As now he has a powerful ally--Republican Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House, who agrees with Wilson that the federal government should either eliminate the requirements placed on the states or pay the bills. In the case of requiring the states to educate children here illegally, the 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyer v. Doe, will have to be reversed. But that was a 5-4 decision. "The issue," said the dissenters--who included Justices Rehnquist and O'Connor--"is whether, for purposes of allocating its finite resources, a state has a legitimate reason to differentiate between persons who are lawfully within the state and those who are unlawfully there." When the issue again reaches it, the Supreme Court may well go with Rehnquist and O'Connor. After all, the federal government makes such a distinction; illegal aliens are barred from most federal programs.
Proposition 187 is not the only recent action to deal with immigration problems. President Clinton calmed Florida last fall by making a deal with Castro to keep Cubans in Cuba (in return for a higher level of legal immigration), thus reversing long-standing U.S. policy of providing safe haven for victims of Communist oppression. And he sent troops to Haiti to stop Haitian refugees from coming to America.
Kathleen Brown, unsuccessful candidate for governor of California, called for stopping illegal immigration at the border, but this approach has problems. The outstanding example of successful border control in the modern world was the Berlin Wall-- miles of concrete, barbed wire, attack dogs, land mines, search lights, guard towers, and shoot-to-kill rules.
Not even a Berlin Wall solution would work; over half of illegal immigrants enter legally on tourist or other visas and simply stay. Totalitarian governments have solved that problem too, with internal passports--identification papers that must be carried by everyone. Frequent checking of papers on many occasions--job applications, housing rental, medical care, school admissions, and so forth--provides an ongoing means of population control.
Meanwhile two bills to deny welfare benefits legal immigrants- -one Democrat and one Republican--were introduced in the last Congress. With over 1 million immigrants a year--about 800,000 legal immigrants, 150,000 refugees, and 200-300,000 illegal immigrants--what we are seeing is a broad-based response, from the White House, the Congress, governor's mansions, and people in the voting booth--to the costs immigrants are perceived to impose on U.S. taxpayers, especially the costs of social services. Given that welfare benefits in the United States are higher than the average income in many countries, this is a legitimate concern.
In the 1980s the concern about illegal immigration culminated in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which made it illegal for employers to hire illegal immigrants--those without a green card or other permission to work. This legislation has not worked very well, partly because of fraudulent documents and partly because some employers hire in violation of the law. Its consequences may be even worse: it may encourage illegal immigrants who are attracted by welfare benefits rather than job opportunities, and it may create an underclass of illegal immigrants who lack opportunities for job advancement.
If we want immigrants who benefit American society and pull their own weight--and at the same time we want to preserve civil liberties for all of us--we should do the following:
1. Deny taxpayer-funded social services to illegal immigrants and deport violators, to discourage people from coming here to obtain public benefits. Improve enforcement of requirements that sponsored legal immigrants stay off the welfare rolls for at least three years.
2. Improve border enforcement, but recognize that only totalitarian societies can achieve anything close to perfection in this regard. Learn to live with some illegal immigration, and educate their children. The parents will, after all, be working and paying taxes, and will not be on the welfare rolls.
3. Repeal employer sanctions, and not require employers to determine whether someone is legally eligible to work.
Annelise Anderson
The Stanford Daily
January 31, 1995, p. 5
Also available: "Illegal Aliens and Employer Sanctions: Solving the
Wrong Problem," Hoover Essays in Public Policy, 1986.
Send e-mail to andrsn@hoover.stanford.edu for a copy, or click here.