President Bush has some support
Recent polling and economic studies support President Bush’s moderate approach to immigration. If only he could convince his fellow conservative Republicans.
Polling by Time magazine and the liberal Democracy Corps confirm earlier findings that U.S. voters want strict border controls, but also will support work permits and earned citizenship for illegal immigrants.
The Democracy Corps found, however, that 62 percent of GOP voters favor deportation of illegals. That, it said, “is why the House Republicans have become demagogic and acted to pass a punitive immigration bill.”
Bush — whose general weakness is evident in his roughly 25 percent public approval rating in handling immigration — is urging the Senate to pass a comprehensive “compassionate conservative” immigration bill. But House Republicans seem adamant about responding to base pressure for a restrictive border security measure, even if it risks destroying Bush-driven GOP gains among Hispanics.
Meanwhile, a study by Giovanni Peri of the University of California at Davis shows that immigration does depress wages for low-skilled Americans, but less than is widely believed, and it improves the income of all other U.S. workers because of immigrants’ purchasing and productivity.
For those without a high school diploma, wages declined by 1.2 percent during the 1990s. Still, Peri disputed that illegals take jobs that American workers would fill if the pay were higher. “Less-educated foreign-born workers, for instance, are found mostly in agricultural and personal-service jobs, while less-educated natives are found mostly in manufacturing and mining,” he wrote.
Foreign-born workers without high school diplomas make up 23 percent of the U.S. workforce, up from 6 percent in 1970, the study reported, whereas non-high school Americans hold only 12 percent of U.S. jobs, down from 37 percent in 1970.
There is an American youth dropout crisis. A study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that about 30 percent of students don’t graduate, including 40 percent of blacks and 50 percent of Hispanics. The answer is not to open up low-skill, fruit-picking and domestic jobs for them, but rather to see that they graduate with the skills that allow them to take decent jobs with better wages.
Moreover, Bush’s plan to give illegal immigrants work permits and a pathway to citizenship will prevent their exploitation by unscrupulous employers. Major employers and unions in agriculture, hotels and the construction industry favor Bush’s work-permit plan and earned citizenship even though the process will raise wages.
The late-March Time poll showed that 79 percent of U.S. voters support a guest-worker program that would allow illegals to remain in the United States for a fixed period. Seventy-eight percent say that illegals who learn English, pay taxes and hold jobs should be able to earn citizenship.
Additionally, 71 percent favor major penalties for employers who hire illegals, and 62 percent want the United States to take “whatever steps are necessary” to secure the border with Mexico.
The responsible thing for Democrats to do would be to back Bush if he can produce a comprehensive, constructive bill in the Senate, then see what comes out of a House-Senate conference — and filibuster it if it’s odious.
If Republicans then try to say that Democrats oppose border security, Democrats can answer back that it’s a lie and that fences won’t solve the problem. Hardcore Republicans will vote against them, but polls show that the public will support the Democrats.
Morton Kondracke is executive editor of Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill.