To move the immigrant issue from one of political fodder to practical policy, LoudounForce.org has started interviewing experts and the first interview was with the Democratic Candidate for Sheriff Mike George. He discussed some of the ramifications of an enforcement policy that targets a community rather than crime, which I found very illuminating.
For example, Mike George stated:
"[The fear to report crime] can escalate crime in their community. Within the community everyone knows the people who are illegal, so some say "we can rob them and they won't report it". The bad side about it is that being heavy handed actually increases crime, but it goes unreported, so your stats don't go up."
Mike George is answering comments. So this is a great opportunity to make a comment to facilitate a healthy debate around this important issue and to draw out Mike's views.
But I don't think that is the right policy with illegals, because in addition, they bring the problem of social anomie as shown by the work of Harvard professor Robert Putnam.
He has shown that diversity breeds a lack of trust among all ethnicities, including a lack of trust in your own ethnicity.
So it is perfectly rational, if instinctive, for a community to want to to reduce immigration of folks not very much like themselves. They likely foresee the loss of community, the loss of trust, and a future, as Putnam puts it, of "hunkering down around the TV set", not participating in the community or in politics, and eventually very likely moving in search of a less diverse community where they can perhaps regain the sense of community which they once had.
We can call this racism or we can call it human nature but as Mayor Barry once said, we need to "Get Over It". We can't have our own reality.
The obvious solution to this problem is to reduce levels of immigration, including especially illegal immigration. And the only way to reduce illegal immigration is to make illegal jobs harder to get.
Interview With Robert Putnam: On Diversity, Megachurches, and Barack Obama
"We are going to become more diverse, and it's great, with lots of long-term benefits," Putnam said. "But in the short term, adjusting to diversity is not a simple matter."
Immigration and second chances are what makes America strong. Immigrants are a huge source of taxes, business growth, jobs and community activism for Loudoun County, and the wider national community.
The "inevitability" is not hunkering down, it's the increasing influence of recent immigrants. That is what we have to come to terms with. These neighbors, and like it or not, they are our neighbors, are not going away. I, for one, choose to embrace them, because their future is inextricably linked to mine.
Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the "importing" and "exporting" societies, and that trends "have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed."
Source: :Financial Times