CE Week #11: “End incentives to break law”
Kathleen Parker
Orlando Sentinel
November 7, 2007
When Hillary Clinton fumbled a recent debate question about New York’s plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, she helped clarify at least one issue that keeps getting muddied: Illegal immigrants are illegal.
Why, then, are we granting them driver’s licenses?
Thus far, eight states allow illegal immigrants to receive licenses or permits (and 10 states offer in-state tuition) – all in the spirit of making America a better place.
But we don’t want to encourage immigrants to come here illegally.
Gotcha.
The illegal immigrant problem is huge, obviously, and there’s no single solution. But there is one word that would get the ball rolling in the right direction and win a lot of voters’ hearts: disincentivize. Stop making it so attractive to slip through, over and under the border.
As long as we offer jobs, medical treatment, driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to those who come here illegally, why would any right-thinking, would-be immigrant take a number and wait his turn? Why not just throw in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and free tequila while we’re at it?
Arguments favoring services and privileges for illegal immigrants always point to the broader benefits to society. Healthy immigrants mean a healthier America; an educated populace means fewer jobless dependents; legal drivers are more responsible because, allegedly, they’ll also buy insurance and stick around when they have an accident.
The latter seems unconvincing given that illegal immigrants, by definition, tend not to think legally. In any case, by the same logic we might also say that amnesty is good for the country because then everyone would be legal. Rather than fix something, we simply accommodate circumstances. As in: Kids are having sex anyway, so we’ll just give them condoms.
Advocates for licensing also argue that illegal immigrants can’t get jobs without a driver’s license. Do I hear bingo? Isn’t that the point?
On the one hand, we argue that employers should be penalized for hiring illegal immigrants; on the other, we insist that the immigrants need driver’s licenses because employers demand them. I’m beginning to see how Clinton got so tangled up. You cannot argue rationally in defense of the irrational.
The Monday morning quarterback is, of course, a brilliant seer, and the stands are filled with hindsight prophets this week. Here’s one more shoulda for the pile-on. When NBC’s Tim Russert asked why she thought New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses made sense, Clinton should have simply said:
“It makes sense for states to seek solutions given the federal government’s failure to reform immigration, but I’m not 100 percent satisfied with the licensing plan. Unfortunately, Tim, I’ll need more than 30 seconds to outline my concerns.”
Or something to that effect. Instead, Clinton called for immigration reform. It’s easy to say we need reform. Everybody agrees with that. It’s much harder to say we need to stop rewarding “illegal.”
Clinton even refused to use the term “illegal immigrant,” preferring the blander “undocumented worker,” as though people who cross our border illegally are just like the rest of us except for those darned documents.
They may be nice, hard-working people, but they’re not like other immigrants who, having come here legally, have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law and fairness.
Surely, we can love our neighbors and be a pro-immigrant nation without granting de facto citizenship to illegal immigrants through a menu of rights and privileges. As is, all that’s missing is the oath – and any meaning attached to it.
Beyond principle, there are practical reasons for denying licenses to illegal immigrants. As some reformers have pointed out, the driver’s license is more than a permit to drive. It’s a nationally recognized ID that implies citizenship, and is the most coveted “breeder document” of terrorists because it allows them access to all the other things they need to blend in – jobs, housing, bank accounts – as well as access to commercial airplanes and rental cars.
Many states still don’t verify applicants’ identities. In May 2001, when Tennessee dropped its requirement that applicants supply a Social Security number, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants applied for licenses, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
There may be no way to solve every aspect of the immigration problem. Certainly, no serious person thinks we can round up 12 million people and deport them. But it would be refreshing if we began to take seriously what it means to be a citizen and stop making it so attractive to be a lawbreaker.
That would make sense.
