Some of you may have seen Jim McCrea's email thread in which he links an article by Andrew Sullivan, titled What Biden Doesn't Get On Immigration. Sullivan takes Biden sharply to task. I commented on the article. I am bringing my comment, and the link to the Sullivan article, over here for discussion.
From Sullivan's article: "The rhetoric from the Biden peeps contains very little emphasis on the core moral duty of government to have secure borders. Biden seems to want them all to come, and to make it easier rather than harder to immigrate — even as the foreign born population in the US is near a historic peak, even as domestic wages have been stagnant, and even as the economy has much less use for unskilled labor than at any previous point in history."
"...Biden has an opportunity, it seems to me, and he’s missing it thus far. Instead of easily-disproven lies — the notion that Trump did not solve or mitigate any of the problems, or that the Biden administration is still sending everyone but children back — he should tell us the truth. Instead of platitudes, offer realism."
"...And if you don’t want the Trump policies to return, quit the cheap moralizing and get serious about the real-world choices. What Americans want is a sense that immigration is under control. So far, in this administration, too many people are beginning to believe it isn’t. And too many Democrats seem oddly fine with that."
It seems to me that Sullivan would be just fine with Trump's immigration policies, just put a little better optics on them so they don't look quite as ugly. I've no idea what he means by secure borders. Seems like he means nobody trying to cross them. He talks about the "remain in Mexico" policy avoiding a humanitarian nightmare at the border. But it just moves the humanitarian nightmare south of the border, where Mexico's resources can't cover it.
I don't know that Sullivan has proved that Biden is lying about his immigration policies. A few days back I read an article in NCR from March 24 by Michael Sean Winters, taking Biden to task because his immigration policy is just "Trump lite" and isn't Christian, and he should have brought religious people in on finding solutions. So both his and Sullivan's take can't be right, because they are opposite sketches. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between.
One thing I do like of Biden's ideas is that he wants to work with the countries where the people are coming from to try and ameliorate the issues driving emigration. People normally don't want to leave their homelands unless there is no future for them there, or if staying there means danger of death. If things are so bad that 27% of the people south of our border want to leave their own countries, the pressure on our border is not going to ease up unless something changes.
I think it is interesting that Biden has placed Kamala Harris in charge of the border issues. I'm sure she is able and willing to assist in working toward solutions.
Our country has meddled with Central American countries, their politics and economy, for over a hundred years, mostly for the benefit of large companies and cartels. It obviously has not benefitted the people of those countries. And now climate change is starting to become a factor as intense hurricanes destroy their crops and infrastructure. Amazing how we want global trade but not global cooperation.
ReplyDeleteI used to be a fan of Sullivan, but somehow his concerns about gender and immigration don't seem to resonate with me. He seems like a gay guy who is very happy when things are very well defined (gay men marrying gay men) but upset with notions of bisexuality and blurred gender. He is also an immigrant who worked hard to keep his green card and stay here to become a citizen. Seems upset that the rules might be changing there too.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to keep the population growing at a steady rate whether by immigration or by having more children.
Immigration is inevitable, especially if climate change continues. I think we have to accept it and figure out how to deal with it and plan for it. I personally am very comfortable with people from the South. I barely see them as foreign, at most, different. Sometimes I fantasize the US, Canada, Mexico, and the Central American nations forming the United States of North America. I have no idea how we could get from where we are to that, but it would certainly leave us with one easy-to-defend border in Panama.
DeleteI don't see us ever agreeing on one government, but maybe she mething like a re-boot of the old Organization of American States. It was formed in 1948, for solidarity among the member states. Unfortunately it's hard for human beings to keep solidarity in mind. They always want to game the system for their own advantage.
Delete"she mething" should be "something". I hate auto-correct.
DeleteOff topic, did you hear the one that they renamed that ship that's blocking the Suez Canal "Mitch McConnell"?
ReplyDeleteHaha. Good idea.
DeleteWord is that the big ship is nearly loose today. The builders of the Suez Canal in the 1860s certainly never envisioned a ship of that size. Sort of similar to how the writers of the Constitution never envisioned an AK-15.
