Liberals and Illegal Aliens
I keep stumbling across discussions in which liberals spit venom at those who, e.g., think that illegal aliens are not entitled to in-state tuition at state universities, or that they should not be eligible to participate in any "public option" with regard to health care or whatever.
I have to say, I'm becoming more and more baffled by what I take to be the liberal position on illegal aliens, which sometimes seems to be something like: We should not take any special measures to keep illegal aliens from entering the U.S. (e.g. we should not build a border fence), we should not take any special measures to find and arrest illegal aliens already in the country, and we should, in fact, give resident illegal aliens all the benefits of citizenship. I mean, is the idea that we should ask people nicely not to enter the country illegally, but, if they do, hey, we basically make them citizens?
Perhaps it's because I've been listening to NPR, which has frequent, breathless stories about our awful treatment of illegal aliens. I dunno.
But I'm certainly baffled by all this. Obviously I have no problem whatsoever with immigrants...I just think they should go through legal channels to come into the country. I'm terribly concerned about overpopulation, but it's apparently very impolite to voice such worries anymore, so I'm willing to stay silent on that for right now.
What I'm most baffled about is why this peculiar, quasi-open-borders position seems to have become something like liberal orthodoxy. I just don't get it.
I keep stumbling across discussions in which liberals spit venom at those who, e.g., think that illegal aliens are not entitled to in-state tuition at state universities, or that they should not be eligible to participate in any "public option" with regard to health care or whatever.
I have to say, I'm becoming more and more baffled by what I take to be the liberal position on illegal aliens, which sometimes seems to be something like: We should not take any special measures to keep illegal aliens from entering the U.S. (e.g. we should not build a border fence), we should not take any special measures to find and arrest illegal aliens already in the country, and we should, in fact, give resident illegal aliens all the benefits of citizenship. I mean, is the idea that we should ask people nicely not to enter the country illegally, but, if they do, hey, we basically make them citizens?
Perhaps it's because I've been listening to NPR, which has frequent, breathless stories about our awful treatment of illegal aliens. I dunno.
But I'm certainly baffled by all this. Obviously I have no problem whatsoever with immigrants...I just think they should go through legal channels to come into the country. I'm terribly concerned about overpopulation, but it's apparently very impolite to voice such worries anymore, so I'm willing to stay silent on that for right now.
What I'm most baffled about is why this peculiar, quasi-open-borders position seems to have become something like liberal orthodoxy. I just don't get it.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:24 PM
28 Comments:
I can't speak for anybody else, and much less for the liberal orthodoxy, but personally I find the idea of illegal immigration sort of absurd. It's primarily a xenophobic reaction -- the first modern immigration law was the Chinese Exclusion Act, after all --, and, like the War on Drugs, I don't see what the return on investment is supposed to be, particularly since, also like the War on Drugs, our actual success in curbing illegal immigration is laughably non-existent.
I think the concept of extending most citizenship rights to illegal aliens is just a knee-jerk instinct that flows from the idea that there shouldn't be a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants at all.
Now, whether all immigrants should automatically gain citizenship rights is another matter entirely. So agitating to extend citizenship rights to illegal immigrants is entirely missing the point; by definition, they're criminals, and we pretty much always deny criminals a certain subset of their rights as citizens. If you have a problem with that, the solution is to revoke their criminal status, not to start solving some entirely different non-problem. But of course nobody's going to attempt that, because that would require (shock and awe!) staking out a position and defending it.
So call it another dumb liberal attempt to avoid conflict, then. Rather than standing up for what they actually think, they go after some other, tangentially related thing, and hope nobody notice. (See: the health care public option being promoted by people who actually want single-payer instead.)
Wow...no offense, Joshua, but just to lay my reaction honestly out on the table...that just sounds crazy to me. I mean, does that mean you think that natural born citizens also ought to be able to just exist outside the system? I mean, currently the government knows who's here, and enough basic facts about them to collect taxes, issue drivers' licenses etc. I'm wondering why immigrants shouldn't be held to at least that standard.
And, of course, there's the fact that the country is unlikely to survive unlimited immigration.
Nations have the right to secure their borders. Heck, I, too, would like a world in which everybody could go everywhere freely, and states basically disappeared and everything was awesome...but I just don't see that as a real possibility.
And especially those who think we should have a fairly substantial social safety net should see that that simply would not be possible if we let anyone come in who wanted to.
It's honestly not something I think about or care about too much, so no doubt there are vasty holes in my logic. I just have a gut instinct that tells me there's something fundamentally wrong about restricting people's freedom of movement.
