That’s the trouble, isn’t it?
Marco Rubio wants amnesty. There’s no mistaking this.
He also wants high levels of immigration, in general. There are certainly plenty of well-meaning people who take the position that open immigration is good for a country in the long term, just as globalization is; if incoming workers underbid existing workers for the job, it simply makes the company more profitable and/or lowers prices, so everyone wins on average, and if some individuals find themselves displaced by others willing to do the job for less, they should just suck it up and quit whining in the interest of the prosperity of their neighbors. And Rubio seems to be in this camp.
For the sake of his marketability as a presidential candidate, he’s claiming that he’s seen the light on amnesty, that he always intended to have a parallel enforcement track, and now understands that the American people need to have enforcement happen first to know with certainty that it will actually happen. And at the debate on Wednesday, he claimed that he was all for H1-B visas, only where employers had to advertise the opening for a half-year first for Americans, and had to pay above-market wages, to prevent abuses, and any abusing employer should be banned from participation. (Neither of which provisions his actual legislative proposal contained.)
He’s saying all the right things, now. But nothing would stop him from reverting back to a full-on, amnesty + guest worker + green card increase program supported by Democrats, Chamber-of-Commerce Republicans, and anyone who thought they could sell the deal with a straight face. I suppose if he wished to get re-elected, it might give him pause, but other than that, what I’m trying to figure out is this:
Is there any way enforcement-first-ers and others supporting limits to immigration, can make his promise more binding?
Now, to begin with, Rubio could start with The Big Policy Speech, the one that’s marketed as a game changer, in which he says that he has always believed in the power of immigration due to his family’s story, but has listened to the stories of people hurt by job loss, or because their jobs pay less than they otherwise would, and stories of people whose children’s schools don’t have the resources to help them because they’re stretched by bilingual instruction and other services for immigrants, and he’s read the statistics that large scale arrivals of uneducated immigrants strain social services for the benefit of the wealthy who enjoy cheap nannies, and the H1-B program produces job loss and lowered wages for tech workers. And he says that the reports out of Europe have been a wake-up call.
He says he still believes we should have compassion for those individuals who have arrived here long ago and have been told by countless politicians, in their words and in their (lack of) actions, that they were welcome here. But he recognizes that many of those with whom he would have made common cause, for this sake of this compassion, desire not just compassion for those already here, but an opening of the borders for more waves to come, whether as so-called “guest workers,” under increased immigrant quotas, or simply by repeating the past practice of amnesties with claims of heightened enforcement, in which the enforcement never actually happens. He has studied the issue extensively and now knows that only when we have a well-functioning system in place to prevent people from working illegally with false identification and from working under the table can we even begin to think about next steps.
He then outlines a series of pledges.
First, he will not propose, and will not sign any form of legalization program during his first term in office, regardless of how it’s labelled — not an amnesty, not a path-to-citizenship, not an issuing of work visas, not an official declaration of non-enforcement with provisional worth authorization, not an implementation or renewal of Obama’s “deferred action” programs. Nothing — with small exceptions: individuals who would otherwise be eligible for residence because they’ve married an American citizen will have penalties waived, as well as for an individual who is now eligible to be hired under an H1-B or similar program; likewise, eligible students may apply for a student visa.
Second, he will not just sign but will advocate for new enforcement mechanisms, aimed at preventing unauthorized individuals from working in the United States: this means a full implementation of e-verify (with due attention paid to clearing up such flaws as arise from time to time), as well as greater federal attention to prosecution of identity theft, and, lastly, actions against day laborers, “off the books” nannies, and other under-the-table work which is part-and-parcel of illegal immigrant life; and once these are passed, he will direct his administration to enforce these measures in good faith. (ADDED: actually, in principle, going after employers would work just as well, and probably be the better approach, with the same net effect.)
Third, he will reiterate his pledges at the CNBC debate, that any H1-B visas will come with tight restrictions that require the employer to make genuine attempts to fill the job with an American first, and that any such job must be filled at an above-market pay rate (or, alternatively, that the payscale must be a market rate and the cost per employer for each such visa, in terms of fees paid to the government would be set at such a high level as to strongly discourage all but the most desperate employers); in addition, he will pledge that any H1-B bill will levy extensive fines on any employer who has had a substantiated accusation by an employee that tech workers have been fired roughly coincident with employment of H1-B visa-holders.
If, as a consequence of the second pledge, it indeed happens that large numbers of immigrant families return to their countries of origin and that, as a result, there is a labor shortage in some fields, not remedied even by substantial pay increases, and there is consensus on this point among all parties, even groups skeptical of mass immigration, such as Numbers USA and the Center for Immigration Studies, he will work with all parties to work out alternatives. And very low numbers of individuals now living in the United States, based on community attachment, education level, and existing English-language skill (rather than pledges to learn in the future), may be offered the opportunity to apply for slots for work authorization.
So far so good.
But:
Obama told that half of his voter base which was against same-sex marriage that he believed marriage was between one man and one woman. Then he “evolved” on the subject — and the other half of his voter base, which believed all along that he was making this claim with a wink, and with his fingers crossed behind his back, were vindicated in their conviction that he never really opposed SSM in the first place.
Having watched this play out, can Rubio really be trusted? What could he say that would really prove he means what he says when he claims he’s now seen the light?
If this were a different time and place, or maybe a fairy tale, he could promise his firstborn. Not so much in 2015.
Could he promise something else that would create personal hardship if he reneged on his pledges? After all, what do presidents do after they leave the presidency? They become multimillionaires by giving speeches. Could he promise that he’d relinquish his post-presidency riches? — say by signing a contract, countersigned by, say, Mark Krikorian, that, should he fail to live up to his pledge, all income earned beyond a modest living (by D.C. standards, say, $100k per year), up to a maximum of, say, $20 million, will be relinquished to a fund administered by the Numbers and/or CIS staff to support displaced workers. Would such a contract be legally enforceable? Would Mark Zuckerberg step in and cover the $20 million, and, if so, would this be a bribe (“f***ing golden”) and prosecuteable as such?
I don’t know. And ultimately it’s fantasy to think, that outside the concept of a coalition agreement, there’s a way to ensure that a candidate is genuinely bound to his promises. But I can dream, can’t I?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In