The ultimate rerun

In the late 1860's, the First Transcontinental Railroad was constructed. The western portion was built in large part by 12,000 Chinese laborers brought over from the Qing Empire. The decision to hire them was not made lightly–anti-Chinese sentiment had been rife since the 1849 Gold Rush, but the pay and harsh working conditions simply didn't attract many other workers. By 1867, the workforce of Central Pacific was 80% to 90% Chinese.

Here's a thought experiment–if 100 random Americans, white or black, immigrant or Native American, had been polled about whether to bring in thousands of Chinese workers, what would their response have been? I hypothesize there would've been 200 reasons given as to why that was a terrible idea. Yet the problem was stark–the government wanted the railroad built, companies weren't willing to pay more, and native workers had better options. In the end, bringing in the Chinese was the best solution¹.

Thus we arrive at the first group that lobbies in favor of immigration: business interests. Today, railroad companies have been replaced by agricultural producers and construction firms. Not surprisingly, these jobs are low-skill and poorly paid. The government (and general public) wants the work done, companies aren't willing to pay more, and native workers have better options. Visas like the H2-A simply don't meet demand. The gap is thus filled by illegal aliens, whose immigration status is no secret to any farmer or contractor who hires them. Many of these employers, especially in rural areas, vote Republican. Yet, they have no qualms about hiring illegals when it comes to eking out a dollar more for their business.

The 2020 election was a big surprise for Democrats, and not because they won. Instead, vote tallies showed a big swing to the right among minorities, from Texas border towns to New York City. This was not supposed to be the case–wasn't Trump a xenophobe who called Mexicans rapists and referred to Wuhan coronavirus as "kung flu"? The results flew in the face of long-held Democrat belief that they'd naturally dominate elections on the backs of non-whites even as working class support eroded.

Indeed, this belief has been the backbone of Democrat immigration policy for decades. There seems to be powerful evidence for it–in 1986, the Reagan administration passed an amnesty that allowed all illegal aliens who entered the country before 1982 to gain citizenship. California, which had been consistently Republican since 1952², hasn't voted GOP since 1988, and Democrat victories have been increasingly lopsided. Just wait a few more election cycles, the theory goes, and Texas will turn blue. Illegal aliens, to Democrats, are a convenient tool for speeding the process along.

Reality, however, has been a bummer. Texas continues to vote Republican, even as Hispanics emerge as the largest group. Florida, the third largest state and full of Latinos, not only voted for Trump in 2020, but re-elected GOP governor Ron DeSantis by 20 points two years later. What's going on? How can two of the largest and most diverse states not be following the California playbook?

On closer scrutiny, the idea that a greater proportion of non-whites makes a state Democrat simply doesn't hold water. Beyond California, the only "very diverse" states that vote consistently blue are Hawaii and New Mexico. Illinois and New York are of average diversity, while New England and the Pacific Northwest, the remaining Democrat strongholds, have few minorities. In contrast, the South, which contains most of the black population, is solidly Republican. And while the country as a whole has become more diverse since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, elections have become more competitive, not less.

Democrats' attempts to use immigrants, including illegal aliens, as a voting bloc to replace waning black influence runs into two major issues. The first is that "immigrants" are highly varied. The experience of Chinese in California couldn't be more different than that of Haitians in Florida. Even within an ethnic group, class differences are enormous. Those who arrive for graduate school and work in IT have little in common with those who sneak across the border to toil in restaurants. The second is that minorities vote at low rates, and tend to follow trends wherever they are. Those in liberal regions like the San Francisco Bay Area vote Democrat, but those in conservative locales like West Texas vote Republican. Thus, non-white voters often simply reinforce existing patterns rather than forge new trends.

There's a Chinese parable I learned as a child. Once, there was a man who loved dragons to the point of infatuation, putting draconic iconography all around his house³. Moved by this, a real dragon flew down to meet him, at which point he took fright and fled. The story is used to characterize someone who claims to like something they don't actually understand and only knows in the abstract.

This seems to be relationship of many white liberals with minorities. Some time ago, I noted to an long-time Indian friend that most of the white folks we knew growing up in the Bay Area had gone elsewhere–Oregon, Idaho, even Australia. These weren't racists, not at all–they loved reggaeton and curry as much as anyone. But curiously, they only ever moved to whiter places. Like the New Yorkers who cried foul over a few busloads of migrants, their behavior changed as quickly as their neighborhood's complexion.

White flight is not a new phenomenon, of course. 20th century blacks escaping Jim Crow went north and west during the Great Migration. Whites there, unlike in the South, didn't segregate them; instead, they segregated themselves. The effect of this can be clearly seen in demographic maps today, and the dynamics continue in much the same way. Detroit's much-touted "revival" is really just the story of a few white yuppies moving downtown because their boss demanded it⁴, bringing with them specialty coffee shops and yoga studios. If one eccentric billionaire decided to pull the plug on his urban renewal experiment, the city would be right back where it started.

