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Welcome to Round 4 of a debate over the DREAM act between Will Wilkinson and myself.
DREAM is an immigration measure that offers US citizenship to illegal aliens who entered the United States before the age of 16.
You can read Wilkinson’s opening entry here, my comment here, then Wilkinson’s rebuttal here.
With Wilkinson’s Round 3, the debate takes an ugly turn. Among other disobliging personal remarks, Wilkinson repeatedly accuses me of lying, and then for good measure accuses me of “goading the nativist rabble.”
I’ll answer Will Wilkinson’s specific points, but I first have to say this: Wilkinson’s mode of arguing exemplifies why the immigration debate doesn’t ever seem to go anywhere.
Advocates of more and more immigration habitually use a 4-stage method best identified by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn in the Yes Minister series. The stages go as follows:
1) Nothing is going to happen.
2) Something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
3) Maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do.
4) Maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
Immigration proponents are so convinced that more immigration is good in itself that they do not always worry as much as they should about the way in which they achieve their aims. They sell huge society-changing transformations as small incremental steps.
When the sales pitch proves wrong or hugely exaggerated, they seem untroubled. Wilkinson’s own blitheness perfectly exemplifies the pattern. Running through his first post is a persistent undertone that the very idea of immigration laws is a big mistake. “Yes, the DREAM Act also incentivises illegal activity. But if the activity is not one that ought to be illegal, perhaps we should consider changing the law?”
Then when I point out the various ways in which this incentive operates, he squawks that the law in fact is “narrowly tailored” and applies only to “a relatively small group.”
Is it too Freudian to suspect that the lurid accusation of deceit repeatedly lodged by Will Wilkinson reveal an awareness of the credibility problems on his side of the argument?
My goal was to see beyond the advertising materials, to understand how the law would work in practice. I offered 3 ways that DREAM could benefit many, many people beyond the supposedly “narrowly targeted” designated beneficiaries.
Let’s look again at my 3 ways that DREAM might be abused. But since I’m going to proceed slower and with more detail than in my first post, I’d better break up the argument into parts to ease the burden on the reader.
Here’s case 1.
The language of the DREAM law offers benefits to people who arrived in the US after age 16 or who arrived before 16, but have spent less than the required 5 years in the United States.
I suggested that this language created some interesting possibilities for fraud. Perhaps the illegal immigrant arrived after age 16. He could still file an application, only with his birthday altered.
If the illegal immigrant is lucky, the fraud would deceive the authorities. It’s generally agreed that north of one-quarter of all the legalizations in the last amnesty, 1986, were fraudulent.
But even if the false information does not deceive the authorities, it can still be useful to the illegal immigrant. DREAM forbids the Department of Homeland Security to use material provided under DREAM in deportation proceedings. So if apprehended after filing his false application, the would-be immigrant can argue: “This proceeding is tainted! You would never have found me if I had not applied for the benefits of DREAM.”
The illegal argument might or might not succeed. But as I said in my original post, DREAM creates a great one-way option: a new set of legal tools to delay, impede and outright thwart enforcement actions. And given the crushing overburden of cases that paralyzes immigration enforcement in the United States, a deportation delayed is very nearly good as a deportation prevented.
Wilkinson seems to have entirely failed to grasp this point. Perhaps I expressed myself poorly. Wilkinson says: “If you’re in the country illegally and don’t qualify for DREAM, how does DHS’s inability to use bunk info in your DREAM application keep them from deporting you exactly as they would had you not filed some crooked papers?”
But what matters of course is DHS’s inability to use the truthful information mixed with the false information. DREAM creates a kind of Miranda right for illegal immigrants – and it’s very reasonable to fear that this new right will benefit many people beyond Wilkinson’s imagined few.
Mr. Frum,
I read your blog everyday and I greatly respect you. But you, sir, are stretching the imagination on this one. What is interesting is that the main thrust of your argument is not that illegal immigrants can game the system or that the DREAM Act will increase illegal immigration, but rather that the information gained from applications cannot be used against undocumented workers.
I guess you think that no immigration reform is worth it unless it calls for greater enforcement. If it doesn’t call for greater enforcement, then the children be damned, right?
A good debunking is over here:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/11/humane_stop-gap
Mr. Frum
ANY law is subject to fraud. ANY law is subject to abuse. Does this mean we should stop trying to reform the immigration system or modify immigration laws to better suit our needs? The argument is non-starter and silly. And frankly, I am so disappointed that you are taking CIS and FAIR approach to immigration policy. Aren’t you and your family immigrants?
Mr. Frum – Unfortunately, I think you’re *way* off base here. You’re resorting to wild scenarios and “what-ifs” just to prove your point, but you’re coming off as ridiculous. There’s fraud (or legally “gaming the system”) in every bit of legislation, including things like tax breaks for businesses and farm subsidies. You’re obviously against the legislation and trying to come up with reasons after the fact. Why not suggest ways to make the legislation better or at the very least debate the bill on it’s merits and intentions, instead of dreaming up fanciful scenarios in which someone could possibly break the law and benefit?
We hold posters here accountable to a higher standard, and it’s only right that we call you out as well when you’re acting more partisan-hackish as opposed to thoughtful commentator. If you have issues granting citizenship under the DREAM act, say so. But knock off the platitudes, especially after you’ve been thoroughly debunked.
Fraud-fraud-fraud!
Mr. Frum- it is okay that you dislike the Dream Act. Just say it, I dislike the Dream Act! Freeing experience.
I want immigration reform!
Let us do things the correct way, but that will never happen because we have a bunch of pre-schoolers in the Congress/Senate. They want all the cookies for everyone but who cares about those that only get crumbs. Survival of the fittest at age 4! They want this new toy and that new toy and do not care if they toss their toys across the room and nail the rest us on top of the head! Time to call “time out” Mr. President. Some of us see manipulation 101. They are about to get fouled out the game but not before they send an elbow to your efforts. Would someone please call bluff already, or is this more of the same? Let’s us stop kicking things down the road and never do anything approach. Sarah Palin would be screaming foul on the other team and it is going to be a matter of time that people take the crazy enough to say something out loud approach over the do nothing (hard) crowd. See the writing on the wall folks. The welcome mat is being unrolled for a bumpy ride.
I suggested that this language created some interesting possibilities for fraud. Perhaps the illegal immigrant arrived after age 16. He could still file an application, only with his birthday altered.
For heavens sake doesn’t he know that most of the illegal immigrants are from Latin America and if some 18 year old who came to the states at 17 from Mexico is sure as hell not going to be able to fill out the form in English much less alter birth certificates. It is a fact that after the age of 12 or so you lose the ability to acquire languages without retaining an accent, if some 18 year old Hispanic looking kid has an interview, speaks fluent English without a spanish accent you can be damn sure that they grew up here (or in Canada)
” some 18 year old who came to the states at 17 from Mexico is sure as hell not going to be able to fill out the form in English much less alter birth certificates”
Whats to stop him from getting some else to fill out the form and alter the certificate?
” after the age of 12 or so you lose the ability to acquire languages without retaining an accent, ”
If someone can’t learn to speak English well after 12 then why should people who enter the US older then 12 be encouraged to stay? Dream would make more sense if it only applied to people who entered the US at a young age – like 5 years old or less– and speak American English with no accent and do not speak Spanish.