Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby Rekindles Some Myths About Illegal Immigration
 
In a March 19, 2007 opinion editorial for the Globe, Jacoby decried efforts to seal our borders against millions of Mexican illegal immigrants as futile by espousing one of the  great talking points of open borders advocates, “As long as there is work for them to do here, immigrants will keep crossing the border. We'd all be better off if we let them cross it legally.”
I’ve been an avid reader of Jacoby’s columns for more than a decade. He is the only true conservative voice on the Globe’s otherwise overwhelmingly liberal opinion editorial page. So it pains me to take umbrage with his maddening stance that those who want to enforce our existing immigration laws are somehow demonizing poor Mexican and Central Americans who are only here for jobs “Americans won’t do.”
Jacoby’s position, is in essence a call for open borders. In a recent op-ed, Jacoby restates his prior thesis:
To Representative King and those who think the way he does -- the Pat Buchanans, the Lou Dobbses, the conservative talk-show hosts and their riled listeners -- the illegal entry is all that matters. They don't ask whether it makes sense to bar industrious and productive go-getters who value America as a land of opportunity and who supply labor for which there is a yawning demand. As far as they're concerned, illegal aliens are "immigration criminals," and the only issue on the agenda is how to keep them out. "Put up a giant fence," demands radio talkmaster Glenn Beck. "You stop the people who are coming here because they're criminals or they want to do us harm." In a Page 1 story on the grass-roots opposition to the immigration bill, The New York Times quotes "angry voter" Monique Thibodeaux, an office manager in suburban Detroit: "These people came in the wrong way, so they don't belong here, period." But something is not wrong -- intrinsically wrong, bad in and of itself -- merely because it is illegal. It is against the law to put anything without postage into someone's mailbox. If your neighbor prints flyers advertising a yard sale and drops one into each letterbox on the street, he has broken the law, but would anyone say he has done something evil? Someone who crosses the border without a visa in order to find work doesn't deserve to be branded a "criminal." Doing so only inflames and confuses an issue that is contentious enough as it is. And it cheapens a word that should be reserved for those who purposely harm others through genuinely wrongful behavior: embezzlers, rapists, arsonists, murderers. The demonizing of illegal aliens keeps us from having a rational discussion about US immigration policy.
How does questioning the wisdom of allowing a massive influx of millions of poorly educated, Spanish-speaking unskilled laborers, predominantly from Latin America, with all the attendant taxing of our social services infrastructure, amount to demonization? Has Jacoby not heard of the Heritage Foundation’s projected $2.5 trillion cost for unbridled illegal immigration? Is he not concerned about the profound cultural changes that such a policy of allowing such a huge swath of unassimilated illegal immigrants would have on the complexion of the nation? Should existing American Citizens not have a say in who we want to let into the country?
Jacoby is largely silent on these important issues that opponents of the Senate Immigration Bill have raised. As for his specious assertion that trying to enforce our national border — a precursor to our wish to remain a sovereign state — is an exercise in futility, I should remind him that President Eisenhower successfully solved a similar problem of illegal border crossings, albeit on a smaller scale, in the 1950’s. Then, as now, the solution to the problem of massive illegal crossings from Mexico was an issue of political will. Eisenhower demonstrated that illegal immigration could be curtailed by taking steps to protect our borders. The illegal immigration problems that we are facing today are largely the result of the federal government’s willful neglect in enforcing our Southern Border, despite promises to do so, subsequent to the Immigration Reform Act of 1986.
Lastly, Jacoby’s position seems to imply that the wage differential between Mexico and America is largely a recent phenomenon, and hence the reason we have experienced such an influx of illegal immigration from Mexico. Would Jacoby not admit that higher paying jobs for Mexicans have always existed in America?
If so, then why hasn’t the United States always experienced massive illegal immigration?
In a word…border enforcement.
 
Thursday, June 14, 2007
By Johnny K