If we treated illegal immigrants simply like law breakers, that would be one thing. I think the problem many liberals have with the current law in this arena is that illegal immigrants, and more importantly accused illegal immigrants, are treated much worse than citizen-criminals: If I, a US citizen, snuck over the border for whatever reason, I would have committed a crime, but I would be entitled a state appointed attorney, I would be innocent until proven guilty, I could not be held without bail unless I were a proven flight risk. If I am picked up by the INS as having entered the country illegally as a non-citizen, then I have no right to be provided an attorney while in custody (I can buy my own, but normally basic rights like this do not depend on my ability to pay), I can be kept locked up for as long as whatever process I get goes on without any chance for bail, and I am the one who must prove that I am a citizen, if that's what I claim, or that I am in the country legally. Oh yeah, and, whatever ties I might have to society here (some illegals have been here for decades), I can be deported, a punishment which the supreme court ruled is cruel and unusual when applied to citizens. So I think the argument is not that the government has no right to control the borders by force of law, but that the legal regime surrounding that control is one that deprives people of their constitutional rights, and that constitutional rights should not be contingent upon citizenship.
Notice by the way the similarities that the system of administrative detention and watered down due process surrounding illegal immigrants - again, if that's what they are - resembles the system the Bush people erected around enemy combatants. Both are cases where your rights will disappear depending on the kind of illegality you are accused of, which administrative apparatus gets hold of you, and the notion that somehow the constitution applies less to non-citizens.
I absolutely think that we should police our borders. A wall? Not so much. My real problem, however, is that the issue is very much like the current health care brouhaha. We are arguing about imaginary problems. As far as I can tell, most people I talk to think that illegal immigrants suck up huge amounts of resources. This really doesn't seem to be true. I remember reading an article in the WSJ, a discussion between 2 economists. They said the cost was less than a tenth of a percentage point of GDP. My problem with the discussion to date is the demonization of illegal immigrants, not that we don't need to make changes in our laws and policies.
Yeah, demonization: bad. Treating illegal immigrants unjustly or unfairly or worse than we'd treat citizen criminals: bad.
I'd never disagree with any of those things.
What puzzles me is that so many liberals seem committed to positions that basically entail that we should do nothing to curb illegal immigration--something which is obviously and uncontroversially a problem. And even more puzzling: the view that if you think we ought to do so, you're a racist.
I actually think that there are deep and difficult questions about drawing national boundaries and saying, in effect, that we have stronger obligations to folks on this side of the line than we do to folks on that side of the line. I'm a liberal cosmopolitan at heart. However, given the world as it actual is, an argument is required if we're going to give up on the idea of a nation with borders and a distinction between citizens and non-citizens and limits on immigration. We can't simply let it happen unreflectively, sloppily, inattentively. Either we have borders or we don't, either we intend to enforce them or we don't, either we are going to control who comes into the country or we aren't. To decide, in effect, to to give up on the ideas of borders, controlled immigration and citizenship is to take a gigantic, radical leap away from anything like a well-understood concept of the state into...I don't know what...
Now, I'm not unwilling to consider such a radial leap...but I'm unwilling to let it happen without serious discussion and a conscious decision.
WS writes:
I have to say, I'm becoming more and more baffled by what I take to be the liberal position on illegal aliens, which sometimes seems to be something like: We should not take any special measures to keep illegal aliens from entering the U.S. (e.g. we should not build a border fence), we should not take any special measures to find and arrest illegal aliens already in the country, and we should, in fact, give resident illegal aliens all the benefits of citizenship. I mean, is the idea that we should ask people nicely not to enter the country illegally, but, if they do, hey, we basically make them citizens?
Perhaps it's because I've been listening to NPR, which has frequent, breathless stories about our awful treatment of illegal aliens. I dunno.
I am unaware of any liberal of significant political influence setting forth the position described above.
(Let me note that, for example, Noam Chomsky, today, does not have "significant" political influence. Ralph Nader may have significant political influence. Dennis Kucinich & Bernie Sanders have significant political influence. Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, etc. have substantial political influence.)
I suspect that there is a lot more informing WS's belief than is included in this post, but I am not convinced that this is a reasonably accurate generalization about the position of liberals. (I note our presumption that there is a "liberal" position on the matter)
It is quite possible that NPR has frequent stories about our awful treatment of resident illegal aliens simply because our treatment of resident illegal aliens is routinely awful. (I suspect that the stories are breathless because it is NPR, but that is a distraction.)
However, one can believe that our treatment of resident illegal aliens is awful without holding any of the other beliefs assigned to "liberals".
Two comments on the specific issues WS raises.
1) In-state tuition. In many states, to receive in-state tuition one must be a resident, but not necessarily a citizen. So, offering resident illegal aliens in-state tuition is not the same as treating them as citizens.
2) Public Option Health Insurance.
a) If a person seeks medical treatment for a serious or life-threatening illness or injury, they should have (IMHO) the right to receive the necessary care. The purpose of a public option is to ensure that everyone can afford the minimal acceptable health care. I believe that denying resident illegal aliens the opportunity to take part in a public option health plan will necessarily deny a subset of them (and their families) health care.
b) All discussions I have heard of a public option would allow legal aliens to take part. Therefore, offering resident illegal aliens access to a public option health plan is not the same as treating them as citizens.
