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« Back to Immigration: Curse or Blessing? (Part Two) main page    Transcript for: Immigration: Curse or Blessing? (Part Two)THINK TANK WITH BEN WATTENBERG#1131 IMMIGRATION PART TWO FEED DATE: October 30, 2003 GEORGE BORJAS & DANIEL GRISWOLD Opening Billboard: Funding for this program is provided by... (Pfizer) At Pfizer, we’re spending over five billion dollars looking for the cures of the future. We have 12,000 scientists and health experts who firmly believe the only thing incurable is our passion. Pfizer, life is our life’s work. Additional funding is provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Hello, I’m Ben Wattenberg... 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...' those words, written by the poet Emma Lazarus, and inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty, declare that America is a nation of immigrants. But as long as we have had immigration, we have had heated debates about immigration policy. Today is no exception. What rights should illegal immigrants have? How many immigrants should America accept? From where? How do we remain a beacon of freedom and protect our national security at the same time? To find out, Think Tank is joined by... George Borjas, Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and author of Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy. And... Dan Griswold, associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies and author of the study Willing Workers: Fixing the Problem of Illegal Mexican Migration to the United States. The Topic Before the House: Immigration, Curse or Blessing, Part Two. WATTENBERG: Uh, George Borjas, uh, Dan Griswold. Welcome back to part two of our uh, conversation about uh, immigration which I must say is one of the most uh, tantalizing and important problems facing our country. One that is linked to this terrorist notion uh, and it’s really big - big-time stuff. The hot button on it now and I don’t wanna spend the whole show on it but is this issue of amnesty. Um, briefly, George what is your view? BORJAS: I’d be very much against it. And for two reasons. One is it would make a mockery of legal immigration policy. Right now as we said before, there are some people who have been waiting twenty-one years to enter the U.S. legally. If you’re in the Philippines through a sibling preference so somehow the sense of fairness in that is really quite uh, quite striking. Somebody can run up to the border today and you know, basically get amnesty where somebody who has been waiting legally for twenty-one years and somehow not get a green card. GRISWOLD: What - what we did in ’87 was we said 'all is forgiven; here’s your green-card'. Now that was an amnesty. I think what we’re talking about today is something different. That would be if somebody’s been here five/ten years, often they have a family, they’re part of their community, they have jobs. To me it’s just recognizing reality. We have this pool of eight million people living in a kinda legal twilight zone. Kind of not even second-class citizenship. Uh, they can’t get wages; they aren’t legally represented in terms of uh, worker rights and that sort of thing. I think we need to recognize reality, find a way of bringing these people out of the shadows. It doesn’t have to be a green card, in fact the legislation being talked about on Capitol Hill is give them a temporary visa uh, fine them - you can fine them fifteen hundred dollars which I think they’d pay but it’s a real fine - uh, make them get in the back of the line in terms of uh, qualifications for permanent citizenship. You know, if somebody’s been here for five years and has a family and is working, I’m not sure why they shouldn’t be given priority over somebody who’s got a brother here. WATTENBERG: But - but - but - but as George says, I mean and -I have a quote somewhere that you know, the first problem with [pause] illegal immigration is that it’s illegal. It’s illegal. It - it’s breaking the law. It’s making a mockery of it. It’s - it’s telling the next group of uh, just as George said, it’s telling the next group, 'well, there’s a way to get in. Get in. However you get in illegally, live in the shadows for four years and then good ol’ Dan Griswold’s gonna bail ya out.' GRISWOLD: But, Ben these people are not criminals. You know... WATTENBERG: Well - GRISWOLD: I know you didn’t say that but... WATTENBERG: They - they have illegal status. They’re not criminals, but - but uh, I - I mean I’m not an - a - a lawyer. I don’t know what’s the definition of - of illegal is, but if - if - if the law says that you could take this person and send him out of the country against his will, that’s pretty close to criminal. I mean, the - the - the - there’s a punitive remedy for - for this situation. GRISWOLD: Yes. I think the alternative’s unacceptable. Are we gonna round up eight million people and deport them at tremendous human cost, tremendous economic cost, large sectors of the - important sectors of the U.S. economy would be devastated if we did this. Are we gonna continue to limp along with the status quo of eight million people living in a legal twilight zone? No, we have to come up with some mechanism to recognize reality, give these people documents. I don’t believe in giving them green-cards, but give them some kind of legal paper. The mistake we made in the ’80s was well, we granted this amnesty we didn’t create any legal channel for people to come here illegally and the bathtub just started filling up again with the illegals. I’m for creating that legal channel. Most