Saturday saw the largest political demonstration in the history of Los Angeles, and one of the biggest in recent American history.
A half-million people or more flooded two dozen blocks of downtown L.A. to give voice to some sort of rational, realistic immigration reform.
For some months now I have been warning readers of this blog that the immigration issue would break wide open this season -- and here it is in full living color. Similar demonstrations the past couple of weeks drew a hundred thousand or more in Illinois, more than that in Denver and tens of thousands in Phoenix and other cities. Similar protests are scheduled through April 10 as the U.S. Senate begins formal debate on reform this coming Tuesday.
If you have fallen behind in this story you can catch up by reading one of my overview stories here or here.
I'm struck by several aspects of this story. Primarily by the way neither party can properly get a hold of this issue. Demographics and global economics are simply racing ahead of any practical political response. The Republicans are deeply divided over the issue. Even as the half-million or so were marching in the streets Saturday, President Bush was on the radio more or less endorsing the protestors' two key demands: that a legal channel be created for the immigration already happening and that some legal acknowledgement be given to the 12 million "illegals" already living here. Viva Bush!
The Democrats are less divided and generally more inclined toward reform. But can you name even two prominent national Dmeocrats who have taken up this cause in a serious way? (One is Ted Kennedy who along with John McCain has co-authored the most sensible reform proposal currently under consideration).
As I have argued previously, what we are currently experiencing is the greatest wave of cross-border migration in recorded history -- a virtual "exodus" of millions from a failed Mexican economy and into a country where the wage level is 10-20 times higher. Politicians can only come up with after-the-fact gestures but policy itself (and walls and fences) will do little to nothing to alter the flow.
My otherwise smart guy friends, Mickey Kaus and Bill Bradley have surely gone off the deep end on this one. They both conjecture that these giant marches, full of Mexican flags and Mexicans chanting 'Mexico! Mexico!' are inviting a virulent nativist backlash. They point to increased voter turn-out in favor of the restrictive Prop 187 in California after a similar (and smaller) protest march in 1994. That was then. This is now.
The current situation is not analagous to 1994. There is no hot-button ballot prop up for a vote this season. And the nativist backlash is already here. The media suck-up to the miniscule Minuteman show of a year ago established an ugly frame for the national debate. The House has already acted in a toxic manner when last December it passed an outrageous and impossible-to-implement measure that would make all illegals (and their employers) into felons. While that bill will not become law per se, the Senate is considering some measures almost as Neanderthal.
It seems to me that when an entire population -- who, after all, cleans our offices, cuts our lawns, serves our food, makes our beds, tends to our children and pays taxes but gets no refunds-- is threatened with criminalization they have the right and necessity to politically mobilize. It's asking them a lot, don't you think, to remain silent and impassive as their arrest and deportation are actively being debated?
One other point: the white backlash of 1994 was immediately followed by a counter-backlash. An enraged and energized Latino constituency accelerated its entrance into citizenship and onto the voter rolls and within four years it steamrollered the California GOP -- a flattening from which California Republicans may never recover.
So while the grumbling Archie Bunkers might get their ya-yas all worked up by the Mexican flags flapping in Saturday's demos, you can be damn sure that the smarter among Republican strategists looked at the size of those protests with some trepidation. Many of those in the rally were legal, or have legal relatives or if illegal might soon be legal. And they just didn't look to be likely Republican voters.
Bradley is one of the smartest analysts around when it comes to California state politics (and he's a good friend) but, I have to say his reaction to these marches border on the phantasmagorical. He went out of his way to title his report "The Pro-Illegal Immigration Rally in Los Angeles" and asks if it was "really necessary" to stage such a provocative rally. It's the wrong question, of course. This wasn't a staged campaign event or some tightly orchestrated TV photo op. While the demos certainly have leaders and organizers, and while the Mexican flags were certainly politically gratuitous, it seems quite obvious that when you bring out a half-million people you've tapped into something quite organic, some self-propelling force way beyond the control or shaping of a few professional organizers. So it hardly matters if it was necessary or not because --like illegal immigration itself-- it happened anyway. It was a rather natural reaction to the shut-the-borders demagogy that's been ventilating for the past couple of years.