Now, one can argue for various reasons that offering in-state tuition or a public option health plan to resident illegal aliens is good policy. However, supporting the inclusion of resident illegal aliens in either in-state tuition or public health plans is not the same as advocating that we should "give resident illegal aliens all the benefits of citizenship".
(This position may well be the same as believing that "resident illegal aliens are residents, and should be treated as such," which sidesteps the citizenship question.)
Best,
Jim Bales
Do you not think you're lawyering here, Jim?
I mean, when I made a reference to citizenship, I clearly didn't mean that any of these things were literally equivalent to citizenship. Therefore no argument to the effect that there's no literal desire to treat illegals as citizens can really be to the point.
The point is that there is a certain extremely permissive attitude about illegal immigration that is common among liberals. Surely you don't deny this? Among other things, there seems to be a hesitance to employ measures to decrease illegal immigration (e.g. opposition to a fence), a hesitance to increase efforts to identify illegal immigrants already here, and so forth.
Do you deny any of that, Jim?
As for the NPR stories: I'm not talking about genuine bad treatment of illegals. No one would deny that that's awful. Rather, NPR tends to, e.g., focus breathlessly and sometimes exclusively on the effects of INS raids on family-members left behind and so forth. The message is clear, and clearly against enforcing the relevant immigration laws.
Now, NPR is one--though only one--way to put one's finger on the pulse of American liberalism. But the same attitudes pervade web discussions as well.
But perhaps we need to start by clearly identifying where our disagreement is located. So: do you e.g. deny that there is a kind of permissive attitude toward illegal immigration that is common on the part of American liberals?
WS,
I am not trying to win debating points, nor am I trying to muddy or obfuscate the issue
When I saw
I have to say, I'm becoming more and more baffled by what I take to be the liberal position on illegal aliens, which sometimes seems to be something like: We should not take any special measures to keep illegal aliens from entering the U.S. (e.g. we should not build a border fence), we should not take any special measures to find and arrest illegal aliens already in the country, and we should, in fact, give resident illegal aliens all the benefits of citizenship. I mean, is the idea that we should ask people nicely not to enter the country illegally, but, if they do, hey, we basically make them citizens? ,
I, too, was baffled. I simply cannot reconcile this characterizations with the positions that I know major liberal figures in the US have taken.
So I looked at the two specifics cited in the post, and saw that, in and of themselves, they did not appear to justify the sweeping characterization that opened the post. This is why I wrote:
I suspect that there is a lot more informing WS's belief than is included in this post
My goals in posting my comment were
1) To engage you (and other commenters) in a discussion that would help me understand why the “liberal position” is perceived to be as above, and
2) To engage you in a conversation to help me and all who follow your blog clarify their understand of the two specific issues you cited.
Please accept my apologies if my comment came across differently--I did not set out to offend!
I will follow with answers to the questions you specifically asked of me.
My best wishes,
Jim Bales
WS closed his comment with:
But perhaps we need to start by clearly identifying where our disagreement is located. So: do you e.g. deny that there is a kind of permissive attitude toward illegal immigration that is common on the part of American liberals?
I think you are right -- let us identify where our disagreement is located. I will start by turning to the public statements of a noted US liberal ,Representative Barney Frank, of Massachusetts.
Frank's statement on immigration is well worth reading. I am excerpting it below.
Fundamentally, there are two conflicting issues that are at the heart of the immigration problem. First, it is clearly unhealthy for a society to have within it millions of people who are here illegally. It is not a good thing for people to ignore the law in any case, and it is a problem for us when there are millions of people who are here illegally because they do not have the incentives to comply with the law that should exist in a democracy. People who are here illegally may be reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement when they have information that would be useful. Our ability to enforce laws that seek to protect working people – with regard to the right to join unions, occupational safety, payment for overtime, etc. – are undermined if those who are working are deterred from complaining to the authorities because of their illegal status. There is also the possibility that people will neglect their health, which may be a problem primarily for them, but in the case of infectious diseases, becomes a public health problem.
On the other hand, it is clear that the great majority - not all - of these people play a role in our economy. While I am a critic of the unrestrained approach to the private sector which I believe the previous administration pursued, I do believe that our capitalist system, with proper interaction with the public sector, produces the greatest wealth that we can achieve, and I believe that the incentives that this system gives are generally in our overall economic interest. In this case, the relevant fact is that the millions of people who are here are – again overwhelmingly but not in every case – attracted by the possibility of being able to work in jobs that may seem unattractive to many, but which are both essential to our economy and are better jobs than they would get in their own countries.
So, WS, to answer your question, I do not consider Rep. Frank's position to be "an extremely permissive attitude," or even "some kind of permissive attitude." I consider it one that seeks to ensure that our immigration laws are enforceable, yet recognize the real benefits offer our economy by the illegal immigrants who are already here.
WS goes on:
Among other things, there seems to be a hesitance to employ measures to decrease illegal immigration (e.g. opposition to a fence), a hesitance to increase efforts to identify illegal immigrants already here, and so forth.
Do you deny any of that, Jim?