Mexicans who come here don’t wanna stay permanently. The historic flow of Mexican migration has been circular. They wanna come here for two, three, four years. Save up and go back home. I think - I think our immigration laws should re - reflect reality. The fifty-five mile per hour speed limit was a failure. We didn’t redouble our efforts to enforce it. BORJAS: So it’s a - we have ’em here. We have to do something about them. So I’m actually very sympathetic to that. What I’m less sympathetic to is that of this amnesty issue or whatever you wanna call it, it’s really amnesty - uh, being granted without any kind of planning as to what will happen the day after the amnesty. WATTENBERG: Yeah, absolutely. BORJAS: And that is where I have problems with the current programs. I agree we have to take care of the people who are already here. We’re not gonna throw them out, but we have got to be very serious at some point over the fact that this is illegal. And you might not wanna call ’em criminal or not, I don’t know - again I’m not a lawyer, but it is illegal. It is punishable by law and they have - or something’s gotta happen at some point. WATTENBERG: Severely punishable. I mean you can - severely punishable. You can pick ’em up and... BORJAS: That’s right. That’s right. So I - I was very much against any kind of amnesty unless something’s - something’s done to take care of the problem for the future. WATTENBERG: Has - has - has any modern democratic country come up with a way to - to keep illegals out? I guess the Japanese have done a pretty good job. BORJAS: There’s actually very - there are things we could do. The - the reason I would disagree with that on one issue - the reason that the ’87 amnesty failed is because there were not penalties really imposed on anybody as a result of breaking that law. I mean, the employers thought it was a complete joke. Then you know, basically [stutter] the way the system works now is that an illegal immigrant will bring a document to the employer, the employer will say, 'Oh, that looks fine to me' and that’s the end of the story. Now... WATTENBERG: It could be forged... BORJAS: Exactly. There’s no - there’s no accountability anywhere in the system and that is what is missing and I believe - believe me, if somehow somebody were held accountable for illegal immigration that problem could be curtailed somewhat...completely obviously, but it’d be curtailed. WATTENBERG: Now that - now that we’ve taken care of amnesty, um, according to U.N. data in the next fifty years the United States will grow by a hundred million people from three hundred million people to four hundred million people. At the same time the Europeans who have much lower fertility rates we - our - our fertility rates are below the two point one children per woman uh, that are required to replace the population over time but it’s still just a little bit below. The European - the all European rate is one point three children which is just unheard of. GRISWOLD: Yeah. WATTENBERG: So, they’re going way down; we’re going way up. We’re going way up because of those million people we’re takin’ in. Not because they have high fertility rates, but just because we’re saying - it’s - it’s a hell of a problem as we’ve all discussed, we don’t quite know what to do with it, but I would make the case that if you believe as I do that sort of America’s - at a party or something say, 'Oh, Dan, what do you do for a living?' And you say, 'Oh, I work at the CATO Institute.' If you transposed that to nations and said, 'Oh, nation. Oh, America, what do you do for a living?' Uh, what we do for a living is promote the idea of uh, social, political and economic um, human liberty. That’s what we’ve been up to.' GRISWOLD: And I - and I think the fact that we’re growing translates into influence in the world and I think we are gonna become relatively more influential in the world than say Europe, or Japan or Russia, and I think we can maintain that without sacrificing our living standards. You know, our population has tripled in the last one hundred years and we’re living much better than we did a hundred years ago. No reason to believe why if we’re a nation of four or five... WATTENBERG: ...within the last hundred years, but anyway it’s gone way up.. BORJAS: I agree with both of you in terms of the impact that - that - that gro - that it has on growth. The fact of the matter is we’re not gonna take the whole world into United States, so we can actually -we can do much better in terms of picking and choosing which million given that there’s such a pent up demand to come to the U.S. So suppose you agree - we are not saying 'we wanna million people into the United States.' Then we can still argue and debate of the question of 'okay which million people do we want.' And that’s where immigration policy can still play a very useful role... WATTENBERG: Right. BORJAS: ...in separating out the kinds of people we want that would benefit the country the most. WATTENBERG: The other argument - I’d like to hear your views about it - is the whole separatist notion uh, of uh, some foundations and some activist. I - I think the numbers rather small but we had it come up in this California uh, de - debate of saying 'well we wanna be - we wanna live here but we wanna stay uh - apart.' I wonder what you think of that. GRISWOLD: Was that the whole assimilation question, I guess? WATTENBERG: Yeah. GRISWOLD: I think assimilation is working today as it did a hundred years ago. You know, the world is turning to English uh, turning to American culture for better or worse. Do we really think teenagers