Immigration and national security

Co-authored by Newt Fancier and Pythagoras

A few years ago, immigration reform became a hot topic in Washington. This was motivated mainly by the high level of illegal, or undocumented, immigrants, which is estimated at 11-12 million. One disturbing trend in the debate about immigration policy is the tendency to conflate it with the issue of terrorism and national security. The tactic is problematic.

The Republican and Democratic candidates share many views about immigration. For example, they both voted for the bill to harden the border with Mexico by expanding the border fence and beefing up the border guard. Indeed most senators supported the Secure Fence Act of 2006 which passed 80 to 19. Similarly they both promote a path to legalization that includes learning English and paying fines. Consequently they must fend off charges that this constitutes amnesty. They both supported the DREAM act which eased higher education restrictions and the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 which included a guest worker program. On their websites, they both promote employer responsibility, improving ties with Mexico and the notion that immigrants are a benefit to the country.

Perhaps a point of distinction, was Obama's sponsorship of a bill in the Senate called the Citizenship Promotion Act of 2007 which sought to counteract a 66% hike in naturalization fees, which have risen from $95 in 1998 to $595 in 2008. He argues that such barriers to legal immigration promote illegal immigration. Also it is unclear what McCain suggests about employer responsibility, while Obama is more concrete in promoting the need for an easy verification system. Obama emphasizes keeping families together and proposes increasing immigration quotas to support that.

According to Gallup, American support for a decrease in immigration spiked from 38% to 58% after September 11 and has remained high through at least 2005. One of the troubling things about the immigration debate is that most people seem to think, or they say they think, that controlling illegal immigration at the Mexican border is an issue of national security. McCain says it succinctly, "this issue is an important and compelling one, and it begins with national security". Obama is not to be outdone, saying "we are going to have to secure our nation's borders" and talks about our nation's "sovereignty". In Obama's immigration plan he claims that "borders are less secure than ever." A Foreign Affairs survey reports that in 2008, 87% of Americans feel that tighter controls on immigration to the US would strengthen national security and 52% think it would strengthen it a great deal. However, a CNN poll shows that most Americans prefer an increase in the number of border agents to additional fencing. In the war of words, hardliners refer to the wave of illegal immigration as no less than an invasion.

Is all of this national security talk well founded or is it an irrational fear, a phobia? Are there legitimate concerns about illegal immigrants coming here in order to do us harm, either motivated by profit or ideology?

One argument that is often made rather carelessly is that immigration brings crime. Numerous studies have in fact found the opposite - that the foreign born, whether here legally or not, have lower crime rates than the native born, especially when compared within ethnic categories. There is ample evidence to support this assertion. For instance, the crime rates in border towns have been compared with non-border towns. In the 1990s, the US Commission on Immigration Reform concluded there is "no consistent or compelling evidence that immigration causes crime" since border towns generally had a lower rate of crime. Other examples focusing on specific communities such as El Paso and Miami are discussed in the Martinez and Lee report, The Nature of Crime: Continuity and Change. In "Open Doors Don't Invite Crime", Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson suggests a causal relation between increased latino immigration in the 1990s and decreased crime. According to Rumbaut and Ewing (The Myth of Immigrant Criminality, 2007), in 2000, the native born population had a 3.5% incarceration rate compared to 0.7% for the foreign born. The incarceration rate of Mexican born was 0.7% as well. This is especially interesting in that the Mexican born population is generally less educated than the native born white population which has an incarceration rate of 1.7%.

The first generation of immigrants is definitively not a threat. It is the second generation that can pose problems if not well integrated and socially accomodated. This was always the case going back to the Irish and Italian mobs.

The charge that illegal immigration poses a terrorist threat is a little harder to take seriously. There has never been even a hint of a terrorist attack which makes use of the US-Mexican border. There are probably good reasons for this. One being that there are more Muslims in the US than in Mexico. Thus a Muslim seeking to visit or immigrate to the US has an easier path to do so directly rather than via an inhospitable proxy.

The candidates, while generally kow towing to the immigration hawks in bland language, occasionally strike a more rational tone. For instance, at a town hall meeting in Iowa a woman asked Obama "what you would do to protect this country from terrorism and are you going to close the borders and get rid of illegal immigrants?" His response was right on the money, "Those are two separate questions."

There is no lack of hyperventilation about the danger posed at our southwestern border of Middle Eastern terrorists infiltrating our country, despite the well documented lack of halal tacos in Mexico. No less than the venerable CATO Institute froths at the mouth in its elegantly worded report "The Weaponization of Immigration". The report uses the term "border" in the malleable sense, meaning any point of entry into the united states - such as the point of entry used by Mohammed Atta the lead 911 terrorist, or the points of entry used by any number of Middle Eastern terrorists (most of whom entered legally) which are spelled out in exquisite detail. Thus it goes without saying that our "borders" need greater security.

Is there really a problem at the Mexican border you say? That depends on your point of view. Is an OTM a problem? - because anywhere from 40 to 180 thousand of them are apprehended crossing the Mexican border every year. The term OTM is the DHS acronym for "Other Than Mexican". The CATO report goes on to say that among these OTMs are ASICs. Apart from being a runners' running shoe, ASICs are "aliens from special interest countries". This is a list of 35 countries who are potential exporters of terrorists, which includes the usual suspects like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Jordan (Egypt where are you?), but also Cuba, Ecuador and Brazil. I am guessing that the ASICs found crossing illegally are mostly from the latter Latino countries. How many ASICs you say? Well CATO does not say, but according to Washington Post columnist Al Kamen it was 297 in 2007. No further information is given on where they are from.

In addition CATO cites two pieces of anecdotal evidence in which 7 Iraqis were found in a Texas border town and 3 Hezbollah agents were found crossing from Mexico. The lack of further malevolent news speaks volumes. Furthermore, Hezbollah seeks to avoid confrontation with the US as it has too much on its plate already with Israel and its rivals in Lebanon to deal with. Meanwhile Iraqis do not pose a threat in the way that Saudis do, if the law of probabilities is any guide.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies has a similar take in his 2004 article "Keeping Terror Out". His starting point is to attack Bush's efforts to create "amnesty" and guest worker programs because they undermine our national security. Again much effort is spent describing the bungling involved with the overstaying of visas for people who entered legally via an airport. Again much is lacking in any persuasive evidence that terrorists are finding the Mexican border a congenial pathway. Indeed, Krikorian unwittingly makes the case that the Canadian border is more dangerous, as he describes two incidents in which terrorists who were involved in actual plots against US targets used the Canadian border. On the other hand, only one incident was cited in the use of the Mexican border, involving the brother of a Hezbollah guerilla fighter.

What is missing is any sense of perspective. What are the statistics on border-borne terrorism? Clearly the CIS and CATO are digging their own graves when they describe the real sources of terrorism. There is probably some sense of urgency in these hardliners who feel that the further we are from 911, their moment of political advantage is diminishing.

Why aren't there more Middle Easterners coming illegally via the Mexican or Canadian borders? Perhaps the problem with that route is that it requires defeating two national security apparatus's rather than just one. This may be compounded by the fact that Mexican culture is not one familiar or congenial to young Middle Eastern men who have become accustomed to Western societies. Nor are they guaranteed the legal rights and protections afforded by US or Canadian laws.

The phobic national security vocabulary needs to be expurgated from the debate on immigration. It is not founded in reality and it does a disservice to those trying to find real solutions to a complex problem. Both candidates need to be clearer in their refusal to go down that path.