Bad policy makes a mess in Southern Arizona
By Matt Miner
Mark just finished a short story on la frontera. I have not yet integrated my beliefs about the border into a serial fictional account. For now, I will stick with my essay sledgehammer.
Last December, Mark, Andy and I hunted quail in the Southern Arizona desert where Mark’s story takes place. We found border policy writ small everywhere we looked. Washes and arroyos were filled with discarded water containers. The desert was littered with cast-off clothing. We were surveiled by both a helicopter and a plane. We passed through a border checkpoint on the highway.
These conditions were a change for the area. We had hunted there for a number of years in the past, and although we had seen sign from those on the immigrant trail, it had not been an overwhelming theme of our hunting experience. The increased rate of travel through this fragile landscape has been driven by the beefed up border security in Texas and California.
What am I to make of this situation as a human being and a descendant of immigrants? What am I to think as a student of economics?
As a human being and a descendent of immigrants, I think the situation stinks. It grieves me that so many die in the desert who want to come to Arizona to work. Many more leave wife and children to pursue opportunities in the United States. As a husband and father, I wish I didn’t have to be away from home for eleven hours per day for my job, let alone for months or years at a time. And yet, year after year, these husbands and fathers trek to Phoenix and points north to wield a shovel, drive a forklift, and serve dinners in restaurants.
Clearly, there is an [oft ill framed] “immigration problem.” I tend to be a bit of an economic determinist (apologies to Mr. Feuerbacher) and this is the immigration problem: Americans want to hire immigrants at wages which are sufficiently compelling to cause immigrants to leave home and family, risk death, disease, fraud and arrest, and come to the United States for work.
There are three possible ways to address the border issue. First, the United States could adopt a sensible immigration policy which deals with the reality of the ten-million-plus undocumented immigrants already here in the U.S. and provides a real mechanism for the free flow of labor across our southern border. Second, the United States could go after the “demand problem”, which is that employers keep hiring undocumented workers because they need the labor. This demand problem is the reason we have undocumented workers and Mexico does not. Finally, the United States could take an enforcement-only approach and attempt to “close the border”, attacking the supply of labor.
The first option is the only one that makes any sense at all, but it has been taken off the table because President Bush is the only one who has articulated anything in this vein. The Democrats have thus far not been willing to go along with anything that President Bush proposes. Meanwhile, the “enforcement only” wing of the Republican camp (read “outgoing Solons”) will not accept anything that the most reactionary member of the G.O.P. labels as “amnesty.” So, for the moment, nothing is getting done on this point. We’ll see if the make-nice Democrats in the House and the crippled Chief Executive can reach a legitimate deal.
The second option, going after employers, could be successful in reducing immigration. It is politically unfeasible; it is also economically a non-starter. To truly attack demand would be to impose penalties so stiff that legitimate business could not afford to hire undocumented workers. This option would be a political bloodbath and an economic black eye. Here’s how to do it: prosecute business owners and businesses for a criminal offense if they hire illegal workers. Put companies out of business and send owners and perhaps senior managers to jail. Put natural-born Americans out of work because their firms were prosecuted and went belly-up. Impose the costs of higher labor rates and a labor shortage at the low end of the pay scale across the entire economy. Prices for services would rise, overall demand would fall and GDP itself would be reduced, if only modestly.
In light of the improbability of the first two options, our elected officials have chosen the worst option, with the worst results, and for the worst reason. We, as a nation, have chosen an enforcement-only regime. This is the worst option for two reasons. The most important reason is social justice: as a nation, we have opted to pursue the weakest players in this game. God himself has special concern for the weak (he has told us that true religion is to care for widows and orphans, the weakest members of society). To violate this principle violates a basic tenet of justice.
The second reason that this is the worst option is that it will not work. Attacking supply never works (e.g. drug interdictions, prostitute sweeps). It never works because the result is always the same: some sellers are removed from the market, the price rises (demand has not decreased) and new sellers enter the game, enticed by the higher price. Finally, a new equilibrium is reached. The only decrease in demand is at the margins – those buyers who drop out of the game at the higher price. Therefore, attacking supply offers the least economic leverage.
Finally, we have opted for this most undesirable, least effective alternative as a result of base political considerations. Republicans fear the accusation that they support “amnesty.” Democrats want to show off their national security bona fides. Both parties opt to send agents into the desert to intercept border-crossers, or they make tough talk about wall-building. Neither spends time or energy to look for opportunities to solve this problem.
Pundits have been saying that the Fall ’06 elections fired a shot across the bow of the ship Enforcement Only. Judging by the failed campaigns of Randy Graf and J.D. Hayworth, I would say that Enforcement Only has been hulled and is taking on water. Hayworth had won six elections in a district dominated by Republicans. Graf was running in another predominantly Republican district. Both ran on “strong borders” and neither will be in D.C. in January.
The evidence offered here is only anecdotal. But the political unfeasibility of going after the demand-side and the futility of the enforcement-only approach should mean the time is ripe for some kind of comprehensive immigration policy. President Bush has abandoned many of the principles that got him elected (free trade, Social Security reform, and lower taxes). Is rational border policy the next to be jettisoned? The first half of 2007 may provide some answers.
As the President ponders his approval ratings and the Democrats wonder how to spend their time in D.C., they might consider the issue of immigration and develop a better solution than they have so far. It would make me feel better about Mr. Bush. It might help our legislators in their re-election bids. It would even be the right course of action from a moral and economic perspective. I’ll have to wait to see what happens. In the meantime, we hunt quail in northern Arizona.