are gonna grow up in America and not become assimilated in that sense? First generation immigrants often struggle with the language; second generation they’re usually fluent, bilingual; third generation forget it. They’re fluent in English and they generally speak only English. One of the stories of Mexicans, you know, one: Mexicans do not dominate immigration even to the extent that the Irish did in the sense of a percentage of the population, you know. And they were - a lotta people thought the Irish were gonna be hard to assimilate and we did. WATTENBERG: It took ’em a hundred years to reach the median age - the median income. But they did. But they did. GRISWOLD: And now we love ’em. We all - we’re all Irish now. The other thing is, uh... WATTENBERG: Kiss me, I’m Jewish. Right, okay. Go ahead. GRISWOLD: Mexicans are dispersing across the country. This is one of the stories. Yes, they congregate in places like Southern California and Southern Florida. And now they’re in - now they’re in Texas, they’re in Nebraska in meatpacking plants. They’re in Decatur, Georgia, in uh, carpet factories. They’re in the textile plants. WATTENBERG: Big in Chicago area. Big in Chicago... GRISWOLD: Big in the Chicago area. They’re spreading out. Places like Iowa. In other places they’re actively recruiting them. They are assimilating. We do not have these isolated linguistic... WATTENBERG: And - and - and - and the Mexicans uh, I mean, if - if I read the California results correctly are uh, are doing pretty good on the upward mobility track. Bet - better - I was gonna say better than the African Americans, but I’m not sure that’s right. But they’re doing pretty well. GRISWOLD: Yeah, there’s some controversy about that, is - isn’t there? There’s some evidence that shows Hispanics aren’t closing the gap as fast as say the Asian immigrant group. WATTENBERG: Yeah, well Asians are the so-called model - model minority and - and as Tom Sullivan’s written I mean, you know, different strokes for different folks. GRISWOLD: There was just a - a study out uh, that showed though, that when you look at not just first and second and third generations but the actual children and grandchildren of Hispanic immigrants uh, they do converge, they do continue. They don’t catch up immediately, but they are making progress. You know, Hispanics, uh their homeowner rates are high and all these other things. BORJAS: You know, that’s actually a very debatable issue right now. There’s been studies on both sides of the - of the - of the findings basically claiming exactly that and others claiming exactly the opposite so the - the truth isn’t quite well known yet I think. We don’t know quite what to think about that. WATTENBERG: I mean I - I - I often ask if - if - it would - against the people uh, of whom George takes a very moderate position but - but of saying we should cut [stutter] Buchanan says we oughtta have a moratorium on - on immigrants as - as if you can visualize a day where Pat Buchanan would say, 'Okay, moratorium’s up. Let’s bring in...' He doesn’t want any. But - but what - what would have happened, just to try to make the argument clean and simple, if instead of 1924 we - we - we cut off immigration or cut it way down - way, way down - we cut it off in 1824? I mean, you would not have had the great historian history. You would not have had this great super-duper power that - that uh, Americanizes. It’s outta the box. We can’t even control it anymore, I mean, it’s - but - but has really - was the first mass democracy in its put - it’s bumpy road we all - we all know that. BORJAS: Can I say something? We don’t know what would have happened. I mean I - we - we really don’t know what would happen. I mean you’re - you’re creating an example of the world which is a kinda faction to the current world. Many other things would have happened and who knows where we’d be today. Let me give you a more recent example of that. Think of - of the high school immigration that we had in the ’60s and ’70s. It is claimed correctly so that a lot of those immigrants ended up in Silicon Valley. And many people actually claim that Silicon Valley was you know, pulled up by this very high school immigration flow that - of very skilled people who came to the United States. And counterfactually is what would have happened if we wouldn’t have had the immigration the last thirty/forty years. WATTENBERG: Right. BORJAS: Silicon Valley. Well, I don’t know. I mean that’s a very hard question to answer. I mean, it’s not clear to me that you know, something I can tell wouldn’t still be there despite coming to the U.S. I mean the demand for - for these is around and then they will have may well have happened in any case. WATTENBERG: And of course Schwarzenegger’s an immigrant. BORJAS: That’s right. So these are very tricky. We can’t play the game both ways very easily. WATTENBERG: Oh, yeah. Well that’s why we have shows like this to play the game. BORJAS: So that’s why - that’s why I agree with you, you have a point but on the other hand many other things could have happened. I mean the fact of the matter is that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written without that immigration so the path was there. WATTENBERG: I - I used the example before of the guy who lives beneath the Pakistani and uh, he’s thrown out all his spicy stuff and thrown it out the window and I’m - I’m - that’s not an anti-Pakistani remark, but just as - as an example and you add on to that the fact that these people’s children have moved to the suburbs and they are seventy-five years old and they’re kinda