The Reality-Based Community

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

You are here: Home / Archives for Immigration

Questions re Janet Napolitano

By

President-elect Obama has tapped Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to become the new Secretary of Homeland Security. It seems to be a good choice: Napolitano is smart, politically experienced, and apparently did a wonderful job both as US Attorney in Arizona and as that state’s Attorney General.

But her background might also raise questions-not about her fitness for the job (which is indisputable), but rather about how we go about making DHS a real, functioning department. The reason is that Napolitano’s background and world view are that of a prosecutor, and public discussion of the agency is beginning to take a turn to thinking about it as sort of a big law-enforcement agency, which it is not-or at least only is partially.

As with anything about DHS, the key text is Edward Alden’s terrific book, “The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11.” This book, which appeared a couple of months ago, hasn’t gotten the press that The Dark Side or Angler have (and they are both also great), but it should. Alden posits a split in thinking about homeland security between the “technocrats,” who wanted to use precisely-tailored measures based upon technology to control the border and enphasized intelligence gathering, and the “cops,” who took a traditional law enforcement approach and particularly relied upon immigration enforcement, because they did not have to worry about constitutional due process and other Bill of Rights limitations.

Alden’s book is so good in no small part because he shows how neither approach is perfect: technology just can’t do what we want it to do, and what its promoters (often the contractors who make it) claim it will do. But the costs of a pure law enforcement approach are even worse: there is precious little evidence that rounding up thousands of immigrant men of Middle Eastern background actually get us much intelligence or prevent crimes. Instead, they undermine intelligence by destroying the government’s credibility in immigrant communities and are fabulously expensive.

And there are two other terrible problems with the cops’ approach:

1) First, it keeps people out whom we want and need to let in. Put another way, the law enforcement approach doesn’t consider the costs of tightening the border: theoretically it could, but its adherents are used to chasing bad guys, not thinking about broader policy goals. Alden begins his book with the tale of a world-class pediatric cardiology surgeon, who is from Pakistan, and couldn’t get into the country for years because, well, he’s from Pakistan. How many childrens’ lives were lost because of this? America is in danger of losing is scientific and technical edge because we keep out thousands of talented students, who normally might have stayed in the US and helped build American companies. And US companies start moving production overseas, because they can’t interact with foreigners for meetings and projects, because they can’t get into the country.

2) Second, the law enforcement approach likes the immigration power because it frees it from legal shackles. But the more that DHS guards the border through immigration enforcement, the more its mission begins to morph from a security agency to an immigration enforcement agency. Indeed, this is probably a major reason why Obama tapped Napolitano: she’s a border state governor with a tough reputation for cracking down on illegals, and Obama doesn’t want to get into a cultural struggle on that issue (at least not now). This might be a wise political judgment, but it might have the unintended effect of distorting what DHS should be and needs to be. If I have a choice between hiring Border Patrol guards and hiring intelligence operatives to disrupt Al-Qaeda and Hizbullah, there’s no question we need to choose the latter. But I worry that an immigration-focused DHS will push for the former.

I hope that Napolitano understands these issues. As I said, she is smart and competent, and if she has a strong staff who can help her navigate the poisonous interagency rivalries that have sapped DHS’ strength, she has the potential to do an outstanding job. But she needs to understand what that job is.

McCain, Limbaugh, Forests, and Trees

By

Jake Tapper argues that Obama’s Spanish-language radio ad linking John McCain to Rush Limbaugh is a distortion. He’s got a kernel of a point, but that point itself is distorted.

Tapper really goes into wingnut territory when he tries to exonerate Limbaugh from the charge of crude anti-Latino prejudice. His stronger argument is that Limbaugh hates McCain: to conflate the two, he says, is a cheap shot.

That’s wrong, for a simple reason. We do not just elect Presidents in a presidential election; we elect administrations.

McCain has been running perhaps the most right-wing campaign since Robert Taft. He has cozied up to the GOP’s Taliban wing for several months now. He has acknowledged that he would not vote for his own immigration bill if it came up for a vote. Whom do you think he will appoint to key positions that concern immigration?

We know that the one time he had to make an appointment-his running mate-he caved to the social conservative base. One might even call Palin a dittohead.

Tapper seems to acknowledge this, but nevertheless insists that all McCain is saying that the country “has to secure its borders” before embarking on a more comprehensive bill.

This is a cop-out: given the enormous push factors on immigration, to say that he will not move toward a comprehensive solution until illegal immigration is reduced to a trickle is saying that he will never do it.

Just as importantly, Tapper claims that Obama was wrong to say that “McCain is no friend of Latinos at all.” Look: political advertisements aren’t about psychoanalysis, and neither are elections. It just doesn’t matter what McCain might or might not believe in his heart of hearts: for myself, I suspect that any moderate impulses he might have on the issue are about agribusiness and political demographics. But it’s really irrelevant.

The point is: what will a McCain Administration do on the issues? McCain’s campaign has made that very clear. And no amount of parsing will change that.