Another not so minor point. Bradley argues that these rallies "enable" people who have "broken the law" to continue breaking the law. Well, no, not exactly. People who have entered the U.S. improperly and who stay here have, in fact, not violated any criminal statutes but are instead in violation of civil codes-- even though they are commonly called "illegals." Any of these illegals, if arrested on immigration grounds, are not tried by a criminal court and are, in fact, denied standard due process. Bradley should spend a day in Federal Immigration Court and watch how these "illegals" are deported without as much as the right to a court-provided lawyer. As violators of civil codes, they are cast out and often their families are broken apart with no more process than the DMV revoking a driver's license.
Indeed, these protests have been sparked to a great degree by the so-called Sensenbrenner bill that would in the future make the "illegals" really illegal by making them criminal felons. It's a distinction worth five or ten years in jail that Bradley is blurring.
Bill, my friend, you've got it bass-ackwards. This was a rally in favor of legal immigration. It called precisely for a way for immigrants who are otherwise already absorbed into our economy and society to be granted the minimal status that they obviously merit. To defend illegal immigration no protest would be necessary -- you would need only defend the status quo.
My arguments against the sort of simplistic and anachronostic mode of parsing this issue which we glimpse in Bradley's post is well explained in the articles I linked to above -- so no need to rehearse them here. What some people don't get is that we have already been cracking down on the border for more than a decade and there's a reason why it has so miserably failed. It's about as futile as engaging in prayer dances to stop earthquakes or invoke rain storms.
The only argument we -- as a nation of immigrants-- can make against the current migratory wave is that our grandparents and parents came here legally so why don't Jose and Maria do the same? Well, America of 2006 is not the America that my family came to in 1915 (and when they came they also pushed aside better-paid longer-term residents and citizens). Our work force is vastly older and immensely better educated and skilled than even fifty years ago. The industrial revolution which was roaring ahead a century ago has given way, unfortunately, to a service economy. Barring Mexicans from coming across the border is not going to magically re-open shuttered car and tractor factories. On the contrary, if you could even plausibly tamp down the inflow, you would only increase the out-migration of American business.
Our national economy easily absorbs and desperately needs about a million-and-a-half immigrant workers per year to grow and compete. We let a million of them come in legally. The other half million we make run and dart across the border at cost of great peril.
Our reality has outstripped our laws -- and our way of framing the issue. In the end, it will make little difference who prevails in this year's debate as nothing will change on the ground -- backlash or not. It's a little like debating the tides. Meanwhile, someone throw my pal Bill Bradley a rope. He's waded in at high tide and has sunk in up to his neck.
UPDATE FOR MONDAY:
Welcome to the numerous readers coming in from linked blogs. There's been a lot of reaction to this story and to this posting. Here's some of it:
Bill Bradley responds. Sort of. He's been very insitent on telling us the obvious i.e. that political forces desirous of scapegoating immigrants will use the size and imagery of Saturday's rally to further scapegoat them. No doubt. I'll be interested to hear what Bill actually proposes as an immigration policy rather than simply telling immigrants it is counter-productive to protest their own proposed criminalization. When MLK convened a couple of hundred thousand "negroes" around the reflecting pool in 1962 it also energized his opposition while simultaneously marking the rising tide of a civil rights movement. That's the nature of politics: action -- reaction. It's not predetermined which side of the equation will eventually triumph. Just as an aside, you will remember that at the time American blacks were also "illegals" in many states-- barred and subject to prosecution for drinking out of the wrong fountain, trying to go to the wrong school etc. etc.
L.A.- based Republican political consultant and respected analyst Allan Hoffenblum has posted a note in the comments section below: "Marc, you got it right. The major differences between now and 1994? The increased voting/political power of Latinos, many more Republicans today understanding the significance of this AND George W. Bush is not acting like Pete Wilson." Allan's a smart guy -- not just because he agrees with me. But because he's one of the most honest and prescient political analysts to be found. He's got an uncanny record of accurate predictions.
