In an ideal world, there would be no barriers to immigration, just as there are increasingly few to the free movement of goods and capital. It is intrinsically repugnant, as well as inefficient, that some people can travel freely almost anywhere while others cannot. Migrants are usually enterprising people, who enrich their new countries as well as themselves. That is the philosophy on which the United States, in particular, has been built. "Understand what made America," George Bush reminded the Senate this week, as it considered proposals to reform. or restrict immigration.
In the real world, rich democracies try to manage the flow of immigrants. That is because people, unlike widgets or dollars, bring their own culture and complications with them. The United States, with its long border with Mexico where wages are barely a fifth as high, faces a particular challenge. More than 11m migrants are reckoned to be in the country, illegally, with another 500, 000 entering each year. Four-fifths of them were born in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, reckons the Pew Hispanic Centre.
This flow has become an increasingly charged political issue, and not just along the border. It has set House against Senate and divides both Republicans and Democrats. To his credit, Mr. Bush has long supported rational reform. of immigration law. But in this, he does not command his own party.
Opponents claim that migrants get more back in services than they pay in taxes. Most are unskilled and, it is argued, have depressed wages at the bottom of the pile. Some Americans feel threatened by an "invasion" of Spanish-speakers from next door. Most sensitively of all, since the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001, Americans are alarmed that their territory can be penetrated with relative ease. Such thinking has energised the nativists in the Republican Party, who sense the issue is a vote-winner in the mid-term election.
In December, the House passed the Sensenbrenner bill. This would make illegal immigration a felony, make it a crime for anyone (including their own families) to help illegal migrants, and vote money to build a wall along much of the border. This bill would be not just divisive but even less enforceable than current laws. Its harshness has prompted a reaction, and not just in Mexico. On March 25th, some 500,000 took to the streets of Los Angeles while smaller protests took place in other cities. Note that the demonstrations were bigger than any so far mustered against the war in Iraq.
Opponents of the Sensenbrenner bill include an unlikely alliance of business groups, the Catholic church and Latinos. They make several points. One is that it makes no sense to criminalise hard-working families. Another is that immigrants have helped to make American businesses, farms and factories more competitive by doing jobs that natives are increasingly reluctant to do. The Congressional Budget Office reports that migrants have cut the wages of the shrinking number of native high-school dropouts by anywhere between zero and 10%, but that any fall may not be permanent. Latinos do assimilate, albeit more slowly than some other migrant groups. Lastly, el norte is no soft touch: more than 400 Mexicans died last year trying to cross the border.
Many senior figures in both parties, ranging from John McCain on the right to Ted Kennedy on the left, favour the kind of compromise espoused by Mr. Bush. In the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 27th, they prevailed. By 12 votes to six, they approved a bill that would combine tougher border enforcement with a scheme under which existing illegals could obtain a visa and, eventually, citizenship. A further 4011,000 visas would be issued each year for new arrivals. This is probably about the best compromise that could be reached, although its passage by the full Senate, let alone a conference of both houses, is far from certain.
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