Amnesty, National and International
The immigration debate, plus Iran takes another hostage and a human-rights group's travesty of a report.

Monday, May 28, 2007 12:01 A.M. EDT

Gigot: This week on "The Journal Editorial Report," as members of Congress head home for the Memorial Day break, the fate of a bipartisan immigration deal hangs in the balance. Can the fragile agreement survive a bruising national debate? We'll separate the facts from the emotion. And Tehran tensions. Another U.S. citizen is detained in Iran, and a new U.N. report says that country is moving closer to a nuclear bomb. How will the U.S. respond? Our panel weighs in after these headlines.

The Senate slashed the size of a proposed guest-worker program for foreign laborers this week, dealing the first real blow to a fragile agreement on immigration reform, as negotiators also warn that other major changes to the bill risk jeopardizing the measure's bipartisan support.

Joining us this week, some people with different views on illegal immigration: Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial page deputy editor Dan Henninger, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Jason Riley, and Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute.

Heather, one of the big sources of controversy in this bill is the provision that allows the 12 million illegal immigrants who are already here a path to legalization and maybe citizenship. What do you think of that provision?

Mac Donald: Well, I think the relevant portion is not the path to citizenship, but the fact that they would be virtually all made legal overnight with a temporary visa that would be given out. And I think that's a very dangerous measure. We've seen already the effects of amnesty are inevitably to draw more people in illegally, to send the message to the world that America is not serious about its immigration laws and that lawbreakers will eventually be rewarded by getting legal status.

Gigot: So you think that this is amnesty and that is basically a very large incentive for more people to come here over time, so even if you put these people on a legal status, it will be an incentive for others to come here and we'll have the sail problem over again?

Mac Donald: Right. The effects of the 1986 amnesty--illegal immigration tripled or quadrupled thereafter. In Europe, every time countries there have given amnesties to illegals, the flow has just magnified greatly. So I think somehow advocates have created a false sense of crisis about this problem. I simply don't see right now the need for immediate amnesty. It is a very dangerous signal that we're not serious about our laws.

Gigot: Jason, what do you think about that--the amnesty charge?

Riley: Well, I think it's unfortunate that the amnesty argument is sucking up so much oxygen in this debate, because I don't think that that should be our focus.

You mention 1986 and what went on then. I don't think the problem with the '86 bill was the amnesty portion. I mean, those people were already in the country. The economy had already absorbed them. The same is true today, with the number most frequently used is 12 million. Well, we still have4.5% unemployment in the country right now. So, again, the economy has absorbed these people.

The problem with the '86 bill was no mechanism going forward for bringing in new workers as the economy continued to expand. And that could be the same problem, the same mistake that we repeat today. That's why I think the guest-worker program is really where the focus should be. We need to provide a way for U.S. businesses to get the labor they need going forward. And that's why this guest-worker program, I think, is where our focus should be. Not so much on what to do with the 12 million already here.

Mac Donald: Well, Jason, I would agree with you. I think that there's parts of the bill I think are very good, and that how it responds to future immigration flows is sound. I'm particularly in favor of the point system to move away from the family-based chain immigration system that we presently have to decide who should come in based on skills that they are bringing the country. I think that's a positive change.

And as far as I'm concerned, we should just do nothing about the 12 million here. They bargained to come in illegally. I don't understand what ground they have to demand legalization. So I would say you're right. Let's deal with whatever labor needs we have and not give them amnesty, because that will undermine the border without question.

Gigot: I think there is a question, though, what do you do with them? There are 12 million of them here. Some people say we should deport them. But that politically isn't going to happen. So your argument is, they're here but just don't grant them that imprimatur of legal status. And what are they going to do, stay here illegally in the shadows? Or would you expect them to go back over time?

Mac Donald: I would say if you have worksite enforcement, which up to now has been virtually nonexistent--if it does no longer become possible to get very low-wage jobs as an illegal alien, they will voluntarily depart. That's what we saw. A very little bit of enforcement has an enormous multiplier effect on the message it sends to people wanting to come and the people already here. After 9/11 we saw the government in New York deported several thousand illegal Pakistanis. Many more times that left voluntarily for Canada, because up to that point they had faced absolutely no risk of detection or deportation. So it is not required to have mass deportations. Just enforce the laws on the books.

Gigot: Dan, the enforcement point, I mean, employer sanctions were imposed in 1986, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference. Would it make a difference now?

Henninger: I don't think particularly it would. I mean, setting up a bureaucracy of that sort to try to run around to all of the labor sites would be an enormous undertaking. And it points up a problem that I think we have gotten to here. And I think Heather has pointed us to some extent in the right direction. One of the biggest problems with this bill is that we have allowed this issue, this problem, to accumulate to this point where we're trying to do everything at once.

