The Art of the Deal: Trump, Immigration and Amnesty

            I don’t agree with Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank’s opinion that Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist.  While I do agree that Trump’s candidacy has “brought the bigots out of hiding” and made overt prejudice electorally salient in a way it hasn’t been since George Wallace last ran for president in the early 1970s, I think much of what Trump has said and done in this campaign can be ascribed to a cynical boorishness that he probably understands sells quite nicely to a large faction of the Republican party. 

            Trump’s signature issue is immigration.  At the press conference last summer where he announced his candidacy for president, Trump said:

When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best . . . They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.

But right after blurting out this nonsense, Trump also said “And some, I assume, are good people.”  In a later statement Trump added:

On the other hand, many fabulous people come in from Mexico and our country is better for it. But these people are here legally, and are severely hurt by those coming in illegally. I am proud to say that I know many hard working Mexicans—many of them are working for and with me…and, just like our country, my organization is better for it.

            From a policy standpoint, Trump doesn’t sound like a nativist trying to defend white American.  Instead, what seems to offend Trump is the simple idea that undocumented workers have broken our laws. 

            According to his website, the first two pillars of his immigration policy are (i) “a nation without borders is not an nation”; and (ii) “a nation without laws is not a nation.”  His key policy proposals are to, deport everyone who has crossed the U.S. border or overstayed a visa illegally and build a wall across the U.S./Mexico border. But that wall would have a “big fat beautiful door,” so that people would “come in legally.”

            Let’s take Mr. Trump at his word.  The problem with illegal immigration is not the immigration.  The problem is that it is illegal.  He’s apparently not concerned that large numbers of Hispanics (or Asians, for that matter) will dilute the white population.  Just like most Americans he stands for the rather uncontroversial proposition that the laws on the books ought to be respected and enforced until they are changed or repealed through democratic processes. 

            But if that’s so, Mr. Trump ought to be open to a deal. 

            People don’t risk crossing our borders for no reason.  By law, they cannot receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (aka “welfare”), benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka “food stamps”), Medicare, subsidized Obamacare, Medicaid or even Social Security. They come for the jobs that wouldn’t exist—low skill low wage agricultural jobs, for example—if they were not there to do them.

            That implies that somebody in the U.S. is creating jobs for undocumented workers.  If those jobs were not being created, far fewer people would be entering the U.S. in search of those jobs.  In other words, this is one of the few times that “supply-side economics” works.  If you supply something and make its price attractive enough, people will take advantage of it.

            None of this is a revelation to our government.  To reduce the temptation to cross our borders illegally, it has long been a crime for anyone to hire an undocumented alien.  Any employer who hires an undocumented worker faces a fine of up to $10,000 for each person so employed and imprisonment for up to six months.  And that doesn’t count any additional penalties imposed for failing to collect and pay withholding and unemployment taxes.

            As part of its immigration policy, the Obama administration appears to have decided to turn a blind eye to the employer side of the problem.

            If they’re going to insist on strict enforcement of all laws relevant to illegal immigration, it's hard to see why Trump and his supporters—if they’re not racists and bigots--shouldn’t also be aiming their vitriol at scofflaws.  The reason they haven't done so yet probably is that nobody really wants to prosecute farmers, manufacturers, construction companies, restaurants, hotels, landscaping companies and families that need nannies for their children.  These employers are, after all, probably otherwise solid citizens, voters and campaign contributors.  But this doesn’t mean that the next president will continue to give them a pass.

            And so, we have the makings of a deal.  In return for dropping a nonsensical and impractical demand to deport 11 million undocumented aliens just so that they can apply to return the legal way, we also drop all the nonsensical and impractical pretenses of prosecuting people who have broken the law by hiring undocumented workers.  Both groups should have to pay a fine and all unpaid taxes.  The employers get immunity from RICO liability and civil suits having to do with wages not paid to the undocumented while the undocumented get a long path toward citizenship.  All sides agree to beef up border control and legal status verification by employers.

            In a word, everyone gets amnesty.

            Nobody’s going to be completely happy with this.  The closet racists in the Trump coalition will see this as a sell-out, and, of course nobody likes paying fines or back taxes.  But, it does move the ball forward.  All sides grudgingly acknowledge that there’s enough blame for the influx of people into the country by illegal means to go around.  All sides recognize that it’s impossible to clean up the immigration mess we now have and we agree to start over from where we are right now. And,  we agree, once and for all, to resolve the matter on neutral terms in accordance with the rule of law.