First posted Sept 29, 2024
There are a lot of memes against illegal immigration, and politicians wanting to use illegal immigrants as the bad guys.
Whether people are legal or illegal immigrants is a poor criteria. We could make legal immigration very easy with 100x the number of allowed immigrants, then they would all be legal immigrants, and everything would be great. Right?
Does a high level of illegal immigration mean that we have a bunch of people wanting to enter the U.S. and commit crimes? Or does it mean that there are jobs to be filled in the U.S., people who want to fill those jobs, and immigration policies that don’t match the economic needs of the U.S.? A high level of illegal immigration may just mean that the current political practices aren’t letting in as many people legally as we need to fill those jobs. Statistically, most illegal immigrants try very hard to avoid breaking laws and thus attract the attention of law enforcement.
Memes, people, and politicians seldom articulate what they are thinking that led to those statements. Here are some of the viewpoints that people may be taking mentally, psychologically, or emotionally.
The Economic viewpoint
Perhaps a better criteria would be to match the amount of allowed immigration to the rate of unemployment. If unemployment is very high, crack down on immigration since we don’t need more workers. If employers have jobs and can’t find people to fill them because almost everyone has a job already, allow more legal immigration. Of course there will always be mismatches, like having too many people who went to law school or culinary arts school, but not enough willing to work road construction.
The Humanitarian viewpoint
A good person, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or otherwise would want to allow legal immigration by people who are fleeing bad situations and need help. In this view point, the social problems if there are too many immigrants are a problem to be dealt with separately. U.S. law has some provision for political asylum if they are being directly threatened by their government, but not for people fleeing poverty, crime, famine, etc. This doesn’t win elections because the number of altruistic people, people who will help others even to their own detriment, is a minority (3% – 40% depending upon the perceived level of risk to themselves).
The Xenophobic viewpoint
Many people have a fear of what is different. If they are a white Christian who speaks excellent English, they are only comfortable around immigrants who are white Christians who speak excellent English. That’s really more of a personal problem than an immigration problem.
The Paranoid viewpoint
One of these immigrants might commit a crime. One of them might be able to do my job better than me and willing to do it for less money. You can get lost on that train of thought to the point that you need to be drugged and admitted to a psychiatric ward. Immigration policy deals with statistics of large numbers of people. Law enforcement deals with specific instances of crimes actually committed. There is no provision in U.S. law to treat someone like they have committed a crime before they actually have (if there were, it would be really easy to ban all guns).
The Us-vs-Them viewpoint
Some politicians are just looking for someone to be the bad guy so they can play on people’s fears to get their votes. It worked for Adolph Hitler (Jews are the enemy). It worked for Trump (recent immigrants are the enemy). German Jews didn’t try to kill all the other Germans, any more than recent immigrants are trying to kill all of the other Americans. There is no big political movement, military campaign, or conspiracy theory, but some politicians want you to believe there is in order to get your vote. Perhaps some day we will be good enough people that this doesn’t work any more.
Which is your viewpoint? Is that the type of person you see yourself as?