I also got a note from James. K Galbraith, son of the legendary John Kenneth Galbraith and a celebrated economist in his own right. "I'm with you all the way on this one," he emailed me on Sunday. "Feel free to add me to your list of allies." Jamie wrote about all this quite eloquently for Salon back in 2004. He explained just what GW Bush had in mind when he proposed a "guest worker" program back then. Fortunately, Bush's orginal idea has been reworked and its more enlightened proponents are now using the term "guest worker" as merely a marker for a program that would go way beyond the onerous bracero schemes of the 50's and 60's.
One of my other pals, Tamar Jacoby, perfectly laid out what's right and what's wrong about "guest worker" in Sunday's Washington Post. The former deputy editor of the NY Times op-ed section, Tamar is now a fellow at the center-right Manhattan Institute and has become, without parallel, America's foremost advocate of sensible immigration reform. Go, Tamar!
On a related point: another blood-brother pal, Dan Kowalski, the Austin-based immigration lawyer and editor of Lexis' Bender's Immigration Bulletin, has also posted a comment pointing out one helluva detail. Some have tried to write off the Sensenbrenner Bill -- the putative target of Saturday's protest-- as purely symbolic, something that Bush himself doesn't support. Wrong. While it is, indeed, unlikely (though hardly impossible) that the Senate would ratify a similar measure, Kowalski provides the link reminding us that Bush did in fact endorse the Sensenbrenner hare-brainer of a bill.
A day late, The New York Times finally catches up on this past week's rallies which have "astonished" all observers. One tidbit that the NYT advances is the still fully-undisclosed role that the (conservative) National Hispanic Association of Evangelicals played in supporting and organizing many of these protests. Meeting behind the scenes with the Catholic establishment forged an unusual alliance between the two groups -- at least on this issue.
More to come on this story as it continues to develop. I have a long piece on the border and immigration coming out in the May issue of The Atlantic. It should be online a week from today.
99 Responses to "Immigration Issue Explodes [Updated]"
Tom Grey - Liberty Dad Says: March 26th, 2006 at 1:02 amGreat post this time, Marc — except you don't quite say how many immigrants are here legally in as much detail as I'd think would be excellent: "We let a million of them come in legally. The other half million we make run and dart across the border at cost of great peril."
How many are legally let in from Mexico each year?
You also avoid the English language issue, which is the biggest cultural thing — lazy Americans don't want to go into a shop in America where they don't speak English.
[Slovaks aren't happy going to Southern Slovakia and going into shops where they only speak Hungarian. Especially Slovaks from the north who never go into such shops.]
The other real issues are how many, legally, and who pays for their services. I still think offering high priced tax loans is better than the bill you referred to. "Let the market decide" — where the politicians set a price, and see if that's still too many or not enough. And then change.
Erik Says: March 26th, 2006 at 3:45 amWhile it's true that the protests are in fact rallying in favor of legalizing immigration that is currently illegal, if they instead involved gun nuts demonstrating in favor of legalizing currently illegal assault rifles me thinks the headline debate would get turned nicely upside-down.
Meanwhile, Tom Gray, calling (Anglo) Americans or non-Magyar Slovaks "lazy" because they don't want to go out of their way to learn a minority language simply goes against common sense. The U.S. is playing with fire by allowing a large minority population to exist that cannot meaningfully speak the effective national language - especially a minority population from a neighboring country that used to own large parts of the US, as Hungary used to own Slovakia.
Cenizo in Austin Says: March 26th, 2006 at 4:39 amAnother subtle, but important, Bradley error. Bradley asks, "Was this rally necessary to defeat a bill that George W. Bush does not support? " On the contrary, when H.R. 4437 passed the House, Bush immediately "applauded" the House for passing a "reform" bill, official approval that still stands on the White House website here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/12/20051216-13.html
rjf Says: March 26th, 2006 at 5:28 amGreat post Marc. Unfortunately, see above posts, we seem to have pulled in the Samuel Huningtion crowd. Nothing like the old culturalist arguement that language dilution in the U.S. via an increased spanish speaking population will destroy "anglo traditions" like rational thought, education, and democracy; in generally all the Enlightenment values. the act of drawing a line around these values as the essential terrian of the anglo, it seems obvious, negates the entire idea of the Enlightenment; in affect creating an anti-enlightened State. As an educator- high school teacher- I have long supported making spanish a required class from 7th to 11th grade.