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First of all, let me say that I absolutely love the tone of the author. Completely sarcastic and blunt, I can definitely identify! Second, I agree with the majority of what Kathleen Parker had to say. Why are we offering incentives to breaking the law? Why are we not only condoning but rewarding illegal actions? Come on, immigrants come over illegally, we give them in-state tuition and a drivers license, and on top of this they don’t pay taxes? I understand that immigration is a major part of this country and that we need a constant flow of people so that our culture and society don’t become stagnant, but do we want it illegally? Do we want it so out of control that we are looking at a minority majority by 2060? I can’t blame Hilary for not taking a definitive position because in politics your damned if you do, damned if you don’t. If she opposes it, she loses votes from pro-immigration democrats as well as the Hispanic vote. If she favors it, she loses those moderate and xenophobic votes from Democrats and independents. As a powerful country I don’t think that the “abstinence is key, but here take some condoms” policy is ever appropriate, especially at the nation level. We shouldn’t except the fact of illegal immigration and deal with the affects, we should combat it and deal with the causes.
When you sell crack you know that if you get caught you will serve a mandatory minimum sentence (at this moment I’m actually supposed to be writing a paper about just that and the fact that the punishment for selling powder cocaine is 100 times shorter). When you carry a firearm without a license you know that if you get caught you’ll serve time for your misdoings. Now apparently if you jump under/over a fence and come into this country illegally, without passing go, without obtaining citizenship, you too can benefit from all sorts of programs to benefit our “citizens”. I believe that children of illegal immigrants should have access to public schools — only so they’re not sitting around doing child labor while their parents work 12 hour days or whatever and they can obtain a decent education, but I do not believe that illegals should have access to driver’s licenses. As the article highlights, obtaining a drivers license means you have access to all kinds of specifically American benefits like in-state college tuition and access to credit cards and property etc, etc. For Hillary Clinton it proved to be a difficult task to discern how to grant illegals driver’s licenses without making them legal citizens with rights of other legals and with good reason. Granting illegal citizens drivers licenses is a risky idea and could lead to all sorts of problems.
I completely agree with Parker. Seriously, why are we giving these immigrants all these benefits when they came into our country illegally? That does not make sense to me at all if we are going to try to decrease, if not put an end to, illegal immigration. Before reading his article I honestly had no idea what Clinton’s opinions and ideas were so I therefore had no reason to say I would never support her. After reading this article though I can definitely say that if she really is serious about helping out illegal immigrants to point of giving them drivers licenses then forget it. How does she expect to get elected if one of her main goals is to help a growing issue that is causing problems within our country? If our newly elected President starts welcoming these illegal immigrants with open arms the majority of our society will have a fit. More immigrants will see even more reason to hop the border and think it is okay to come here without becoming a citizen first and I really do not want to have my tax dollars taking care of them. I honestly don’t believe they deserve any sort of care if they don’t respect our policies and laws.
Kathleen is right on spot. A reward system for illegal activity is ludacris. An immigrant who wants to come here legally gets caught in a tangle of red tape having to fill out more than 50 paper pages of forms that have been known to be “lost”. It is too bad that we make it painstakingly difficult for immigrants to gain citizenship legally, basically punishing them, while condoning illegal behavior by offering rights such as drivers licenses, education and health care. So Americans get to pay for their health care as well as 12 million others? Doesn’t make sense. Immigration can be a good thing if processed correctly. Problem is, what is “correctly”? Are our politicians looking out for our best interests or theirs? Do they know what their stance is? Hillary did take a tough question but she doesn’t seem to have a position. If she can put together a program, champion it and believe in it, she will earn much more respect than dancing around the issue. I can understand people wanting a better life for their family but I believe we should have a better system that makes everyone abide and respect our laws. Let’s stop our skewed, reward for criminal behavior system.
Giving a illegal immigrant a permission slip to drive is not something our country wants. In fact most of our country don’t want the illegal immigrants we have but we really can’t get rid of them. Why? They are now our farmers. They do the jobs that Americans feel are beneath them. If we do get rid of these workers who will work our fields? Certainly not us, we have an education. Seeing as how the American people won’t be picking up plows any time soon we have to keep these workers. Hillary suggested that we allow immigrants to get a license to get their jobs. I, on the other hand, think that is just being a bit too kind. The immigrants already have access to our free government care so for now, why not let them use our buses. We as Americans believe that without our cars we couldn’t get to work. Funny thing is that other countries seem to do fine without a personal car. They get to work every day by bus or some other form of transportation. In all as much as we would like to get rid of the illegal immigrant we can’t but that does not mean we should give them an easy way in.