DeleteShouldn't they call that ship "Joe Manchin"? McConnell can't do squat if the Democratic Senators can achieve unanimity.
DeleteThank for that link to the Michael Sean Winters column - that is one of his better efforts. I think he is commenting on the whipsaw rhetoric from the Biden Administration, in which their early executive orders communicated "Come!" to immigrants - but now, faced with the Administration's inability to process the surge humanely, they're saying "Don't come! Stay home! The border is closed!"
ReplyDeleteAn aspect which neither Sullivan nor Winters mention, but which I think plays a part in this complicated situation for Biden, is that the shadow of 2022 hangs over his calculations. His Senate and House majorities are extremely narrow threads. If even one net Senate seat moves into the Republican column next year, his agenda is dead. I believe the net gain for Republicans in the House to put Kevin McCarthy in the Speaker's office would be five seats - by historical standards, a number which should be well within reach for the minority party. Assuming the COVID vaccination program continues to make good progress and the pandemic starts to recede in importance over the next 10-12 months, then keeping immigration on the front burner as a top-tier issue probably plays into Republican plans. Especially now that the party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Donald Trump.
I'm not a veteran reader of Sullivan, but doesn't he style himself a conservative? I took his piece as a fairly conservative critique of a progressive open-borders policy.
ReplyDeleteIs our moral calculus the same toward economic immigrants as it is toward refugees and asylum seekers? I don't know the answer, but they do strike me as different cases, and I think the latter two cases have more of a moral claim on us than the first one does.
I also think there is a difference between the "Good Samaritan spirituality" which Winters cites among the border faith communities, and government policy. Regardless of policies, we should welcome the stranger in our midst as a guest. But the expectation of a guest is that sooner or later, he leaves. Whither does he go - on which side of the border should be be permitted to reside permanently? That is the role of the government to decide.
How many immigrants should the US admit? I suspect we'd all agree that two wrong answers are "Zero" and "All of them". The right answer presumably lies somewhere between those two poles. When we concede that, we've entered the realm of prudential judgment - which is where Sullivan is trying to live, I believe. We're not obligated to agree with all the details of his analysis. For myself, I do think we owe some level of protection to American citizens at the lower end of the economic scale - the ones whose jobs and wages are particularly vulnerable to an influx of unskilled immigrants.
Hi Jim. I am not a veteran reader of Sullivan, either. I believe he leans a bit libertarian.
DeleteI think you are right that refugees and asylum seekers have a prior moral claim to those who are economic refugees; though there is a blurry line if the economic hardship is such that they are facing starvation. However if that were the case would they even have the means to set out on a trek of thousands of miles?
You make a good point about protecting our own citizens at the bottom of the economic scale. Though the immigrants seem to fill some jobs that no one else wants. I am thinking in particular about the packing plants in this neck of the woods. The pay is not great, but liveable, and they have benefits and health insurance.
One class of immigrants we seem not to have any trouble admitting, and that would be the professional people such as doctors, engineers, and scientists. They do directly compete with our own people for jobs. They are capable of making a living in their countries of origin, and by giving them the preferential green light, the US is participating in a brain drain from their countries.
The immigration debates focus on the "pull" of life in America. What about the "push" that drives them out of their own countries? I am interested to see if the Biden administration can do anything diplomacy-wise about that. it may involve some "checkbook diplomacy", saving us money in the end if more people decide it is safe to remain at home.
"there is a blurry line if the economic hardship is such that they are facing starvation."
DeleteCertainly - if they are facing starvation. If that really is the case, it would seem to call for humanitarian assistance.
That these immigrants are at the point of starvation is part of the political narrative - it always has been part of the narrative for admitting immigrants to the US.
Among candidates for economic immigration, I expect there is a wide variety of circumstances. Some are desperately poor; some have life's necessities but are ambitious to improve their lot; some (most?) fall somewhere in between.
"the immigrants seem to fill some jobs that no one else wants. I am thinking in particular about the packing plants in this neck of the woods. The pay is not great, but liveable, and they have benefits and health insurance."
