As reported by many news organizations yesterday, Congress appears ready to “discourage” driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. The LA Times reports:
Congressional negotiators agreed Monday to measures that would discourage states from issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, tighten asylum requirements and complete the border fence between California and Mexico, sources involved in the talks said.
The agreement by House and Senate negotiators made it all but certain that the measures would become law.
Under the legislation, driver’s license applicants would have to take more information with them to motor vehicle offices. They would be asked to show birth certificates, a photo identification, proof of their Social Security number and a document with full name and home address. It was unclear how the legislation would affect renewal of licenses for citizens and legal residents.
The negotiators also agreed to a provision that supporters said would keep terrorists from using asylum laws to gain entry to the United States. The revisions would require asylum seekers to offer more proof that they were fleeing persecution and would limit their right to judicial review if their petition were rejected by immigration officials.
This is an unmitigated disaster. Yes, I know that being an illegal immigrant is breaking the law, but this horrible piece of legislation is NOT the right way to deal with it. South Asian cabbies (many of whom might be illegal) are now going to be breaking the law by driving without a license in an attempt to put food on their family’s table. What’s more is that legal residents are undoubtedly going to have to pay higher car insurance rates. ALL illegal immigrants that require a driver’s license for work (and there are a countless number) are now going to drive without one rather than risk going to the DMV and getting deported (or thrown in jail indefinitely as material witnesses). That’s a hell of a lot of uninsured drivers on the road.
…this agreement was of little solace to opponents of the immigration-related measures, such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Tim Sparapani, the group’s legislative counsel, predicted that Americans would be shocked by the breadth of the driver’s license proposal that takes effect three years after the bill’s passage.
The legislation says that “beginning three years after the date of the enactment of this act, a federal agency may not accept, for any official purpose, a driver’s license or identification card issued by a state to any person unless the state is meeting the requirementsÂ…. ”
Sparapani said that “citizens of states that haven’t made the changes won’t be able to board a flight, take a train, enter a federal courthouse or even go to a Social Security building” if they use their state-issued driver’s license as identification.
You got that? If you live in California, where this kind of an abomination would be hard to pass, your state would be in violation of a federal law and you wouldn’t be able to board a plane. The Baltimore Sun opines:
Extremists in the House, such as F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, may think they’re making the country safer, but the effect of these unworkable and rigid standards could be quite the opposite. Certainly, it would harm undocumented immigrants and the communities where they live. It’s an immigrant-haters’ vision of immigration policy – make it impossible for the undocumented to hold a job, rent or own a car, or open a bank account. It wouldn’t send these millions of people away, of course. It would just make life harsher for them – and ensure their poverty.
Damn straight.
Instapundit blogged about this.
The big diff b/t Instapundit (who objects to this on constitutional / federalist grounds) and Abhi is that Instapundit VERY clearly believes that the lives of illegal aliens should be inconvenienced in ways Abhi does NOT. (yes, including banking, licenses, property, etc. etc.)
You know Vinod, my mom called me last night and she said she hurt her finger really bad. I asked “what happened mom?”
“There was this big cockroach that got into the house and I swatted at it really hard with the fly swatter and I missed.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You banged your hand into something while making the swatting motion?”
True story.
If you’ll permit me, this is the typical short-sighted attitude of conservatives such as yourself. In all aspects you think let’s punish ’em first. I prefer to look downstream at the subsequent causes and effects.
What upper-middle class Vinod likes to term an “inconvenience,” to the child of an illegal immigrant means something more. What if you buy a house soon with a nice lawn that needs mowing? You tend to work long hours though and hire a gardener to mow the lawn. Sorry Vinod, he can’t drive to your house without risking deportation. You can’t find a white driver because he doesn’t want the job. What if you are an investment banker in NYC who wants to get home to his wife at a penthouse on the upper west side? Sorry, you’ll have to wait extra-long for that cab cause all the drivers have disappeared. Now all of a sudden you’ll start writing your congressman/woman to tell them you no longer like the idea. Which attitude is worse, mine or the conservative one?