First of all I totally agree with the author of this article which means I also agree with the people who posted on this article. It is absolutely ridiculous that illegal aliens can obtain driver’s licenses and get in-state tuition. Being that most of us are going to college here soon we all know that in-state tuition is our friend, this is total crap. We being law-abiding citizens don’t even get some of the freebies that illegal aliens get. Obviously our system needs to be reformed which is a lot easier to say than do but this is absolutely ridiculous and needs to be addressed pronto. Kudos to the three people who posted before me. You hit it right on the button.
This is such a circular argument. You try and argue for one side but then end up moving towards the other end of the argument. As the article said, “On the one hand, we argue that employers should be penalized for hiring illegal immigrants; on the other, we insist that the immigrants need driver’s licenses because employers demand them.” The subject of illegal immigration is quite a huge and rather touchy one. You say one thing against it or for it, and it just takes off. Yes I know that we’ve boxed ourselves in a corner on this whole driver license-illegal immigration thing, so I don’t really know how we’re going to get out of it. And I don’t blame Hillary one bit for getting all screwed up especially when she is trying so hard to stay mutual on so many topics during her campaign. The author of this article definitely hit the nail on the head. What are we thinking offering illegal immigrants incentives? My favorite part was, “As long as we offer jobs, medical treatment, driver’s licenses and in-state tuition to those who come here illegally, why would any right-thinking, would-be immigrant take a number and wait his turn? Why not just throw in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and free tequila while we’re at it?” I believe that the issue of illegal immigration in the United States with be around for a very long time.
Without looking at the comments of other people who have posted here, I just need to say this: the author, M(r)s. Parker, has hit the point. This circular argument is in the best interests of the illegal immigrants all the way around. Rather than “wait in line” to become legal (the legal way, mind you), these said immigrants insist on crossing our border in droves, to the land of the free. And not just free people, but free healthcare, free jobs, free licenses, while the rest of us sit back and wonder why our healthcare costs so much, where our jobs went, and why there are so many deaths contributed to illegal immigrants that the government doesn’t seem to do much about. And actually, the government not doing much about it is what is encouraging illegal immigrants more than ever to come over here.
Our country has actually very strongly taken the analogy of “abstinence until marriage, but take these condoms anyway,” and applied it to illegal immigrants. Almost all of our programs, from trucking, to farming (uh, having orchards…), to healthcare and the process of getting a job have been touched by this philosophy, allowing illegal truck drivers to cross the borders to deliver their goods (actually, there is a program in the works for that I hear), allowing illegals to get healthcare so that they don’t endanger the rest of our population, and providing licenses so that illegals can drive and get jobs. I’m sorry and I may sound redundant here, but I don’t think that it is a good idea, or fair to the legitimate citizens of the US to allow all of this to happen. Especially when we have immigration police trying to send these people back to their native country, sending the mixed message of “of course you can be here, and we will provide you with what you need. Just don’t let us catch you!” It is just so frustrating how this can just go around, and around, and around, without an end to the madness that is the United States government illegal immigrant policies.
~Liz
Alright, so I disagree with the author on many points. I would just like to start by pointing out that her statement “Rather than fix something, we simply accommodate circumstances. As in: Kids are having sex anyway, so we’ll just give them condoms” makes no sense because sex education keeps kids safe, so I don’t understand how that’s “accommodating circumstances” (not that this really has anything to do with the article). Now while administering driver’s licenses may be an extreme, I don’t understand denying health care and education. I think what is often forgotten about illegal immigrants is that they’re people, people who it would be cruel to deny treatment at a hospital and deny children an education. In the end: a child is a child, and children deserve an education whether they’re legal or not. Now I am not saying Americans should encourage illegal immigration, but maybe it’s a sign we should increase our immigration limit.