If those immigrants were not readily available, the meat packers would have to change their business model - in the short term, that would mean improving wages, benefits and working conditions sufficiently to attract American citizens to those jobs. I don't know the details of meat packing, but I think there are American citizens who would do the work if it pays a living wage.
I do think it's likely that there are some job categories - and meat packing may be one of them, as well as some other agricultural-related jobs - with genuine labor shortages. The rational solution to that would be to give immigrants with the requisite skills legal entry into the US to do that work - and provide them with a path to naturalization and citizenship. I believe something similar exists today, but perhaps there is a low ceiling on the number of immigrants who can be admitted in this way. But immigration is such a toxic topic now that it has proven to be near-impossible to get political agreement to rational proposals.
"One class of immigrants we seem not to have any trouble admitting, and that would be the professional people such as doctors, engineers, and scientists. They do directly compete with our own people for jobs."
In my own line of work (my employer employs thousands of engineers and similar professionals), there are domestic labor shortages for some of these professional skills. The H1B visa program allows a certain number of foreign applicants to come to the US. Most employers, mine included, wish the annual H1B limits were higher than they are. FWIW, some conservative immigration proposals would privilege these foreign professionals over the unskilled. As a practical matter, this ends up privileging some points of origin (mostly Asian) over others (mostly Latin American).
Good points, Katherine.
DeleteBefore I comment fully, I would like to ask you a question, Jim. It is my impression that you have not traveled a lot outside of Illinois, outside the midwest. Maybe a bit in the US (you mentioned a sib in California for example), and a couple of trips to Canada.
So, I am curious as to where you have traveled. I tend to agree with Rick Steves who thinks that travel opens people's eyes to begin grasping the realities of life beyond American cities and suburbia. Few Americans understand how well Europeans really live - and that their countries are not 'socialist'. Even fewer grasp the reality of life for the majority of the world who do not live in white, middle and upper-middle class dominant countries.
Some also have forgotten that most euro-descended Americans were economic immigrants.
But, back to my questions - how much traveling have you done, Jim,and where did you go?
I should clarify that I am not against professional people who immigrate here. My favorite boss when I was working was an engineer from India. He was a secular Hindu married to a Catholic. He had an interesting perspective on things.
DeleteAnne - I have traveled a fair bit on business, mostly domestically. I haven't been to every state in the US but I've spent time in many of the major business hubs. I've also traveled to Mexico, India, the Bahamas and the UK. I've been to Canada many times - have blogged from Canada here at NewGathering.
DeleteAll that said, if you've sussed out that I'm mostly a homebody, you're not wrong. I'm not a great traveler. For business, I have not traveled nearly as extensively as I might have - could have gone to various destinations in Latin America, Asia, the Pacific Islands, Europe and Africa, but usually have asked employees to make those trips instead. I don't have much of a facility for other languages, and the logistics of travel stress me out. When I'm on the road, I usually just want to get home as soon as I can.
I've concluded that there are two types of people: those who can't wait to leave home and be somewhere else; and those who hate being anywhere else and just want to be home. I'm the latter.
Regarding traveling as a tourist: I am one who believes he works fairly hard all year and don't want to spend it all on an experience that is over and done with after a week or two. (To be sure, part of that attitude might be rooted in a couple of Vegas trips I've made!)
When our kids were younger, we did "road trip" vacations most years. As they got older and their schedules got more complicated, those seem to have become less frequent.
Between my work, which would consume me 16 hours a day if I let it, and my ministry activities, I'm quite happy being where I am. My wife gets more housebound than I do, and would like to travel with me more than we do. Now that our nest is emptying (slowly!), we probably will travel more.
Thanks Jim. I see that the travel you have done overseas has essentially been first world environments, even when located in third world countries. More later.
Delete"I see that the travel you have done overseas has essentially been first world environments, even when located in third world countries."
DeleteI am sure that is true for the great majority of American business travelers and tourists - the former tend to stick to the business areas and the latter to the touristy areas. It's not entirely true in my case - not sure how you reached the conclusion you did, except to assume my experience is like everyone else's.
