The 'right' thing to do on immigration?

Sometimes I think we’re living in a political bizarro-world, where left often is really right and up is actually down. Take the issue of conserving energy – a quintessentially conservative position that somehow has become totally identified with the political left. Or take immigration reform, where some critics of Congress’ proposed compromise say that anything short of hauling 12 million people away in boxcars is “amnesty.” Most would label that kind of position by people such as Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., as “conservative.”

But that’s not necessarily so, writes Alvaro Vargas Llosa.in an essay titled “Conservatism has always been pro immigration” on the libertarian-leaning Tech Central Station web site.
He argues that U.S. immigration law is not rooted in economic reality (actually, that’s been obvious for decades). “Whenever there is a disconnect between the law and reality, reality finds ways of making the law irrelevant,” he writes, saying it is time to make the law relevant, reflecting how the market – and thus society – really works. And that’s a job for conservatives.

Throughout history, Vargas Llosa writes, “conservatives have understood that spontaneous social interactions and institutions are what make nations healthy, prosperous and peaceful. It is those social customs – and not bureaucracies detached from reality – that make the law. For conservatives, a real legislator is someone who pays close attention to social norms and tries to adapt to them.” And as Vargas Llosa notes, even Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of modern conservatives, had no problem in 1986 supporting what was called an amnesty. The proposed reform has serious issues – not the least of which is a lack of fairness to legal immigrants who have been waiting for years for permanent status. But it ought to be discussed rationally.

Vargas Llosa makes a provocative argument. I wouldn’t be nearly so cavalier with the rule of law, although his suggestion that government has been living under the “illusion that the laws of supply and demand can be obliterated by an act of political will” rings true. At least this kind of discussion should remind us that we ought to stop oversimplifying what “the” conservative position – or liberal position, for that matter – is on major issues of our day such as immigration reform.