Rep. Frank continues:
Thus, we have the need that our economy has expressed for people in the workforce, balanced against the fact that it is unhealthy to have people here illegally. In deciding how to resolve this, I believe a third factor has to be taken into account: the extreme difficulty that a free society such as ours would have in expelling millions of people who have been here for years and have found places in the economy. We are not China or Saudi Arabia. This means that we cannot simply physically expel people who have been here for some time. This differs, by the way, with what we can do when people are apprehended crossing the border illegally. In fact, one part of the comprehensive solution in my view is for us to impose some penalty on people who we catch entering illegally from now on, and rather than simply send them home so they can try again, I am prepared to pay the price of some imprisonment of these people for a period of months in the hopes of deterring them from repeated attempts to enter illegally. [Emphasis added]
So, yes, I deny that liberals are hesitant "to employ measures to decrease illegal immigration".
That's very gracious, Jim...hope my comments above didn't seem snarky or angry...they weren't intended to be, and if they came across that way, I apologize. I've certainly learned that you are serious and well-intentioned about this stuff.
First, a quick statement of purity-of-heart: I haven't an anti-immigrant bone in my body. I realize that conditions in other countries give people good reason to try to get into the U.S. I think we have to be understanding about this.
However, I take it as an axiom that nations should regulate who comes in (at least if they come in for a long time). That's the status quo, and I believe it's uncontroversial.
O.k.: can we agree that there is a certain (let's start vague) rather permissive attitude about illegal immigration on the part of liberals? (At least permissive about immigration from south of the border...though I don't know about immigration from other places.)
WS raises the question of building a border fence. I grant you that Rep. Frank does not call for a border fence. I don’t know if he is expressly in favor of one, opposed to one, or indifferent to one. He writes:
I do not believe that border enforcement alone will suffice. Once again the fact that we are a free society and insist on remaining one is relevant. Given the length of our borders with Mexico and Canada and our shorelines, and given the need for millions of people to come and go between the U.S. and Mexico and the U.S. and Canada, simply physically preventing people from coming illegally when they have a powerful incentive economically to do so is in my view again impossible in a free society. We should try to cut down significantly on illegal entry, and that is why I believe that some penalty for crossing illegally with some imprisonment should be added to our law. But I think some of my conservative friends who believe that we can do this entirely by border enforcement are neglecting the power of the free market economy. When people are given a strong economic incentive to do something, many of them will do it and it is very hard again for a free society which wants to allow millions of its own citizens to come and go without restriction physically to keep all of them out.
Frank’s preferred approach is to reduce the incentive for people to try to enter the US illegally and seek work. This requires making it easy for employers to find out if a job applicant can legally work in the US, and imposing penalties on employers who do not make a good faith effort to check before hiring people. He proposes:
[T]o set up a national registry of those legally eligible to work, require anyone seeking to hire someone else to check with that registry and have stiff penalties for people who do not comply – and by this I mean the employers.
Note that this is not a national ID card, which has been one of the proposals made to deal with this. I understand the strong objections many Americans have to being told that they have to carry around ID cards. What I propose is that we create through the technological means that I think are now available a registry in the federal government to which employers will be required to refer before hiring anyone.
This is (IMHO) a accurate assessment of the realities of our situation and a carefully reasoned approach to making the situation better. I think it is incorrect to characterize this position as:
We should not take any special measures to keep illegal aliens from entering the U.S. (e.g. we should not build a border fence), we should not take any special measures to find and arrest illegal aliens already in the country, and we should, in fact, give resident illegal aliens all the benefits of citizenship. I mean, is the idea that we should ask people nicely not to enter the country illegally, but, if they do, hey, we basically make them citizens?
WS, what are your thoughts on the position of this liberal -- one of the most powerful and influential liberals in the US today?
Um, I think that only shows that liberal (singular) is not opposed...
To which I respond with Kucinich:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Dennis_Kucinich_Immigration.htm
Though he's usually an outlier on everything...so maybe he doesn't count much. (Though Frank is also unusually reasonable...so perhaps one might say the same thing about him...)
But remember the point at issue: it's not that no liberal anywhere is willing to do anything to mitigate the problem of illegal immigration.
Rather, the point is that there is a general rather permissive attitude toward it, and a general hesitance to get moderately tough about it on the part of liberalism in general.
(That makes it a tough thesis to evaluate rationally--but it's not intentionally/unnecessarily slippery.)
My prediction: more serious and consequential liberals, e.g. the president, will have to be more realistic about this issue; less serious and less consequential liberals will be freer to adopt airy-fairy bleeding-heart, let's-just-be-sweet-and-nice types of positions.
WS,
I agree. Kucinich's position is quite permissive.
Let us use ontheissues.org as our source and look at the other Democratic Presidential candidates of the 2008 primary. (There may be better sources, but this one should do for a first pass.)
Biden's strikes me as pragmatic, as does those of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. (Links should be easy to find from the one given above.)
