Why Conservatives Should Support Liberal Immigration Policies

How conservative ideology on guns, labor markets, regulations, and abortion make the case for an open, less restrictive immigration system.

I’m not conservative. However, I agree with conservatives on many issues — much to the chagrin of many of my left-leaning friends.

But there is one issue that I always find myself on the opposite side of conservatives. This specific issue places me on one side of an ideological chasm, conservatives on the other. Often times, it seems like the only thing that each side can do is shout across the divide, because meeting in the middle is slightly complicated.

That issue is immigration.

Unlike my friends on the right, I believe that, as a nation of immigrants, the United States has a historical commitment to the free migration of peaceful people, who are seeking a better way of life. Furthermore, I believe that the policies and infrastructure of the U.S. immigration system demand radical reforms.

This is about the time that my rightward friends offer the same standard-issue retort. They usually add an important modifier to clarify their position.

“We are not opposed to immigration,” conservatives say. “We are opposed to illegal immigration.”

Again, I find myself in agreement with conservative compatriots. But I always up the ante.

“Illegal immigration concerns me too,” I respond. “That’s why I think that we need to legalize more of it.”

The conversation very rarely goes well from that point.

My end-goal typically triggers an emotional response. At this very moment, all of the usual politicized pejoratives — “open borders libtard who wants amnesty for criminals!” — are probably starting to accumulate in the comments section of this very post.

What I hope to do is play devil’s advocate with ideological allies — folks with whom I agree with on a number of other issues for very similar reasons.

And to do this, I am going to break from tradition. I am going to do something that my friends on the left fail to do on a regular basis. Rather than yelling “racist” or “xenophobe,” I am going to make the case for reforming our immigration system by using logic that conservatives should be able to get behind.

So hear me out, my red-hatted #MAGA friends: When compared other issues traditionally championed by conservatives and Republicans, my stance on immigration is more congruent with your principles that you might think.

What do assault weapons bans and border walls have in common?

It is widely accepted within conservative circles that gun control laws only disarm law-abiding citizens.

I agree.

And, as the age-old NRA axiom posits, if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. More specifically, criminals don’t voluntarily surrender their bump-stock-modified AR-15s when a new ban is voted into law, because criminals are not deterred by gun control laws.

Again, I agree.

So if the criminally violent ignore the law, what good would further immigration restrictions do to solve a problem like MS-13? Or how about Cristhian Bahena Rivera who brutally murdered Molli Tibbetts?

According to the numbers, it is not entirely clear how increased restrictions would divert the depravity of such criminals. Currently, Texas is the only state that gathers data on individual crimes committed by individuals based on their immigration status. In 2016, native-born criminals were almost twice as likely to commit homicide in comparison to criminals who illegally immigrated into the country.

Though tragic, the Mollie Tibbett story being used as an argument for increased immigration restrictions is anecdotal at best, apocryphal at worst.

Besides, aren’t conservatives the first to protest against the politicization of tragedies — especially when such events serve as an argument in favor of further gun control?

“How dare you use the death of innocent victims to push your political agenda,” conservatives traditionally proclaim in response to calls for increased gun control after every mass shooting.

I tend to agree with conservatives on this point. Civil conversations on policy should focus on evidence and research, as well as avoid sensationalism and emotionalism. And that is why most attempts by conservatives to link micro acts of violence to the macro conversation over immigration are hypocritical and disingenuous.

Too often, the current immigration zeitgeist conflates criminal justice issues with immigration as a whole. Immigrants are viewed as lawbreakers on the same line as many of the most hardened criminals.

But equating every illegal immigrant to that of some violent gangster or psychopath is intellectually dishonest. If crimes were plotted on spectrum — a speeding ticket (a civil violation) on one end and first-degree homicide (a criminal violation) at the other — crossing the border illegally has predominantly leaned toward the more trivial side of charges, according to current laws.

With the obvious exception of breaking immigration law, immigrants are equally, if not more, law abiding when compared to native citizens. Immigrants (both legal and illegal) are less likely to commit crimes when compared to native-born residents. Also, communities with larger immigrant populations actually demonstrate lower crime rates.

Suffice to say, if conservatives are truly concerned with how laws disproportionately impact individuals who respect civil society, then they should demonstrate equal skepticism about the effectiveness of immigration laws as they do with gun control laws.

Conservatives argue that ramping up criminalization on guns will only result in the unintended consequences of black markets. The conservative objection to gun control rests upon human ingenuity: If there’s a will, there’s a way. More so, if there is a law, there is a loophole. Human beings, conservatives argue, possess an innate ability to circumvent the best intentions of central planning.

So then please explain to me how human ingenuity cannot be effectively stopped by assault weapon bans and universal background checks, but somehow comes to a screeching halt at work visas and border walls. Increased immigration restrictions have arguably produced the same results as the assault weapons ban of the 1990s — that is bupkis.

