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Federal News Service
January 21, 2005 Friday
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN'S "ONE ON ONE" GUESTS: FRANCIS SHARRY, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM AND MARK KRIKORIAN, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
IMMIGRATION AND ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE U.S.
TAPED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2005 BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF JANUARY
22-23, 2005
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: "Mi casa es su casa." Now that his second term of
office has begun, one of President Bush's first priorities is to
legalize the status of the 8 (million) to 10 million illegal aliens
now residing in the United States. Republicans in Congress have
warned the president that they are in no mood to give amnesty to
illegal aliens, but Mr. Bush is undaunted. He says that the coming
struggle with Congress is like his first term battle to enact tax
cuts, which he won. Well, can he win on an amnesty bill, whether
announced as such or presented as a guest worker bill? Or will
immigration reform split the Republican Party wide open? We'll ask
immigration experts Frank Sharry and Mark Krikorian.
(Announcements.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Here we go. Let's talk about basics. Welcome, Frank.
Welcome, Mark.
How many illegal immigrants are there in the country today, Frank?
MR. SHARRY: Best estimate's 10 million.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ten million.
What do you think?
MR. KRIKORIAN: About that. It's roughly 10 (million). It's between 8
(million) and 12 million. Nobody's really sure.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We'll use the Urban Institute as a standard, and I
guess it's highly regarded: 9.3 million. Does that sound about right?
MR. SHARRY: Yes, it does.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How many are believed to have steady jobs?
MR. SHARRY: About 60 percent of illegal aliens are in the labor
market actually working, either on the books or under the table.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How many are dependent -- either in a dependent
status or have part-time jobs?
MR. SHARRY: Well, most of the folks who aren't working -- 6 million
are working -- they're kids or wives who are staying at home.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where to the illegal aliens come from, Mark?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Mexico, overwhelmingly. Between maybe two- thirds,
maybe as much as 70 percent come from Mexico.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I see 5.3 million, or 57 percent.
MR. SHARRY: Sounds right.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where do the rest come from?
MR. SHARRY: Another 20 percent or so come from other parts of Latin
America, primarily Central America, and then the rest are a very
diverse lot from all over the world.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: China?
MR. SHARRY: Some.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Africa?
MR. SHARRY: Some.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is China increasingly in the hemisphere in an
immigrant -- illegal immigrant status?
MR. SHARRY: Well, there's been a problem of smuggling from China into
the United States for some time, and -- the numbers aren't very big,
but it's a very -- it's a real nasty industry.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Had you observed that Hugo Chavez was in Beijing
recently?
MR. KRIKORIAN: No, that I did not know.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you know that the Chinese are cutting a deal with
regard to oil with him?
MR. SHARRY: I mean, China's moves in Latin America aren't necessarily
related to illegal immigration in Latin America but they might well
be. There's significant numbers of Chinese illegals in Central
America.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: As a digression, do you think the president will show
more attention to Latin America than he did in his first term?
MR. SHARRY: I do. I think he has a real affinity for Latin America. I
think he --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, we heard that before the first term.
MR. SHARRY: Right. But -- and he was making strong progress in that
direction until 9/11, and for obvious reasons he directed his entire
administration's focus on to the post-9/11 response.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How many are intercepted at the border, illegals?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Million usually a year; a little more than a million.
And then some of them, though, are people intercepted, the same
people several times, and others get by and are never caught.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What's the increase of the interceptions of 2004 over
2003?
MR. SHARRY: I don't know. You tell me.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The Washington Times says 25 percent. I see 20
percent. Does that sound about right, the increase of illegal aliens
crossing the Mexican border?
MR. KRIKORIAN: That would sound right, but the number that are caught
go up and down depending on a lot of factors -- how many agents there
are, are they deployed in different ways? So the number of illegals
that the border patrol catches isn't a perfect barometer of the flow
of illegal immigration.
It gives you a general idea, at best.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a myth or is it true to say that illegal aliens
do not come to the United States during economic downturns?
MR. KRIKORIAN: That's a myth.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That's a myth?
MR. KRIKORIAN: That's a myth. We've actually done research on this,
and even though a century ago immigration, generally speaking, seemed
to respond to booms and busts in the economy, nowadays it pretty much
seems to continue regardless of economic conditions.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a myth or is it correct to say that illegal
immigration increases whenever we offer amnesties or legalization
programs?
MR. SHARRY: It's a myth. It has to do with basic economic realities
of people who want to work and jobs that are available. It is not
very responsive --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you heard the names --
MR. SHARRY: -- (inaudible) -- policymakers --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you heard the names Simpson-Mazzoli?
MR. SHARRY: I'm familiar with those names, yeah.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you recall the bill that they put together on
immigration?
MR. SHARRY: They did. They passed immigration reform in 1986.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was there an amnesty involved?
MR. SHARRY: There was a legalization program for almost 3 million
people who were in the country.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What year was that, Mark?
MR. KRIKORIAN: 1986 is when it passed. And then the amnesty was
implemented the next several years, and actually created a boom in
new illegal immigration.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ah! So does that contradict what you just said? That
an amnesty or the equivalent thereof, a legalization process
increases the surge of illegal immigrants?
MR. SHARRY: Because the rooster crows doesn't mean it causes the
morning. The fact is that there's been an ongoing flow of workers to
jobs in the United States that preceded Simpson-Mazzoli and
post-dated Simpson- Mazzoli.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you denying that there was a surge that's
traceable to Simpson-Mazzoli?
MR. SHARRY: I'm not denying that. I'm saying there's an ongoing labor
migration that has to be dealt with, and that's what President Bush
and leaders of the Democrats and the Republicans want to do.
MR. KRIKORIAN: We looked at it, and our estimate was something like
800,000 additional illegal immigrants came in after Simpson- Mazzoli,
as a result, sort of as an echo of the amnesty for the '80s. And the
same thing is going to happen --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What does President Bush want?
