Pro-migration Democrats must be cruel to many more future migrants if they want to avoid another migration crisis that allowed the election of President Donald Trump, says a pro-migration professor at George Mason University.
“We might decide to let in more migrants, but still we will end up being cruel to the would-be migrants” who don’t quite reach the criteria for being allowed into the United States, Tyler Cowen wrote in an article for The Free Press. “And as demand to migrate continues to rise, we have to be increasingly coercive over time.”
The article was headlined “Why ‘Humane’ Immigration Policy Ends in Cruelty.”
Cowen outlined the strategic problem the Democratic Party faces:
The dilemma: Due to the ever-rising numbers of migration to the United States, the [politically vital] enforcement of immigration restrictions has to become more oppressive and more unpleasant as time passes. The alternative course, which is equally unpleasant, is that [uncontrolled] immigration increases to levels that voters find unacceptable, and we fall under the rule of anti-immigrant parties—which are illiberal on many other issues as well.
The news gets worse. The more pro-immigration you are and the more you allow some foreigners to enter this country, the more others on the outside will wish to come too. Unless you are going to open the border entirely (not a good idea), you will end up having to impose increasingly harsh measures on illegal arrivals, and tougher and tougher restrictions on potentially legal applicants. The liberals in essence become the illiberals.
“There are … few ways to keep people out that do not involve the extensive presence of coercive police, border arrests, imprisonment, and other unpleasant measures,” he wrote. “We have to be increasingly coercive over time,” said Cowen.
That tail-wagging-the-dog process played out during President Joe Biden’s four years, when his progressive deputies invented reasons to welcome roughly 15 million migrants — including 10 million “inadmissible” southern migrants — despite rising public opposition.
Yet Biden’s progressive deputies refused anything more than token security measures at the border and instead opened up many more quasi-legal and legal pathways for diverse migrants to settle in American communities, drive down wages, and inflate housing prices. For example, Biden’s pro-migration border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas, repeatedly cited Canada as the example he wanted to follow. “We look to the north, with Canada,” Mayorkas said in September 20024, adding:
Canada takes a look at its market needs, and it says, “You know what? We need 700,000 foreign workers to address our labor needs domestically.” And, so, they build a visa system for that year to address the current market condition. And they say, “We’re going to bring in a million people.” And it’s market sensitive.
That process killed many thousands of migrants, ensured criminal and sexual attacks on many more migrants, including younger migrants. It also helped to re-elect Donald Trump in 2024.
Hellbound and Down 