There is a cultural and social problem. People talk about the rule of law and breaking the law and threats to our social fabric. That's one issue. Over here, however, there is an economics issue in which we have to try to match labor markets to available workers. And there's a lot of different markets, different kinds of jobs in this country that these people are filling. And that's the piece, I think, is very poorly understood in this argument. What exactly are our economic needs?

Gigot: All right. We'll have much more on the immigration deal when we come back. Also ahead, a new U.N. report says Iran has stepped up its effort to enrich uranium in recent months and may be just three years away from a nuclear bomb. What is the U.S. prepared to do about if? Find out when we come back.

We're having our own debate with the Wall Street Journal's Dan Henninger and Jason Riley, as well as Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute.

Jason, let's pick up on this point about enforcement. What has happened since 1986, when we first began to try to enforce the borders in an important way? Have we increased border patrols, that sort of thing?

Riley: Yes, we've increased border patrols quite a bit. We've increased funding for drones, and building walls, and all sorts of enforcement measures. But, again, it always comes back to reducing pressure on the border by giving people more legal ways to come. Again, we have people sneaking in the country to work. We'd have less of that if those people could use the front door. They'd have no reason to sneak across the border. And we'd be able to use our enforcement officers more efficiently. They would be able to chase down drug dealers or potential terrorists--people coming here to do us harm. Instead, they are chasing down people coming here to be chambermaids at Marriott.

Gigot: Heather, this is the thing that we hear from businesspeople all the time: We have a shortage of labor. We need the people. They're coming over. The labor markets in North America are very efficient. You open a plant in Omaha, they know about it immediately in Chihuahua. And I hear from them that people aren't coming for amnesty. They're really coming here for work, and no matter what you do for enforcement, you're really not going to stop that flow. So don't you have to increase more legal ways to come here?

Mac Donald: Well, it's hard to see a labor shortage when wages have been basically stagnant in low-skilled industries. I think what we're doing with the current illegal flow, which we want to now legalize, is importing very, very low-skilled labor that is driving down wages. You have, yes, an unemployment rate that is about 5%, but labor force participation has been dropping recently.

And we're basically subsidizing certain industries with taxpayer dollars because the immigrants that are coming in, the majority of Mexican and Central American immigrants, are without even a high school degree. They impose great social-service costs. High-wage immigrants don't, and it sort of cancels out. But if you look at the low-wage workers that are coming in without any skills, they are dependent on Medicaid. Their children are on--who are here legally now--they're citizens when they're born. They are massive consumers of social services.

So I think the idea that there is a labor shortage in low-skill industries is just not borne out by the facts. There are places in this country that don't have high immigrant populations, such as Albany, N.Y. You'll find Americans working in the hotels. It's not that there are no Americans to do these jobs. At the wages currently, there may be discouragement of some competing native Hispanics, as well as Americans.

Riley: But there's a decreasing number of Americans without a high school degree. I mean, Americans are becoming more educated. And what makes our immigration system work is that the immigrants who come here aren't perfect replicas of the Americans who are already here. They are complementing--they're filling niches. They're complementing us at the low end and at the high end. If you remove the low-wage workers, you'll have a bunch of overqualified Americans that will either have to do those jobs or those jobs will go away. And that's a less efficient use of our human capital, which would make us less productive.

Mac Donald: Well, I think it is not the case that everybody--every American now has a college degree. I think there's a lot of people--

Riley: But it is the case that that number is going down--rapidly.

Mac Donald: Well, then we should make--I mean there's also--you know, we have given this sop to certain industries to use very inefficient low-wage labor instead of mechanization. I think we have could be a lot more effective as an economy if we put our engineering capacity to work to create more efficient worksites that are not dependent on these low-wage workers that are a cost to taxpayers.

I would also point out, in some ways, the people that are coming here are imitating or replicating the culture we've already got in ways that are very negative. The illegitimacy rate among Hispanics now is 50%. They have the highest teen pregnancy rate of any group in the country. These are recipes for social breakdown. We are importing a second underclass. The dropout rate among Hispanics is the highest in the country. This is not a recipe for upward mobility. It's a recipe for social breakdown and greater welfare costs.

Henninger: Yeah, well, most of it is concentrated in San Diego County and the Central Valley of California, right? That's where most of the immigrants are. They're not in the middle of the country. There are a lot of Mexicans in Chicago. They have no such problem.

There are a huge--the economy of New York City would collapse if these people weren't here--

Mac Donald: You think the out-of-wedlock birthrate--

Henninger: --and we don't have the same problems here in New York City that you have in San Diego County or in the Central Valley of California.

