Immigration and the Wall

With President Trump’s recent executive orders on immigration and building a great wall, I need to delay my planned series proposing a path to a rational energy policy for America to offer a few observations on immigration.

My first question, is why do we need a wall when net immigration from Mexico has been hovering around zero for the last several years?  President Trump says that terrorists are coming in from Mexico.  So we build a wall on our border with Mexico, do we really think terrorists will not simply start coming in from Canada?   Then we will need an even bigger wall with our northern neighbor.   Or maybe they will just fly here and land in one of our many airports.  You might not know that almost half of all illegal immigrants arrive by airplanes.  So maybe we need to build walls around our airports.

My point is that the wall is a red herring.  What we lack is a reasonable immigration policy and an effective system for processing immigration.  We have a jumble of laws on immigration some of which are not even enforced.  Our immigration system is not working.  We cannot even track vacationers who simply decide to stay.  Worse, talented people who come here seeking legal immigration and a path to citizenship must navigate an expensive and time consuming system that can take several years and mounds of paperwork. 

So you might ask why we need immigration.  The first and simplest reason is that if it were not for immigration, our country would rapidly enter a long economic and social decline. You can see this happening in Japan for over the past two decades.  The aging population and a strict zero immigration policy in Japan has resulted in negative population growth causing persistent deflation and a declining economy.  Our nation’s economy depends on continually growing consumer demand. Our Social Security and Medicare upon which so many of our seniors depends requires a growing economy.   So economically I can say if our country is not growing we are dying. 

There are many other benefits of immigration to our country.  There are many sources and studies on the benefits of immigration.  Just Google Benefits of Immigration to read many analysis of the pros and cons of immigration.  Sure there are a few downsides but on net, our country benefits from a good rational immigration policy.

Now back to the wall.  If approved, we will spend between $20 and $40 billion dollars and yet more billions every year thereafter maintaining the wall. 

President Trump says that Mexico will pay for the wall yet he has only offered one plan saying we will tax Mexican imports at a 20% rate.  So who will end up paying for the higher prices that will result from such an import tax?  We will.  Our Coronas, our tomatoes, our avocados and all the many things we import from Mexico will cost us 20% more.  Sure, the taxpayers will not be directly paying for the wall but instead all American consumers will be paying for the wall.  I see no viable way to force Mexico to pay for the wall that will not ultimately result in Americans really paying for it.

Here are a few recommendations for a rational immigration policy.  Enforce the law currently on the books that requires companies to verify the legal immigration status of employees.  Develop a guest worker program for seasonal workers so that businesses requiring temporary workers can better plan their worker requirements.  Fix our broken system for tracking legal visitors who choose to stay and become illegal immigrants.  Enact a law forever denying citizenship for anyone who has ever entered the United States illegally.  Enact a law that forever denies a work permit for anyone who has ever entered the United States illegally. 

So contact your Representative and Senators demanding a rational immigration policy and to deny funding for the wall for which we will end up paying.