A Proper Welcome

I've been thinking about immigration issues lately. In particular, the recent suggested challenge to Arizona's new immigration status enforcement law has me wondering why our attitude toward illegal immigrants is what it is. Certainly, they are breaking the law, and breaking the law should have consequences. But I find it incredible to suggest that the primary motive is due to a "law and order" position, because the same attitude is not applied symmetrically throughout the legal system.

There is no similar outrage that speeders or runners of red lights go un-ticketed. It's not a matter of the relative seriousness of the crimes, either, since traffic violations are much more likely to lead to third-party injuries or death than immigration violations. There is substantial overlap between the most vocal hard-liners on immigration and those willing to disrupt business activities at abortion clinics, despite the fact that abortions are quite legal. And let's not forget that tax evasion is only a big deal when the person doing it is famous and belongs to a political party one dislikes. So although I won't speculate on what the true motives behind the deeply emotional reactions really are, I don't think it's primarily about upholding the current legal code.

A couple of the more specific statements in this regard that I often hear are (1) "They should wait in line like all the hard-working citizens who played by the rules!" and (2) "They'll bring violence, drugs, and prostitution, destroying the American dream!" (Both actually came up in a Ray Stevens music video recently emailed to me. As the video contains a blend of bad jokes, misinformation, and borderline racist visual gags, I will not link.)

There are a couple of recent articles from Reason magazine that should put these claims to rest. The first points out that those "hard-working citizens who played by the rules" either started out privileged or just plain got lucky:

What's the best-case immigration scenario? Five or six years: If you are the spouse or a minor child of a U.S. citizen, you should be able to enter the country and get a green card. Then, after three to five years, you can apply to become a citizen.

Unskilled workers just have to hope they get lucky. That's because only 10,000 green cards are given to these workers each year and "the wait time approaches infinity." Skilled workers may have better chances, but still face strict caps, thousands of dollars in fees, and an 11 to 16 year wait to obtain a green card and gain U.S. citizenship.

The costs and restrictions, combined with the fact that there is no "line" for people to really wait in year after year, are designed so that except for a remarkably small number of lucky ducks, the only people who can find a better life in America are those who already have things really good somewhere else. David Beckham didn't have any trouble immigrating, since the system makes it easy for people to bring their millions of dollars with them. (Take a look at the chart discussed in the article for a more complete picture of the process)

The second article points out that in cities with very high illegal immigration populations, crime is actually lower than in those without them:

Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23).

[...] Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso.

And just in case you don't see the connection between large immigrant populations and large illegal immigrant populations, sociologist Rubén Rumbaut makes the case explicit: "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder." Economists, criminologists, and sociologists who study immigration, documented and otherwise, all point out the same thing: people willing to leave their families and risk their personal well-being in order to make enough money to provide a better life for their children--which characterizes those coming here illegally as much as those coming legally--are very unlikely to be prone to criminality.

So hopefully this clears up some stereotypes about the people at the center of the immigration debate. Of course there will always be anecdotes to the contrary, and I don't mean to make light of those. But if we're going to pre-judge people we don't know and have no intention of understanding at an individual level, lets at least make the right assumptions on average.

Why is understanding why we think the way we do on this issue so important to me? For one thing, for Christians at least, how we treat foreigners and outsiders--people who obviously don't deserve the perks this country provides--says a lot about how we view ourselves.

Is this "love your neighbor" or "love your enemy"?

For another, the article points out that the attitude we take towards illegal immigrants may actually cause them to be either beneficial or harmful to country:

You don't see "Latinos Need Not Apply" or "No Mexicans" signs posted on public buildings the way you did with the Italians and the Irish, two groups who actually were disproportionately likely to turn to crime. The implication makes sense: An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country.

[...] "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us."

Food for thought.