Then there is the fiscal conservative in me. I do NOT want to pay a cent more in car insurance. I already pay way too much. I also don’t want my state being forced to conform to idiotic laws. That’s the federalist in me. Its easy to peg me by citing my supposed “liberal” belief that illegal immigration isn’t wrong. That way you don’t have to argue against sound logic but only a political ideology.
This isn’t about illegal aliens being “inconvenienced.” It’s about thinking about the long term impacts of a policy before passing legislation. This law will not make illegal immigrants stay away from the U.S. It will just make their lives hell and raise car and medical insurance for all the rest.
There is another aspect to this ridiculous bill – for the first time since the civil war – habeas corpus is being suspended – in this case it actually is being done away with if this bill passes. The government claims this is to combat habeas petitions by immigrants contesting deportations who according to them have other remedies. Whether true or not, habeas is a fundamental right to liberty that is being abrogated by zealots starting with James Sensenbrenner – house judiciary chairman
ThatÂ’s a hell of a lot of uninsured drivers on the road.
So deport them. 15 of the 19 were illegal aliens. People should not be coming into this country illegally. We deport 400000 per year. Let’s double that, and double that again, till people get the message: wait in line, like legal immigrants did.
Illegal aliens are not all fun and games after all. Terrorists, drug dealers, Mara Salvatrucha, and lots of other undesirables are illegal aliens. Elitist liberals like illegal aliens because they can feel all holy about being anti-racist while having slaves as maids. Plutocrat Republicans like illegal aliens because they can drive worker wages down to the bone and shove all the health care costs onto the taxpayer.
But the middle class does not like illegal aliens, and their voice is being heard now. Deport ’em. Do it for a few, and the rest will deport themselves.
And no, the “economic consequences” won’t be a big deal. Lawns still get mowed in North Dakota. Low pay for unskilled labor is the market’s way of saying that the labor isn’t worth that much and can easily be replaced. And in any case, illegal aliens cost more in tax dollars than they benefit us. Why do you think California is in the red?
Who cares if desi cab drivers have to wait in line like desi engineers and physicists do. Send ’em home and make them wait their turn.
Which attitude is worse, mine or the conservative one?
Yours, because you stop automation from happening by employing low wage slave labor. Japan has robots to do the jobs we use illegal aliens to do.
Why do you think the South was economically retarded for so many years? Because they used slave labor rather than using machines. The US can use technology to replace unskilled labor as Japan has done.
If you are then you should be concerned about illegal aliens’ enormous impact on your taxes. If you are open to reason much information can be shown about this topic. Or you can use common sense. Is a man making $10000 per year off the books going to afford public education costs at $7000 per year per child when he has three kids? No, he is not. How exactly is it fiscally conservative to welcome millions of people like this who require more in government expenditure than they pay in taxes? It is not.
“If you are”
Sorry, it should be “if you are a fiscal conservative as you say”
Abhi – why get so personal? And you’re jumping to a LOT of conclusions about me and “Conservatives” alike. But, I suppose it’s a prima facie fact to you that conservatives (“like yourself“) are “short sighted” and don’t “look downstream” in our haste to “punish ’em first“. whew.
But, I suppose you’ve already dismissed my bourgeois sensibilities formed by my “upper middle class” upbringing. And I’ve been around enough academic “liberals” over the years to recognize that pointing anything out as “middle class” – and particularly “upper middle class” – is a high insult wrapped in silk; it’s often shorthand for ill-informed. Something which “in all aspects” leads to bad policy.
It’s just really lame that you’ve attempted to kill a conversation on so many levels before it even started. I didn’t even post about any substantive policy issues in my 2 line comment – I was simply highlighting the diff between your post and Instapundits!
FWIW, I support things like Guest Worker programs on most of the grounds you cite – we won’t be able to eliminate the illegals that are here and I’d be scared of a govt that could actually deport some 10M people. Believe it or not, I understand / appreciate the humanitarian issues (take it from someone who grew up in TX and now lives in CA and lives 2 blocks down from the Mexican Consulate in SF — every morning you see hordes of illegal aliens in line for their “Consular ID cards” – they are people too).
