Particularly hurt are low income citizens, through wage pressure, and the illegal immigrants themselves, because an implicit promise is made to them when we wink at their border crossings, but clearly that promise will be broken during a recession, when they will no longer be welcome.

Amen! The sticker shock alone of recalibrating prices would be a pain in the keezer. But like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if this bill is either gutted and killed, or gutted and passed with a series of hurdles to make life as an undocumented worker even worse – if that’s possible.

Also, for the outsourcers, I have to agree with Razib – you’d have to see the US fully transition its economy again to minimize its service-sector dependence.

And finally, I think Peter Andreas has done a lot of interesting work on the Southern Border and what (doesn’t) work, for those interested in the idea of an open border, or even a re-envisioned border. There’s also a very interesting argument for why increased militarization on the border actually increases long term undocumented migration stateside.

It’s never worked like that in American history that a group of people bettered their position by standing idly by and waiting for someone else to help them. People have always had to fight for rights and equality.

Yes, except this isn’t waiting for someone else to help them out of charity — it’s out of self-interest. If the employers need the labor, just as the tech companies needed the labor, they will make the effort. It’s that simple: align your interests with those of the people in power.

Native Americans who want to smoke peyote find their best friends in conservative Christian attorneys, because the latter want to advance religious exceptions to general policies. They figure that if the government will make an exception to drug policy to let NAs smoke up, the government will have to make an exception to anti-discrimination policies for religious homophobes.

The NAs are too marginalized on their own to have the power to win on this, but the Christian conservatives got them the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and (after RFRA was overturned by the Supreme Court for violating Congress’s interstate commerce power) the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Most exceptions made under these laws actually won’t benefit Christians, because they’re the majority and most laws are tailored to their preferences anyway, but they’re just waiting for the day when the government tries to make them do something and they can point to the law’s having been upheld for all the minority religions.

That may not be the most positive example, but that is how American politics works. The only way the business world will lobby for more legal immigration is if there’s no other way for them to meet their profit forecasts. They have to want to avoid significant fines and high cost of labor for their own reasons.

Also, you ought to have some idea as to whether you support open borders or not, because people generally suffer more in the process of evading Border Control than they do once they get here. I would like to have the “control” come from within the U.S. instead of the borders, because people are less likely to get starved and shot that way.

I love that India is thriving and that a lot of educated people are employed as they deserve to be. But living in America, taking advantage of its benefits and opportunities, it makes little sense for me to support policies like outsourcing, which greatly benefit Indian workers, but negatively impact middle-class Americans (and Indian-Americans like myself).

I don’t know enough about the completely open borders argument to know whether I support it. (If someone has their shpiel down on this, would love to hear it). My position at this point is more focused on after-entry, they deserve rights solely because they are workers providing their labor. It just doesn’t seem right to me that we benefit from someone’s labor but then deny them the privileges that we have.

I’m not really sure I believe your theory that by denying these workers the jobs in the short term will benefit them in the long term because employers will demand changes to immigration laws. It’s never worked like that in American history that a group of people bettered their position by standing idly by and waiting for someone else to help them. People have always had to fight for rights and equality. I don’t think this situation is unique.

PG, note this text: Indeed, during the immigration debate of 1984 we suggested an ultimate goal to guide passing policies–a constitutional amendment: “There shall be open borders.”

i article i linked to was the quickest one i could find that referred to that editorial, it has been standing policy at the WSJ to have open borders. as the late editor (who penned the piece above) declared: the nation state is dead (at least to the WSJ).

btw, i appreciate your guest posts, for what it is worth.

Also, I think there are differences among immigrants. Even between my parents, I would consider my father to have a more “American” personality and my mother a more “Indian” one. She still misses having a huge family network and those social traditions, whereas my dad sometimes is impatient with them.

RC – no cultural superiority, just a matter of what people prefer. I thought about linking something on the people who really did make good on their threats and immigrate to Canada after Bush’s win last year. They find the growing conservatism of the U.S. makes this country intolerable for them. One of my American-born friends is patriotically in love with the U.S., but has a personality more compatible with the UK and will move back there ASAP. To be able to do this is a privilege, but as other commentors noted, Indians do have preferences among the countries to which they choose to immigrate. If you value safety, cleanliness and a larger Indian population over abstractions like democracy (whoopty do for your one vote), you’d pick Singapore over the U.S.

brown fury – I mean that outsourcing is a preferable way to give people economic opportunity because it doesn’t force them to choose between what someone called “MONEY” and “VALUES.” With a more globalized economy, people can do well-paid work without the difficulties of immigration. Also, I would refer you to the comment I made on Abhi’s post, where I pointed out that if we prosecute employers for using illegal labor, they will be forced to lobby openly for increased immigration, just as tech companies lobbied openly for increased visas for their workers. There is much good in legal immigration, but no good peculiar to illegal immigration, unless you’re an employer who likes being able to screw over your employees and their having no recourse.

You seem to believe that totally open borders are desirable, but I’m not quite on that boat, for security and other reasons. As for whether undocumented workers take jobs that Americans otherwise would have, show me a job position in which no citizens work and in which no citizens are interested. If you want more research into the question, start with this article.

arj – look at the bill itself, the parts relating to employers seem to make an effort for the verification process to be as easy as possible. Running a Social Security number doesn’t take much effort and the burden is put on the government to make it simple. If you were issued a SS#, it doesn’t disappear just because you dropped a credit or missed a deadline.

razib – note that the WSJ only wants to open NAFTA borders, and this pre 9/11. I doubt my cousins in Andhra necessarily are going to be welcomed to book a flight and stay as long as they like.

Jared – while this post shows off my pro-outsourcing tendencies, there are counter-forces as well.

Its been written of approvingly by publications like EPW in India and Monbiot in Europe.