I don't deny that there's a real problem. But that is a problem for the social system and social structure of the United States. I don't think it relates to the immigration policies per se.

Mac Donald: I don't understand that. The people that are coming in and the Hispanic groups have very high rates of illegitimacy wherever they live. It is the same in New York City. This is--

Henninger: Why don't we--Heather, why don't we--

Mac Donald: --and if you say it's a problem for California with the highest amount of immigration, if we continue these flows, it's going to spread. It is coming into the South. You have gang membership increasing.

Henninger: But why don't we feel we are under cultural assault in New York City? You have no sense of this at all here.

Mac Donald: That's right, because you don't have the Mexicans, the Central Americans coming in. It is a completely different system. Go to south central L.A. Go to--

Henninger: The restaurants system in New York is totally dependent on Latin American workers.

Gigot: Heather, one of the geniuses of American immigration--

Mac Donald: Spend time in Los Angeles, Dan--

Henninger: I agree. I agree.

Mac Donald: --go to those schools and talk to kids that are saying, Everybody we know, the girls are pregnant. Now it's--to become a "player" as a young Hispanic male, you impregnate women out of wedlock. This is the culture that is spreading.

Gigot: So this wave of immigration, you're saying, is different than previous waves of American immigration, which have assimilated into the broader cultural norms of the society. You're saying this is different. Why is this different?

Mac Donald: I don't know. We have the glamorization of gang culture in this society now. Some portion of Hispanic immigrants are getting sucked into that. I don't deny that there are extraordinarily productive model citizens that are coming in from Mexico and Central America that are turning around communities. They are exactly who we want.

But you talk to the schoolteachers. You talk to social-service workers. They will say a significant portion of their kids are being sucked into underclass culture. And until we know how to solve that problem, I think to keep this flow of the low-skilled, uneducated Hispanics that are getting sucked in is a big mistake. Let's go to a point system and bring in people on merit.

Gigot: All right, Heather Mac Donald, last word. Thanks for being here. Thanks, gentlemen.

When we come back, a brewing hostage crisis as Tehran detains another Iranian-American. How should the U.S. respond to this latest provocation? Our panel weighs in after this short break.

We're back with Dan Henninger and Jason Riley, and also joining the panel is Wall Street Journal foreign-affairs columnist Bret Stephens.

Bret, let's talk about these new hostages first. These people they've been taking are not people who support the Bush doctrine. They're people in favor of negotiating with Iran. Why would Iran want to take these people hostage?

Stephens: Well, I guess there are two theories, but they amount to the same thing. One is the Iranians are paranoid and don't know who it is that they've taken hostage. One of them, Dr. Haleh Esfandiari, has been trying to build bridges between the U.S. and the Iranian regime for a very long time.

Gigot: And she was there to visit her mother, 93-year-old mother.

Stephens: And she herself is a 67-year-old grandmother. So it's particularly cruel on the part of the regime.

The other theory is that they know exactly what they're doing, and they're sending the very open signal that the Lee Hamiltons and Jim Bakers of the word might be for engagement, but they're not. They are rejecting overtures, and they've done that also with Condi Rice. You know, Condi Rice tried to reach out to the Iranian foreign minister as a recent regional summit, and she was snubbed. So it's part of a pattern of really rejecting any efforts by the United States, by Americans of any kind, towards engagement.

Gigot: So they're saying, basically, We are not a status quo power. We are actually somebody who doesn't want to do business with you, America, because we think you're weak in Iraq. We think you're under pressure elsewhere. And therefore, we are trying to take some advantage of you and send you a message of intimidation, that we--don't mess with us. Is that it?

Stephens: Well, and that confidence is reflected in the advances they've been making in their nuclear program. The IAEA has now come out with a report that says Iran has 1,300 centrifuges. It's going to ramp up to about 3,000 centrifuges, perhaps as early as next month. That puts them within range of nuclear capability in two or even just one year. And so far, we've been issuing toothless U.N. sanctions, which the Iranians are openly mocking.

Gigot: Is this hostage-taking going to change the political dynamic here in the U.S., Jason?

Riley: I am not sure that it is, and I don't know how many more signals the Iranian regime needs to send. I mean, they captured 15 British sailors and marines with no consequences at all. They followed up their threat to eliminate Israel by threatening to take action to what Israel is doing against Hamas in Gaza. We now know, according to the IAEA--according to the U.N.--we know less about their program than we did before. And as Bret just mentioned, even the IAEA says they may be within three years of having a weapons-grade nuclear weapon.