BUT, I also happen to think that there are substantive, legal differences at the end of the day between being a “legal citizen” and an “illegal alien” — and I’m far from the La Raza et. al. position that the difference between the 2 should merely be a fuzzy, abstract one. Given that we live in a complex society of laws, legal differences DO, at the end of the day, lead to some pretty substantial lifestyle / social impacts.
Vinod, You know I always get personal with you for dramatic effect. The blog readers like it. You are the Tucker Carlson to my James Carville. Remember the days we used to spar on each others blogs. Take it as a compliment for that’s how it was intended. I’m being serious. The ratings are going to go through the roof. 🙂
I’m still annoyed 😉
when I look at stuff like this from proud badge-holding liberals describing any sort of clampdown on illegal alien rights –
I think about how easy it is to flip the argument. 300 years of economic inquiry – Nobel Prizes, fall of Communism/Socialism, rise of Capitalist India/China and all – have proven one thing – incentives matter.
It’s would be so easy for me to spew out at liberals like Abhi that their bleeding heart desire to give practically all the benefits of citizenship (lest any illegal alien feel like they’re being “punished”) is perhaps the single biggest incentive you can create to more illegal aliens downstream.
Simply put, it’s “short sighted” and blind to “subsequent causes and effects” to NOT worry about the systemic incentives being created / perpetuated.
BUT, I don’t like making that argument because, well, it just comes across as so cheap.
Now back to the argument at hand. I don’t see where the disagreement on policy between us lies? I am simply throwing my hands in the air and declaring that I don’t yet know of a good method of deterence. I DO know that this CAN’T be it. We could simply wait until globalization takes effect and other countries are as appealing as the U.S. to sneak in to. Isn’t that what would happen if globalization suceeds?What’s wrong with that?
incentives matter
Yes but where is the incentive of which you speak? In my mind the incentive to go elsewhere will eventually be created if “your” capitalism suceeds. Isn’t this showing a lack of faith in the free-market?
If my capitalism succeeds? What an odd statement. Depending on what you mean by that, it’s certainly succeeded beyond the wildest hopes / nightmares of its competitors.
“My” capitalism is predicated on equal application of core, basic laws across competing parties… for ex.
min wage – if my legal / above ground maid service has to pay min wage, I shouldn’t have to compete against maid services that hire nothing but illegals and pay ’em under the covers. I was in Kansas City on a biz trip recently – guess what, all the hotel maids were white Americans. They’ll do the job if required.
SocSec – I have to pay into SocSec for my doc’d workers. I don’t have to pay for my un-doc’d ones. That’s a 6% of payroll cost.
hiring process – it sucks to wait 8+months to import an H1B — a highly skilled and thus desirable worker — while hiring an illegal alien for a no-skill job is just a matter of pulling up your pickup truck to certain street corners in SF. There’s some evidence, for ex., that black unemployment is particularly exacerbated b/c you have documented low-skilled workers competing against undoc’d low-skilled workers.
health insurance – tax law is constructed so that above ground employers are generally expected to provide health insurance… if I’m competing against a firm hiring illegals, they’ve got another 10-20% cost advantage on me from the outset. (NO, the answer isn’t to require health insurance for illegal aliens – that will simply drive the firms DEEPER into the black market…. it’s not uncommon in Cali, for ex., to be quoted a low “cash” and higher “non-cash” price to have your car serviced or home cleaned. This is basically the diff b/t “illegal alien” and “citizen” worker cost to the biz. Not to mention that there’s no sales tax on the “cash” cost — wouldn’t want to alert the IRS to this little pocket of biz activity!)
etc.
Now don’t get me wrong, if we could eliminate all these entitlements / labor laws then there wouldn’t be a stark diff – from a “narrow” labor perspective b/t illegal aliens and citizens and these issues might go away. But I think many would consider this focusing on the wrong variable….
And all that is before you get into the other, longer term costs like crime, cost of other govt services –
the political cost of importing a brand new underclass, having a fast growing portion of the citizenry not entirely covered by the law, etc. etc. etc.
For the alien, the incentive system is simple – anything that makes it more comfortable to run for the border – relative to the costs / risks of being caught – mean you’ll see more of ’em here.