If we could formalize immigration, part of the process would include mandated and free adult english education. These ideas would necessitate fairly large scale government funding so I am sure they will be regected by both the pure culture and free market crowd.
Katie Says: March 26th, 2006 at 7:43 ama virtual "exodus" of millions from a failed Mexican economy
Have activists given any thought on how facilitating the exodus of Mexico's able-bodied youth deepens the failure of the Mexican economy and further entrenches poverty? (See Jay Root's portrait of Mexico's villages, "the export of human labor has been devastating.")
As far as nativist reaction, there's the recent passage of Senate Bill 529, "Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act." "Polls show that more than 80 percent of Georgians want the Legislature to deal with illegal immigration. " (AJC)
When I spoke on the phone last night with my mother in Houston, she commented on the demonstration in LA (uneasy about it) and she drew my attention to the Georgia legislation. She thinks it is unrealistic to believe that we can deport even a fraction of the 12,000,000 undocumented migrants but wants the exodus stopped. She firmly believes the presence of undocument migrant labor is depressing wages especially in the construction trade. As she leaves for work in the morning, Houstonian men are now standing along well traveled roads holding up signs seeking jobs in carpentry and plumbing. She thinks it's a lie that the migrants take jobs Americans are unwilling to tackle.
Alan Alexis Says: March 26th, 2006 at 7:59 amEnough Already!Marc,you and Bill have it wrong.See the MeCha And La Raza websites. Many illegals do not want to assimilate. The want "Mexico" to be here in America. Same Culture,Same Langauge,Same Everything. Only Difference… Free Benefits,and Much Higher wages.I am tired of the same old Nativist aruments.Try pulling the same stunts that the "immigration supporters" pull in Mexico.
Try doing a google search for "Reconquista"Try reading what many people are saying in Spanish.Then tell me I am wrong.
Test Says: March 26th, 2006 at 8:03 am"like rational thought, education, and democracy; in generally all the Enlightenment values."
This is funny, because since when have the Nazi Rednecks who make up the Minutemen movement been in favor of any of these things. One of the things those guys hate is the Enlightenment… as embodied in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
Huntington is interesting though.. he makes one very good point, which is that American Catholics have abandoned Catholicism and embraced the System (the very System that used to hate their Irish and Italian ancestors with the same ferocity as it hates Latin Americans now). It's a very anti-Catholic book… and it is unfortunately true of many of my Catholic relatives, who are just as hate-filled toward their Mexican co-religionists as any fundamentalist.
Mark A. York Says: March 26th, 2006 at 8:21 amThere's actually dissent over illegals in the hispanic community itself where they go for refuge so it's not as cut and dry as portrayed. This is about jockeying for space and has nothing to do with race and religion. Those as always are just wallpaper.
Bill Bradley Says: March 26th, 2006 at 8:38 amMarc, where would you like to go for your vacation?
rjf Says: March 26th, 2006 at 8:43 amTest, I whole heartedly agree. My point was to expose ( like its not blatantly obvious) the BS that is implicit in the minutemen charade and Hintington thesis. The second you bracketed the pursuit of freedom and the U.S. declaration of Independence as essentially anglo you negate their entire meaning.
The minutmen types I know are always the first to wipe the constitution out of their backpocket. All of these law and order types love to quote the texts; showing that memorization and comprehsion are two seperate mental functions.
Art Wesley Says: March 26th, 2006 at 9:54 amFor me,what this issue boils down to is whether or not we take an economic hit inthe near term by cracking down on illegal immigration or risk sovereignity issues in parts of the West and Southwest in a generation's time. The McCain- Kennedy and Bush proposals if enacted into law will make this latter outcome, in all likelihood, inevitable because they are de facto open border policies.