MR. SHARRY: What President Bush wants to do and what many Democrats
and Republicans want to do with him is take immigration --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And many do not --
MR. SHARRY: Right. Exactly. Very controversial. But there's a growing
drumbeat of people who say wait a minute, the system's broken, let's
bring immigration out of the black market and out of the shadows and
under the rule of law. That is what he is trying to do. That's the
big idea.
MR. KRIKORIAN: There's two things he wants to do. One is legalize or
amnesty the illegals who are here, as Frank mentioned. The other part
of the president's proposal is the most radical thing anyone has
suggested in our history, is open the entire labor market to any
foreign worker at any wage, as long as any employer is willing to
give them a job. It would inundate the American labor market.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is what Bush is proposing both de facto and de jure
amnesty?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, amnesty is somebody who's
broken the law gets away with it. And what he would be doing is
giving the illegals legal status. That's amnesty pure and simple.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it true that illegal aliens take low-paying jobs,
only take those lower-paying jobs that American workers don't want?
MR. SHARRY: For the most part, of course. I mean, look, the fact is,
John, is that in 1960, half of the American high school students
dropped out and went into the labor force. Now only 10 percent of a
smaller number of Americans drop out. What that means is that there's
a smaller number of Americans for roughly half the jobs in the
economy that are service and agriculture. Who's doing the
housekeeping, the child care, the construction, the landscaping jobs,
the meat-packing, picking the crops? It's immigrants. So we've
created this huge sucking sound for workers to come from south of the
border to fill service and ag jobs -- north of the border -- without
rules that make sense.
MR. KRIKORIAN: But, John, the fact is that because these immigrant
workers were available, since we didn't enforce the law, and had
legal immigration rules that allowed massive immigration, the economy
develops differently. So that agriculture is constructed the way it
is precisely because farmers count on large numbers of low- skilled
workers. If that supply were constricted, the economy would actually
move in a more high-tech, high-productivity direction and away from
sort of the third-world economic characteristics that some sectors of
our economy are showing.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me add to your exposition. The wages paid in many
of the low-income jobs taken by illegal aliens are low for a reason;
employers keep diluting the labor pool by hiring illegal aliens. If
free-market forces were allowed to work and immigration laws were
enforced, these same employers would have to offer more inducements
and Americans would fill the jobs.
MR. KRIKORIAN: They'd be doing two things; that's one of them -- more
money, better benefits, better working conditions. The employers at
the same time, though, would come up with ways of getting rid of the
jobs that shouldn't even exist in a modern economy. So you'd have a
smaller number of people working more productively and making
somewhat more money. That's good for the country.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a fact or a myth that illegal aliens are
disproportionately involved in other crimes in this country in
addition to their violation of immigration laws?
MR. SHARRY: It's not true. There is a lot of so-called illegals in
federal prisons, and they're drug mules who didn't spring up out of
local communities. The rate of crime in immigrant communities is the
same as for native-born communities.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is that your view?
MR. KRIKORIAN: The immigrants are not uniquely predisposed toward
crime. This is one of the straw men that the open borders people seek
to knock down. Immigrants are regular folks like anybody else, but
what happens is immigrant communities end up serving as kind of
incubators and cover for organized crime and for gangs. And so even
though most of the people in these communities have nothing to do
with the criminality, they nonetheless create a host for it. It's
like Mao said, the criminal -- the immigrants are the sea within
which the criminal fish swims.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you familiar with this statistic? The INS has
deported some 400,000 aliens with significant criminal histories.
MR. SHARRY: Sure, yeah. I -- yeah.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You're familiar with that, too?
In states with large illegal alien populations, such as California
and Texas, more than 30 percent of the current population in prison
is composed of illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes.
MR. SHARRY: Federal prisons it's 25 percent. State prisons it's
roughly 8 percent.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, are you prepared, then, to say -- are we
prepared to say that the crime rates for illegal aliens are
dramatically higher than for U.S. citizens?
MR. KRIKORIAN: No. You'd have to control for their education. In
other words, poorly educated or poor Americans probably have similar
crime rates. You know, I'm not going to say, because I don't think
it's true, that immigrants as individuals have uniquely higher rates
of crime. The problem is they create the conditions within which
crime can flourish.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What does that mean?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Insular communities. You know, in the old days the
Italian communities, there was this code of omerta. You do not talk
to the police. That sort of thing.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Correct. Is that fear of engaging the police or
meeting the police or encountering the police have any affect on our
crime statistics of illegal aliens?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Presumably it suppresses the reporting of crime. And
it's not even just illegal aliens; it's immigrants in general because
they are -- because they're foreigners, basically, and they're less
comfortable in society than Americans.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a myth or is it accurate to say that illegals
contribute a benefit to the United States?
MR. SHARRY: It's accurate. I mean, look, I mean, you talked about
this zero-sum economy in which, if we didn't have immigrants, wages
would go up and people would live beautiful lives. The fact of the
matter is that we have very few Americans interested in doing the
dirty jobs that need to get done. So when you go to a hotel and you
want your bed made or you go to a building and you want it clean or
you're a professional couple and you want your kids taken care of so
you can make two incomes -- you can say, well, if those immigrants
weren't there, they'd be more efficient somehow, but we'd have slower
economic growth. Immigrants would have fewer opportunities. Employers
would have fewer opportunities. The tax base would suffer, and our
economic growth would suffer. That is the story of American
prosperity.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did you do a study called "The High Cost of Cheap
Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget?"
MR. KRIKORIAN: We did indeed.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What was the conclusion of that?
MR. KRIKORIAN: What we found was that if you look at the taxes that
illegal aliens pay to the federal government and the services they
get, the gap is something like $10 billion a year. And if those
illegals get an amnesty, as the president proposes, that gap would
balloon to almost $30 billion a year because even though their wages
would go up a little bit, their use of welfare and other services
would go up even more.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The advocates of illegal immigration say that while
today's migrants start out poor, over time they assimilate socially
and economically and enter the middle class. Opponents say this is no
longer true; the limited educational level of today's illegal
immigrants means we are importing a permanent social and economic
underclass. Which is myth and which is fact?