Anne,
DeleteExposure to poor people can occur within our own nation. In my case it was several decades of contact with the mentally ill not as a clinician but as public official who had a lot of personal contact with many talented people who also happened to have a mental illness and because of that suffered economically, psychologically and socially. In fact one researcher has argued that mentally ill people are among the poorest people in the world because so many aspects of their lives are impoverished because of their illnesses.
As a member of the American Psychological Association I made presentations to our annual meeting about research and policy making for those who have the most severe forms of mental illness. Unfortunately most psychologists work in academia and in private practice where they rarely meet let alone get to know well those whose lives have been devastated by severe mental illness.
At those meetings I often attend presentations in which ethnic psychologists, or gay psychologists, or feminist psychologists lamented how terrible their lives were because of discrimination. Most of these people were in positions where they made a lot more money that I did in the public sector. I felt all these people were very privileged and had no idea what it meant to live with a severe mental illness.
Trump supporters who are against immigration and especially Mexicans are often that way not only because they have had little on no personal experience of them in that area but also because they have have little educational or professional experience that might bring them into contact with people from other cultures.
However I think many, maybe even most, educated and professional people have some experience of other cultures. In Minnesota as an undergraduate one of my professors was a monk from the Bahamas, and one of my fellow students was a Cuban refugee. During graduate school I got to knew students from Peru and New Zealand. I spent a year of post doctoral residency at Saint Elizabeth Hospital in DC in the Center that dealt with SE Washington. I learned a lot from that experience. I have gotten to know Blacks in the mental health system as both fellow managers and board members. Of course from my DC experience, I know their life experience is very different from those of inner city Blacks.
I definitely agree re: the impoverished reality of the mentally ill. Most of homeless people with whom we deal have mental illness of some type, and to varying degrees.
DeleteIn my observation, these homeless folks do not receive the psychological treatment they need. As a practical matter, they deal more with social workers more so than psychologists who can provide therapy.
Even many Americans who, by most measures, wouldn't be considered below the poverty line, are getting inadequate psychological care. It's difficult to afford treatment for any malady, physical or psychological, if insurance isn't subsidizing it. Medical insurance in the US is far from perfect, but it's considerably better than the corporate-provided insurance plans for psychological treatment.
All that said: I assume Anne's point is not related to psychologically-induced poverty, but rather the poverty that is endemic in the developing world.
I agree with Jack's point that many Americans are exposed to different cultures via exposure to immigrants. I also think it's true that this cultural exposure is, over time, becoming diffused out of the urban centers where immigrants traditionally have congregated into suburbs, exurbs, smaller cities and rural areas.
I don't think it's true that Trump supporters are against immigration because they haven't been exposed to immigrants. I think it's more likely that they are against immigration *despite* having been exposed to immigrants. (Some of them might be so honest as to admit they are against immigration *because* they have been exposed to immigrants.) Many people are tribal - it almost seems hardwired into DNA, and takes an effort to overcome it. Encountering people from a different "tribe" elicits a negative reaction in many, many people.
FWIW, I think this tribal-loyalty dynamic I am describing can be overcome, at least partially, over the course of generations, and our schools, both public and Catholic, can be tremendous engines for this. My own children were exposed to ethnicities (especially, in this area, people of various Asian backgrounds) which were entirely absent from the public and Catholic schools I attended when I was growing up. My children are much less likely to see them as "other" than my contemporaries are.
Unfortunately there are a lot of stereotypes of immigrants. The immigrants that I know most about, those in my county, come from a particular town in Mexico. Essentially they are migrating as a town. Their border crossings are not haphazard, they are well planned very difficult treks across deserted country which many have made several times. Often they go back and forth as they need to be with their extended families in Mexico. They are very Catholic, and of course very family oriented. They don't particularly want a lot of favors and visibility.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have never understood is that from a faith viewpoint these are ideal immigrants. Now I could understand that Evangelicals might not like them because they are Catholic; but increasing people coming from Latin America are Evangelical, or easily convert to being Evangelical once they are here.
I do not understand shutting down boarders because we need population growth and we are not getting that from White people. I understand that people may be concerned about becoming a White minority, but I don't mind that if the migrants are Catholic or at least Christian. Quite honestly I would rather have a Mexican Catholic as a neighbor than an Evangelical Trump supporter or maybe even a Catholic Trump supporter.