“Your” capitalism means that since I must be a liberal socialist it can’t possibly mean that you and I share anywhere close to the same economic beliefs, right?
– min wage – if my legal / above ground maid service has to pay min wage, I shouldn’t have to compete against maid services that hire nothing but illegals and pay ’em under the covers. I was in Kansas City on a biz trip recently – guess what, all the hotel maids were white Americans. They’ll do the job if required.
Guess what? Not all people stay in Kansas hotels. Do you think if you took a business trip to southern California you’d see the same thing? Do you think there would be as many white maids to do the job? If you can show me that the hotel lobby supports this legislation, I will kindly bow to your wisdom.
SocSec – I have to pay into SocSec for my doc’d workers. I don’t have to pay for my un-doc’d ones. That’s a 6% of payroll cost.
Don’t many undocumented workers also pay into social security? Do you honestly think this 6% will offset the negative economic impact of immediately revoking everyone’s driving priveleges?
hiring process – it sucks to wait 8+months to import an H1B — a highly skilled and thus desirable worker — while hiring an illegal alien for a no-skill job is just a matter of pulling up your pickup truck to certain street corners in SF. There’s some evidence, for ex., that black unemployment is particularly exacerbated b/c you have documented low-skilled workers competing against undoc’d low-skilled workers.
Why does it suck? The highly skilled worker and the low skill workrer do totally different jobs. In the sentence above you imply that they are competing with each other. Show me your evidence that black employment is “particularly exacerbated.”
The rest of your argument is once again irrelevant to this post. Again, I do not disagree that we NEED a deterence. I simply argue that taking away driving priveleges hurts US and THEM and nobody benefits. You keep feeding me data that dodges this argument. If you agree with me then why the back and forth?
Also you still haven’t explained to me why waiting for the free market to do its thing is not a good idea.
These arguments basically boil down to whether you think someone who stayed here or came here in violation of U.S. statutes ought to be treated decently or not. All the hullabaloo about future effects are just smoke and mirrors, because what we’re dealing with are people who were working in a preexisting system that policymakers are trying to change the rules for ex post facto. The only anti-immigrant folks I empathize with are working class citizens (even if I don’t agree with them), and that’s because the fact that their views on immigration don’t ever matter is symptomatic of an overall lack of democracy in this country.
Discussions about future effects of particularly immigration policies don’t make any sense (intellectually, not politically) unless you consider the whole context in which immigration plays out–which is properly global. If you want incentives to cut down on undocumented migration (to the United States and other countries) you need to cut down on inequality among nations; depriving people of drivers licenses is one of those quick fixes (like locking people away forever for crimes that don’t deserve that punishment) that politicians use to make it look like they’re doing something without addressing the root causes–which are broad and social in nature.
btw, i always find it ironic that “libertarian” supporters of global free trade capitalism would oppose the free movement of labor despite doing everything they can to encourage the free movement of capital. It kind of smacks of the hypocritical and opportunistic logic underlying the whole economic system and those who support it ideologically.
sheesh. my point isn’t that we should all do biz in kansas. My point is that kansas’s hotel biz manages to get by without illegal aliens – in other words, if you don’t have illegals, the labor force – like any dynamic market – will adjust and you’ll find other folks willing to take the job (and/or tech to automate the job away altogether). it’s a response to the classic arg that “there are jobs American’s won’t do”.
Now, I’m sure that (many of the short sighted member of) the hotel lobby want illegal aliens! That way they can pay all maids less.
UH, the status quo does NOT allow illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses (in CA at least). This bill would ensure that this is the case nationally. they currently do NOT have the privilege. Where’s the data that roads would be much safer if they did have it?
Would these guys all suddenly turn around and pay insurance premiums?
No, I’m arguing the absurdity of the current system — life (in some odd ways) is easier if you’re an illegal alien than an H1B. And America should be trying to grab more of the latter while restricting the former as much as possible.