This current administration’s increased criminalization of immigration not only flies in the face of legal jurisprudence, but also the very values that inspire conservatives to support the Second Amendment. To paraphrase the NRA’s bumper sticker, if you outlaw immigration, only outlaws will immigrate.

Swimming in red tape

Conservatives hate government red tape and regulations. Excessive regulations stifle innovation and burden the entrepreneurial spirit of our country.

I agree.

So then why aren’t conservatives concerned about the undue bureaucracy that stifles the legal pathway to citizenship?

To legally immigrate to the United States, a citizen-to-be must endure an immense waiting line to become naturalized. There are a variety of lines to choose from — primarily, employment-based immigration, asylum, and petitions by family members — but each requires the patience of Job to fully navigate.

Wait times to fully immigrate to the United States can vary. The easiest pathway to citizenship — being the spouse, parent, or a young child of a U.S. citizen (not a lawful permanent resident) — can take six to seven years to achieve. However, if you are an adult child or sibling of a citizen sponsor, you can expect to wait anywhere between 12 to 28 years — all depending on your country of origin and marital status.

If no family connections within the U.S. exist, the pathway to citizenship becomes even more treacherous. Work-based immigration demands that 1) you are skilled laborer, 2) you have an existing job offer from an American company, and 3) this company is willing to file all of the necessary documents for your labor certification while also paying up to $10,000 in the legal fees to do so. Even then you still would have to wait six to 10 years to start working. If your employer really wanted you to start working before, they could apply for a H-1B visa. But even that’s not guaranteed because applicants are subject to a lottery and the number of visas are capped.

If you’re unskilled with no naturalized family in the States, forget about it. The wait times are incalculable. Think infinity plus one. You may be able to get a H-2A or H-2B temporary visa if you’re lucky enough to find a sponsoring employer. But even then you still won’t qualify for a Green Card down the road.

For some undocumented citizens, there isn’t even a line to stand in. For example, take the DREAMers — the undocumented citizens who qualified for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Many DACA recipients unknowingly broke the law when they were carried over the border as young children. As a result, they do not qualify for a Green Card. Even the “Green Card Marriage” isn’t an option since they did not enter through a legal port of entry. Thus, DREAMers have no means to legally immigrate given the current laws. DACA didn’t supply this group of immigrants with a pathway to citizenship, but rather a temporary work permit that partially integrated them into American culture. Without DACA, they could be subject to immediate deportation.

I could go on and on about the complexities of immigration law, but I lack the patience to fully explain this laborious labyrinth of legalese. Ultimately, the complexity of immigration law inspires perverse incentives. Rather than wait their turn in the aforementioned metaphorical lines, it is much easier to bypass the bureaucracy in its entirety. More restrictions will only produce more incentives to ignore them.

But I shouldn’t even have to fully explain the bureaucratic mess made by the federal government to conservatives. If you are conservative, your eyes should have glazed over a couple of paragraphs ago. Conservatives consistently argue that — from tax code to environmental regulations — the federal government needlessly complicates… well… pretty much everything.

So how is immigration any different? Deference to federal agencies like the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) seems counter to the usual right-wing animosity toward all things federal.

“They took our jobs”

Conservatives contend that labor markets are distorted by government intervention. Artificial constraints, such as minimum wage laws, typically inflate the cost of doing business, which is then typically passed down to the consumer causing an increase in the overall cost of living.

I agree.

This is why I am confused why more conservatives don’t embrace immigrant labor.

Immigrants tend to work difficult jobs at a price point that native-born citizens are not willing to do. Or — in other words — they meet an unmet market demand.

My favorite example to cite here is one close to my home in rural Colorado. John Harold owns and operates Olathe Sweet Corn. He primarily relied upon migrant labor to pick corn on his 1,000-acre farm. In 2011, he had an idea: hire more locals to do the same work. The economy was still in recovery after the 2008 financial crisis, so Harold figured that it would easy to find locals who needed the work.

Though well intentioned, Harold’s idea didn’t quite materialize as he hoped.

“It didn’t take me six hours to realize I’d made a heck of a mistake,” he said. Between the 6 a.m. start time to the first lunch break, all of his local workers quit. According to records, twenty-five of the workers stated that the “word was too hard.”

The current populist demagoguery of the Republican Party focuses on jobs of the well-paying variety, so they probably don’t care as much about farm work. But such a situation does address the common “they took our jobs” narrative often propped up by nativists.

The laws of supply and demand suggest that an increased labor supply floods demand and depresses wages, right?

Wrong. Such thinking is a classic example of fixed pie fallacy. Immigrants aren’t stealing your slice of the pie, Mr. Nativist; instead, they are growing the size of the pie overall. According to the National Academy of Sciences, immigrant labor in the United States has grown the overall economy, boosted productivity, enhanced entrepreneurialism, and produced immense amounts of capital (primarily, human). Simply put, labor markets, much like the economy as a whole, are far from zero sum.

