Twenty years from now, when historians look back upon the presidential election of 2008, they’re probably going to be thinking, “Hmm … that election was a lot like Neapolitan ice cream.” Okay, so maybe they won’t – but I will, and here’s why: As every true ice cream connoisseur knows, good Neapolitan has strawberry tart on one side (that’s Clinton), smooth chocolate on the other (that’s Obama), and some good old fashioned vanilla in between (that’s McCain).

The only way to improve upon this delectable trio would be to add some caramel, which brings me to my point: with over 44 million Hispanics living in the U.S., why don’t we have any Latin flavor spicing up the presidential election?

Sure, 2008 saw New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in the race for about 3 minutes, but you can bet your hiney that in 2012, there’s going to be a Hispanic American nominee from a major party running in the general election. And guess what? He (or she) will be a Republican.

Huh? A Republican? You mean one of those people who are always talking about how illegal immigrants are ruining our country and how we need to erect a laser-equipped double-barrier minefield along the U.S.-Mexico border? One of those?

Actually, I’m talking about a different kind of Republican, the kind that realizes that Hispanic Americans are, overwhelmingly, hardworking, family-oriented, devoutly religious people – in other words the exact prototype of the Republican party base.

Unfortunately, in order to get from Mr. “No Irish need apply” Republican to Mr. “United we stand” Republican, one has to navigate that whole pesky illegal immigration issue. The truth is, though, given the avalanche of silliness surrounding illegal immigration, we could all use a little primer on just what’s fact and what’s fiction.

Fortunately, since both sides of this debate are often full of hot air, there’s plenty of inanity to go around.

THE ANTI-IMMIGRATION CASE

“Let’s make America WASP-ey again!”

Argument #1: “Illegal immigrants are violent criminals that ruin every law-abiding community they arrive in!”

Umm, actually … no, they’re not and they don’t. Crime sucks, but the thing is, illegal immigrants don’t do a lot of it.

In fact, according to a study by Ruben Rumbaut (UC Irvine) and Walter Ewing (Immigration Policy Center), foreign-born Hispanic men ages 18-39 are seven times less likely to be incarcerated than native-born men of the same age group. In fact, foreign-born Hispanic men are less prone to criminality than (guess who?) native-born whites, blacks and (yes, even) Asians.

Okay, so what about illegal immigrants, specifically? Well, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, approximately 275,000 criminal aliens were incarcerated in federal, state and local penitentiaries in 2003-2004.

A “criminal alien” is any non-citizen resident, legal or illegal, currently incarcerated. If we take this figure, and divide it by the number of legal and illegal aliens above age 15 estimated living in the U.S. in 2004 (25.5 million), we get a 1.1 percent incarceration rate, still less than native-born whites, blacks, and Asians.

In order to further underscore this point, we can even attempt to skew the numbers to see how much we can maximize the incarceration rate.

According to Rumbaut and Ewing’s report, the incarceration rate of foreign-born men (ages 18-39) is approximately 0.7 percent. This population includes the nearly 16 million legal resident aliens and naturalized citizens within this age group currently living in the U.S.

The resultant figure shows that approximately 108,000 immigrants from this age group are either in prison or in jail. In order to get a better sense of the total adult immigrant prisoner population, let’s double this figure. To these 216,000 adult immigrants either in prison or in jail, we’ll add all 275,000 criminal aliens reported by the GAO.

To do so, we’ll have to assume that all of those criminal aliens are illegal aliens, and that no overlap exists between these inmates and the 216,000 (legal resident aliens and naturalized citizens) from our previous calculation – extremely unlikely, but intentionally skewed.

In the end, we are left with two numbers: a grand total of 491,000 adult foreign-born inmates, and an adult foreign-born population (including both legal and illegal immigrants) of approximately 40 million. What is the resultant incarceration rate? Even after all of the skewing, the rate is maximized at just 1.2 percent – still lower than native-born whites, blacks and Asians.

Argument #2: “These immigrants are trying to ‘Latinize’ America!”

This type of allegation is neither new to the U.S. nor unique to Hispanic immigrants. The Irish, for instance, who now constitute almost 15 percent of the U.S. population, were confronted with ferocious discrimination upon their arrival to this country.

