More complex than ‘Illegal Immigrants’

George Rebane

An illegal alien by any other name ...

For years I have advised against labeling all illegal inhabitants in America as ‘illegal immigrants’.  In any reasonable discussion of the illegal alien and illegal entrant problems, this catch-all label will cause confusion.  Now this is coming to pass as we attempt to get real about passing what is (again erroneously) called immigration reform.  To clarify the issue, years ago I outlined a more accurate picture (here) of the various flavors and derivations of US inhabitants, both legal and illegal.

Today, as Congress tries to get to the nitty gritty of actually writing something into law, people are running into problems along the road that the simple tag ‘illegal immigrants’ enticed them to travel.  It looks like 40% of the current 11M US illegals entered the country legally, and only 60% crawled over/under a border fence.  My graphic of the situation allows clear delineation of this discovery that you can read more about in the 6apr13 WSJ’s ‘Many Here Illegally Overstayed Their Visas’.  The article outlines the problem of attempting to legislate when you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about – a craft, nevertheless, that Congress perfected many moons ago.

In the above figure of US inhabitants, the reported percentages are circled.  Note that the actual ‘illegal immigrants’ are circled in green, and no one yet knows how many of those there are in the country.  So it appears that we will now have to slice and dice the illegals much more carefully, and give each cohort an informative name if anyone is to make sense of the next sausage that will be stuffed in Washington.  Political correctness comes with many costs.

Comments

[Ben Emery]

A couple of years ago someone explained to me there is a difference between illegal immigrant and undocumented immigrant. Illegal is someone who is actually in the system but remains despite being told to exit the country and undocumented is someone who has yet made it into the system. By system I mean a record of some kind about their existence within the US. I would guess most immigrants from the south are undocumented while most immigrants from north, east, and west would be illegal.

[George Rebane]

BenE 711am - It is definitions like that which have caused the confusion - deliberate and spontaneous. As I have noted, immigration is and starts as a two-party process. Without having gone through that, aliens sneaking into the country are simply fugitives from our laws no matter what their desires for residency are. Labeling them as 'immigrants' miscommunicates (as we are now finding) and denigrates the appellation for those who actually stood in line and went through the process as prescribed by law.

Again, the language is rich and expandable, let's not make an established word expand its definitions to uselessness or to support bamboozling the sheeple.

[Ben Emery]

George,
I don't have a problem with your definition and response. I just thought it was an interesting.

As I have stated before on RR, I think we have an employer problem not an illegal alien problem. No work means no migration. We also need to repeal NAFTA/ CAFTA/ CTPA to help restore some stability in local and state economies including our own. Subsidized industry bringing goods into these nations undercuts local businesses reducing the ability to sustain themselves while at the same time removing the wealth by the transferring of currency from purchasing goods from local business to international companies. This is detrimental to local economies. Those companies will then camp those profits in offshore accounts avoiding taxes at home while still receiving subsides. This is the downfall of free trade agreements. We kept the subsides but dropped the tariffs and have allowed big business make offshore accounts legal and easy.

[George Rebane]

BenE 945am - It occurs to me that 'importing' humans into a country through attractive immigration policies can be seen as an analogue of importing cheaper/better goods into a country. Both can serve to displace what/who is already there or can conceivably be 'made' there, especially when the target country's growth is low. That such imports and their abetting policies increase the nation's GDP and the aggregate QoL of its citizens has long been confirmed by observing nations that have impeded such importing.

According to your lights, where/how should the line be drawn to strike a proper balance between increasing aggregate QoL and displacing some indigenous workers and businesses? (Responses from all are solicited.)