Latimer on Law & Politics

New Study Proves GOP Policies Most Effective For Curbing Illegal Immigration

           New Study Proves GOP Policies Most Effective For Curbing Illegal Immigration

"The number of illegal immigrants in the United States, after peaking at 12 million in 2007, fell to about 11.1 million in 2009, the first clear decline in two decades, according to a report published Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center."  -Julia Preston, New York Times, September 2, 2010.

            According to a Pew Hispanic Center report just released, the number of illegal immigrants in the United States declined sharply over the period 2007 to 2009, by almost one million.  The Pew Hispanic Center is a non-partisan research organization based in Washington, and it does not attempt to analyze the causes for such a sharp decline in illegal immigration, according to the New York Times.

           The Obama administration is cynically claiming that the sharp decline in illegal immigration is due to its increased expenditure of tax moneys for enforcement along the Mexican border as well as through the Homeland Security agency.   The Obama administration is just playing politics as usual here,  by not giving credit where due to the Bush administration policies that played a major role in reducing the number of illegal immigrants.

            The Bush administration policies that led to the sharp reduction in illegal immigration included about the same level of spending on enforcement as the Obama administration has spent.  That's a wash, but the Bush administration's "free market" policy of deregulation of the financial industry has  played a huge role in reducing the number of illegal immigrants between 2007 and 2009.

           The decline began during the Bush years, in 2007, as the cracks in the deregulated financial industry became clear to industry insiders and money began to tighten.  When the economy nearly collapsed in 2008 due to the Bush administration's lax regulatory oversight of the financial industry, the number of illegal immigrants began to decline sharply and it continued into 2009, as money for new construction all but dried up.

           A major segment of the illegal immigrant population came up to the U. S. to work in the construction industry, and when that work began to slow down in 2007 and then all but disappeared in 2008, the number of illegal immigrants declined accordingly.  The states that have seen the sharpest decline in illegal immigration are Florida, Virginia and Nevada, where real estate and construction booms suffered huge busts due to the economic crash of 2008.

            Increased border security has played a role here, under both the Bush and Obama administrations.  During the period 2007-2009, the cost of hiring smugglers has increased sharply, according to the Pew study, while the likelihood of finding work here has significantly decreased.  This is just straightforward economics, where illegal immigrants will pay more for the opportunity to find work, but won't pay just to move from poverty in Mexico or the Caribbean to the increasing poverty  we have here in the United States.

            We can thank the Bush administration's deregulation of the financial industry for making this important difference.  I know that some readers on this site accuse me of being just a "liberal" partisan on behalf of the Democrats, but in reality I believe in giving credit to the Republicans where credit is due as I am doing now.

          On this question, the sharp decline in illegal immigration since 2007, both Bush and Obama can claim some credit for putting more tax money into enforcement.    The real difference, however, the factor that has really driven the decline in illegal immigration, is the loss of job opportunities for illegal workers in the construction industry and in the economy in general.  On that score, the Bush administration deserves all the credit, along with the GOP Congressional majority he had for six years, for almost totally dismantling the federal bureaucracy and  thereby allowing an unregulated Wall Street to all but destroy the American economy for the second time in 80 years.   Nice going, W!