That leaves Mike Gravel (here and here). He is for very open immigration, but claims it isn't that big of an issue. He asserts that "Nativists who want to fence us in are dead wrong--they scapegoat immigrants for many of our ills ..." (see the second link). I believe that he is correct in claiming that immigration is getting more attention than the issue deserves, and that scapegoating is part of the reason it gets that attention.
Gravel also stated: " Most immigrants today are driven to leave their countries by economic necessity caused in part by our unfair global and regional trade policies. These need to change to allow more equal economic development around the world. In the meantime, the door to immigrants must remain open."
I follow his thinking here, I believe, but I also think his analysis is wrong.
Gravel's position is "a rather permissive attitude" toward immigration, but it does seem to be informed by a level of thought that I didn't see in Kucinich's position.
So, of the three most significant contenders (Obama, Clinton, Edwards), I would not call any of their positions "a rather permissive attitude", based on the information at ontheissues.org. I would call them attempts to construct laws to balance the legal, economic, and social needs of the nation.
Of the three more minor candidates, I would put Biden with the first three, leaving Gravel and Kucinich (two of the weakest of the six) as the only ones whose positions could be characterized as "a rather permissive attitude."
Based on these six (i.e., excluding Frank), I will still hold that liberals in general have a pragmatic attitude towards illegal immigration, not a permissive attitude.
FWIW, every conservative's favorite liberal to vilify, Ted Kennedy also seems to fall into the pragmatic camp. Kennedy says:
Members of Congress are united about some of the steps necessary to respond to these demands. We all agree that part of the answer is strict enforcement at the border. The House bill relies heavily on walls and fences, which I’m skeptical about. The Senate bill uses cutting-edge surveillance tools—a virtual fence—and more cooperation with our neighbors.
We also agree that part of the answer is tougher enforcement at American worksites. ... [Both] require employers to check the eligibility of new employees against an electronic database [and] devote significant new funding and personnel to worksite enforcement, and both would substantially increase penalties on non-compliant employers.
Harry Reid is in the pragmatic camp. I can't tell from Nancy Pelosi's web site.
Adding in the positions of Frank, Kennedy, and Reid to those of the primary candidates, IMHO, adds move evidence that Kucinich is the outlier.
(I looked for Bernie Sander's thoughts, but didn't find anything I considered definitive.)
Finally, it looks like WS's prediction holds pretty well. Those liberals who are actually in a position to do something are realistic.
Best,
Jim
Right...as predicted.
But the real point, of course, was about the more permissive attitude that is so prevalent on the left. Of course people pretty much have to be grown-ups when they are aiming for high office.
Now, though I'm baffled that you've not encountered that permissive attitude, Jim, the obvious question is: how do we go about testing the claim that there IS such an attitude?
My first thought was: quickly survey the the top twenty or so hits re: immigration on big liberal sites.
So, if you really don't believe that such a permissive attitude is common, and we really are interested in pursuing the question, does that seem like a reasonable method?
(Just incidentally, wondering whether I might somehow be just deluded about this, I asked Johnny Quest: "True or false: it is common for liberals to have a rather permissive attitude about illegal immigration?" She looked at me like I was crazy and said "Uh, true...duh...")
WS,
I think we won't get much further until we understand what we mean by "liberal" and what we mean by "big liberal site" or "liberal of significant political influence" (my language).
It seems that, before we looked, I had considered Frank's position to be characteristic of liberals, while you considered Kucinich's to be characteristic.
I had posted:
I am unaware of any liberal of significant political influence setting forth the position described above
But I had also noted that I consider Kucinich as a "liberal of significant political influence" and he fits your description. Clearly, I was wrong, I am aware of liberals who fit your description. I think we have shown, however, that they are the outliers, not the general rule.
Now, if by "liberals have a rather permissive attitude", one means "liberals are more permissive than conservatives", then yes, the answer is, "Uh, true ... duh...".
But I think that in the context of the original post "liberals have a rather permissive attitude" means, "liberals want to allow, if not encourage, illegal immigrants entering the US" , in which case the answer is, "this is not particularly true."
What interests me is the "duh" -- what are the origins of the presumption that liberals as a whole have such whacked-out, unreasonable beliefs when so many liberals of influence don't fit the stereotype?
Best,
Jim Bales
O.k., lessee...here's some more ground-clearing and stage-setting:
First, you're on the way to convincing me that it isn't true that "liberals of significant political influence" generally have the permissive attitude in question. Kucinich, meh.
But a couple of things:
(a) I actually didn't have them in mind...partially because I didn't have a very clear thought. But to the extent that I did, at least part of what I meant was something more like: liberals of, e.g., the kind one tends to encounter on the intertubes have the permissive attitude in question. So that's the thesis that I am (still) inclined to accept.
Also:
(b) Mmm....lessee. Do they want to "allow if not encourage" immigrants to enter the U.S. illegally?
Well, my guess is that it's something rather more like:
They tend, more-or-less across the board, to want to do less about it. E.g. to be very opposed to a fence, to favor "catch and release" over incarceration, to oppose measures that that would "get tough," to take a dim view of the INS and INS raids, to prefer to emphasize the deleterious effects of legislation on illegals rather than the efficacy of the legislation, etc. They often want to punish employers...but, well, Dems are often eager to get in some digs against businessmen anyway, so that doesn't count for much to my mind.
