Another liberal rag pushes free immigration!

Today The Wall Street Journal [link apparently won't work] published what it bills as the 'conservative' take on immigration. Which of course brings up the difficult question of exactly what the c-term means these days. (Fortunately it is widely recognized around here that poor Clemens is not competent to answer that question, so he won't even try) Anyway, I thought it was worth bringing you the guts of what it says.

The Journal editors start off trying to show their conservative credentials.

"The most frequent criticism we hear is that a newspaper called "The Wall Street Journal" simply wants "cheap labor" for business. This is an odd charge coming from conservatives who profess to believe in the free market, since it echoes the AFL-CIO and liberals who'd just as soon have government dictate wages."

It is also an odd charge since being pro-business has been an acknowledged Republican hallmark - if you find this disturbing you should get in touch with your inner liberal immediately.

Then they warm to their task:

"Our own view is that a philosophy of "free markets and free people" includes flexible labor markets. At a fundamental level, this is a matter of freedom and human dignity. These migrants are freely contracting for their labor, which is a basic human right. Far from selling their labor "cheap," they are traveling to the U.S. to sell it more dearly and improve their lives. Like millions of Americans before them, they and certainly their children climb the economic ladder as their skills and education increase." [Maybe Joey has a point then: they'll pass up low-paying jobs in Mexico for jobs at McDonald's!]

A quick nod to their critics on the right:

"We realize that critics are not inventing the manifold problems that can arise from illegal immigration: Trespassing, violent crime, overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, document counterfeiting, human smuggling, corpses in the Arizona desert [very inconsiderate of them to clutter up our desert], and a sense that the government has lost control of the border. But all of these result, ultimately, from too many immigrants chasing too few U.S. visas."
[my inserted comment, btw]

Then, back to the attack:

"Those migrating here to make a better life for themselves and their families would much prefer to come legally. Give them more legal ways to enter the country, and we are likely to reduce illegal immigration far more effectively than any physical barrier along the Rio Grande ever could. This is not about rewarding bad behavior. It's about bringing immigration policy in line with economic and human reality. And the reality is that the U.S. has a growing demand for workers, while Mexico has both a large supply of such workers and too few jobs at home."

The Journal also points out that what worries a great many here is the cultural issue, since Hispanics comprise 1/3 or the populations of California and Texas and thus may not assimilate (I believe Michael Lind and Victor Davis Hanson, two authors I admire greatly, take this tack). This brings forth a well deserved jab towards the Left:

"This is where the political left does the cause of immigration no good in pursuing a separatist agenda. When such groups as La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund push for multiculturalism, bilingual education, foreign language ballots, racial quotas and the like, they undermine support for immigration among even the most open-minded Americans. Most Americans don't want to replicate the Bosnia model; nor are they pining for a U.S. version of the Quebec sovereignty movement." [There are several good historical reasons why we can't replicate Bosnia and Quebec, but let that pass for the moment]

The paper then goes on to state the obvious, or what ought to be the obvious:

"But the good news is that these newcomers by and large aren't listening to the left-wingers pushing identity politics. Mexican immigrants, like their European predecessors, are assimilating. Their children learn English and by the end of high school prefer it to their parents' native tongue. They also marry people they meet here. Second-generation Latinos earn less than white Americans but more than blacks and 50% more than first-generation Latinos. According to Tamar Jacoby's "Reinventing the Melting Pot," the most common last names among new homeowners in California include Garcia, Lee, Martinez, Nguyen, Rodriguez and Wong."

Then they conclude grandly:

"House Republican leaders, who passed an immigration bill last year focusing only on enforcement, want to frame this debate as a choice between more border security or "amnesty" for the 11 or 12 million illegals already here. But that's a false choice. A guest-worker program that lets market forces rather than prevailing political winds determine how many economic migrants can enter the country actually enhances security. How? By reducing pressure on the border, just as the Bracero guest-worker program in the 1950s and early 1960s did."

Now that you mention it, some of my family now bear names like 'Martinez' and 'Nguyen'. And we used to be so Anglo-Saxon (and btw, I mean real Anglo-Saxons whose ancestors got here before the Revolution). Well, that's what happens when you let your citizenship standards slip, I suppose. My wife didn't start leaning English until she was nine, and now she corrects my grammer, my spelling, my punctuation.

But that's enough personal stuff. Just thought we should get a professional opinion from a widely respected in some quarters source in the MSM.