It’s simple – remove employer provided entitlements, etc. – then yes, I agree, it’s easier to allow labor move freely (that’s what I meant when I said “from a “narrow” labor perspective b/t illegal aliens and citizens and these issues might go away”)
But as long as there are things that I’m mandated to do with a doc’d worker that I don’t have to with an alien, then “free labor flow” is simply a recipe for black market labor… (and, of course, I’m assuming that all other factors like crime rates, delinquency, etc. are equal… which they aren’t)
How do I say this clearly – “Citizenship is NOT a Free Market”.
The whole point of “inviolable” rights is that they aren’t subject to market forces, tradeable, etc. (“violable” = something which can be disposed of at will).
Abhi — in the absence of illegal labor, we would still have cabbies and gardners, housecleaners and nannies, we would just have to pay more for them. the whole concept of “jobs Americans don’t want” is bullshit. the point is that illegal labor (and the attendant cost savings vinod points out) keep wages for those types of unskilled jobs down. the real hypocrisy is that Bush and his corporate sponsors don’t care about illegals or the American poor, they just want cheap labor for themselves and their rich friends. Its the poorest of Americans who suffer under this system and, as Saurav points out, have no voice in immigration policy. Although given that the idiots voted for Bush, I can’t say I have that much sympathy for red state america. but, at the end of the day, enforcing a strict border policy would mean that legal immigrants and citizens would do those jobs — it would just mean paying $4 for your hamburger at McDonald’s. if you support stricter controls (as i do), you do have to be willing to pay the price (which most Americans are not).
saurav, the idea that illegal immigrants somehow have a “right” to not have the rules changed on them “ex post facto” is misplaced. i share your sympathy for these folks and certainly believe that they deserve the full dignity and rights afforded to any human being. but the idea that the U.S. cannot change its immigration policies because illegals have somehow detrimentally relied on them is just unsupportable. even legal immigrants have very few rights in terms of changed immigration policy — i.e., we’ve decided not to renew your visa, get out. you simply don’t have a human right to break the law and then claim that the benefits of your having broken the law are being taken away from you — you were never entitled to those benefits in the first place. not that this isn’t a legalistic argument about what “ex post facto” means or anything, its just an argument that you need to have some legitimate entitlement to something before you can claim that its deprivation somehow harms you in a way that we should care about.
damn.. “not that this isn’t a legalistic argument” = “notE that this isn’t a legalistic argument”
The most forceful opponents of immigration are people who dont want to “water down” the WASP nature of the US. Lou Dobbs on his daily rants never fails to mention that “this is not about race” … you know when someone says its not about XX its about XX !!!! :-)) On a different topic, the new target for Lou Dobbs is NGOs … He will rant about how NGOs are so powerful … Death of irony over and over on CNN
Nik, I’m not arguing that the U.S. government cannot change its immigration laws; I’m arguing that the way it’s doing so is unfair and inhumane; it shouldn’t do it this way and we shouldn’t let it. Presumably, even if I didn’t have a “legitimate entitlement” to water, food, safety, shelter, the right to think what I wanted, etc., you would still care if I were being deprived of these things. It’s the same thing with undocumnented people who are already here (many of whom, let’s not forget, have children, etc.).
I know that you qualified your statement, but even so, it’s really misrepresentative. It’s similar to the argument that torture victims and certain other really abused people abroad have an easier time with U.S. immigration because they can get asylum or refugee or convention against torture status. H1B workers have a hard time, but being an undocumented worker can lead to things like:
1) constant fear that you can be deported 2) permanent separation from your partner or children 3) extreme work exploitation (this happens to h1b also, but on a very different payscale) 4) lack of the ability to exercise basic practical rights like freedom of speech, freedom to speak your mind 5) public safety issues, like calling the police, calling the fire department, etc.
It’s not even a comparison, and I’m sure that’s not a complete list. I know a woman whose husband was in jail on immigration charges while her father was in proceedings and she gave birth alone in the hospital. You need to meet some folks like this before you really understand the lives of undocumented people. After all the policy arguments, there are really people who are being affected by this.
At the same time, the rights of documented immigrants are being eroded too–particularly people who commit crimes. You should visit http://www.familiesforfreedom.org for better information.