By the way: I suspect any pushback on this won’t work well, especially because McCain now can’t afford to separate himself from Limbaugh, and because apparently he doesn’t know the difference between Spain and Latin America.

The death penalty for drug possession?

By

It’s not called that, but a legal permanent resident of the United States who gets caught up in the toils of Immigration and Customs Enforcement can die of medical neglect. Congratulations to Mickey Kaus and Mark Krikorian and Rush Limbaugh and Tom Tancredo for making it politically possible for an agency of the U.S. government to behave this way: reminiscent of the way John McCain was treated by the North Vietnamese.

Oh, yes, and to our spineless, worthless President, who could change things by picking up the telephone but can’t be bothered. “Compassionate conservatism” is a wonderful thing.

A fine balance

By

Since the ancient Greeks, and even earlier, balance and proportion have been recognized to be at the heart of merit, in art, in policy, and in praxis. Let us now pause to admire the fine equality between the heartless and bottomless greed of the current fatcat administration and its eye-popping and pervasive incompetence.

If you wanted to cripple a twenty-first century economy, how could you beat denying it brainy, hard-working, ambitious people, especially an economy facing a demographic downslope of low native fertility? The idea that national security, or jobs for Americans, are advanced by denying visas to people who want to come here, eat take-out night after night slaving over hot computers, and create lots of value as new Americans, is so goofy it can only be compared to a joke, like the British plan to convert to right-hand driving in stages (trucks and buses first, then cars a couple of weeks later).

The core illusion here is a confusion between a prohibition and an obligation, and it’s observable in other contexts. My home town has tried for decades to force blue-collar manufacturing to return to its desolate industrial sector by land use policy that prohibits anything else in zillions of square feet of vacant buildings. But zoning doesn’t force anyone to do anything, least of all to start a business, and keeping smart young people out is not at all the same as forcing firms to employ Americans; indeed, the latter is impossible, especially if such job candidates simply don’t exist.

I guess it’s a bitter consolation, or would be if it weren’t so costly for everyone, that these guys are so bad at what they do…

Driver’s licenses for illegals

By

At only one point did tonight’s debate touch on my area of professional competence: driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. That’s an issue on which there is only one politically salable answer, and only answer that can actually be justified in terms of public safety and human decency. Alas, they’re not the same answer.

People without driver’s licenses are socially crippled in a dozen ways. Unless there were some strong argument on the other side, sheer humanitarian considerations would argue for allowing them to have the basic personal identification document.

Of course, it’s not hard to buy a fake driver’s license. So the ban on giving real driver’s licenses to illegals supports the market in false documents, not something to which we should be indifferent given the terrorist threat.

People without driver’s licenses can’t get auto insurance. That’s bad for the victims of the accidents they are involved in (and one more good reason for pay-at-the-pump no-fault auto insurance). It also, as Barack Obama correctly noted, encourages them to hit and run.

Most of all, though, not having a driver’s license is an excellent reason for not wanting to talk to the police if, for example, you happened to be driving a car when you witnessed a crime. More than that, the no-license rule reminds illegals to avoid contact with authorities under any circumstances. Someone who is afraid to testify makes an attractive crime victim, and neighborhoods full of such people are safe places in which to commit crimes. Ask any big-city police chief where he stands on the driver’s license issue, and you’ll get an earful.

So on the one hand we have humanitarian and public-safety considerations, and on the other hand we have … what, exactly? The hope that people will deport themselves, or not enter illegally, because they can’t get a driver’s license? As Obama said, people come to this country to work, not to drive.

When HRC was pressed to justify her position, she was reduced to saying that it wouldn’t be “appropriate” to give a “privilege” such as a driver’s license to illegals. In the immortal words of Wolfgang Pauli, “That isn’t even wrong.” It’s pure assertion as a placeholder for an argument no one can make with a straight face.

Obama did a little waffling, asserting (as HRC did) that the problem would go away once there was “comprehensive immigration reform.” But then he stated clearly what he’s said before: he supports issuing licenses in the meantime.

Obama also rejected, as his opponent accepted and furthered, the questioner’s attempt to use the immigration issue to stir up black-v.-brown tensions.

Licenses for illegals is hardly the most important issue in the world, but as a symbol of willingness to bite the political bullet when necessary in support of the right policy, it strikes me as pretty powerful. There wasn’t much doubt which candidate looked Presidential. And it wasn’t the one who used to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Update Corrected to return Pauli’s words to their rightful owner.

Second update A reader points out that in Democratic-primary terms Obama’s move might have been politically shrewd as well as substantively correct. Point taken.

Third update Very little attention to this in the press as of late Friday, at least according to a Google search. But maybe that’s only the English-language press.

Mickey Kaus is outraged, and reports that his pro-Obama swoon is over. From his viewpoint, apparently black-brown tension is a feature, not a bug. In the view of Mickey and his friends, if some blacks dislike Jews, that just proves that that blacks are racist, while if other blacks fear Latinos, it proves that Latinos must be a real threat. Or something.

At least this spares Mickey and me the embarrassment of backing the same candidate.

Mickey also points to a report of a private poll showing California now even, with Obama surging. I don’t think Obama will mind losing Mickey if he picks up California in return.

