Why I Support Trump’s Proposed Immigration Reform …
This is an excellent and well-researched article that cuts through a lot of inflated rhetoric on both sides of the immigration debate, but it does exhibit a few blind spots, two of which I want to highlight:
The first point concerns Muslims. Without descending into mindless Islamophobia, there is real reason to be concerned about Muslim immigrants, particularly when they come in large numbers and live in homogeneous communities. The issue, as I’ve discussed here, is that the “average,” ordinary, non-extremist Muslim’s beliefs are still radically inconsistent with the core beliefs widely held in Western societies. Here are just a few examples:
- More than nine in ten of the world’s Muslims believe a woman’s role is always to oblige and obey her husband: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-exec/.
- Among American Muslims, 81% say that suicide bombings in the name of Islam are never justified, which means that the remaining 19% DON’T believe that: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-app-a/. There are about 3.3 million Muslims in America, so that 19% represents about 627,000 people.
- 51% of Muslims in the U.S. would want the option of being governed by shariah law rather than the U.S. Constitution, and nearly 20% would support the use of violence to make shariah the law of the land: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2015/06/23/nationwide-poll-of-us-muslims-shows-thousands-support-shariah-jihad/.
- Muslims around the world overwhelmingly view certain behaviors — including prostitution, homosexuality, suicide, abortion, euthanasia and consumption of alcohol — as immoral. For instance, very, very few Muslims believe abortion is morally acceptable (0% among Palestinian and Pakistani Muslims and 1% in Egypt, for instance), and the figures are similar for how these people feel about sex outside marriage. For homosexuality, the percentages are even MORE extreme. On the other hand, substantial proportions of Muslims (just under half) and an overwhelming majority of African Muslims think polygamy is A-okay: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-morality/.
In other words, if we admit Muslims, we need to be very careful about doing so slowly and making sure they get integrated into the mainstream of American society. We can’t afford to let P.C.-stoked groupthink about this issue interfere with sound policy.
The second point, which is even more important, concerns the issue of unskilled immigrants in a world where technology is rapidly replacing unskilled jobs. It used to be the case that economies were built around a large sector of unskilled labor. Brute manpower was a good thing. At this point, however, that whole sector is rapidly disappearing. Assembly line jobs don’t exist in large numbers anymore because they’re being automated out of existence; today’s factory work requires actual technical skills. Grocery store checkout clerks are increasingly being replaced by automated checkout machines. Within the next five or ten years, driverless cars and drones are going to make major inroads into the number of people who can make a living driving or delivering goods or the like. Virtually every job that’s “simple” to do is going to get automated, and it’s all coming down the pike faster than you think. This means that, unless we want to increase income inequality even further and create a nation composed of a comparative few highly educated knowledge workers supporting many more millions of welfare recipients, a wise immigration policy should favor people with skills and education. This is why I actually support Trump’s current immigration reform proposal (even though I didn’t support his overbroad, crudely drawn Muslim ban). Thus, in any discussion of immigration, I think it’s critical to take account of the coming technological changes. We don’t need a flood of uneducated, unskilled laborers coming across the border and living and working in the shadows. These people only cut in to the supply of jobs to those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, particularly African-Americans, who get passed over for jobs for which employers would rather hire illegal immigrants who don’t know or are afraid to assert their rights, don’t complain and get paid substandard wages in cash off the books.
So, with these two issues in mind, it’s more critical than ever to have a carefully planned immigration policy that admits the right people. I’m all for admitting people from every nation, race, religion, etc., and of every background, but we need to go about this the right way, vet people carefully and admit those who are going to make this nation more competitive and safer rather than drag it down further than it has already fallen.