MR. SHARRY: Fact is, is that the American dream lives on. Michael
Barone, who you know well, has studied this, and he compares
particularly Mexican and other Latin American immigrants to
yesteryear's Italian immigrants. Yes, it took a few generations
before Italians went from the ethnic ghetto to the Ivy League, but
that has happened, and that will happen with Mexican and other Latin
Americans.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Michelle Malkin and her book "Invasion" take an
opposite view.
MR. KRIKORIAN: A variety of people writing on this do. And the fact
is that immigrants do better over time, there's just no question
about it. The problem is that over time they do better at a slower
rate than everybody else, so they have fallen behind the rest of
society instead of catching up. It took the Irish a hundred years to
catch up with the rest of society. It is entirely plausible that the
low-skilled immigrants of today will take even more than a century to
catch up with the rest of society.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: "Give us your tired, your huddled masses, your poor,"
is that a good policy for the United States in an age of global
economic competition?
MR. SHARRY: No.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It's not?
MR. SHARRY: No. We want strong, determined, hard-working people who
make a contribution. And that's what we're getting. What we don't
have is rules that allow people to come in legally with rights and
with vetting. That's what Bush, that's what McCain, that's what
Kennedy -- that's the big idea that's on the table now is bring
immigration under the rule of law through legal channels so we know
who's here and we know who's coming.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Highly skilled, highly educated workers -- isn't that
what we're looking for?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Well, we're clearly looking for people following the
rules, to begin with. But yes, the fact is that educated or skilled
workers create far fewer of the problems that we are now experiencing
than low-skilled, unskilled workers from other countries.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that there should be a far-ranging
discussion of how many people Americans want in this country? Is it
going to be a Switzerland with a relatively high economic social
level? Or should we have a billion people or 750 million or 500
million or 300 million? Should there be a debate on that, an open
dialogue?
MR. SHARRY: The fact is we've already decided. The American people
decide that every day when they decide how many kids to have. And
Americans have smaller families nowadays on their own, without any
hectoring or coercion. And what immigration represents is Congress
telling the American people: You're not having enough kids, so we're
going to bring in some extra people.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are the offspring of illegal aliens automatically,
under the U.S. Constitution, granted citizenship status?
MR. SHARRY: They are. Those who are born on U.S. soil are considered
U.S. citizens.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So that swells the population of Mexicans --
MR. SHARRY: Well, it --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- and other illegals who become legal.
MR. SHARRY: Look, the question -- you know, we can debate numbers.
The question, though, that most Americans want resolved is the
question of orderliness, is the question of legality. Is this country
anti-immigration and anti-immigrant? No, because we're a nation of
immigrants. But we're anti-lawlessness and disorder, and we want
someone to come along -- and American people hunger for a controlled
system that works, rules that are effectively implemented and
effectively enforced. And that's what people are debating.
MR. KRIKORIAN: You can't have a controlled system nowadays with the
level of immigration that we are experiencing.
Our immigration bureaucracy is choking on immigration. It is
incapable of doing its job now in properly screening people and
moving them through the system. The idea that adding 10 million more
people to this system of vetting or screening and checking their
backgrounds is a fantasy. We are going to have massive fraud if we
have an amnesty and bad guys are going to get documents, legalized
criminal --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: (Inaudible) -- considerations of distributive justice
involved in this question?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Sure there are. The question is, what do we owe as
Americans to our fellow countrymen who are poor? And my concern is
that the supporters of mass immigration -- and have told me this
explicitly -- they see no greater obligation on the part of an
American to a poor American as opposed to a poor European or African
or Asian. And I say, sorry, I have a greater obligation to my fellow
countryman who is poor than I do to someone overseas who is also
poor.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you regard that as selfishness on your part?
MR. KRIKORIAN: No, I regard it as what one philosopher called
concentric circles of obligation. I owe my family responsibility --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: First, primarily --
MR. KRIKORIAN: -- and then my countrymen, and then the rest of
humanity.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You accept that in principle, don't you?
MR. SHARRY: Not only in principle in practice. I think that we should
have U.S. immigration policies that protect American borders, protect
American workers, protect immigrant workers and grow the economy. And
that's if we have a fix that allows people to come legally and with
vetting and to contribute -- we'll have that.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We'll be right back.
(Announcements.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the coming debate going to be about much more than
how to fix a broken immigration control system and ethnic politics;
that in fact we'll have a far-ranging debate about America's economy,
our middle class standards, our safety from crime and terrorism, and
even our environmental policy? We'll put that question to our guests.
But first, here are their distinguished profiles.
Born, Hartford; 48 years of age. Wife, Rosa; two children. Catholic.
Democrat.
Princeton University, B.A., American History.
U.S. Refugee Program for Refugees in Indonesia, deputy director, one
year.
American Council for Nationalities Service, New York, director of
Refugee Services, six years.
Centro Presente, a local agency that helps Central American refugees
and immigrants in the Boston area; executive director, four years.
Taxpayers Against Proposition 187 -- the aim of that initiative was
to eliminate illegal immigrant eligibility for public education and
other public services -- deputy campaign manager, four months. The
effort to defeat the initiative was itself defeated. The initiative
passed 59 to 41 percent.
National Immigration Forum, executive director, 14 years and
currently.
Hobbies: soccer, swimming, fluent in Spanish.
Francis Peter Sharry Jr.
Born, New Haven; 43 years of age. Wife, Amilee (sp); three children.
Religion: Armenian Apostolic Church. Republican.
Georgetown University, B.A., History and Government. Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy, M.A. International Relations. Yerevan State
University Armenia, postgraduate work, Armenian language and
literature.
Federation for American Immigration Reform, Immigration Report,
editor, one year. The Winchester Star, Virginia, editor and staff
writer, four years altogether.
Center for Immigration Studies, executive director, 10 years and
currently.
Hobbies: collecting shot glasses; fluent in Armenian.
Mark Steven (sp) Krikorian.
Where do the shot glasses come from, Armenia?
