Why Democrats will Never Secure the Border
As immigration reform is discussed in Washington, the sticking point will be, predictably, that Democrats will insist on amnesty and not agree to any verifiable method of closing and securing the southern border.
Democrats, as I have argued here before, pursue an electoral strategy based on demographics. And since they have controlled most of the big cities of the U.S. -- Los Angeles as well as the cities of the Northwest, Midwest, and Northeast -- their primary concern is to continue their demographic strategy of electoral security.
Since the electoral college is based upon population the best way for Democrats to win elections is to maintain and increase the populations of their cities and states. Consequently they see immigration reform as a threat to their demographic strategy.
They see immigration reform from a cost-benefit perspective. Right now illegal immigration is a win-win situation for them. Their sponsorship of illegal immigration has gained them the majority of Hispanic votes, and this enabled them to win the 2008 and 2012 national elections.
To keep their votes, Democrats have confined them, through the benefit magnet, to very limited areas in various cities. They have also gerrymandered the Congressional districts to contain majority Hispanics. Luis Gutierrez represents the fourth District of Illinois and his district is 75% Hispanic.
So while Democrats have been very successful in both winning Hispanic votes and confining them to Hispanic supermajority neighborhoods, they are very aware of and sensitive to the reality that they must be ever-vigilant to make sure this strategy is maintained.
Closing the border is then the greatest potential threat to their electoral security. Democrats depend upon the current status quo of promoting a constant flow of illegal immigrants from the South. So while the plan to promote illegal immigration has worked since 1980, there are some real threats to it. The greatest threat to this plan is that Hispanics are moving out of the cities into suburbs, and much of the growth in Hispanic populations has been in the suburbs of big cities such as Chicago, not just within city limits, as the Brookings Institution has shown.
If Hispanics leave the big cities for the suburbs, then most of the benefits of illegal immigration, at least to cities, are threatened. Public sector unions, such as the teachers' unions, need a constant supply of students to keep their members employed.
Public unions cannot pick up and leave to other counties and states. And Chicago has a very strong and geographically bounded union: the Chicago Teachers Union. This union must keep students in the City. Its members are not allowed to teach in surrounding school districts. Since the teachers' union is confined to the city, it must encourage new residents, legal or not, to settle in the City. And the only population growing in most big cities is the Hispanic segment.
That this is an important consideration for Democrats is demonstrated by the fact that four of the top ten national campaign contributors are public-sector unions. And if schools close, several unions will lose jobs held by their members. Also the state collects block grant money for each resident and Democrats have made sure that residents don't have to be citizens.
Democrats, especially in Illinois, have been very successful at grooming the illegal immigrant population. Since illegal immigrants come to the state without documents, laws (which are illegal) have been passed to provide them with documents. These documents include the matricula consular, which allows them to vote, and a state driver's license. These forms of I.D. make it possible for illegal immigrants to function and live in the City of Chicago. Chicago is located in Cook County and even the Cook County Board of Commissioners has decided to issue I.D.s to illegal immigrants, even though only the DHS is legally authorized to do so.
The Democrats won't mind that illegal immigrants are not given an immediate blanket amnesty. They really don't want illegal immigrants to achieve full citizenship status immediately, since then they will be more mobile and leave the areas where they are now most useful to Democrats. Proof is this is the segregation of Hispanics. So while Hispanics want amnesty and want a path to citizenship, this path is not the main concern of Democrats. Their main concern is to keep the southern border open.
Securing the border would be a fatal blow to the Party, since the flow of illegal immigrants allows them to continue to hang onto Congressional representatives in their old city strongholds.
Securing the southern border is then an existential threat to the Democratic Party. They feel they will lose elections for decades to come if: 1) Hispanics become independent and move out of their gateway cities, and 2) the constant flow of illegal immigrants, on which the Party depends to replace them, is stopped. For these reasons Democrats will never agree to an effective, verifiable method of securing the southern border. And it is foolish of Republicans to expect them to do so.
The southern border can only be closed through focused Federal action. It cannot be closed through legislation, since everything the Democrats do to enable and promote illegal immigration is already a violation of Federal law and the constitution. New laws will only be treated with the same scofflaw attitude.
In the final analysis, as I have argued here repeatedly, Democrats have sponsored illegal immigration because it benefits their party and has allowed them to win elections. Seen from a profit-loss perspective, allowing the southern border to be secured does nothing but hurt them. There is not only no benefit for them, but it will cause them to lose everything that is most dear to them: the support of public sector unions, Congressional seats, and Presidential elections.
Illegal immigration is the latest strategy Democrats have employed to maintain and grow their political domination over American politics. It is also the most effective. If illegal immigration did not exist President Obama would not have been elected.
House and Senate Republicans should write a bill with only one goal in mind: to close the southern border. The so-called immigration reform bill they have now is only a Trojan horse pathway for more illegal immigration.