When it comes to the great immigration dust-up on
NRO between Richard Nadler and his critics, I have, er, divided loyalties. Nadler has been a friend since I was a teenager, and he brought me into conservative journalism. But my policy preferences have in recent years been closer to those of Mark Krikorian, one of those critics. Perhaps the resulting biases cancel each other out.
In any case, I thought that Nadler generally had the better of this exchange. The critics mostly battled straw men and refused to acknowledge that opposition to comprehensive immigration reform incurs any political cost at all. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
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When I have written before about the politics of immigration, several readers have responded that getting immigration policy right matters more than advancing the interests of the Republican party. But we should not ignore the political question for two reasons. First, sound immigration policy is not the only cause worth pursuing, and we need to know how many other conservative goals its pursuit might endanger in order to figure out what trade-offs to make. Second, an immigration policy has to be politically sustainable to have any lasting positive effect.
Nadler argues that Republicans opposed to “comprehensive immigration reform” have lost votes by creating the impression that they want to deport all or most of the illegal-immigrant population, either now or in the future. Against his evidence, those opponents offer . . . not much. Their commentary on the 2008 election has typically claimed that victorious Democrats were actually as tough on illegal immigrants as the Republicans they defeated. They note that the Democrats claimed to favor “enforcement” and to oppose “amnesty.”
But most advocates of “comprehensive reform” say exactly the same things. President Bush said that he favored enforcement and opposed amnesty, and so did Senator McCain. Opponents of that reform never take those statements at face value — except when they are trying to spin away political defeats.
On the other hand, I don’t think Nadler is completely right either. The weakest point in his argument, I thought, came when he quoted successful Democratic candidate Alan Grayson of Florida about the Republican congressman he beat:
Ric Keller and the U.S. House of Representatives have passed a bill that makes it a felony to provide any help to an illegal alien. If your brother is an illegal alien, and he is living with you, you go to prison. If you are a priest, and your church helps to feed a hungry illegal alien, you go to prison. If you give a quarter to a homeless man, and he’s an illegal alien, you go to prison. That’s crazy! But Ric Keller voted for it, and the law passed in the House of Representatives.
What Nadler does not mention is that these charges against Keller were outrageous falsehoods. Even if Republicans adopt the positions Nadler wants them to take, Democrats will be able to score points by lying. It would be nice if conservative supporters of comprehensive immigration reform combatted falsehoods rather than repeating them.
My principal concern about immigration is the extent to which immigrants assimilate culturally and economically. Toward that end I favor a reduced level and more varied sources of immigration. A big reduction in future illegal immigration would advance those objectives.
Amnesty is the most emotional issue in the immigration debate, but it may not be the most important. I neither oppose nor support amnesty on principle. I don’t think that we are morally required to bring illegal immigrants “out of the shadows” when they chose to go there. But if we could rely on enforcement to slash illegal-immigration rates going forward, I would have no great objection to granting amnesty to the illegals already here. I opposed “comprehensive reform” largely because I did not trust the bill’s enforcement measures and, in the absence of serious enforcement, thought that amnesty would encourage future illegal immigration.
The argument that Nadler makes is not leading me to revise those views. It does, however, lead me to think that Republicans ought to modify their approach on immigration. For reasons of both politics and fairness, they ought to offer employers a safe harbor: Employers need to know that they can make hiring decisions that are clearly legal rather than being caught in a vise between immigration laws and discrimination laws. Republicans also should be careful not to let hostility to illegal immigration come across as hostility to illegal immigrants as people, let alone to Hispanics generally. And Republicans should care more about keeping future illegal immigrants out than about deporting those already here.
They should do these things if, that is, they would like ever to regain a position in which their views on these and other matters make any difference.
— Ramesh Ponnuru is a senior editor of National Review.