MR. KRIKORIAN: All over the place. From Siberia, Armenia, everywhere.
I don't even drink that much; I just collect them.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Interesting.
Let's take a look at a poll. Do you approve or disapprove the way
Bush is handling immigration issues? Take a look at the screen there,
Mr. Sharry, and weep: approve, 33 percent; disapprove, 54 percent; no
opinion, 13 percent. Why is it that he is going with an extremely
argumentative piece of legislation he hopes to get into existence on
the guest-worker program, de facto and de jure amnesty? How is he
going to effect this? Is he going to have emissaries up there doing
his work for him?
MR. SHARRY: Most likely what's going to happen is that Bush is going
to promote the big idea of bringing immigration out of the shadows
and under the rule of law; that the likes of Senator John McCain and
Senator John Cornyn, working perhaps with Ted Kennedy, will put
together a bipartisan bill that could come out of the Senate; and
then the real showdown will be in the House, where both parties are
much more divided on whether to move on this now.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So if it goes down, there's no rap against the
president?
MR. SHARRY: Well, I don't think the president would be bringing it up
if he's not serious. I think he was accused of that in the election
here, but --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I know he's serious, but if this develops into a
wide-ranging discussion of the elements that I mentioned earlier, you
know, this could take a lot of time and ultimately could not pass.
MR. SHARRY: Well, look, the fact is is that President Bush thinks
it's the right thing to do and he's going to promote it, and that is
going to be a very positive thing for moving the cause of bringing
immigration under control forward.
MR. KRIKORIAN: But it's almost certainly going to fail, assuming it
even gets that far. The fact that it's so at odds with what the
American people want and what the Republican majority in the House
wants, it has no chance at passage.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you taken note of Frank Sharry's rhetoric?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Of course I have.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: "Bringing this out of the dark and into the
sunlight." What do you think of that?
MR. KRIKORIAN: The interesting point is that it assumes that illegal
immigration -- there's a set amount of immigration and we just need
to legalize it so that it's all out in the open. The fact is --
MR. SHARRY: That's right.
MR. KRIKORIAN: -- that the more immigration you have, the more
immigration you create. Illegal immigration would be supercharged by
an amnesty; it would not be ended.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Were you identified as a Democrat on the screen?
MR. SHARRY: I was.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You were. Do you think that it's Democratic policy to
take the position that you take automatically, or do you think
there's another course of action that Democrats could take?
MR. SHARRY: Oh, sure. Democrats could blow this up and say the
president doesn't want to go far enough and wait.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And ascribe it to what?
MR. SHARRY: We'll -- they'll ascribe it to policy, but it will
probably be political motivated.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ascribe it to big business and George Bush catering
to big business. Does that occur to you?
MR. SHARRY: It does. And the fact is that the employer community does
want to see immigration reform, the labor unions want to see
immigration reform, the Catholic Church wants to see immigration
reform. And guess what, John -- I know this is hard to say in
Washington, D.C. these days -- it actually is the right thing to do
to legalize and regulate immigration so the public can have
confidence we have rules that are being enforced, that employers can
have a reliable source of workers.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: He's not disputing that. I'm not disputing that.
MR. KRIKORIAN: So what Frank's saying is that the political elite --
big business, big labor, big religion -- wants open borders and the
public doesn't want it. This is what the --
MR. SHARRY: Not for open borders; smart borders, Mark. That's the
problem, is that --
MR. KRIKORIAN: This is what the research shows, is that the political
elite of both sides don't care too much about controlling immigration
and tight borders.
MR. SHARRY: We have a control agenda. Unfortunately, your status-quo
agenda perpetuates the illegality of --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You know, it's possible the president could be
opening a Pandora's Box here, you know that?
MR. SHARRY: He's beginning a long-overdue debate about how to fix a
broken system.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And that could be a Pandora's Box.
MR. SHARRY: It's going to be a very positive development because the
American people have to get real about migration and how to control
it.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We'll be right back.
(Announcements.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Will the president get his immigration out of
Congress this year?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Not a chance.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Not a chance.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Not a chance.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Frank?
MR. SHARRY: Pass the Senate in '05, pass Congress '06.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Thanks very much for a stimulating discussion of a
subject that is increasingly important and controversial and protean
in its scope.
PBS SEGMENT
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why is -- or is the guest worker program important to
Mexico?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Mexico -- there's a couple of reasons. One, the
Mexican elite wants to make sure that political discontent is
exported so there's no political challenges to its rule, regardless
of what party's in charge. And the second thing is they want to
export a source of people who are going to send remittances home. And
then let me add a third one, because I forgot, which was to help them
exercise greater influence over American policy. I mean, that's
really what this amounts to.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: They have surplus population, which is defined as
they don't have the economic means to take care of that population.
So there are distinct foreign policy components of this whole matter,
are there not? And also, it is in our interest, is it not, to assist
Mexico in clearing this hurdle? Is that correct?
MR. SHARRY: That's right. The long-range solution is economic
development in Mexico so people don't have to migrate. And that's
probably a 20- to 30-year prospect. In the meantime, for us to have
legal channels for Mexicans to come and work legally is part of the
integrating labor market that we have with the south of the border.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Mexico needs tough love because the changes that are
necessary in that society aren't going to happen when everybody with
get up and go gets up and goes. I mean, the challenges to the
political elite aren't going to happen, and that's why the elite
likes mass immigration to the United States.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Wouldn't it make sense to do what the European Union
is doing; namely, to amalgamate? They will have a common
constitution, common currency. What about annexing Mexico peacefully
and distributing some states in Mexico? Then there would be perfect
equality between the Mexican and the United States homegrown
American, homegrown now, because it will all be one.
How would that work? Or do you ever -- is that hypothesis -- is that
comical?
MR. SHARRY: I don't think we should declare war on Mexico. I think we
should continue to integrate with them. We have integrating
economies, we have an integrated labor market.
January 21, 2005 Friday
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN'S "ONE ON ONE" GUESTS: FRANCIS SHARRY, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, NATIONAL IMMIGRATION FORUM AND MARK KRIKORIAN, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES
IMMIGRATION AND ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THE U.S.
