Beginning in the early 1990s, according to the PEW Hispanic Center, illegal immigration has run at about 1.1 million people per year, peaking in 1999-2000 and dropping off slightly since then. Apparently no one in the Clinton or Bush Administrations felt like that was a problem, or that it would become a problem. Well it has.

The sight of several tens of thousands of foreign nationals on the streets of American towns is illustrative of two things. They are that American immigration policy was not enforced by the Executive branch and that our nation’s sovereignty is under assault by foreign nationals on our soil. The former is probably the only thing that either Clinton or Bush has done that is legitimately impeachable, and the latter is sedition. Advocates of communism might have succeeded in toppling our government if they had simply sent more émigrés to America. Still, it is not the exclusive fault of the illegal émigrés. The bulk of fault lies with Administrations that thought they knew what was better for America than the lawmakers, and lawmakers that ignored their non-compliance.

Clinton and Bush ignored the law. Bush slightly more so, prosecuting 97% fewer employers than Clinton’s INS, and Clinton didn’t prosecute that many. They ignored the law at the behest of employers and Chamber’s of Commerce that encouraged them to ignore the law. They encouraged them to ignore the law in order to gain access to cheap labor. Cheap labor that had no recourse to civil protections and due process, and was in essence, without representation. They did it for profit or competitiveness when others had hired illegals before them.

Now, like an IED, the thing has blown up in everyone’s faces.

Labor Organizers

The same forces, not to say the people and titled organizations, but the thinking, that have organized labor in the past have organized the illegal immigrant population. Organized labor does stand to benefit from the loyalty of 12 million new citizens for whom they have won rights and benefits. The illegals stand to gain rights and benefits.

Unfortunately for American labor, illegal immigrants add large numbers people to a labor pool that is under increasing pressure from productivity enhancements, job obsolescence and off shore outsourcing. Any political advantage is completely offset by decreased demand for labor.

Employers of Illegals

The employers of illegals stand to lose leverage over a captive pool of cheap labor. It is entirely likely that if they could make the illegal immigration question go away, they would, and happily slide back into the status quo. If their workers become citizens, with rights and recourse, benefits and the vote, there would be no point in having them. You would have to fire them and wait for the next wave of illegal immigrants in order to enjoy the profit margins to which you have become accustomed.

Interestingly, your current illegal employees would be at the forefront of opposition to allowing more immigration., hence competition for jobs. Tough spot for you.

Political Parties

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can make a safe bet on how the newly legalized workers will vote. One thing is for certain, illegals have had an impact in California. In Latino districts where Republicans took a strong anti-immigration stance, there are no more Republican representatives.

If the impact illegal immigrants on local politics chills your blood, you are probably not alone. Europeans are, wholesale, abandoning liberal immigration policies as more and more people of strongly held ethnic values have flooded in and asserted anti-western and anti-democratic views on regional and national politics. As we now see illegal aliens undertaking to influence American politics on a national scale, you have to wonder. What will happen if they don’t get their way?

It is entirely possible that not giving them their way would be the most valid test of whether or not they truly are ready for citizenship in the U.S.A. In any case, the legal immigrants of Mexican descent don’t really care in any predictable way. So what is at risk is only at risk if the illegal immigrants are given rights and the vote. So, will the new immigrants be Republicans or Democrats? Well, the organizers are definitely showing the organizational styles and mass turnouts of socialists. And what do you expect downtrodden people from a downtrodden country to be?

It will most likely turn out that we have imported 12 million socialists into our country. They are the product of repressive and exploitative regimes with a marked split in the fortunes of the wealthy and the poor. They are examples of what American leadership can expect of our citizens if our labor, commerce and trade policies continue to be more like those of Mexico and a lot less like those of the U.S.A. of the last generation.

Who wins with amnesty?

Mexican government and business are clear winners and have been winning all along. The cash drained from our economy goes to them through stipends to families remaining in Mexico. U.S. labor loses leverage on wage demands but gains with 12 million new socialists. American business loses big time with no ability to deport workers who are not malleable. Democrats are in the same boat with labor. Illegal aliens win the lottery and will stay organized and will want more. Americans in general lose their jobs. Illegal immigrants will continue to come.

Who wins with a guest worker program?

This is the best hope from American business. They retain the heavy hand of dismissal equating to deportation and so can dictate to the degree they have become accustomed. This changes nothing for Mexico. Republicans don’t have to worry about 12 million new socialists. Labor loses big time because they not only can’t organize the guest workers but they will not get a pool of new pro-labor citizens. Democrats are, again, in the same boat as labor. Illegal aliens basically gain nothing and lose anonymity and mobility. Americans in general pay a bundle to administrate a plan that benefits businessmen and not necessarily Americans in general, and they lose jobs. Illegal immigrants will continue to come.

Who wins with the Monday Morning Economist Program?

Illegal immigrants will stop coming. Mexico will lose future revenue growth. American businessmen will lose leverage on their illegal employees over a predictable period of time. Illegal immigrants will become citizens in due course, expenses paid by their employers, winning the lottery but with the prize differed. American taxpayers will not shoulder the expense of administration of a guest worker program. Really, if your tax burden goes up so that you can get your lawn mowed more cheaply, is that a net savings? Republicans phase in the impact of 12 million new socialists and get time to indoctrinate them. Democrats get 12 million new socialist less those that are indoctrinated by the Republicans. Labor gets 12 million new members for better or for worse, but not another 30 million.

If nothing else

We should not be so complacent. Yawn! The illegal alien problem developed over thirty years. How did we not know that it would come to crisis at some point? Sure 9/11 brought border security into sharper focus, but the War on Drugs seemed to not punctuate the problem, nor did the drop out rate of children of illegals, nor did the criminal gangs bred in illegal immigrant communities. We have put up with a disingenuous War on Drugs and War on Crime and Leaving no Child Behind and now we are supposed to believe that there is a War on Terror that now makes it a bad idea to have porous borders. Now our War on Terror is fomenting a watershed civil disturbance predicated on the shortsightedness of several incarnations of government that simply put off things that were hard to think about. If we do not think about or dismiss the likely consequences of the actions of our government, we are simply asking for more of the same train wreck that U.S. immigration policy has been. Much more than a potential terrorist attack is at stake. What is at stake is the possibility of a future without crisis’s that are entirely avoidable.