The Sane Citizens’ Approach To Immigration
Immigration Is Not As Complicated As We Have Made It Out To Be
Immigration has been a concern of US lawmakers since quite literally, well, the beginning. This is to say that even as far back as 1790 lawmakers were already beginning to reform our immigration policy. Of course, these early reforms, such as The Naturalization Act of 1790, were primarily focused on how to increase immigration to the United States, not stop it, but nonetheless, their existence suggests that immigration was still a national concern at the time.
At any rate, since the first Trump campaign kicked off on June 16th, 2015, immigration has been one of if not the top concern of the mainstream media and the populace alike. And this is still the case today.
As of January 2022, only 28% of Americans are satisfied with the current levels of immigration, and 40% of Americans want the overall level of immigration decreased. These are fairly significant numbers in and of themselves given that two years ago only 19% of Americans were dissatisfied with the levels of immigration, but the real question is what do these numbers look like today?
In other words, has the fact that illegal immigration hit an all-time high in 2023, or the fact that a new caravan of over 2,000 migrants is heading this way increased the number of Americans who are dissatisfied with our current immigration status quo? It seems highly likely that this is the case.
So, why can’t lawmakers get it right when it comes to immigration?
In modern-day America, it appears that immigration has devolved into a strictly partisan matter, i.e. if you are on the right, you oppose immigration in all of its forms; but if you are on the left, borders are inherently xenophobic and subsequently any immigration restrictions are wholly anti-American.
But does this issue have to be a partisan one? When it comes to immigration several things can be true at once.
First, no country in all of human history has forgone having a border. Therefore, having a border is not racist, nor xenophobic. It is simply the way of the world. Second, legal immigration is in no way the same thing as illegal immigration. And third, legal immigration does not inherently mean naturalization.
The reason this first item is important to note is because in recent years the idea of having a secure border has been seen, at least by many on the left side of the aisle, as bigoted. But this could not be farther from the truth.
You see, at the end of the day, even the most permissible of immigration policies still require that the enforcers of that policy know “who” is immigrating. Well, if you have no border, then you have no control over that aforementioned “who,” and therefore you have no immigration policy whatsoever, good, or bad.
As to the second item on that previously stated list, put plainly, for all of the potential negative consequences you get with illegal immigration, just as many if not more positive consequences come from legal immigration. This is to say that, unlike illegal immigration, the negative aspects of which are well known, legal immigration brings many benefits to the table.
To explain, legal immigration increases the working population of the US, which subsequently increases our economic capacity as well as our senior-to-working-age ratio. It also incentivizes the best and brightest from all over the world to come to and/or invest in our nation, which subsequently makes the US more competitive on the international stage when it comes to technology and STEM fields.
Furthermore, even legal immigrants who are less likely to be involved in these high-skilled fields typically still, more often than not, have high levels of ambitious and/or an entrepreneurial spirit, which subsequently leads to them going on to create businesses and/or products. All of this ends up contributing to the overall growth of our nation's GDP.
So yes, immigration, if done properly, is quite a positive thing for our country.
Ok, last but not least, the final item in that above list is that legal immigration does not inherently mean naturalization; and this item is actually the key to this whole immigration debacle we are currently seeing.
In between 1942 and 1964 the United States of America periodically enacted something called the Bracero Program. In essence this program, which allowed Mexican migrants to easily acquire temporary work visas, was created to curb an unprecedented post-WWII spike in illegal immigration on our southern border, while also bolstering the domestic agricultural work force; and speaking frankly, it worked splendidly.
Despite the relative success of the Bracero Program, though, it was started and stopped several times in that aforementioned period and was even disbanded altogether in 1964. Now the problem with this inconsistency in the Bracero Program’s application is that at all of these points in which it was stopped, and certainly after it was disbanded altogether, illegal immigration saw notable spikes because at these points of inaction the act was not replaced with an alternative. Put another way, because there was now an existing economic/cultural infrastructure of farmers looking for seasonal labor, the decision(s) to pause/stop the Bracero Act, an act that was effectively curbing illegal immigration when it was active, actually ended up making the problem way worse.
But how could a failed government program be the key to unlocking a successful immigration policy now, you ask?
Well, just because US lawmakers have failed to properly enforce policies in the past, this does not mean that those policies in and of themselves were flawed.
To explain, at the time the Bracero Program was operational border security was, quite literally, a fraction of what it is today. Ergo, when migrant workers grew sick of the program’s inconsistency, they simply decided to immigrate illegally because this method was, essentially, easier.
In any case, here is where this all comes together.
If America secures its borders, which must be done before any immigration policy becomes valid, and then enacts a refurbished/updated Bracero Program, we would, in essence, get the best of all worlds in which everybody wins, at least when it comes to immigration that is.
In other words, if the US border is secure, but there is also a new version of the Bracero Program, we can not only stop illegal immigration by force and/or by disincentivizing it, but we can also use seasonal immigrant labor to bolster our workforce, tax revenue, and GDP, while also maintaining strict standards for acquiring actual citizenship. So everybody wins from the American populace to the border patrol agents, all the way down to the lowly migrant worker simply looking for temporary labor.
Perhaps this plan is too good to be true, especially in a time when everything comes down to which side of the aisle one is on, but from an objective standpoint, well, it truly seems like the answer to the immigration debacle is not all that complicated.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Hi Alexander.
As with all good ideas, especially about immigration, expect that people will agree with you while nothing of the sort actually gets accomplished.
I like that you present concrete policy actions which you feel/explain would improve things - that is preferable to just venting without proposed solutions. Here's another, written a year ago about the same subject:
https://www.wrongspeakpublishing.com/p/a-modern-approach-towards-immigration?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
I wasn't aware of the details of the Bracero program, thanks for sharing.
ZL