stuck. Um, what do you say? BORJAS: I mean - it - it’s a hard situation and the - the problem with I mean the general issues is the one that we mentioned earlier which is that immigration for the country as a whole, not everybody gains from it. There are clearly people who win and people who lose. Now the person you just spoke about is somebody in the losing end of the situation. I mean, they are basically stuck in the neighborhood that - would be just, which people do a lot actually is that they pick up and move. A good example of that in California, for the first time in California’s history basically there is now a losing population at a pretty high rate. The - the fraction of natives - of native population... WATTENBERG: It - it - it’s losing... BORJAS: It is losing proportionately...migration of natives. WATTENBERG: Of natives, but - but BORJAS: ... to other states. WATTENBERG: But if you count uh, the uh, immigrants it’s still plus. BORJAS: People who can move and are mobile will take advantage of the mobility they have. People who cannot are gonna be people who...losing of immigration situation. GRISWOLD: Part of it is the reality of American life. We’re a very mobile people, you know when a lot of Blacks moved north after the World War II and that changed neighborhoods, but you know for every neighborhood that has problems from immigration there are many other neighborhoods that are being revitalized... WATTENBERG: Oh, absolutely. GRISWOLD: ... and transformed. You go to places ... WATTENBERG: It saved New York City. GRISWOLD: I’ve heard that. It saved New York City. They are very - some of the most vital and vibrant parts of Los Angeles are where immigrants are, so they are saving many U.S.... WATTENBERG: Shouldn’t we be giving more services to illegal immigration? Again, in this California election there’s this big argument about whether we should give drivers licenses - not give but, well I guess you’d still have to pass a drivers test, but that you - to known illegals an - and uh, about seventy percent of Californians were against it but there a lot of people who were for it uhh, including Cruz Bustamonte who was the uh, Lieutenant Governor - Lieutenant Governor and - and - and I guess Governor Grey Davis as well was for it. BORJAS: Governor Davis had vetoed twice before. GRISWOLD: You know if I think by services if you’re talking about welfare and income support I think there’s a good argument for making it more difficult for immigrants to qualify for welfare. Uh, nothing bothers Americans more than the idea of people coming here and then becoming wards of the state and a - and a drain to taxpayers. In the 1996 Welfare Reform Bill while it had a lot in there about natives getting welfare, had a whole title on making it more difficult for immigrants to get welfare and I think that was probably the right thing to do. It’s good for immigrants; they have - avoid the welfare trap. But when you’re talking about services quote like a driver’s license, to me uh, giving drivers license to illegals is improving a bad situation. I think the - the right approach is to create a channel where... WATTENBERG: Providing they know how to drive. GRISWOLD: Right. WATTENBERG: Yeah, I mean they still have to take a drivers test. GRISWOLD: You know there are over two million illegals in California. Do you want them driving without licenses? Are we going to round up all two point... WATTENBERG: But - but that’s sort of defacto amnesty, isn’t it? You’re giving ’em a U.S. piece of paper that says you’re - you’re - here you are. GRISWOLD: Well I think so, too. But I’d rather have them have documents than not. BORJAS: The ’96 Welfare Reform specifically targeted immigrants, but it’s also the case that the welfare reform legislation number one outlaws any illegal immigrant from receiving assistance in general. So in fact, it’s illegal for illegal immigrants to receive most types of assistance. WATTENBERG: It’s legal. BORJAS: It’s illegal. WATTENBERG: It is illegal. BORJAS: ... to receive it. The one exception would be uh, emergency room care. Uh, but the problem with the legislation was that it also gave states the option to provide state-funded assistance to immigrants so many that immigrants, states like California for example - the minute that the federal government cut off the - the - the federal assistance, the states themselves passed legislation as you know that’d reinstate all that again. So we now went back in terms of welfare use by immigrants to where we were back in ’95. So the legislation really had very little impact in the end. Now in terms of illegal immigrants, the problem with sort of saying we don’t wanna give assistance to illegal immigrants is that many of these immigrants have children in the U.S. The children are U.S. born and are U.S. citizens. So they don’t qualify for the you know, say the old programs for example in the welfare benefits, the fact is that children do qualify. I mean within a family all this stuff is fungible so basically we really have very little way out in terms of preventing a lot of these systems going to the families of illegal immigrants. WATTENBERG: All right, listen um, gentlemen, thank you very much. I’m gonna give you a golden opportunity, but it’s gotta - it’s a short opportunity which is this. If - if - if and granted this is a very important and very complex uh, uh, issue...immigration is, but uh, starting with you George, uh, if you had your druthers and you were the President, the Congress, the court... BORJAS: It’d be a scary world. WATTENBERG: It’d be a scary world, particularly to you, but you could