Routinely described as “drunken gorillas” lacking basic intelligence and moral capacity, their growing numbers during the mid-1800s even inspired the formation of an anti-Irish political party called the “Know-Nothings.”

And, believe it or not, at one point there was even anti-German racism: “Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?” That’s a quote by none other than good ole’ Ben Franklin.

Of course, today we consider Irish-Americans and German-Americans – and their customs – an integral part of what comprises “traditional American culture”. In fact, one may go so far as to say that the traditional culture of the United States is predominantly comprised of the customs imported by these two groups – who, appropriately, also constitute the two largest ethno-ancestral demographics in the country.

Consider: the Scots-Irish were the progenitors of the American-as-apple-pie “hillbilly” archetype – “hillbilly” originally being an Irish term used to describe highland Ulster Scots who supported King William III; the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City is the largest of its kind in the world; and Germans brought us hamburgers, hot dogs, Budweiser, Snow White, Cinderella, Santa Claus (as opposed to “Father Christmas”) and Christmas trees.

THE PRO-IMMIGRATION CASE

“Problem? What Problem?”

Argument #1: “The U.S. economy would collapse without the labor provided by illegal immigrants!”

Illegal immigrants account for close to 5 percent of national employment, or approximately 7.2 million persons active in the civilian workforce. That’s a lot. It’s correct to say that the U.S. economy would suffer if these people disappeared, but it’s also misleading – because the U.S. economy would suffer if any 5 percent of the workforce disappeared, regardless of whether this 5 percent got here yesterday or came over on the Mayflower.

Moreover, the damage would be far more pronounced if that 5 percent was comprised of white-collar workers rather than blue-collar ones. The blunt reality is that low-skilled workers are easily replaced. Not only do white-collar laborers provide the necessary skill sets to keep the economy growing, they also hold most of the savings and investments that fuel the economy.

But then, any catastrophic forecast would be predicated upon this disappearance occurring suddenly. In Europe, where total workforce population has decreased gradually over the past few decades, economies have maintained fairly steady growth. In fact, GDP growth for the Euro area in 2007 outpaced both the U.S. and Japan.

So what would happen to the U.S. economy if domestic employers couldn’t hire illegal labor? In the short run, prices would likely rise. Beyond that, nobody knows.

Even if prices do rise, a recession may be a non sequitur, and even if one does occur, you might not notice it. The U.S. experienced a minor recession in the early 2000s that included a not-so-minor loss of $3.7 trillion in stock market value. Did consumers cut
spending? No. In fact, they spent more!

Argument #2: “Illegal immigration is harmless!”

This is slightly more complex. According to Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Samuelson, illegal immigration affects different portions of the U.S. population in significantly different ways. Depending upon your socioeconomic status, your region of residence, and your sector of employment, illegal immigrants may herald either privation or windfall.

In simple terms, illegal immigrants bring wages in the U.S. down. Labor in America is sold in a market just like any other factor of production, and as is stated in the most basic rule of market economics, when supply goes up, prices – or in this case, wages – go down. According to a study by George J. Borjas, Richard Freeman and Larry Katz of Harvard University, the “immigration of low-skill workers during the 1980’s and 1990’s … reduced the relative wage of native workers with less than a high school education by five percentage points.”

As for government expenditures, a study done by the RAND Corporation in 2006 stated that, “Health care for undocumented immigrants between ages 18 and 64 cost the U.S. $1.1 billion in 2000, or about $11 per taxpayer household.” Other studies have concluded that illegal immigrants have played a role in the closure of numerous small hospitals and the increase in across-the-board medical fees due to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which requires hospitals to provide emergency treatment to all those in need irrespective of their ability to pay or their uninsured status.

Lastly, a study by the National Research Council concluded that in California in 1997, native households produced a net fiscal surplus of $1,178 per year, while immigrant households create a net fiscal deficit of $3,463 per year. On a nationwide level, the study found that each Latin American immigrant household in California cost U.S. taxpayers $7,206 per year, and that “the lifetime fiscal impact of a typical immigrant without a high school education (is) a negative NPV of $89,000.”