TAPED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 20, 2005 BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF JANUARY
22-23, 2005
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: "Mi casa es su casa." Now that his second term of
office has begun, one of President Bush's first priorities is to
legalize the status of the 8 (million) to 10 million illegal aliens
now residing in the United States. Republicans in Congress have
warned the president that they are in no mood to give amnesty to
illegal aliens, but Mr. Bush is undaunted. He says that the coming
struggle with Congress is like his first term battle to enact tax
cuts, which he won. Well, can he win on an amnesty bill, whether
announced as such or presented as a guest worker bill? Or will
immigration reform split the Republican Party wide open? We'll ask
immigration experts Frank Sharry and Mark Krikorian.
(Announcements.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Here we go. Let's talk about basics. Welcome, Frank.
Welcome, Mark.
How many illegal immigrants are there in the country today, Frank?
MR. SHARRY: Best estimate's 10 million.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ten million.
What do you think?
MR. KRIKORIAN: About that. It's roughly 10 (million). It's between 8
(million) and 12 million. Nobody's really sure.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We'll use the Urban Institute as a standard, and I
guess it's highly regarded: 9.3 million. Does that sound about right?
MR. SHARRY: Yes, it does.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Right.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How many are believed to have steady jobs?
MR. SHARRY: About 60 percent of illegal aliens are in the labor
market actually working, either on the books or under the table.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How many are dependent -- either in a dependent
status or have part-time jobs?
MR. SHARRY: Well, most of the folks who aren't working -- 6 million
are working -- they're kids or wives who are staying at home.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where to the illegal aliens come from, Mark?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Mexico, overwhelmingly. Between maybe two- thirds,
maybe as much as 70 percent come from Mexico.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I see 5.3 million, or 57 percent.
MR. SHARRY: Sounds right.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Where do the rest come from?
MR. SHARRY: Another 20 percent or so come from other parts of Latin
America, primarily Central America, and then the rest are a very
diverse lot from all over the world.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: China?
MR. SHARRY: Some.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Africa?
MR. SHARRY: Some.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is China increasingly in the hemisphere in an
immigrant -- illegal immigrant status?
MR. SHARRY: Well, there's been a problem of smuggling from China into
the United States for some time, and -- the numbers aren't very big,
but it's a very -- it's a real nasty industry.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Had you observed that Hugo Chavez was in Beijing
recently?
MR. KRIKORIAN: No, that I did not know.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you know that the Chinese are cutting a deal with
regard to oil with him?
MR. SHARRY: I mean, China's moves in Latin America aren't necessarily
related to illegal immigration in Latin America but they might well
be. There's significant numbers of Chinese illegals in Central
America.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: As a digression, do you think the president will show
more attention to Latin America than he did in his first term?
MR. SHARRY: I do. I think he has a real affinity for Latin America. I
think he --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, we heard that before the first term.
MR. SHARRY: Right. But -- and he was making strong progress in that
direction until 9/11, and for obvious reasons he directed his entire
administration's focus on to the post-9/11 response.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: How many are intercepted at the border, illegals?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Million usually a year; a little more than a million.
And then some of them, though, are people intercepted, the same
people several times, and others get by and are never caught.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What's the increase of the interceptions of 2004 over
2003?
MR. SHARRY: I don't know. You tell me.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The Washington Times says 25 percent. I see 20
percent. Does that sound about right, the increase of illegal aliens
crossing the Mexican border?
MR. KRIKORIAN: That would sound right, but the number that are caught
go up and down depending on a lot of factors -- how many agents there
are, are they deployed in different ways? So the number of illegals
that the border patrol catches isn't a perfect barometer of the flow
of illegal immigration.
It gives you a general idea, at best.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a myth or is it true to say that illegal aliens
do not come to the United States during economic downturns?
MR. KRIKORIAN: That's a myth.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: That's a myth?
MR. KRIKORIAN: That's a myth. We've actually done research on this,
and even though a century ago immigration, generally speaking, seemed
to respond to booms and busts in the economy, nowadays it pretty much
seems to continue regardless of economic conditions.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a myth or is it correct to say that illegal
immigration increases whenever we offer amnesties or legalization
programs?
MR. SHARRY: It's a myth. It has to do with basic economic realities
of people who want to work and jobs that are available. It is not
very responsive --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you heard the names --
MR. SHARRY: -- (inaudible) -- policymakers --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you heard the names Simpson-Mazzoli?
MR. SHARRY: I'm familiar with those names, yeah.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you recall the bill that they put together on
immigration?
MR. SHARRY: They did. They passed immigration reform in 1986.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Was there an amnesty involved?
MR. SHARRY: There was a legalization program for almost 3 million
people who were in the country.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What year was that, Mark?
MR. KRIKORIAN: 1986 is when it passed. And then the amnesty was
implemented the next several years, and actually created a boom in
new illegal immigration.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ah! So does that contradict what you just said? That
an amnesty or the equivalent thereof, a legalization process
increases the surge of illegal immigrants?
MR. SHARRY: Because the rooster crows doesn't mean it causes the
morning. The fact is that there's been an ongoing flow of workers to
jobs in the United States that preceded Simpson-Mazzoli and
post-dated Simpson- Mazzoli.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you denying that there was a surge that's
traceable to Simpson-Mazzoli?
MR. SHARRY: I'm not denying that. I'm saying there's an ongoing labor
migration that has to be dealt with, and that's what President Bush
and leaders of the Democrats and the Republicans want to do.
MR. KRIKORIAN: We looked at it, and our estimate was something like
800,000 additional illegal immigrants came in after Simpson- Mazzoli,
as a result, sort of as an echo of the amnesty for the '80s. And the
same thing is going to happen --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What does President Bush want?
MR. SHARRY: What President Bush wants to do and what many Democrats
and Republicans want to do with him is take immigration --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And many do not --
MR. SHARRY: Right. Exactly. Very controversial. But there's a growing
drumbeat of people who say wait a minute, the system's broken, let's
bring immigration out of the black market and out of the shadows and
under the rule of law. That is what he is trying to do. That's the
big idea.