make policy uh, what would you do? BORJAS: I think we should not lose sight of the fact that immigration policy if correctly formulated can be very - very beneficial to the U.S. So I would not be one of those people who’d say let’s close the door and let’s forget about immigration all together. I would say let’s have immigrants, let’s pick ’em a little more rationally than we do today. Be particular, pick - let’s pick the kinds of immigrants who happen to benefit the population of the United States of America most and I think a lot of the other evidence will tend to indicate that we will want some kind of skill filter on - on the kinds of immigrants that we accept. We have very - very little skill filter right now because most of it is family connected. So...family system, I would actually add uh, some kind of skill requirements for immigrants to come sort of the way that Canada and Australia and New Zealand and mo - you know many other countries that receive immigrants... WATTENBERG: Of course there’s - there’s a real irony about that that the people going to Canada through that skill filter and then voluntarily move to the United States. BORJAS: That is correct. Which is not - not bad for us actually. WATTENBERG: No, it’s great, it’s terrific. BORJAS: So I would say, I would add a few skill filters and I think that one million people a year is just too much for the labor market to handle without really uh, very strong affects on - on the wage structure and how much people get paid. So I would argue something on the order of maybe half a million people a year. WATTENBERG: Cut. I got fifty million. Fifty percent BORJAS: ... Half a million a year the number we had back in 1980/1985 or so. It’s not that, you know, it’s not that far back into history. WATTENBERG: Right. BORJAS: Uh, but I would put skill filter. I wouldn’t say let’s forget about the family because clearly people don’t migrate on their own. People come with families. So we have to recognize in the policy that families are an important component to the migration. But I would add to the family system that we have some kind of skill requirements. WATTENBERG: Okay. Dan. GRISWOLD: I would bring our immigration law more into conformity with the realities of American life. Uh, yes I would open up some more opportunities for high-skilled workers to come in in the technology sector and elsewhere but I would create a legal channel for low-skilled workers to come into this country...most of them want to come in temporarily, but that’s why we have this illegal immigration problem. There’s a fundamental mismatch between our - our immigration laws are colliding with reality and reality is winning and I would make the immigration laws more reflect reality that there’s a continuing demand for low-skilled workers. The pool of Americans happy with taking those jobs continues to shrink immeasurably. WATTENBERG: Do - do - do you wanna cut im - ? George wants to cut immigration by fifty percent. Do you wanna do that? GRISWOLD: No, I think that would be a huge - huge mistake. Uh, I would though, shift the emphasis perhaps more to employment... WATTENBERG: Yeah, I wanna - I wanna increase it by fifty percent, so... GRISWOLD: You know, I think you could probably this day and age get rid of the uh, uh- the parental and the sibling family connections. You can fly around on jets and - and call long distance, but I would create a - a legal channel for low-skilled workers to come into the country and fill these hundreds of thousands of net jobs that are being created each year that frankly Americans don’t want to take. That would overnight, take care of the illegal immigration problem. It would bring millions of people out of a legal twilight zone and it would give us a more prosperous, free and just society. BORJAS: What would be the magic number? GRISWOLD: Uh, I think we’re having no problems assimilating one million people a year. I - I think maybe if it went up to one point three or one point five million a year I wouldn’t have any problem with that. I’d like it to be legal though and not have a third or a quarter of them coming in illegally. WATTENBERG: Okay. Um, I would just wanna close by saying that somehow with all this uh, and massive immigration we have created the greatest country in the world. I just think that in this - in this context that is something very important to say. Uh, George Borjas, Dan Griswold thank you very much for joining us on Think Tank and thank you. Please remember to send us your comments via email. Uh, we think it helps make our show a better program. For Think Tank, I’m Ben Wattenberg. Announcer: We at Think Tank depend on your views to make our show better, please send your questions and comments to New River Media, 1219 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036 or email us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Yank, visit us online at pbs.org and please let us know where you watch Think Tank. Funding for this program is provided by... (Pfizer) At Pfizer, we’re spending over five billion dollars looking for the cures of the future. We have 12,000 scientists and health experts who firmly believe the only thing incurable is our passion. Pfizer, life is our life’s work. Additional funding is provided by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Back to top  Think Tank is made possible by generous support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, the Donner Canadian Foundation, the Dodge Jones Foundation, and Pfizer, Inc. ©Copyright Think Tank. All rights reserved. 
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