Letters

From the February 1996 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Frank D. Werner
Teton Village, WY

Congrats on the fine Virginia I. Postrel editorial on immigration. However, I note that she finds flaws in all of the various schemes that have held sway during the past century. How about spelling out for your readers what immigration policy should be?

Joseph W. Johnson, Jr.
Lincoln, NE

Virginia Postrel replies: The purposes of my November editorial were twofold: First and foremost, to point out that as recently as 1965, the United States had no numerical limits on immigration from countries within the Western Hemisphere. And second, to suggest that the very real problems of central planning do not go away simply because the subject at hand is immigration.

The first point is a fact conveniently omitted by anti-immigration polemicists such as Peter Brimelow, who try simultaneously to scare white (and, to a lesser extent, black) Americans with the specter of an overly brown population and to blame perceived immigration problems on the 1965 act. You cannot have it both ways; immigration policy prior to 1965 was designed to keep out Asians, Jews, Poles, Irish, and Italians--not Mexicans, Haitians, or Cubans. As at Ellis Island, admission was restricted to people who would not become public charges and posed no threat to public health; later, literacy tests and an entry tax were added, increasing both illegal immigration and permanent residency in the United States, as moving back and forth across the border to work became more costly and difficult.

Unfortunately, in the current climate any changes in immigration policy will be in the direction of more restriction, more central planning, and more government intrusion in the lives of all Americans. The immigration "crisis," like the health care "crisis" of two years ago and the environmental "crisis" of five years ago, is the latest excuse for expanding activist government. In a more rational climate, and one more suspicious of government power, it might be possible to craft policies that used the principles of Ellis Island--no claim on the public trough (except for genuine public goods, over whose definition we would undoubtedly argue) and no central planning of the makeup of the immigrant population. On the latter principle, Gary Becker and others have proposed an auction system while Peter Salins has advanced a "first-come, first-served" system that would essentially be a visa lottery; Salins's plan would probably operate along the lines of the "diversity visas" now given to people from "underrepresented" countries, led by Poland and Japan, and to Irish immigrants. In either case, however, Americans would have to be willing to live with a certain amount of slippage, a certain level of illegal entry, or give up huge amounts of personal liberty.

Messrs. Maddox and Duarte raise the legitimate issue of the welfare state. It is, I believe, absolutely critical to separate the issue of welfare from that of immigration. Income transfers would exist if every immigrant vanished tomorrow, and far more immigrants are paying taxes to support such payments than are taking out of the system. The one serious exception is the abusive way in which some adult children have brought their parents to America with the expectation that Supplemental Security Income will support them. Congress is addressing this problem by changing the SSI law (and restricting other welfare payments to legal immigrants, even those who have paid taxes).

Anti-immigrant lobbyists still talk about welfare, but such talk is utterly cynical: They are not the least assuaged by reforms on the welfare side, since their goal is to keep out even self-supporting immigrants. That's why Alan Simpson's Senate bill, for instance, is designed to slash the number of highly skilled, tax-paying professionals entering the country legally. And it is why Ira Mehlman of FAIR argues that we have to keep out parents of adult children even if they are no longer eligible for government benefits.

This isn't an argument about illegal immigration, about welfare, or about skills. Those are merely handy tools for people who believe that the well-being of Americans is best protected by keeping the population small, static, and racially pure--even at significant costs to our prosperity and liberty. I prefer to live in a free and dynamic society, one that, as Mr. Lee suggests, constantly renews itself and reaffirms its identity by welcoming people who are here by choice.

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