As the immigration debate reignites and members of Congress stake out their positions on Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) comprehensive immigration reform bill, a surprising number of supposedly free-market conservatives are taking a hidebound, protectionist stance against the expansion of trade that such reform would bring.
For example, fury recently erupted when a Rubio aide privately told The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, “There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it.” Before the immigration issue resurfaced, you’ll note, this is what we used to refer to as “the Republican Party platform.”
Military historian Victor Davis Hanson continued the ire when he accused the nation’s corporate “elites” of wanting amnesty so they can ensure an endless supply of “cheap laborers.” Hanson seems to have forgotten that there are two parties to any employment contract—those who receive the wages and those who pay them—and failed to explain why employers should prefer pricy laborers.
He then argued that African-American unemployment is being kept high by competition from illegal workers—despite his admission that “second-generation immigrants are deemed less industrious” than their parents. Well, are second-generation Mexicans unstoppable workhorses poised to decimate the black race or lazy siesta-indulgers?
Firebrand conservative pundit Ann Coulter also railed on Mexican immigrants, asserting that Mexicans will grab jobs from African-Americans – which contradicts her previous claim that “innumerable studies” on Mexicans have shown that “the second, third and fourth generations plunge headlong into the underclass.” If subsequent generations of Mexicans aren’t hard workers, how exactly is it that they’re going to take all those jobs away from African-Americans?
Hanson and Coulter can’t seem to make up their minds. (For the record, Census Bureau data show that African-American unemployment is no greater in areas with higher concentrations of recent immigrants.)
The editors of the National Review also make their own controversial comments about immigration in their recent editorial “Rubio’s Folly.” “By more than doubling the number of so-called guest workers admitted each year, the bill would help create a permanent underclass of foreign workers…That is a lot of taxation without representation,” the editorial reads.
Wait — aren’t illegal immigrants exempt from paying taxes but still able to collect benefits? Now we’re supposed to be distraught because they’re forking over too much to the IRS?
The publication later laments that “The fine for legalization is small—just $500 up front and $500 paid in installments, in return for lifetime legal access to the U.S. labor market.” Apparently NR is OK with forcing those entering the workforce to pay a tribute of $1,000 to the government for the privilege of working a minimum-wage job.
As the immigration debate continues to unfold, it’ll be interesting to see which other creative employment protections these recent conservative converts to the Working Families Party will propose that we enact.