(c) Actually it's not so much that I consider Kucinich's position *characteristic*...rather something like: more prevalent than I can believe.
(d) re: did I mean "more permissive than conservatives"? No, that's an easy point to score, but a hollow victory, b/c the right seems to incline toward the draconian on this score to my mind.
Perhaps this will help fix my position--for my benefit as well as yours:
I've encountered liberals who casually characterize people who are concerned about illegal immigration as being "anti-immigrant." They simply don't distinguish the two (radically different) positions. This seems telling to me.
A friend of mine found himself in a group discussion among influential people in which there was such derision leveled at the very idea of controlling illegal immigration that he felt compelled to point out that countries do have a right to control their borders.
I was recently listening to an NPR story about a large INS raid which focused *exclusively* on how sad it was that children and loved ones were separated from those who were arrested. The overall tone of the story was clear, though unstated: that there was simply something wrong about making the relevant arrests.
I could go on.
Now, illegal immigration strikes me as a big problem, and a problem that is particularly gut-wrenching in many ways, and for obvious reasons. But I keep bumping into liberals who seem to always emphasize the same half of the story, never quite coming out and saying, e.g. "just let everybody in!"...a conclusion I can't believe anyone actually accepts!
But that very conclusion seems to be exactly what's implied by much of what I hear.
And remember, we're talking about something like a general orientation here.
Now, none of that's proof...but it's not intended to be. It's an attempt to clearly express the worry I have in mind.
Pardon me for interjecting here, but though I love ya Winston, Jim seems to be providing a lot more here in the way of evidence and backup for his position.
But I think a much bigger issues are 1. that you may be making an error of motivation on the part of *liberals* or *the left* and mistaking pragmatic beliefs about the best way to deal with illegal immigration for ideological commitment to 'political correctness', and 2. the beliefs that you attribute to *the left* may be actually much more widely held and mainstream than you believe.
As to point 1, personally I'm not at all in favor of allowing people to break the law, be it immigration law or any other, with impunity. That being said, I'm not sure your preferred solutions of building fences etc. would be all that effective, and apparently my belief here seems squarely in the mainstream and less extreme than the putative *conservative* positions:
"The buzzword “amnesty” for illegal immigrants has political weight, but Americans are more tolerant than the media coverage often suggests. Sixty-two percent of Americans in the CBS News/New York Times poll said undocumented immigrants should be given a chance
to “keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status.” Only 33 percent said they should be “deported.” Polls by Gallup and
CNN show even higher levels of supportfor integrating people who entered illegallybut worked while they were here. Furthermore, despite media attention to building a fence on the border between
the United S tates and Mexico, Americans show little confidence that it will do much to stem illegal immigration. Americans
look more to employers as a source of the problem and a potential solution. Polling by the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg in
April 2007 showed 77 percent of people believed “employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants should be punished for
their actions.” Only 18 percent disagreed. A Quinnipiac University Poll indicated 63-
percent support (compared to 33-percent opposition) for communities passing local laws to fine businesses that hire illegal
immigrants. In another poll, Pew specifically asked people to compare employer sanctions
against increased enforcement such asborder patrols and a fence. More people concluded that penalizing employers would be more effective. This conclusion was shared
by both Democrats and Republicans, and in border zones such as Arizona and Las Vegas.
In short, while there is certainly great concern about the issue, the conservative positions on
immigration—deportation of undocumented immigrants, no path to citizenship, building
more fences on the border—enjoy less support than does a more progressive approach."
Also, to the question posed in May 2007 by the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll "Do you favor or oppose creating a program that would allow illegal immigrants already living in the United States for a number of years to stay in this country and apply for U.S. citizenship if they had a job and paid back taxes?", the response was: favor: 80%; oppose: 19%.
Cite:
http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/pdf/progressive_majority.pdf
p. 22
Now I will say that there is the distinct possibility that the so-called *left* or extreme liberals come to their mainstream-popular positions based on ideological/politically-correct reasoning rather than practical considerations, but I don't have much evidence for or against that supposition.
But hold on here, LC--I've explicitly said that I haven't really offered much evidence yet.
(a) I'm still incredulous that I seem to be the only one around here who has noticed this phenomenon
and
(b) I'm explicitly still trying to figure out what kind of evidence would count.
And as for (a) again...I dunno...I'm just baffled. I thought *everybody* knew this...that is, that there was a certain permissive attitude blah blah blah. I can't tell you how astonishing it is that you guys apparently have no idea what I'm talking about.
WS,
I'd like to address your point "a":
(a) I'm still incredulous that I seem to be the only one around here who has noticed this phenomenon
[...]
I'm just baffled. I thought *everybody* knew this...that is, that there was a certain permissive attitude blah blah blah. I can't tell you how astonishing it is that you guys apparently have no idea what I'm talking about.