Gigot: But this is different than what we heard even a year or so ago when it was leaked--the National Intelligence Estimate, which is the best guess of the consensus view of the American intelligence community, said that they were, what, five to 10 years away. Now suddenly three years--and maybe we don't even know. I mean, this could be another one of those CIA "slam dunks" that we were so sure about in Iraq.

Stephens: Exactly.

Henninger: Well, I think there's a fundamental issue here of global and world order. You have a country here that on the one hand is threatening to obtain nuclear capability, and at the other end feels free to simply grab citizens of foreign countries and hold them hostage.

Now, if the developed world that has supposedly fought two world wars in the past century to impose order on the world cannot discipline a marginal outlaw nation like this, then we're going to recede towards the law of the jungle. They will succeed in getting nuclear weapons. We have the issue of North Korea, which even this week was again lobbing missiles between Japan and South Korea. And they, too, are not suffering any sanctions for it.

Gigot: The U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that this proves the U.S. and European strategy of diplomacy and pressure and sanctions on Iran have failed. We need to just stop trying to get them to stop enriching uranium, accept they they're going to have this program and try to contain it. What do you think of that?

Stephens: Well, I mean, I think that we forget what revolutionary powers are all about. When you think about revolutionary powers, Nazi German was one. The Jacobins in France were another. The Soviets, to a large extent--

Gigot: And you think this is a revolutionary regime?

Stephens: This is a revolutionary power, and I don't think that we fully grasp, as a nation, exactly what their aims are. We think that Iran wants to be strong, its wants its dignity, sort of traditional aspects of nation-states. What we are not willing to really consider seriously is that Iran might have actually global ambitions. It might see itself as the avatar of an Islamic revival against the West, against the United States. And it might see nuclear weapons as its instrument of choice. We have to take those threats very seriously.

Gigot: Very briefly, Bret, is the U.N. path here on sanctions yield anything?

Stephens: The U.N. path is actually dangerous, because it's slow, it's toothless and it creates an image of consensus and an image of action that isn't real.

Gigot: All right, Bret, thanks.

We have to take one more break. When we come back, our "Hits and Misses" of the week.

Item one, a hit, believe it or not, to Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Dan?

Henninger: Yes, a rare hit for the Supreme Court, and even Justice Souter, who this week struck a blow for common sense in our increasingly insane legal system.

There was a case called Twombly in which a lawsuit was filed against all of the nation's telephone companies on behalf of all of the nation's telephone users, saying that the telephone companies conspired against them. To prove this case, lawyers would have had to have come forth with the greatest mountain of depositions and witnesses in the history of the world. And Justice Souter said, Look, you can't just waive your hand scream "conspiracy" and expect the legal system to salute and take on an almost impossible burden like this. So it seems they just threw the case out and said it didn't qualify.

I think Justice Souter and the Supreme Court struck a blow here for seriousness in an increasingly frivolous legal system, and for that, a huge hit.

Gigot: All right, Dan.

Next, a hit for Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. Jason?

Riley: Yes, Sen. Coburn, who's also a medical doctor, blocked a resolution in the Senate put forward by a colleague, Ben Cardin of Maryland, who wanted to honor the environmentalist writer Rachael Carson for her, quote, "legacy of scientific rigor."

Carson wrote a book called "Silent Spring" back in 1962, I believe. And it basically talked all about the dangers of pesticides to wildlife and human beings. Well, since then, the book has been--the science in the book has been thoroughly debunked. And while Carson might have meant well, her opposition to pesticides--especially DDT, which is a tool in fighting malaria--have inadvertently led to the deaths of millions of people. It's certainly nothing to celebrate. So it's a hit for Coburn.

Gigot: All right, Jason, thanks.

Finally, a miss to Amnesty International for its latest stunt. Bret?

Stephens: Yeah, well, Amnesty International just released its annual human rights report. And there was a time when this was an occasion for people to stand up and take notice because Amnesty was a reputable organization. Well, those days are over. The gag that's getting a lot of attention is a survey they put up on their Web site asking people weather Dick Cheney has a worse human rights record than Darth Vader. I think that shows how sophomoric they have become.

What's worse is that Amnesty's secretary general has put George Bush on the same moral plane as Sudan's Omar Bashir and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.

But the real outrage in the report is that the chapter on the U.S. is three times as long as the chapter on North Korea. That's not a report on human rights abuses. It's a mockery of one.

Gigot: All right, Bret.

That's it for this week's edition of "The Journal Editorial Report." Thanks to Dan Henninger, Jason Riley and Bret Stephens. I'm Paul Gigot. Thanks for watching. We hope to see you right here next week.