MR. KRIKORIAN: There's two things he wants to do. One is legalize or
amnesty the illegals who are here, as Frank mentioned. The other part
of the president's proposal is the most radical thing anyone has
suggested in our history, is open the entire labor market to any
foreign worker at any wage, as long as any employer is willing to
give them a job. It would inundate the American labor market.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is what Bush is proposing both de facto and de jure
amnesty?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Yes, absolutely. I mean, amnesty is somebody who's
broken the law gets away with it. And what he would be doing is
giving the illegals legal status. That's amnesty pure and simple.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it true that illegal aliens take low-paying jobs,
only take those lower-paying jobs that American workers don't want?
MR. SHARRY: For the most part, of course. I mean, look, the fact is,
John, is that in 1960, half of the American high school students
dropped out and went into the labor force. Now only 10 percent of a
smaller number of Americans drop out. What that means is that there's
a smaller number of Americans for roughly half the jobs in the
economy that are service and agriculture. Who's doing the
housekeeping, the child care, the construction, the landscaping jobs,
the meat-packing, picking the crops? It's immigrants. So we've
created this huge sucking sound for workers to come from south of the
border to fill service and ag jobs -- north of the border -- without
rules that make sense.
MR. KRIKORIAN: But, John, the fact is that because these immigrant
workers were available, since we didn't enforce the law, and had
legal immigration rules that allowed massive immigration, the economy
develops differently. So that agriculture is constructed the way it
is precisely because farmers count on large numbers of low- skilled
workers. If that supply were constricted, the economy would actually
move in a more high-tech, high-productivity direction and away from
sort of the third-world economic characteristics that some sectors of
our economy are showing.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me add to your exposition. The wages paid in many
of the low-income jobs taken by illegal aliens are low for a reason;
employers keep diluting the labor pool by hiring illegal aliens. If
free-market forces were allowed to work and immigration laws were
enforced, these same employers would have to offer more inducements
and Americans would fill the jobs.
MR. KRIKORIAN: They'd be doing two things; that's one of them -- more
money, better benefits, better working conditions. The employers at
the same time, though, would come up with ways of getting rid of the
jobs that shouldn't even exist in a modern economy. So you'd have a
smaller number of people working more productively and making
somewhat more money. That's good for the country.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a fact or a myth that illegal aliens are
disproportionately involved in other crimes in this country in
addition to their violation of immigration laws?
MR. SHARRY: It's not true. There is a lot of so-called illegals in
federal prisons, and they're drug mules who didn't spring up out of
local communities. The rate of crime in immigrant communities is the
same as for native-born communities.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is that your view?
MR. KRIKORIAN: The immigrants are not uniquely predisposed toward
crime. This is one of the straw men that the open borders people seek
to knock down. Immigrants are regular folks like anybody else, but
what happens is immigrant communities end up serving as kind of
incubators and cover for organized crime and for gangs. And so even
though most of the people in these communities have nothing to do
with the criminality, they nonetheless create a host for it. It's
like Mao said, the criminal -- the immigrants are the sea within
which the criminal fish swims.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are you familiar with this statistic? The INS has
deported some 400,000 aliens with significant criminal histories.
MR. SHARRY: Sure, yeah. I -- yeah.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You're familiar with that, too?
In states with large illegal alien populations, such as California
and Texas, more than 30 percent of the current population in prison
is composed of illegal aliens who have committed serious crimes.
MR. SHARRY: Federal prisons it's 25 percent. State prisons it's
roughly 8 percent.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Well, are you prepared, then, to say -- are we
prepared to say that the crime rates for illegal aliens are
dramatically higher than for U.S. citizens?
MR. KRIKORIAN: No. You'd have to control for their education. In
other words, poorly educated or poor Americans probably have similar
crime rates. You know, I'm not going to say, because I don't think
it's true, that immigrants as individuals have uniquely higher rates
of crime. The problem is they create the conditions within which
crime can flourish.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What does that mean?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Insular communities. You know, in the old days the
Italian communities, there was this code of omerta. You do not talk
to the police. That sort of thing.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Correct. Is that fear of engaging the police or
meeting the police or encountering the police have any affect on our
crime statistics of illegal aliens?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Presumably it suppresses the reporting of crime. And
it's not even just illegal aliens; it's immigrants in general because
they are -- because they're foreigners, basically, and they're less
comfortable in society than Americans.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is it a myth or is it accurate to say that illegals
contribute a benefit to the United States?
MR. SHARRY: It's accurate. I mean, look, I mean, you talked about
this zero-sum economy in which, if we didn't have immigrants, wages
would go up and people would live beautiful lives. The fact of the
matter is that we have very few Americans interested in doing the
dirty jobs that need to get done. So when you go to a hotel and you
want your bed made or you go to a building and you want it clean or
you're a professional couple and you want your kids taken care of so
you can make two incomes -- you can say, well, if those immigrants
weren't there, they'd be more efficient somehow, but we'd have slower
economic growth. Immigrants would have fewer opportunities. Employers
would have fewer opportunities. The tax base would suffer, and our
economic growth would suffer. That is the story of American
prosperity.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Did you do a study called "The High Cost of Cheap
Labor: Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget?"
MR. KRIKORIAN: We did indeed.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What was the conclusion of that?
MR. KRIKORIAN: What we found was that if you look at the taxes that
illegal aliens pay to the federal government and the services they
get, the gap is something like $10 billion a year. And if those
illegals get an amnesty, as the president proposes, that gap would
balloon to almost $30 billion a year because even though their wages
would go up a little bit, their use of welfare and other services
would go up even more.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The advocates of illegal immigration say that while
today's migrants start out poor, over time they assimilate socially
and economically and enter the middle class. Opponents say this is no
longer true; the limited educational level of today's illegal
immigrants means we are importing a permanent social and economic
underclass. Which is myth and which is fact?