In fact, from the global perspective, a broader case for codifying open, less restrictive immigration laws by all nations can be made. Michael Clemens, an economist from the Centre for Global Development, argues that the cumulative cost of restrictive immigration laws across the world is $78 trillion (that’s trillion with a “t”) dollars, which is equal to the nominal GDP of all countries combined. That’s an insane amount of money being left on the table, all due to excessive governmental intervention in the marketplace.

The final point that I will make about this might be the most damning: conservatives find themselves on the same side of Bernie Sanders when it comes to immigrant labor. Sanders despises immigrant labor. During an interview with Vox, Sanders called open borders a “right-wing, Koch Brothers conspiracy.” Now, dear god-fearing Americas, I ask: You don’t want to be on the same side with a socialist, do you? (This last point is completely facetious of course, but… come on… do you?)

Value voters

Let’s pivot to social issues. Here is where we reach an ideological fork in the road where I likely won’t agree with my conservative friends.

Conservatives will, however, find an ideological ally with immigrants — especially those of Latino descent.

On the issue of abortion, for example, Latino voters shout, “¡De acuerdo!” (That’s “I agree” in Spanish.) Latinos are predominately pro-life. According to the Pew Research Center, over half of Hispanics — 53 percent to be more exact — say abortion should be illegal, and only 40 percent claim that it should be legal. This is almost the mirror opposite of the rest of the nation where 54 percent polled said that it should legal and 40 percent said illegal.

Of all ethnic groups, support for marijuana legalization is lowest among Hispanic voters. According to Pew, a majority of black (63 percent) and white Americans (52 percent) agree that the federal government should deschedule the drug. Meanwhile, only 49 percent of Hispanic respondents thought that the pot should be fully legal. Support for marijuana legalization further plummets within the group when country of birth is taken into consideration. Only 27 percent of Hispanic voters born outside of the U.S. support marijuana legalization.

And considering the trajectory in demographics, Hispanic voters are well positioned to be one of the biggest voting blocs in the U.S. Nearly 28 million Latino voters were eligible to cast votes in 2016, making up about 12 percent of all eligible voters. This population of eligible Latino voters grew by 4 million since 2012, representing 37 percent of all growth in eligible voters during the four-year time frame.

Yes, Latino voters do tend to vote mostly for Democrats. However, that loyalty has dwindled over the years. In 2012, 65 percent of Latino voters stated the Democratic Party had their best interests in mind. In 2016, that number dropped to 55 percent. Considering that 2016 was the year that the Republican Party, especially under the leadership of Donald Trump, was considered to be the most antagonistic party toward Mexican immigrants, this 10-point drop is significant. This might be due in part a general sense of disillusionment that metastasized under President Barack Obama, who was famously nicknamed the “Deporter-in-Chief” by Aljazeera in 2017.

Considering the strong connection to the Catholic Church, Latino voters could easily bolster the “family values” agenda of the religious right wing of the Republican Party. With the proper amount of outreach to Latino voters, this voting bloc can surprisingly help Republicans get elected, as they did in 2000 and 2004 for George W. Bush.

A unique opportunity for conservatives

The Republican Party and the broader conservative movement possess a unique opportunity to build a political coalition involving not only Latino voters, but also the larger immigrant population in the United States.

The first step is recognizing that the conservative orthodoxy regarding immigration lacks ideological consistency and intellectual honesty when compared to other issues. How can conservatives belittle the role of government in the daily lives of Americans — from what kind of light bulbs we can buy to how we modify our AR-15s — but still manage to celebrate the governmental overreach and inefficiency inherent in restrictive immigration policies with a straight face?

Even constitutional conservatives have to concede that our Founding Fathers did not grant authoritative powers to the federal government to manage immigration. Many constitutionalists will point to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution — ”…To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..” — but even that clause does not enumerate the legal foundation of visa quotas, ICE, and border walls.

The second step is to come to grips with the reality of immigration and the ineffectiveness of central planning to control it. The ingenuity and resiliency of the human spirit will always find a way to skirt the best laid plans of mice and men. Immigrants often put themselves in physical peril to circumnavigate the obtuse laws that comprise our immigration system.

The third and final step is to recognize that immigrants want to come to the United States because, like conservatives, they consider it to be an exceptional place. Immigrants don’t trek hundreds and thousands of miles on foot to collect a welfare check. (Research shows that immigrants are, by and large, revenue positive in terms of tax dollar collected versus tax dollars spent on public benefits.) Immigrants seek the opportunity, safety, and liberty not readily available in their homelands. And they do so against the odds they face: the difficulty of assimilation, the discrimination they historically have faced, starting off on the lowest rung of the economic ladder, etc.

The United States has been a beacon for the free migration since its founding, and conservatives will continue to find themselves on the wrong side of history if they remain so combative about immigration. To make American great again, then we need not look further than the pathway many of our ancestors took to get here in the first place.

What’s more conservative than that?