Jonah Goldberg: Another way to solve the illegal immigration problem

A rich Mexico would not export poor, unskilled workers to the United States for two simple reasons: It wouldn’t have a surplus of them and what few it had it would need for its own economy. Moreover, research and common sense alike tell us that most people won’t leave their homes, families and communities to work in a foreign country if they can find similar jobs at home.

Of course, there’s an obvious problem that reminds me of Steve Martin’s old routine about his foolproof two-step plan to make a million dollars tax-free. His first step? “Find a million dollars.”

“Make Mexico rich” is also easier said than done. But it isn’t any less true simply because it’s hard. A Mexico with a per capita income somewhere close to America’s would create the sense of hope and optimism that comes with serious economic growth. That would sharply curtail Mexican emigration to the United States.

The Mexican economy, which does better than you might think, creates about a half-million jobs a year. That’s not too shabby. But about a million young people enter the work force every year. A big chunk of that surplus labor heads north, as do many workers who yearn to make more than the Mexican minimum wage of $4.50 (U.S.) per day.

How do you make Mexicans rich? One method, preferred by many in their government, is to export poor laborers to America, where they can send billions of dollars back in the form of cash remittances to loved ones, while at the same time alleviating the strain on the welfare state. Another route might be foreign aid. But it turns out, foreign aid is next to useless for modernizing an economy because economic planners have a knack for hashing out plans to build useless white elephants.

There is a third route: trade. Time and again, free trade has proved to be a reliable path to economic development. It pushes both the public and private sectors toward greater accountability and transparency. It lifts people out of poverty, and while it can force unsettling changes on a society, those changes are seen to be worthwhile in a very short time.

However, as my colleague Rich Lowry has noted, liberals and Democrats tend to oppose free-trade agreements — most recently the Central America Free Trade Agreement — because they “export American jobs” to underpaid Latin American workers. But the same people generally favor importing underpaid Latin American workers into the United States to take many of the same jobs. One hand giveth, the other taketh away.

The cynicism is breathtaking. What many liberals prefer is not preserving American jobs but importing undocumented Democrats.

America has several immigration problems of varying levels of urgency. One of them is the challenge that comes from sharing a 2,000-mile border with a very poor country. Canadians aren’t pouring over our far-less-secure northern border because Canada — its numerous shortcomings notwithstanding — is a prosperous country. Many, if not most of those who come from Canada (or from Europe and, to a lesser extent, Asia) are ideal immigrants. They are highly skilled and motivated to benefit from, and contribute to, a modern economy.

Mexican immigrants are plenty motivated, but they come up short on the skills part. If Mexico were as rich as Canada, the Mexicans would be the ones freaking out about their porous southern border as Guatemalans tried to “steal jobs Mexicans won’t do.”

For all the talk about coming up with “comprehensive” immigration reform, the root causes of the labor supply are left out of the immigration debate. If we’re going to be “comprehensive,” why not tie a fixed but significant level of legal Mexican immigration to greater free-market and anti-corruption reforms in Mexico? The Mexican government feels increasingly free to lecture us about our domestic and economic priorities; it seems only fitting for us to take a more active interest in theirs as well.

Examiner columnist Jonah Goldberg is editor at large of National Review Online and a syndicated columnist.