Telecom immunity: just asking

By

Just a question for all those conservative Republicans who are attempting to give retroactive immunity for FISA violations by telecoms:

Why was it that amnesty would mean the end of the Republic when it was impoverished immigrant laborers but it is now perfectly acceptable when it is large telecom corporations?

And no: the shoe isn’t on the other foot. There is a pretty straightforward (and to my mind persuasive) progressive argument saying that a non-criminal violation by immigrants trying to make a better life for themselves in America, and who have been essentially recruited by US businesses, should be forgiven. Telecoms, on the other hand, are sophisticated and wealthy entities who know very well how to protect themselves and could have insisted on AG opinions to do so.

Credit where credit is due department: the Bush Administration I suppose at least gets points for consistency on the issue. It’s for breaking the law in all cases. Not a surprise.

The music connection

By

Thanks to Jonathan adding the missing piece, I now see the big picture into which the Ghuman case is a window: it’s all about music!

Musicians of all sorts are nothing but a rogues’ gallery of subversion and disrespect for traditional values: Rouget de Lisle, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Gilberto Gil, Richard Wagner, the Dixie Chicks…it goes on and on. They even send each other secret instructions in Italian, so you can’t understand whether to sing loud or soft. When the first caveman started laying down a beat with a stick on a log, what happened? Everyone came out and danced and dinner didn’t get cooked. The Taliban forbid music…why? So we’ll like it! Right from the start, American greatness has been hobbled by a national anthem with a melody cunningly chosen so no-one can actually sing all the notes (and lyrics that make no sense…what the hell is ‘Donzerly light’?).

That’s a wrap, and the next time you see a guy with his guitar case open on the sidewalk, throw a slug in it like a real patriot.

Dumb as a post, also as stupid

By

When I taught at the Kennedy School, we used to have a Foreign Service Officer in the one-year mid-career program about every year. We also had two or three New York cops. The cops were, with about one exception every couple of years, street-smart, plain smart, and funny, but in a dozen different personal styles. They were also outside-the-box, frequently wise, and both skeptical and curious. (The occasional exception was obviously someone who had been sent to the program so his desk could be thrown out the window while he was away). The FSO’s, on the other hand, were alike as a row of peas. All men, as I recall, they were gracious, smiled but never guffawed, never raised their voices, and were properly dressed with really nice hair: sports jacket and tie during the day, and a suit in the evening. They sat in the second row, never in the back or the front, and never right in the middle. Every class, toward the end, they would ask one question, elegantly but not pretentiously phrased and in the well-cared-for accents of a Newport yacht club - a question invariably revealing a total cluelessness both broad and profound. I think they came from elite families that had the option of sending the really witless son in each generation either to the trust department of the family bank, or to the State Department, places where they couldn’t do any real damage.

Of course the State Department tradition of stupidity and ignorance, matched as precisely and properly as gray slacks with a navy blazer, is long over.

The exclusion of Nalini Ghuman from the US in August ’06 after a decade of living here and teaching music at Mills College, on the strength of a State Department finding, might seem to be some sort of anachronistic debacle; indeed, one of our faithful readers hipped me to the story all indignant and angry about it.

But I know that reader to be a Democrat, therefore ceaselessly working for the collapse of America, and she’s not fooling me for a minute. Read the story (remembering of course that it’s shot through with the Times‘ lefty defeatist bias), and now I wish to explain why this episode is actually a reassuring occasion for pride in our leadership:

Ghuman is a foreigner. She plays the violin (see her photograph, redhanded with that vile instrument), which is much too hard for anyone not a fanatic, and anyway also foreign. Her scholarly specialty is Edward Elgar, a known, admitted Brit unrepentant to the day he died, who would be ducking out of Basra right now if he were alive and a soldier. In Basra. His Pomp and Circumstance March #1 is played at graduation in universities with liberal pinko treasonous faculties, specifically to corrupt youth by secret mental tricks well known to foreign terrorist musicologists.

Continue Reading…

Immigration crackdown: a political squeeze play?

By

Is it just possible that Bush hasn’t lost hope of pushing comprehensive immigration reform through the Senate, and has unleashed Chertoff to put pressure on the employers of cheap illegal-immigrant labor so that they will in turn put pressure on their tame Republican Senators?

If that’s the play, I doubt it will work.

In ordinary circumstances the rich, smart greedheads that make up the money half of the Republican coalition can outmaneuver the not-so-rich, not-so smart haters that make up the voting half, because the greedheads know the score and the haters are almost infinitely bamboozleable.

But when the haters are mobilized, as they are in this case, defying them is too dangerous. In politics, money is useful, but votes are essential.

Immigration again

By

Life imitating art: employers of immigrants look at the new enforcement plan and don’t like it. I called this on Thursday, hee hee. Chertoff, in effect, points to the (non-silly) principle that one way to get rid of a bad law is to enforce it, and says it’s all Congress’ fault. It will be interesting to see if it can play that way, and if it does, what happens when a legal guest worker program raises labor costs.