I will happily acknowledge that there is a widespread presumption among Americans that liberals are permisive and oppose enforcing the laws on illegal immigration (and almost every other topic).
Of course, the fact that many people hold this belief does not make it true.
We've now seen that the strongest true statement that can be made is "In general America's liberals -- except for those liberals who are like Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and John Edwards -- have an extremely permissive attitude towards illegal immigrants."
In otherwords, liberals bear (and have born for over 20 years) a deeply-seated, widespread, strongly negative stereotype on this topic.
Now, we all hold stereotypes, and we are generally unaware of them. (I’m almost afraid to find out where mine are.)
When I read your post, WS, it struck me as being informed more by that pervasive stereotype than by the positions of actual liberals. You pointed out to me that there are some prominent liberals (Kucinich & Gravel) who do hold this position, so I was over compensating in my reaction to the sterotype.
But I think some of your bafflement is that I am directly (and intentionally) challenging the stereotype that is apparently widely held by the people around you.
This disucssion is helping me, as I have learned of the Kucinich/Gravel piece of liberalism in the US. But I think that -- on the whole -- my original premise stands; liberals in the US believe in enforcing immigration laws, but seek pragmatic solutions.
The important questions, to my mind, are:
1) How do we keep ourselves from being affected by the “liberals are weak on X” sterotype? (It clearly affected both WS and my beliefs, albeit in opposite directions)
2) How does it propogate and get reinforced?
3) How do we replace it with an accurate assessment? (In this case an assessment that acknowledges that the liberal range of views includes Kucinich’s, but is dominated by Frank’s.)
Any thoughts?
Best,
Jim Bales
No, you misunderstand me, Jim.
I'm not saying that there is a *stereotype* that liberals tend to be permissive about illegal immigration.
I'm saying that, on the basis of my experience with liberals, I came to believe that liberals were permissive about illegal immigration. In fact, I thought this was a rather obvious characteristic of many (note: many needn't mean *most*) liberals...and one they rather openly embraced...but, at any rate, a characteristic everyone was aware of. Almost like conservative permissiveness about firearms or something.
Now, even if it turns out to be false--which has yet to be demonstrated--what I'm surprised about is that you, for example, seem downright surprised that anyone could believe this. At first it seemed like you'd never even *heard* of such a thing. Now though it's clear you've heard of it, you seem to be saying that only conservative propaganda could implant such an idea in people.
My first thought is: we must have encountered very different liberals... (Note: this is not an effort to insulate myself from refutation; it really is my first thought.)
Now, of course I want to figure out how to answer this question...but the place to *start* is at a rather impressionistic level about our political discourse. Had you said something like "Oh, yeah, there's a lot of liberal chatter about permissiveness, but when push comes to shove and you look at actual policies you'll see that..." or somesuch, I'd have been less puzzled.
But the "why, I have no idea where you'd ever get such an idea!" (other than conservative propaganda) is what I find extremely surprising.
(Which is not to say it's wrong...just literally very surprising.)
WS,
The reason I didn't say "Oh, yeah, there's a lot of liberal chatter about permissiveness .." is because I haven't heard liberals chatter about permissiveness.
I have heard non-liberals voice vague, unsourced allegations that liberals are permissive on all issues, but gave the allegations the weight I thought they deserved--none.
(It was such unsubstantiated allegations that came to my mind when you posted I thought *everybody* knew this, hence my presumption of stereotyping -- my apologies!)
I was, I admit, unaware of Kucinich's position, which fits the description of your post. However, I was aware of what several major liberal politicians in the US actually say, and I give their publicly-stated opinions significant weight.
WS goes on:
Now, of course I want to figure out how to answer this question...but the place to start* is at a rather impressionistic level about our political discourse.
Unfortunately, I really don't understand what you mean by "a rather impressionistic level" -- could you elaborate on it, and why you consider it to be the appropriate place to start?
My inclination is to start by looking at the publicly-stated positions of people who are generally considered to be influential and/or powerful liberals in today's political landscape. If the preponderance of them have a shared belief, then I'd call that the generic liberal position. If there is no clear bias among them in one direction or another, then I'd say that there is no generic liberal position.
WS also notes:
My first thought is: we must have encountered very different liberals
I suspect that you are correct in that we have encountered very differnt liberals. It is also quite possible that we have differnt ideas as to what a liberal is.
This is, in part, why I have named so many people I consider to be influential liberals--so that, if your concept of a liberal is substantially different from my, you can say "Wait! He's not a liberal!" You haven't, yet, so I have presumed that you do consider Frank, Kennedy, Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Kucinich, Sanders, Gravel, Biden, and Edwards to be liberals. Am I in error?
Finally, if you could give more examples of the liberals you have dealt with, it might help me. (I also understand that, since you blog annonymously, it is possible that you may be uncomfortable identifying ones you have to deal with professionally.)
My Best Wishes,
Jim Bales
Hmmm...it's funny that we're having so much trouble even getting to a starting point.
