A key to solving America’s immigration crisis can be summed up by paraphrasing JFK: “Ask not what our country can do for you, but what you are able to contribute to our country.” Putting America’s needs first, say three co-authors of an important new study, means ditching the idea that immigration should mostly benefit the immigrants. Manhattan Institute fellows Steven Malanga, Heather Mac Donald and syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson point out in “The Immigration Solution” that unenforced laws, generous welfare benefits and sanctuary policies create huge incentives for uneducated, unskilled foreigners to sneak over the border. Our legal immigration system’s family preference policy also puts the needs of immigrants before the needs of the country.
Australia followed a similar policy during the 1990s, with 70 percent of its immigrants admitted because of family ties. Since then, however, the land Down Under has executed a U-turn — 70 percent of all newcomers are admitted for the needed skills they bring, with extra credit for those who speak English. There’s no reason the United States cannot do the same. Especially since two additional studies commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences confirm that today’s second wave immigrants cost American taxpayers much more in government benefits than the economic gains they produce.
Often arriving with little or no formal education, fewer recent immigrants are learning English or trying to assimilate than did those in America’s first wave of immigration 100 years ago. And because our public and private institutions no longer emphasize assimilation, more of today’s immigrants and their children fall behind academically and economically, and stay behind. What we are really doing, Malanga told The Examiner, is importing a new form of hard-core, intergenerational poverty that will take decades to eradicate.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans listened when a large majority of Americans consistently told them to enforce existing immigration laws, but that may be changing. Earlier this month, Rep. Heath Shuler, D-N.C., and Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., introduced a three-part plan to reduce drastically the flow of illegal immigration that is inundating their states.
Unlike this summer’s failed immigration bill, the Shuler-Bilbray Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act (SAVE) is a get-tough measure that focuses on increasing border security with 8,000 new Border Patrol agents, stepped-up law enforcement, and stringent new employment verification efforts. A companion bill has also been introduced in the Senate. Shuler-Bilbray is a big step in the right direction toward overhauling our legal immigration system to favor those with something to contribute to American society. The privilege of immigration should be on our terms, not those of the illegal immigrant.