Now this is a problem that there seems to be no realistic answer to. On one hand, we can’t just encourage illegal immigrants with their illegal ways by granting them rights that only citizens have, such as drivers lisences, welfare and jobs. On the other hand, having them here seriously helps our economy. Think about it. Without them, apples wouldn’t be so cheap anymore. Anyone who likes fresh fruit or other food products would have to pay much, much more. They would have to actually get paid minimum wage, instead of way under. There is one extreme, endorse their illegal ways, and keep our economy in its current state, while we sacrafice our ideals by letting the immigrants win. Not only will this put a permanent black mark on this part of the United State’s history, but this would seriously encourage even more people to cross the border illegally, so that is clearly not an option. We could seriously crack down on illegal immigrants, which would look good on paper, but it would make our economy suffer. With the economy being one of the most important issues, it is like chosing which one is the least worst of the two. If it were my choice, I would seriously increase the border patrol, and circulate each fo the people’s workstations, to prevent certain gaurds from being corrupt and accepting briberies from coyotes trying to get immigrants across.
A REPLY TO EVERYONE:
My great-grandfather got here illegally from Holland. He crossed on a merchant ship into Canada, and then made his way into the US. He worked hard, very hard and eventually became a citizen. He opened a flower nursery in Portland that’s still open to this day. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my great grandpa searching for a better life for himself. Most who responded seem to assume that illegal immigrants are lazy, mooching off American benefits, but I think that’s hardly the case. There’s a limit on the amount of immigrants the US can except, but what’s a father or mother to do when they need jobs for their kids? What if they’re denied entry? I am not saying that the respondents don’t have a point, I agree that illegal immigrants should follow the rules and apply for citizenship, I just think that illegral immigrants shouldn’t be villianized. Here are some specific student quotes I have problems with:
“More immigrants will see even more reason to hop the border and think it is okay to come here without becoming a citizen first and I really do not want to have my tax dollars taking care of them. I honestly don’t believe they deserve any sort of care if they don’t respect our policies and laws.”
–Once again, illegal immigrants are not maliciously crossing the border as a way to stick it to the man. I mean really.
“And not just free people, but free healthcare, free jobs, free licenses, while the rest of us sit back and wonder why our healthcare costs so much, where our jobs went, and why there are so many deaths contributed to illegal immigrants that the government doesn’t seem to do much about”
—I don’t know what is meant by ‘ deaths contributed to illegal immigrants’ means. However, health care cost so much because : 1. we live in a capatilist country and people will capitalize on new technology and medicine and 2. insurance (maybe we should stop sueing are doctors so much). By the way, I hardly think illegal immigrants are taking the sort of jobs Americans are eager to have. I don’t understand the need to villianize illegal immigrants, when it comes down to money or people, I care more about the people.
If we really want the government to take action, maybe we should work on stabilizing the Mexican economy.
To Meagan
I agree with Meagan. Illegal immigrants are not bad people. If I was in Mexico fighting to support my family in a land were medical technology is lacking as well as diminished suitable living conditions, I would take the same route the immigrants have taken. The one that leads north. We can’t stereotype all immigrants or read into their motives to form complete generalizations, but we can assume these people have the intention to seek out a better life, provide for their families, and flee from the harsh and inhumane life they were born into. We can assume they didn’t just come up to kick back in their lawn chairs and have a couple shots living off ‘our tax dollars’ and cheap fried chicken. Immigrants are hard workers and where I do not agree with awarding there illegitimacy with driver’s licenses I don’t think judging immigrants as a bunch of lazy leeches here to make American’s lives a living hell. Also, I do think it would be a good idea to help with Mexico’s economy. People are obviously immigrating to better suit themselves and/ or their family. If we could help to give them that at home, then they wouldn’t all be leaving to find a home some where else. Okay, I kind of veered from the topic, but I was just going with Meagan’s post!
This is what I’ve been trying to say. They are illegal immigrants, key word illegal. Why are we trying to give them rights? This just gives them more reason to come over and have their little party. It like this criminals are in prison because they’ve done something wrong. We take away their rights, we don’t just give a killer a slap on the wrist and say don’t do it again we punish them. Their was also the issue that if illegal immigrants get caught that they spend a year in our prisons. No way. What they come her illegally and get caught so we pay for them to live in a prison that has better conditions than what they have, that’s what they want.
There was a good topic brought up that I always use in my favor which takes way form every point I just made. Teenagers are going to have sex so why not give them condom or there’re going to drink so why not supervise it and make it safe. I guess this is the same thing they are trying to do with the illegal immigration, but is till think there are better ways to solve it.