If I were a Republican conservative I would be promoting immigration from Catholic and Christians in Latin America and signing them up for the Republican party. They have a lot of conservative values, family, pro-life, religious, hard working. They are not secular liberal Democrats though they would be comfortable with Catholic Democrats.
Jack - you are being too rational!
DeleteThere can be no doubt that contempt for persons of color, and persons who don't speak English, is the evil root of populist anti-immigrant fervor. There are other, prudent reasons to manage/control the number and quality of immigrants who come to the US. But in my opinion, those rational considerations don't resonate politically like plain, old-fashioned contempt.
But plain old fashioned contempt often, maybe even most often, occurs when people just don't know the people that they hold in contempt. The Trump supporters who are most against Mexicans come from the areas that are farther from the Mexican border and who have the least contact with Mexicans.
DeleteThis was an interesting article on why many Hispanic men were Trump supporters. I have to say based on people I know that it's no surprise, and that it's also no surprise that many of the women have a different point of view.
DeleteUnfortunately I'm paywalled out of that WaPo article. Katherine, can you summarize some of the main points?
DeleteSorry about the paywall, Jim. The article is part of a back and forth between the author, Eric Garcia, and his father. I'm going to copy and paste part of the article here:
Delete"A...place to start might be jobs: what the experiences of men and women look like in the American economy right now, and how that might influence their thinking about politics. Stephanie Valencia of EquisLabs, a Democratic research firm that surveyed Latino voters in 11 states starting in 2019, says that, in the run-up to the election, they found plenty of men who had what she called “Trump intrigue.” “They see him as the successful businessman, and they see him as somebody who has built himself up from his bootstraps, even though we all know that’s not necessarily true,” she told me."
"That may contrast with the experiences of Latinas, many of whom are running their households, managing child care or employed as front-line and domestic workers — nurses or caretakers for the elderly. “They are making sure their kids are prepared for Zoom school,” Valencia explains. “I think there’s a fundamentally different experience that Hispanic men and women have in both what they experience day to day and what information they consume....Both Latino men and women may share economic and status anxiety, of course. But Latinas — like female voters across ethnic categories — were repelled by Trump’s disrespect toward women and his bragging about sexual assault"
"Trump’s image as a straight-talking businessman was definitely part of what appealed to my dad. He liked that Trump was a graduate of the Wharton School and that the former president grew up with men similar to those who worked with my grandfather. “We’d run into the electrical contractor’s union or somebody else working in houses, building houses. Every one of them talked like Trump,” my dad said. “No big words. Everything was very, very simple. And Trump learned to do that. He learned to master that, where he can communicate.”
Randall Avila, the executive director of the Orange County Republican Party, says Latino men appreciated Trump’s lack of political correctness. “We kind of resonate with the president even though we may not agree with everything he says,” Avila told me. “He speaks his mind and he doesn’t sugarcoat things, so I think some of that personality style also played into Latino support for the president as well.”
"...News reports before and after the election speculated that Trump’s tough talk on immigration, as well as his “law and order” rhetoric, helped with some Latino men. In fact, especially in some border communities, law enforcement is a major employer of Latino men. According to Department of Homeland Security statistics for 2019, 30 percent of all U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are Hispanic."
Katherine, thanks for those excerpts. Trump as electrical contractor - that is illuminating.
DeleteConsider that in contrast with Mitt Romney, who seems a fundamentally decent sort of man but who doesn't come across like an electrical contractor - he comes across as a suit who is going to by your employer's company and lay you off. He never connected with the working class, and his candidacy went down in flames.
It always amazed me how Trump was able to sell himself as such a populist, when he is a rich guy from a rich family in New York who went to private schools. And does not come across as an electrical contractor; they actually have to be licensed and have the skills to do the work.
DeleteYeah, Mitt Romney impressed me as a decent guy, and not one who blindly follows the party line.
Electrical contractors were probably among the business owners that Trump stiffed. Neither Trump nor Romney have any idea what it is to be middle class or working class, let alone poor. How could they? I myself have no idea what it is to be poor (in economic jeopardy).
