Americans have tended to abrogate to economists the question of the costs and the benefits of illegal immigration. But, surely, beyond how much Betsy Ross is willing to pay for a head of lettuce, there is the question of morality, there is the question of Mexico. How much of Mexico are we willing to take within our borders? I believe the question might better be asked of a theologian, than an economist.
Rodriguez is a big believer in assimilation so he is not calling for a reconquista, only that we as Americans have a better understanding of Mexican immigrants and their values and how we should see them.
In response to Rodriguez, another CATO contributer, Victor Davis Hanson has written a reaction essay. He writes,
First, I share Rodriquez’s worry that migrant workers are sometimes being demonized. But aside from necessary censure against bigots, it is all the more urgent to ensure that Mexican immigrants arrive in the United States legally, and in reasonable numbers that ensure that they can assimilate and find opportunities in education and employment as quickly as possible.
Yet we too often forget that much of the unfortunate animus toward illegal aliens is most often predicated on class considerations, more than race or religion. Americans of the lower middle classes of all races—who do not have nannies or gardeners, who rarely eat out or stay at a hotel, but who do
compete for wages in construction and service industries with illegal aliens, and have their children in overcrowded inner-city or rural schools that are struggling with immigrants without English—are far more likely to demand reform than is our elite. The latter appreciates good cheap service while traveling and
dining out, or industrious day-laborers for remodeling and landscaping—and, of course, has little worry about rival illegal-alien film producers, professors, writers, lawyers, or doctors undercutting their own salaries or unions.
Pace Rodriguez, we need not ask either a theologian or an economist about how much of Mexico we are willing to take in. We already have a good guess that one out of every ten Mexican citizens currently resides in the United States, most of them under illegal auspices.
This influx is largely due to the cynical policies of American
business that wants robust Mexican youth to work cheaply at wages Americans apparently will not. When the worker’s vigor and health are exhausted, the employer expects to find a younger replacement from Mexico—with the added expectation that the government entitlement industry will provide for his former employee’s health and retirement needs.
But you can't lay all of the blame at the feet of American businesses.
Then there is the Mexican City government that counts on $15 billion in remittances to prop up a near-failed state, without much care how minimum-wage workers abroad survive after sending so much of their wages home. Illegal immigration for Mexico is a safety valve that ensures dissidents migrate rather than agitate. And Mexico also nurses ethnic chauvinism and old grievances, delighted to discover that its expatriate community grows fonder of Mexico the longer and further it is free from it. Rodriquez thinks it is “curious” that “Indians” are coming north from Mexico. Perhaps, but instead of condemning the “cold heart” of America, he should ask why they apparently find“white” or “Anglo” culture more tolerant than the “Spanish” establishment of Mexico that is apparently relieved to see its own mestizos leave.
This is a healthy discussion that I would like to see more of.
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