Bill Bradley's NEW WEST NOTES » Blog Archive » Illegal Immigration Rally: Two Veteran Columnist/Bloggers Weigh In … Says: March 26th, 2006 at 10:30 am[…] … One agreeing with me that there just might be a backlash from this. And one old friend saying, rather emotionally, that there is no problem. […]
Rich Says: March 26th, 2006 at 10:32 amMarc, your point about our economy metamorphosizing from an industrial economy into a service economy is actually an argument for tighter immigration laws, particularly from the perspective of lower-middle and lower-income U.S. workers. As the higher-paying industrial jobs disappear, as more industries erase benefits and drop wages in competing with China and other increasingly industrial (but still cheap-labored) countries, there will be greater competition for non-exportable service jobs. So the upshot is that U.S. workers lose twice: cheap labor in other countries pressures wages to fall in globalized industries, and cheap domestic labor pressures wages to fall in domestic service industries. Plus, the kicker: Latin Americans with dual residency (if made 'legal' here) and homes in their native countries are able to maintain a higher standard of living by returning to a drastically more affordable economy whenever they wish. Lower-waged U.S.-born workers do not have that option.
In sum, I think you're unfairly simplifying the issue, and if I were cynical I might say that as a wealthy Woodland Hills professional it's very easy for you to be so cavalier about allowing our labor pool swell–after all, your USC gig is unlikely to be usurped by a poor Mexican anytime soon. My uncle, however, who is an unskilled, low-IQ middle-aged man working in janitor jobs all his life, doesn't have such a luxury.
NB: As I've said before in these discussions, I've seen all sides of the immigration issue, worked for a Latino social service organization for several years, lived in Guatemala for two years, and have fought for economic justice both here and outside the U.S. So, "anti-immigrant" I am not.
rosedog Says: March 26th, 2006 at 10:57 amExcellent and nuanced post, marc.
About: "But can you name even two prominent national Dmeocrats who have taken up this cause in a serious way?"
As you mention, Ted Kennedy is one.
Barney Frank is the other one. I suppose one can argue that he's not a big enough name. But he has put his Congressional ass on the line repeatedly with his attempts to pass versions of the Family Reunification Act, which would have softened the worst elements of the 1996 immigration law. Had 9/11 not occurred when it did he likely would have succeeded.
Kit Stolz Says: March 26th, 2006 at 11:07 amNo easy answers for this quiz, obviously, but what stands out to me is the total lack of faith the immigrant community (and their supporters, including the Catholic Church) has in the Bush administration. Bush and Rove want to reach out to immigrants for electoral reasons and are making noises that sound reasonable in headlines, but despite the fact that Bush did win over a decent percentage of the Hispanic vote in Texas, it's obvious that he's feared and hated in California today among immigrants. If this is true nationwide, he's in even bigger trouble than it looks…and it's not looking good.
Mark A. York Says: March 26th, 2006 at 11:11 amWhat rich said. As more and more manufacturing jobs decline to offshore workers, the more we have living here for multiple generations from all races who will have to take them. We're all in service industries. The lifeboat simply can't absorb all who want to come. It's a biological reality, that due to the great scientific ignorance on the whole, wiped out in part by sociology (more open to agendas) few care to address: overpopulation, destruction of land and so on. It is what it is irrespective of what one perceives.
Mike Law Says: March 26th, 2006 at 11:26 am>> since when have the Nazi Rednecks who make up the Minutemen movement been in favor of any of these things
How ignorant. Nice appeal to emotion.
How about being resolute in saying: illegal immigration is illegal?How about being resolute in saying: employing illegal immigrants is illegal?
We could provide amnesty for those already here, if only for logistical reasons… but we need to secure our border, if it is in our power to do so.
Mexicans and Latinos do not deserve a free immigration pass. Nobody does.
richard lo cicero Says: March 26th, 2006 at 12:03 pmMarc on this issue I agree with Bill Bradley 100%. Those Mexican flags will feature promenently in GOP ads this fall as the Republicans will use "Border Security - Illegal Immigration" as the issue to save them from Iraq, Dubai. Abramoff, etc. Kevin Phillips, who knows a thing or two about politics, thinks that the great wave of recent immigration, legal or otherwise, need to slow so that we can take a breather to assimilate this new crowd just as we did earlier.
Look, all this nonsense about the illegal immigrant doing essential work that Americans won't is Chamber of Commerce/Farm Bureau balony. And Globalony at that. Just like NAFTA and WTO have benefited the consumer Marc! There is no job Americans won't do if you pay them enough. And why should taxpayers have to subsidize employers with all kind of services that would be unnecessary if a living wage were payed workers. And the workers are ALWAYS going to be exploited since their status is dubious. A