DeleteHillary Clinton was openly elitist with her "deplorables" statement. Trump is worse but he told the lies that resonated.
Gene McCarraher sorts out the elitism and the meritocracy theory that underpins it in his latest Commonweal Article:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/providentialism-without-god
"Electrical contractors were probably among the business owners that Trump stiffed."
DeleteExactly!
I've read somewhere that Trump strikes people as nouveau riche - like a working stiff who won the PowerBall. Whereas Romney comes across as Old Money. In fact, I think Trump's parents were wealthier than Romney's.
Pretty sure you're right, Jim. Old Man Drumpf made the money. Trump may still be in the red despite the $250M he recently picked up from his followers. Romney is definitely more "self-made" than Trump and more financially savvy. Trump is a mere confidence man.
DeleteThe only problem with Commonweal articles is that they are sometimes excessively looong. I started the McCarraher article, but will have to finish it later.
DeleteI think that's a good approach, Katherine. Sometimes I find myself skiing over the second part.
DeleteStudies support your view, Jim. Those who have little personal experience with " brown" immigrants ( from Latin America or Muslims especially) bought into trumps campaign to incite fear and hate.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, most asylum seekers from the south who go to the border with Mexico are not Mexican. They are mostly from Central America, and mostly from places where they are caught in a trap by the drug traffickers. Who wouldn't be fighting each other if the profits from drugs weren't so high. We tend to blame one side for this - forgetting that if Americans didn't seek out these drugs in such huge numbers, a lot of problems would be lessened in the countries of origin as well as in the US. These drug cartels are motivated by profit like all capitalists. They are perfectly happy to supply drugs to our country.
But what about the demand side? Is there any way to actually get rid of the American hunger for drugs? Or would it be better to take out the profit and have addicts get their drugs from a government agency? Mak it unprofitable for the cartels in Latin America? Many of those who head north are trying to get their families to safety. To get their children away from being forced into the drug gangs. To protect their daughters from rape - a common threat made to families and boys who resist joining the gangs.
A solution for all this is beyond my ability to develop. But I do know that the expenditure of billions of dollars over decades of the " war on drugs" hasn't worked. Most drugs come into the country on planes and boats, not over our southern border. Maybe we should redirect our efforts. Most undocumented immigrants arrive in the US legally and overstay their visas and disappear into the crowd. It's only the most vulnerable and frightened who walk 1000 miles hoping to find safely - and opportunity for a better life.
"They are mostly from Central America, and mostly from places where they are caught in a trap by the drug traffickers."
ReplyDeleteThe single thing that interested me the most about Sullivan's piece was his claim (not supported by any citations or links, I think) that many of the asylum claims are "dodgy". I don't know how anyone can tell whether each individual claim is either truthful or dodgy.
Yeah, how would he know? That's for the judges to figure out, the best they can.
DeleteThis Axios piece notes that climate change is a major driver of migration:
ReplyDelete"By the numbers: The World Bank estimates that three regions — Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia — will generate 143 million more climate migrants by 2050.
"The catch: Most people displaced because of the effect of weather and climate first migrate not internationally, but to towns and cities in their own countries.
"But as Abrahm Lustgarten reported in a sweeping story for the New York Times and ProPublica last year, as migrants crowd ill-equipped urban areas, they "stretch infrastructure, resources and services to their limits," which becomes both a source of misery and push for international migration.
"A model produced for the piece projected that migration from Central America will rise every year regardless of climate change, but that in the most extreme warming scenarios, more than 30 million migrants would head toward the U.S. border over the next 30 years.
"Climate change is especially challenging because the international refugee system — which was built in the aftermath of World War II — was set up to address conflict and political persecution, which means that no legal framework exists for climate refugees.
"Migration from the worst-hit regions is arguably one of the most necessary aspects of any adaptation to climate change, yet it will run headlong into the political obstacles around border control."
https://www.axios.com/climate-change-immigration-border-crisis-07aab997-e7e5-42eb-ac81-f711dd8ca54b.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top