Flawed Proposition
September 14, 2004 By Tamar Jacoby Immigration issues aren't getting much national attention this election cycle. Apart from a behind-the-scenes squabble in the Republican platform committee, neither convention so much as mentioned the I-word on prime time, and no one at the top of either ticket is making speeches about it. But that doesn't mean there isn't a fateful struggle playing out this fall. The battleground is in Arizona, and the stakes could hardly be higher if the presidential candidates themselves were debating border policy on TV.
The Arizona ballot initiative -- "Proposition 200" -- appears innocuous enough. According to supporters, it merely enforces laws already on the books, requiring state residents to prove they are citizens in order to vote and barring illegal immigrants from receiving welfare benefits. But the truth is that the measure could have devastating consequences for Arizona. And a major victory of the sort proponents are gunning for could transform the national debate on immigration policy, possibly even derailing the kind of overhaul both George W. Bush and John Kerry have promised to pursue as president.
It's no accident that this battle is taking place in Arizona. A decade of cracking down elsewhere on the border has made Arizona the gateway of choice for unauthorized migrants entering from Mexico. Because the flow is illegal and mostly transient -- workers on their way to LA or New York or Chicago -- Arizona residents enjoy few of the benefits and all of the costs of an immigrant influx. Not surprisingly, the public's irritation is spilling over into politics: voters want to send a message, no matter how flailing or inchoate, that they don't like the way we as a nation have lost control of our borders.
Not that anyone claims the voter initiative will staunch the flow of illegal immigrants. On the contrary, even the state legislators responsible for getting Prop. 200 on the ballot recognize that at best it may mitigate a few side effects. Border policy is a federal issue; state governments have no say in it and no role even in implementing federal directives. The illegal farmhands and busboys who troop north through Arizona don't stop to vote. Unauthorized immigrants aren't eligible to receive welfare benefits. And even those who land in local hospitals and are treated, usually legally, on their way to work somewhere further north aren't going to be deterred from making the trip just because they get carded in Arizona.
If anything, passage of Prop. 200 will make life more difficult for ordinary Arizonans. The governor's office estimates that implementing it could cost the state tens of millions of dollars. It is so vaguely worded and far-reaching -- a blanket ban on all "public benefits" and a threat of jail for all state employees who fail to report illegal immigrants -- that it could interfere with the work of just about every state agency: from state troopers to public-records clerks to mechanics at emissions-inspection stations.
The consequences could be positively Orwellian: a bloated bureaucracy, the hassle of constantly producing ID, a much more cumbersome voting process for everyone, Anglo and Hispanic. Add in the costs of likely lawsuits and lost federal aid, and the bill climbs into the hundreds of millions. Meanwhile, passage could also slow the rapid growth that now sustains the state economy. Tourists, conventioneers, would-be residents, retirees and relocating commercial enterprises could come to see Arizona as not just off-puttingly xenophobic, but also -- thanks to the increased regulation -- a difficult place to do business. Many state industries, from hotels and restaurants to roofing, could fall on hard times.
But the national cost, for immigration policy, could dwarf even these untoward consequences. There's a reason why the Federation for American Immigration Reform and other anti-immigrant groups have spent nearly a half a million dollars to promote Prop. 200. They expect it to win big -- polls suggest that 65%-75% of voters support it -- and plan to use these skewed results to advance their agenda in Washington: FAIR would bring the news of a 70-30 victory back to Capitol Hill and wave it around like a bloody shirt. Restrictionists would argue that the outcome vindicated their claim that the American public doesn't like immigrants and opposes immigration reform. They would take particular glee in undermining Arizona representatives John McCain, Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe, all staunch proponents of rethinking border policy: after all, the argument would go, not even their own constituents support their reform efforts. Copycat ballot initiatives would follow in a half a dozen other states -- indeed a similar measure is already circulating in California. And other elected officials, in both the White House and Congress, would start to find even more reasons than they already cite for avoiding all discussion of immigration issues.
This is no speculative scenario. It's exactly what happened in 1994 when California voters endorsed their Prop. 187 by a margin of 59%-41%. The measure itself was soon ruled unconstitutional. But within the year, the Clinton administration had launched a historic, all-out effort to fortify the southern frontier: a crackdown that would eventually triple the manpower and quintuple the budget devoted to border enforcement. Anti-immigrant Republicans in Congress went into high gear, slashing federal benefits for newcomers, legal and illegal alike. Still other, more draconian proposals -- for drastic cuts in immigration quotas and a national ID card for all workers -- were averted only at the last minute by an improbable come-from-behind defense.
The consensus in favor of reform is considerably stronger today than it was in 1994. The leaders of both parties, business, labor and immigrant advocates all agree that the system is broken and that what's needed is a more honest policy: one that recognizes the reality of global labor markets and seeks to manage the flow with higher, but more credibly enforceable, legal limits for immigrant workers. But as in the case of free trade, it can be difficult to explain this logic to voters struggling with the consequences of illegal immigration. And even buoyed by consensus, elected officials are easily intimidated: look how President Bush backed off of the promising proposals he made in January.
A victory for Prop. 200 would be particularly chilling for Republicans -- so much so that any reform legislation that did make headway in the next few years could be sharply skewed toward the preferences of Democrats and their labor allies. But ultimately both parties would almost surely be put off, and it isn't hard to imagine that meaningful change could be delayed by as much as a decade.
The voters of Arizona have every right to be angry: we have lost control of our southwest border and they, more than anyone, are paying the price. But the solution isn't to pretend we can turn off the flow; the only realistic answer is to channel it legally. Any "message" that makes that more difficult politically can only end up making the problem worse -- and it won't be just Arizonans who will suffer as a consequence. Ms. Jacoby, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, is the author of "Reinventing the Melting Pot" (Basic Books, 2004). ©2004 Wall Street Journal About Tamar Jacoby: articles, bio, and photo |