MR. SHARRY: Fact is, is that the American dream lives on. Michael
Barone, who you know well, has studied this, and he compares
particularly Mexican and other Latin American immigrants to
yesteryear's Italian immigrants. Yes, it took a few generations
before Italians went from the ethnic ghetto to the Ivy League, but
that has happened, and that will happen with Mexican and other Latin
Americans.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Michelle Malkin and her book "Invasion" take an
opposite view.
MR. KRIKORIAN: A variety of people writing on this do. And the fact
is that immigrants do better over time, there's just no question
about it. The problem is that over time they do better at a slower
rate than everybody else, so they have fallen behind the rest of
society instead of catching up. It took the Irish a hundred years to
catch up with the rest of society. It is entirely plausible that the
low-skilled immigrants of today will take even more than a century to
catch up with the rest of society.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: "Give us your tired, your huddled masses, your poor,"
is that a good policy for the United States in an age of global
economic competition?
MR. SHARRY: No.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: It's not?
MR. SHARRY: No. We want strong, determined, hard-working people who
make a contribution. And that's what we're getting. What we don't
have is rules that allow people to come in legally with rights and
with vetting. That's what Bush, that's what McCain, that's what
Kennedy -- that's the big idea that's on the table now is bring
immigration under the rule of law through legal channels so we know
who's here and we know who's coming.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Highly skilled, highly educated workers -- isn't that
what we're looking for?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Well, we're clearly looking for people following the
rules, to begin with. But yes, the fact is that educated or skilled
workers create far fewer of the problems that we are now experiencing
than low-skilled, unskilled workers from other countries.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you think that there should be a far-ranging
discussion of how many people Americans want in this country? Is it
going to be a Switzerland with a relatively high economic social
level? Or should we have a billion people or 750 million or 500
million or 300 million? Should there be a debate on that, an open
dialogue?
MR. SHARRY: The fact is we've already decided. The American people
decide that every day when they decide how many kids to have. And
Americans have smaller families nowadays on their own, without any
hectoring or coercion. And what immigration represents is Congress
telling the American people: You're not having enough kids, so we're
going to bring in some extra people.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Are the offspring of illegal aliens automatically,
under the U.S. Constitution, granted citizenship status?
MR. SHARRY: They are. Those who are born on U.S. soil are considered
U.S. citizens.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So that swells the population of Mexicans --
MR. SHARRY: Well, it --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: -- and other illegals who become legal.
MR. SHARRY: Look, the question -- you know, we can debate numbers.
The question, though, that most Americans want resolved is the
question of orderliness, is the question of legality. Is this country
anti-immigration and anti-immigrant? No, because we're a nation of
immigrants. But we're anti-lawlessness and disorder, and we want
someone to come along -- and American people hunger for a controlled
system that works, rules that are effectively implemented and
effectively enforced. And that's what people are debating.
MR. KRIKORIAN: You can't have a controlled system nowadays with the
level of immigration that we are experiencing.
Our immigration bureaucracy is choking on immigration. It is
incapable of doing its job now in properly screening people and
moving them through the system. The idea that adding 10 million more
people to this system of vetting or screening and checking their
backgrounds is a fantasy. We are going to have massive fraud if we
have an amnesty and bad guys are going to get documents, legalized
criminal --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: (Inaudible) -- considerations of distributive justice
involved in this question?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Sure there are. The question is, what do we owe as
Americans to our fellow countrymen who are poor? And my concern is
that the supporters of mass immigration -- and have told me this
explicitly -- they see no greater obligation on the part of an
American to a poor American as opposed to a poor European or African
or Asian. And I say, sorry, I have a greater obligation to my fellow
countryman who is poor than I do to someone overseas who is also
poor.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you regard that as selfishness on your part?
MR. KRIKORIAN: No, I regard it as what one philosopher called
concentric circles of obligation. I owe my family responsibility --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: First, primarily --
MR. KRIKORIAN: -- and then my countrymen, and then the rest of
humanity.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You accept that in principle, don't you?
MR. SHARRY: Not only in principle in practice. I think that we should
have U.S. immigration policies that protect American borders, protect
American workers, protect immigrant workers and grow the economy. And
that's if we have a fix that allows people to come legally and with
vetting and to contribute -- we'll have that.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We'll be right back.
(Announcements.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Is the coming debate going to be about much more than
how to fix a broken immigration control system and ethnic politics;
that in fact we'll have a far-ranging debate about America's economy,
our middle class standards, our safety from crime and terrorism, and
even our environmental policy? We'll put that question to our guests.
But first, here are their distinguished profiles.
Born, Hartford; 48 years of age. Wife, Rosa; two children. Catholic.
Democrat.
Princeton University, B.A., American History.
U.S. Refugee Program for Refugees in Indonesia, deputy director, one
year.
American Council for Nationalities Service, New York, director of
Refugee Services, six years.
Centro Presente, a local agency that helps Central American refugees
and immigrants in the Boston area; executive director, four years.
Taxpayers Against Proposition 187 -- the aim of that initiative was
to eliminate illegal immigrant eligibility for public education and
other public services -- deputy campaign manager, four months. The
effort to defeat the initiative was itself defeated. The initiative
passed 59 to 41 percent.
National Immigration Forum, executive director, 14 years and
currently.
Hobbies: soccer, swimming, fluent in Spanish.
Francis Peter Sharry Jr.
Born, New Haven; 43 years of age. Wife, Amilee (sp); three children.
Religion: Armenian Apostolic Church. Republican.
Georgetown University, B.A., History and Government. Fletcher School
of Law and Diplomacy, M.A. International Relations. Yerevan State
University Armenia, postgraduate work, Armenian language and
literature.
Federation for American Immigration Reform, Immigration Report,
editor, one year. The Winchester Star, Virginia, editor and staff
writer, four years altogether.
Center for Immigration Studies, executive director, 10 years and
currently.
Hobbies: collecting shot glasses; fluent in Armenian.
Mark Steven (sp) Krikorian.
