Monday, May 24, 2010
Arizona's SB 1070: Ill-conceived and Doomed to Failure
By Patrick Corcoran
Last month, Arizona Governor
Jan Brewer signed the bill known as SB 1070 into law, and in so doing sparked the most recent outbreak of anger and indignation
in the United States' decades-long immigration debate.
The new law requires police in
Arizona to request documentation of people whom they have a reasonable suspicion of being in the country without authorization.
Those who cannot provide proof of their legal presence in the US on the spot are to be arrested and charged with a misdemeanor.
It also allows citizens to sue local police departments for not enforcing immigration laws, in addition to criminalizing the
transport of any illegal immigrant.
This consequent outrage stems
not only from the fact that it criminalizes what is essentially an issue of the labor market, but also from the virtual certainty
that it would single out Hispanics and non-native English speakers for scrutiny, regardless of the prohibitions on racial
profiling written into the law.
In response, Latino activists,
heeding the call of Arizona representative Raul Grijalva, began to organize a boycott of the state, which led to the cancellation
of 20 conferences and the loss of US$10 million within a little more than a week. Major League Baseball’s Players Association, concerned about
the welfare of the roughly 30 percent of the league’s players who are foreign born, has also criticized the law, and
there have been calls to move the 2011 All-Star Game from Arizona.
Beyond organized boycotts, the
informal chilling effect on investment in Arizona figures to be severe. For businesses, especially those with foreign management,
looking for a place to invest, the prospect of having employees harassed will be a powerful motivation to consider, say, California
or Texas. Or any other conceivable option in the lower 48.
One point that gets lost in a
lot of the anger about immigration is that, generally speaking, immigration is a mutually beneficial relationship: both the
immigrant and the country that receives him win. Similarly, the free movement of people, which Americans typically take for
granted when they aren’t trying to plan trips to Cuba, is ordinarily a good thing, and a right that should be protected.
There are scenarios when these rights can be interrupted, but the burden of proof should be on the would-be restrictors of
immigration and free movement to demonstrate that doing so is vital.
So what kind of justifications
are supporters of this law offering?
Mostly, a pile of faulty logic,
often supported by mistaken facts. Many of the law’s defenders slip seamlessly into denunciations of Mexico's drug violence
when discussing the law. For example, David Frum:
Mexico’s drug war has reached into Arizona cities. Federal authorities capture an average of 1.5 tons of
marijuana per day in Arizona. Drug-related kidnappings, tortures, and murders of illegals by illegals have made Phoenix one
of the most violent cities in the United States.
A similar line came from none
other than Jan Brewer:
A boycott that would actually improve border security would be to boycott illegal drugs. Dramatically less drug
use and production would do wonders for the safety of all our communities.
This is an odd response (not
the least because, in terms of its murder rate, Phoenix is nowhere near being among the most violent cities in America, and its violent crime indices mostly declined
in 2009); both illegal immigration and illegal drug trafficking emanate from Mexico, and there are some gangs involved in
both trades, but they don't have any more of an inherent connection than do prize fighting and investment banking.
Furthermore, every illegal immigrant
in the US could magically disappear tomorrow and Mexico's drug trade would be intact, with traffickers every bit as capable
of sending their merchandise northward, and American drug buyers equally intent on buying it. In other words, if this law
is an attempt to address the effects of the drug trade, shouldn't we be worried that it won't do so in any measurable way?
Another justification, courtesy of the Washington Times, comes in the argument that Mexico's laws are worse:
Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who
are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms. Mexicans
who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals.
This argument suffers under the
not-insubstantial burden of being untrue. A read through the penalties section of Mexico’s Ley General de Población, the law that regulates immigration in Mexico, reveals no such punishment. Indeed, the typical penalty
for typical immigration infractions is several hundred dollars, with a three-day stint in jail used as an alternative to paying
the fine. Serious prison terms are called for only in cases of human trafficking.
In any event, since when do other
countries’ bad laws turn into justification for our own?
What seems to be animating much
of this is the general idea that Mexico is a country saddled with some serious problems, and that the farther away it can
be kept from the US, the better. The first is inarguably true, but the second is both ugly and predicated on the deluded idea
that the two nations are somehow separable.
All of the justifications for
the Arizona law ignore a few basic points about illegal immigration, which taken together indicate that the enforcement hysteria
is both bound to fail and unnecessary:
· Illegal immigrants respond to the labor market, not an independently existing desire to leave their homeland and,
in many cases, their family. When either the labor demand in the US or the labor supply in Mexico dries up, so will Mexican
immigration.
· Because they are usually taxed but often don’t collect social security benefits or tax refunds, many analysts
believe that illegal immigrants account for a net fiscal gain for the US.
· Up to 40 percent of the illegal immigrants in the US came lawfully and overstayed their visa. Keeping people trudging
through the Arizona desert will in no way end immigration.
· Mexico’s birthrate is presently just above the minimum replacement rate of 2.1. This reality, coupled with
improved economic growth, will render the migratory pressures moot within a generation.
The Arizona ranchers who don't
want their land tramped through every night have a legitimate grievance, but that’s more of an argument for the government
establishing a nationwide quota for manual labor roughly in line with what the market demands. Today, however, the quantity of low-skilled immigrant visas stands at about 1 percent of the total undocumented population.
The Arizona law can’t overcome
the laws of supply and demand. It may drive immigrants into ranches in New Mexico and Texas, but the national panorama won't
be very different. And any law draconian enough to actually put a dent into illegal immigration will necessarily offend our
sensibilities and harm our economy.
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Patrick Corcoran (corcoran25@hotmail.com) is a writer who resides in Torreón, Coahuila. He blogs
at Gancho (http://www.ganchoblog.blogspot.com/).
