Stephen
Kershnar
Amnesty and Democrats
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October
26, 2014
The
election less than a week away is about two issues: amnesty for illegal aliens
and Obamacare. The U.S. is at a tipping point on whether or not it will become
more socialist than capitalist and whether Constitutional protections will
largely fade away. Amnesty will tip us in the wrong direction on both issues.
A
vote for Democrat candidates is a vote for amnesty in that almost every
Democratic politician (see, for example, Martha Robertson) either has or will
support some type of amnesty. The same is true of the many Republicans in name
only, but they are more vulnerable to pressure from the Republican base.
Consider
an analogy. A community lives in a rural part of Montana and, on average, they
are reasonably happy, financially successful, and have strong families and
community ties. In short, their town works well for them. The mayor plans to
invite people from a variety of third world countries who are poorer, less
educated, less intelligent, and less committed to family values. If this
happens, taxes will go way up and the town’s poor people will face stiffer
competition for jobs and lower wages. The community ties will weaken as people
become less interested in communal life and increasingly distrustful of their
neighbors. The townspeople should fire the mayor and his cronies and escort them
to the door. The American people should do the same.
The
flood of illegal aliens (75% are Latino and 59% come from Mexico) is a bad
deal. Compared to current Americans, illegal aliens are poorer, less educated,
less intelligent, and less committed to family values. What’s more, these
conditions are likely to persist for several generations. None of the
comparative claims is controversial.
Consider
poverty. According to a 2012 study by Center for Immigration Studies, 30% of
illegal aliens and their US-born children live in poverty, more than double the
rate of other Americans. Consider education. According to a 2013 study by the
Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, the typical illegal
alien has a 10th grade education. Consider intelligence. There is
little debate that illegal aliens have lower IQs and that this will persist for
at least another generation. The debate focuses on what explains the gap and
whether it will disappear with time. Most likely it won’t, but even if it will,
this is still a problem for a while.
Consider
family values. Writing in City Journal
in 2007, Heather Mac Donald points out that 45% of children born to Hispanic
women are out-of-wedlock. Only black women do so with greater frequently. My
assumption is that those who have children out of wedlock are, on average, less
committed to family values than those who do not.
The
reason for the economic problems with amnestying illegal aliens, according to
Rector and Richwine, is that the U.S. government massively redistributes
wealth. They point out that well-educated households tend to pay far more in
taxes than they get in benefits (specifically, direct and means-tested
benefits, education, and population-based services). For example, in 2010, they
note that, on average, the average college-educated household (head of
household has a college degree) received, $24,839 in government benefits and
paid $54,089 in taxes. They thus put in $29,250 more than they took out.
Other households,
Rector and Richwine point out, get far more in benefits than they pay in taxes. The government has to pay
for these households by taking money from more successful households or by
borrowing it (national debt is now $18 trillion). For example, in 2010, they
note, households headed by people without a high school degree received, on
average, $46,582 in government benefits and paid out $11,469 in taxes. They
thus took out $35,113 more than they put in.
Rector and
Richwine argue that the difference between those putting money in and those
taking it out matters here because the typical illegal alien has only a
10th-grade education, half of illegal-alien households are headed by an
individual with less than a high school degree, and another 25% are headed by
an individual with only a high school degree. That is, illegal aliens will take
far more out than they’ll put in.
In
addition to being bad for taxpayers, the flood of low-skill illegal aliens is
bad for the American poor. The estimates here vary. The dean of immigration
economics, Harvard University’s George Borjas, in a 2005 study, found that
Mexican immigration significantly reduced high school drop-outs (immigrants’
competitors) wages both in the short and long run. Some other economists,
although not all, found a similar pattern.
Current
Americans will likely lose out socially as well as economically because
Hispanic immigrants are dissimilar to them. Friendships are surprisingly
homogeneous. Writing in the Washington
Post, Joel Achenbach points out that friends are as genetically close to us
as fourth cousins. Marriages are more likely to be successful when the couple
is similar. Harvard professor Robert Putnam argues that people in diverse
communities have weaker community ties. Specifically, they tend to withdraw
from collective life, distrust their neighbors (regardless of the color of
their skin), withdraw from even close friends, expect the worst from their
community and its leaders, volunteer less, give less to charity, and work on
community projects less often.
There
is some evidence that Barack Obama is gearing up for a massive executive
amnesty. He’s already taken the first step. When Obama asked Congress to exempt
certain illegal aliens (particularly children) in his proposed Dream Act,
Congress refused to do it. Obama merely proceeded as if the Act had been passed
and ordered immigration enforcement agencies to act as if it were in effect.
More
recently, roughly 70% of immigrant
families the Obama administration had released into the U.S. following the
recent surge from Central America never showed up weeks later for follow-up
appointments. Also, the Obama administration has supposedly been telling
activist groups that after the election it will implement amnesty via executive
order.
One
can see why Obama and Democrats would welcome amnesty. The recent class of
immigrants votes very differently than do natives, especially those of European
ancestry. 71% of Hispanics voted for Obama and, on one poll, 75% support bigger
government. Philip Klein of the Washington
Examiner points out that were the Obama-Romney election to have occurred
with the 1980 electorate, Romney would have easily won. The Senate amnesty
program would have legalized more than 30 million immigrants, enough to shove
the country far to the left.
Voters
face the following issues: do they want amnesty and, if not, is this an
important issue? If you answer no and yes, it becomes harder to vote for the
Democrats.
