the guest book on the way in. Why is it unreasonable to ask for the same policy at our borders?
If I become an illegal alien and avail of the incentives here in the US, can I own land in Mexico, too? Sammy Hagar seems to have a pretty good thing going.
here is a good analogy to refute the business elites like WSJ who want cheap labor, but want taxpaying US citizens to pay for them.
how about this—have a bunch of people standing in front of their business selling a similar product at much lower prices.
like, for instance, selling a knockoff called the “WALLS Street Journal”
you would see the business owner call the cops in a nanosecond, complaining that it was illegal unfair competition to have unlicensed peddlers selling in front of his property that he pays taxes on.
Guess what, mr. free markets and open borders. you want cheap, illegal labor to trespass on OUR land to benefit you, but you don’t like it when someone else does it to you.
you,sir, are as phony and hypocritical as a jerk could be.
or, in the same vein, how about an illegal alien from Ireland to take Jason Riley’s job with the WSJ at half his salary.
then let’s see if he still likes open borders and illegals so much.
WSJ is a business for big business. Big business is the biggest supporter of open border since they want cheap labor. I never cease to find it amazing how these business don’t want to pay the wages for the American worker but yet they expect the American worker to buy, buy, buy — without jobs how are we suppose to buy anything?
I say send everyone back.. and I do MEAN EVERYONE !!!
give the country back to the rightful owner ..
One of my biggest concerns about illegal immigration, aside from criminal aliens that ruin the peace, is what it does to the poor. I don’t think it’s healthy to have a slave class which is what the elites who support open borders want. I think about all those gardeners, construction people, cleaners who once made a fair wage for their hard work only to have them significantly depressed because some elite wants cheapers services. Does anyone here care about them? I do and I am not one of them nor are they in my “group”. It makes me sick how so many, who are protected from the negative effects, want those who are not privileged suffer negative ramifications of illegal immigration so they can get cheap labor. Blech. Selfishness.
They’ve been doing that for the last forty years. Doctors have had enough clout to limit immigration, but displacing US techs with third world hacks has virtually destroyed US industry and innovation. Back in the 60’s, the US was the technology leader in virtually every field. Never change a winning game. After 40 years of massive immigration in tech fields, where is industry today? Legal immigration has been primarily directed against domestic techs by cheapo businessmen and their lackeys in Congress, and they’re too dumb to realize they screwed themselves in the process.
Nice analogy!
They are breaking our laws. That is the undisputed fact. I don’t want illegals here any more than the rest of you. I disagree with Soleil in one small point. Our depressed wages are still significanly expanded wages to them. Slaves don’t get wages. I married from overseas, and we have projects that employ locals. We can’t pay them significantly more than the correct pay scale for that area, and we make up for it by offering 3 meals for the employees. ( my mother-in-law was originally against this). There is now an employment base where before, there was none. I would be ashamed to tell you what we pay per day, except the fact that we offer employment where before there was none, and we offer all the healthful food 3x a day that they can eat. These people are grateful, we have good workers and the attrition rate is zero. I am not for open borders. I am for uplifting people overseas with employment opportunities. We are not big buisiness. Nike employs in their shops overseas, and the locals line up to get those jobs. I doubt Nike offers healthful food or any other perks…but they do help people put food on the table with wages, don’t they? I don’t feel that Nike moving out hurt us, but Illegals coming here definitely does.
The best defense is an offense..and offensive it is…let’s see alreay LA is a third world cesspool with much of CA to follow….
Chicagos’ lenient attitude leaves 39 people shot over the weekend.People being killed by car hijackers, shootings of innocents in the street for uttering the wrong answer.People being shot because they are the wrong color…blacks shot by hispanics driving them out of their own city by illegals….Jobs stolen from Americans to feed those poor,poor ILlegal invaders!!!.This country is already lost
The borders are a war zone…..This is some country! WAHOO!!!
Look for the Spanish language version of the book to be a bestseller.
Riley’s working title for his book was “Let Them In: I need somebody to do my gardening for cheap”.
I dispute it. Free market theory and common sense say that it is cheaper to grow lettuce in Mexico and import it into America than it is to import Mexican labor and grow it here.
The question of why it is so vital that America have a thriving lettuce industry when this sort of protectionism was rejected with respect to the steel industry remains a mystery.
Businessman care about short term profit. They expect to be retired and enjoying the good iife ten years down the line.
If we can understand that, you have to wonder why these supposed economic geniuses at the WSJ are so completely clueless. If I was to be cynical I’d suspect that they were not clueless, but bribed.
Well, no. I agree with Milton Friedman - a free market in goods makes a free market in labor unneccessary.
That depends on the numbers involved. I’m pretty sure that you don’t support the legal immigration of a hundred million people per year into America. I support legal immigration which benefits Americans. But that is a much lower number than we have today.
On April 25th, 2008 at 12:32 pm, flenser said:
“I support legal immigration which benefits Americans. But that is a much lower number than we have today.”
Amen to that. I find it hard to beleive that we even have to discuss illegal immigration. To do so is insanity. There is only one solution. STOP it all. The real issue is what is an appropriate level of LEGAL immigration? A level that is sustainable, benefits all Americans (not one group or ethnicity), and is steeped in numbers and facts, not emotion. I too beleive it is well below the 1M+ per year under current levels but i am open to any proposed level that is backed by facts and looks out further than the next fiscal year. But until we recognize the importance of this issue/debate on legal immigraiton, and allow the libs to focus us all on the non issue of illegal immigration, we will continue to plod along into the future with no plan.
I would just like to know when “Protectionism” became a dirty word. We have given away so many of our jobs and high-tech innovations to other countries (many of which are openly hostile to us) that our economy can’t help but sink like a stone under the weight of it all. Giving our borders away is even worse, yet; open the borders and the terrorists will come!
I sometimes wonder if the sinking of our economy - the displacement of our workers - the jumping on board of the climate change fiasco - is all part of a larger plan to make us want - to make us need - a North American Union. To make us go to our knees and then offer a ’solution’ to give us hope again. Cynical I know…..but………
My fear is that the illegal immigration problem is only one small part of a larger ‘plan’.
While I am a capitalist, I am also an American and the short-term bottom line and globalization is killing us. Our infrastructure and innovation is being destroyed by those who have given up America for quick money in their pockets and a sense of elitism.
There it is in a nutshell. Crackdowns on businesses will force illegal aliens to self-deport. Why people disown the easy solution to this problem is beyond my meager comprehension.
The main problem with an open border policy is it allows people in who wish to harm America and its’ citizens. That seems to be another concept that people like Jason Riley’s cannot comprehend. I guess he might have a pubic skool edumacation.
Ok…let’s make this simple. The WSJ is pro-business and and pro-corporate. This makes them against a crackdown on businesses that employ illegal aliens.
Hell yes!!! Tear down them prison walls!!! Disband all law enforcement!!!Drop all pending court cases!!! No more illegal anything!!!
Hell, why don’t we just annex freak’en Mexico and be done with it!!
Google “Operation Wetback” Several good articles about the same problem in the 50’s and early 60’s