Where do the shot glasses come from, Armenia?
MR. KRIKORIAN: All over the place. From Siberia, Armenia, everywhere.
I don't even drink that much; I just collect them.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Interesting.
Let's take a look at a poll. Do you approve or disapprove the way
Bush is handling immigration issues? Take a look at the screen there,
Mr. Sharry, and weep: approve, 33 percent; disapprove, 54 percent; no
opinion, 13 percent. Why is it that he is going with an extremely
argumentative piece of legislation he hopes to get into existence on
the guest-worker program, de facto and de jure amnesty? How is he
going to effect this? Is he going to have emissaries up there doing
his work for him?
MR. SHARRY: Most likely what's going to happen is that Bush is going
to promote the big idea of bringing immigration out of the shadows
and under the rule of law; that the likes of Senator John McCain and
Senator John Cornyn, working perhaps with Ted Kennedy, will put
together a bipartisan bill that could come out of the Senate; and
then the real showdown will be in the House, where both parties are
much more divided on whether to move on this now.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So if it goes down, there's no rap against the
president?
MR. SHARRY: Well, I don't think the president would be bringing it up
if he's not serious. I think he was accused of that in the election
here, but --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: I know he's serious, but if this develops into a
wide-ranging discussion of the elements that I mentioned earlier, you
know, this could take a lot of time and ultimately could not pass.
MR. SHARRY: Well, look, the fact is is that President Bush thinks
it's the right thing to do and he's going to promote it, and that is
going to be a very positive thing for moving the cause of bringing
immigration under control forward.
MR. KRIKORIAN: But it's almost certainly going to fail, assuming it
even gets that far. The fact that it's so at odds with what the
American people want and what the Republican majority in the House
wants, it has no chance at passage.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Have you taken note of Frank Sharry's rhetoric?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Of course I have.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: "Bringing this out of the dark and into the
sunlight." What do you think of that?
MR. KRIKORIAN: The interesting point is that it assumes that illegal
immigration -- there's a set amount of immigration and we just need
to legalize it so that it's all out in the open. The fact is --
MR. SHARRY: That's right.
MR. KRIKORIAN: -- that the more immigration you have, the more
immigration you create. Illegal immigration would be supercharged by
an amnesty; it would not be ended.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Were you identified as a Democrat on the screen?
MR. SHARRY: I was.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You were. Do you think that it's Democratic policy to
take the position that you take automatically, or do you think
there's another course of action that Democrats could take?
MR. SHARRY: Oh, sure. Democrats could blow this up and say the
president doesn't want to go far enough and wait.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And ascribe it to what?
MR. SHARRY: We'll -- they'll ascribe it to policy, but it will
probably be political motivated.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ascribe it to big business and George Bush catering
to big business. Does that occur to you?
MR. SHARRY: It does. And the fact is that the employer community does
want to see immigration reform, the labor unions want to see
immigration reform, the Catholic Church wants to see immigration
reform. And guess what, John -- I know this is hard to say in
Washington, D.C. these days -- it actually is the right thing to do
to legalize and regulate immigration so the public can have
confidence we have rules that are being enforced, that employers can
have a reliable source of workers.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: He's not disputing that. I'm not disputing that.
MR. KRIKORIAN: So what Frank's saying is that the political elite --
big business, big labor, big religion -- wants open borders and the
public doesn't want it. This is what the --
MR. SHARRY: Not for open borders; smart borders, Mark. That's the
problem, is that --
MR. KRIKORIAN: This is what the research shows, is that the political
elite of both sides don't care too much about controlling immigration
and tight borders.
MR. SHARRY: We have a control agenda. Unfortunately, your status-quo
agenda perpetuates the illegality of --
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: You know, it's possible the president could be
opening a Pandora's Box here, you know that?
MR. SHARRY: He's beginning a long-overdue debate about how to fix a
broken system.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: And that could be a Pandora's Box.
MR. SHARRY: It's going to be a very positive development because the
American people have to get real about migration and how to control
it.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: We'll be right back.
(Announcements.)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Will the president get his immigration out of
Congress this year?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Not a chance.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Not a chance.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Not a chance.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Frank?
MR. SHARRY: Pass the Senate in '05, pass Congress '06.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Thanks very much for a stimulating discussion of a
subject that is increasingly important and controversial and protean
in its scope.
PBS SEGMENT
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Why is -- or is the guest worker program important to
Mexico?
MR. KRIKORIAN: Mexico -- there's a couple of reasons. One, the
Mexican elite wants to make sure that political discontent is
exported so there's no political challenges to its rule, regardless
of what party's in charge. And the second thing is they want to
export a source of people who are going to send remittances home. And
then let me add a third one, because I forgot, which was to help them
exercise greater influence over American policy. I mean, that's
really what this amounts to.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: They have surplus population, which is defined as
they don't have the economic means to take care of that population.
So there are distinct foreign policy components of this whole matter,
are there not? And also, it is in our interest, is it not, to assist
Mexico in clearing this hurdle? Is that correct?
MR. SHARRY: That's right. The long-range solution is economic
development in Mexico so people don't have to migrate. And that's
probably a 20- to 30-year prospect. In the meantime, for us to have
legal channels for Mexicans to come and work legally is part of the
integrating labor market that we have with the south of the border.
MR. KRIKORIAN: Mexico needs tough love because the changes that are
necessary in that society aren't going to happen when everybody with
get up and go gets up and goes. I mean, the challenges to the
political elite aren't going to happen, and that's why the elite
likes mass immigration to the United States.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Wouldn't it make sense to do what the European Union
is doing; namely, to amalgamate? They will have a common
constitution, common currency. What about annexing Mexico peacefully
and distributing some states in Mexico? Then there would be perfect
equality between the Mexican and the United States homegrown
American, homegrown now, because it will all be one.
How would that work? Or do you ever -- is that hypothesis -- is that
comical?
MR. SHARRY: I don't think we should declare war on Mexico. I think we
should continue to integrate with them. We have integrating
economies, we have an integrated labor market.