Illegal aliens are no different. In their minds, many Democrats think they're good people for granting pitiable foreigners asylum. In reality, they'll rarely interact with them unless there was yardwork to be done. When the "new Americans" start making their presence felt, tensions soar and attitudes sour. "Every bushel has a few bad apples," the bleeding hearts say to themselves, before fleeing the orchard.

So if business interests, Democrats, and think-good⁵ liberals favor illegal immigration, who's against it? The answer casts light on why the problem has been so vexing.

First up are those who believe third-world immigration undermines the country's national character. Race is a factor to them, but not the only one. Religion, education, and crime all contribute to a general dislike of post-1965 arrivals. For the most part, this group does not differentiate between "legal" and "illegal" immigration; as far as they're concerned, none of the foreigners should be here. The challenge in getting their policy agenda enacted is that, outside of West Virginia, they're not concentrated enough to take power. Five fingers are not a fist, and until they're organized enough to control state or national office, they will remain confined to AM radio.

Then there are workers with whom migrants compete for jobs. The willingness of illegal aliens to work for peanuts undermines wages, and blacks are disproportionately affected due to their lower socio-economic status. The problem these workers have is that most aren't organized, and union leadership in any case has long been one-sidedly Democrat⁶. Furthermore, as with Chinese railroad workers a century and a half ago, anti-black sentiment in many cases exceeds anti-migrant sentiment, and employers see illegal aliens as the lesser of two evils.

Finally, there is a surprising group–legal immigrants. These tend to be educated professionals who arrive by plane instead of raft. They dislike illegal aliens, especially from their own countries, for giving them a bad name. They also believe it's patently unfair that illegals seem to move through the immigration system faster and are pandered to by politicians. Unfortunately for them, mainstream society has no ability to distinguish them from their illicit countrymen⁷, and in any case their numbers are too small to matter.

What should be clear by now is that the opposition to illegal immigration is disorganized and incoherent, in stark contrast to the well-resourced business and political interests that gain from it. This mismatch enables classic rent-seeking, where benefits are concentrated and costs distributed⁸. Once an election has come and gone, there is no political energy or financial resources to hold the government responsible for enforcing immigration law, especially when the opposing side comprises the likes of the Chamber of Commerce and top think tanks. Politics is a sprint, but policy is a marathon; those without the stamina to consistently pressure office-holders lose.

So what would actually reduce, if not stop illegal immigration? The answer is simple: policies that reduce the incentive of the aforementioned pro-illegal immigration groups to facilitate the behavior.

Take business, for example. The E-Verify program allows employers to check applicants' work authorization. While it may be possible to cheat the system, such as through identity theft, it raises the barrier to entry enough that illegal aliens are deterred from employers who use the system in favor of those who don't. This reveals a problem: the system is opt-in, and very few states require it. Florida has one of the strongest laws regarding E-Verify, mandating it for all employers with more than 25 workers. But as long as the likes of California and New York don't follow suit, there's still be plenty of opportunity for business to exploit illegal labor.

To combat Democrats' attempts at building minority vote banks, Republicans can take a two-track approach. One is to win over enough minorities that the strategy is unviable. There are some signs that this is happening, but it's still early days. The other is to leverage minorities to win a larger share of the white vote. This has been the party's strategy for years, but it faces headwinds. The rural population, which is mostly white and heavily Republican, is declining, and urban whites–like all urban residents–are overwhelmingly Democrat. There's clearly a ceiling as to how effective this strategy can be, and it's a balancing act to appeal to whites on the issue of minorities while simultaneously garnering more minority votes. Threading this needle requires care, but carefulness is not what American politicians are known for.

As for yuppie progressives, simply move migrants into their neighborhoods. The bussing program begun by Governor Abbott is only a drop in the bucket. As of February 2024, 175K migrants had been sent to NYC–a small fraction of the millions who've entered the country. Until people feel the full consequences of their actions, they have no reason to change their behavior.

As global fertility declines and workforces shrink, the incentive for governments and businesses to seek out migrants increases. In 2023 Germany overhauled its immigration laws to attract skilled workers. South Korea is expanding visa and job options for foreign students⁹, as well as bringing in more Southeast Asians for dangerous jobs such as shipbuilding. Even Japan, which refuses to use the word "immigration", is changing policies to utilize more foreign labor. While governments are quick to assure voters that they're bringing in skilled legal migrants, not unskilled illegal ones, the fact is that businesses don't care, politicians don't want TV cameras showing them separating families, and bureaucrats prefer not to do actual work by enforcing rules.

As with any vice–like drugs, gambling, or prostitution–the problem is one of both supply and demand. Structural forces favor increased migration in the years to come, and attempts to counter this trend will have lukewarm success at best. We should not be surprised, then, when the same movie is shown in 2040.