Let's try again.
Jim writes:
"My inclination is to start by looking at the publicly-stated positions of people who are generally considered to be influential and/or powerful liberals in today's political landscape. If the preponderance of them have a shared belief, then I'd call that the generic liberal position. If there is no clear bias among them in one direction or another, then I'd say that there is no generic liberal position."
As I've already said, I predict that "the public statements of powerful liberals" is not the place to look. Forced to win elections, they can't espouse such a position. That's not an ad hoc hypothesis to save the proposition in question, incidentally. For one thing, I have no emotional attachment to the proposition.
However:
As I look back to the post in question, it's hyperbole-laden: initially I say "I keep stumbling across" these liberals, then I (hyperbolically) say "here's what I take to be the liberal position" and the "orthodoxy." Now, That's obviously wrong...so I'm not even sure why I wrote it.
(And now I see part of what we've been disagreeing about: not having re-read my post, and not actually believing what I did write, I've been defending a weaker claim.)
To be clear, what I actually believe and meant was: "here's a surprisingly common theme in liberal discussions." Jim is right to object to what I did write.
But actually now I've become more interested in what I take to be Jim's claim: that this permissive position isn't even a major theme in liberalism.
Is that an accurate formulation of your position, Jim?
As for beginning the conversation at an impressionistic level: well, that *is* the natural place to start. But I won't press the methodological point since you have never encountered a liberal espousing a permissive position on immigration. Me, I'm still astonished by that...to me it sounds roughly like "I've never encountered a conservative espousing a permissive position on firearms." But different starting points don't doom us to a different end point.
O.k., now if we really are interested in determining whether said permissive attitudes are common on the left, the obvious way to do so is with a poll.
Short of that--that is, at the level of BSing on a blog--I'm not sure how to do so. My suggestion above is to sample posts from major liberal blogs. Needless to say, we'd have to specify ahead of time how we'd do the sampling, what would count as confirming and disconfirming evidence and so forth.
Though, realistically, the work involved is obviously not going to be worth the cost. (Though, interestingly, my very first shot at it turned up a post on Kos that derided viewing illegal immigration as a "law-enforcement problem"...)
WS,
Let me respond with a bit of a grab-bag of thoughts.
First:
You write:
And now I see part of what we've been disagreeing about: not having re-read my post, and not actually believing what I did write, I've been defending a weaker claim.
Fair enough! Blogging is a medium that tends to capture the immediate response and thought, which (I suspect) is why the post was a bit hyperbolic. I was most definitely reacting to the original post.
Second:
Personally, I am reluctant to strongly discount what politicians state as their positions. I would tend to take them at their word, until their voting record shows that they don't actually practice what they preach.
However, if you want to look instead at their voting records and public explanations of their votes, that would be fine.
(Note that in my link to the speech by the late Ted Kennedy, he spoke exclusively about the bills that were then pending before the house and senate.)
I thnik it is important to look at the words and actions of elected officials, because they are the ones who can change things! Thus I am reluctant to embrace blogs alone as the way to assess what "liberals" or "conservatives" believe.
Third:
A major concern I have is how we use the word "liberal". It is used in public discourse to be somewhat synonymous of the Democratic Party and its elected members. I am reluctant to embrace any definition of "liberal" that would exclude the bulk of the positions of the Democratic Party, for if we did, we would then be using the term in highly non-standard way.
Fourth:
My position is that those liberals who are can actually affect how we deal with illegal immigration generally have a pragmatic approach, trying to balance the concurrent needs to:
1) Enforce the laws and maintain respect for the law,
2) Recognize the economic role illegal immigrants play in the US, and
3) Maintain our nation's values of free movement and openness, and our opposition to the forced expatriation of millions of people.
I would also add that some (perhaps even most) of these liberals consider other problems that we face to be much more pressing than that of illegal immigration.
Fifth:
I note that while all of this has been going on, you have been calling BS on TVD in another thread. I am grateful that our discussion has had (I believe) a much more productive tone!
Best,
Jim Bales
Thanks for being so gracious about the screw-up, Jim.
And not to belabor the point, but I'm still wondering what you think about the attenuated thesis: that permissiveness about illegal immigration is a common theme in contemporary American liberalism.
Any thoughts on that claim?
WS.
Hey, if all of my screw ups could be this easily corrected... !
You have convinced me that permissiveness about illegal immigration is a common theme in contemporary American liberalism.
I believe that we have also seen that finding ways to effectively restrict illegal immigration is is also a common theme in contemporary American liberalism.
I think a third element that is also important (although we've not shown it here) is that:
Contemporary American liberalism considers other problems our nation faces to be significantly more important than illegal immigration.
Best,
Jim
I think we're agreed on all counts, then--plus the crucial point that permissiveness about illegal immigration is NOT the liberal "orthodoxy" as I originally and falsely asserted.
"Hey, if all of my screw ups could be this easily corrected... !"
That's what you get for being in a discipline in which people can easily tell when someone's wrong...
Philosophy, on the other hand...
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