Mark W. Hendrickson
Mark W. Hendrickson is a faculty member, economist, and contributing scholar with the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania. These articles are from V & V, a web site of the Center for Vision & Value, and Forbes.com.
The Flood of Illegal Immigrant Children: Why the Secrecy?
Illegal immigration is a subject I generally avoid. The issue stirs stronger passions and produces greater polarization than almost any other.
Without touching on the usual hot buttons, I wonder if we could at least agree that there is something - I grope here for the appropriate adjective - suspicious, irregular, uncomfortable, or not quite right about the administration's furtiveness and secrecy in the current crisis of illegal immigrant minors flooding into the United States.
Team Obama has imposed at least a partial media blackout. Journalists seeking to interview the young detainees at Fort Sill, Oklahoma (a long way from the border they crossed) were put off for days, and even then told that their scheduled 40-minute tour would happen only on the grounds that the journalists would ask no questions, take no photos, make no recordings, or otherwise do the kind of investigative work that reporters normally do. Such a Potemkin-type tour with its heavy-handed censorship violates the people's right to know.
At least one member of Congress (Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-OK) has been denied access to the children detained at Fort Sill - rather astounding, considering that Bridenstine sits on the Armed Services Committee that oversees federal military installations and that Fort Sill is located in the state that the congressman represents. Why the cloak and dagger? What's the big secret? These are mostly peasant children, not dangerous spies or terrorist leaders.
Why, too, the seeming furtiveness with which the administration is transporting hundreds of these minors to various far-flung states? Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman declared:
I found out in the last 48 hours that approximately 200 illegal individuals have been transported to Nebraska. The federal government is complicit in a secret operation to transfer illegal individuals to my state and they won't tell us who they are.
Denying the governor of a state that kind of information is high-handed and disrespectful. It certainly mocks the principle of federalism.
Overall, the administration's conduct smells like a cover-up. Why? What needs to be hidden? Maybe nothing at all, but why not lift the veil of secrecy and let the truth out in the open? By keeping Americans from having access to the truth, the administration invites speculation, rumor mongering, and distortions that can only cloud the issue and make it harder to figure out what actions would be appropriate.
Already there have been reports, including charges by U.S. Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-GA), a physician, that some of the recent illegal immigrant children are suffering from tuberculosis, dengue fever, swine flu and other infectious diseases. This sounds like it could be exaggerated sensationalism and a false alarm, but how can we know for sure without more openness?
There are so many questions that remain unanswered, but that need to be answered if we are to make informed, intelligent decisions about what we think our government should do: Who are these children? How many of them made the decision to come north on their own and how many were directed (coerced?) by adults into making the journey? How did they get to the border? Do they qualify as refugees? What have they been promised, both before their journeys started and since their arrival? What are the medical problems they are experiencing, are they receiving adequate medical attention, and is there any risk of them spreading disease? Who is going to monitor the children that have been placed with relatives and sponsors to make sure that they show up for their scheduled hearings? Are relatives being asked to pay for a child being delivered to their door or is this a "free" service paid for by the American taxpayer?
The most crucial question is: What will be our policy going forward? What are we going to do with Central American, Mexican, and other foreign children who enter our country illegally, but whose parent(s) or guardian(s) in their native country won't accept them if they are repatriated? It is hard for Americans to understand the mentality that causes parents to send their children on a dangerous, potentially lethal (and, they expect, one-way) journey to the States. I once lived in a Latin American country where poor parents would maim their child (cutting off a foot was the favored form of maiming) and turn them loose on the streets where they depended on the compassion of strangers. To those parents, this was their child's best chance for survival. Similarly today, some parents believe that they have nothing to lose - if the kid gets killed trying to get to the States, well, his prospects weren't appreciably better at home, but if he makes it, then he has the opportunity for a much better life. Roll the dice: The fatalistic attitude, "Que sera sera," is a crucial component of the Latin American psyche.
This is the wrong time and wrong issue for the administration - the one that President Obama promised would be the most open in history - to maintain a wall of secrecy. Mr. Obama, tear down this wall! Let the American people see what is going on.
Deja Vu: Misplaying the Patriotism Card Again
A decade ago, soon-to-be Democratic nominee for president, John Kerry railed against "Benedict Arnold CEOs." That was his term for American executives who moved their business operations offshore. To equate offshoring with something as evil as treason is over the top even by the perfervid standards of political campaigning, but hey, "All's fair. . . " right? Well, not exactly. It turns out that the very corporations Kerry was excoriating were leaving the States due to policies adopted or perpetuated by the very Congress in which Kerry himself then sat.
Take, for example, the iconic candy manufacturer Lifesavers and their venerable competitor, Brach's. Both companies had moved abroad (Lifesavers to Montreal, Brach's to Mexico) not long prior to Kerry's incendiary remarks. They did this not for the purpose of hurting America, but to improve their odds of survival in a very competitive global market.
These companies decided to leave the U.S. because the domestic price of sugar was twice as high as the world price due to Congress' protectionist policies. It's difficult for a business to survive if it has to pay significantly more than its competition for one of its principal factors of production. I'm sure the executives would have preferred to stay in Holland, Michigan (Lifesavers) and Chicago (Brach's) than go to the expense and disruption of moving, but the congressionally imposed cost disadvantage they faced drove them away. For Kerry and other opportunistic pols to condemn those CEOs for leaving after they themselves had virtually driven them out takes a lot of chutzpah. Isn't that what liberals call "blaming the victim"?
Fast forward to July 2014: Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew is reprising Kerry's rhetorical tactic. In language only slightly less egregious than invoking the name of America's most notorious traitor, Lew has impugned the patriotism of American corporate leaders who are contemplating corporate "inversions" - i.e, acquiring a smaller corporation overseas and then relocating corporate headquarters to the acquired entity's country. Lew said American corporate leaders should show "economic patriotism" by staying here and continuing to pay America's worst-in-the-developed-world 35 percent corporate profits tax.
Once again, moving offshore isn't a matter of executives being anti-American, but simply one of economic viability. In a competitive global marketplace, expecting a business to compete at a significant cost disadvantage is asking a lot. Companies that do what markets impel them to do-e.g., to lower costs-are in a better position to employ workers, reward investors, and lower prices charged to consumers.
Obviously, as head of the federal government's woefully indebted Treasury, Lew is scrambling and scrounging for revenue. We can understand why he would make every effort to persuade corporations to remain in the States. But put yourself in the CEOs' shoes: Is the higher right to protect the interests of their employees and shareholders or to support the profligacy and wastefulness of congressional spending - boondoggles like Solyndra, monstrously inefficient bureaucracies, corporate welfare and other vote-buying special interest handouts? Instead of asking CEOs to ignore their fiduciary responsibilities, Lew should urge the White House and Congress to show their economic patriotism by forswearing the chronic irresponsible overspending that endangers our country's posterity.
Instead of growling like ravenous predators seeking to devour business profits, it's time for government leaders to take a different approach. They should ask the simple question: Why are some American businesses re-domiciling offshore? The predominant reason is to become more competitive by shedding a cost disadvantage - namely, higher corporate tax rates in the U.S. than abroad. Washington could reverse the flow by adopting lower corporate tax rates than other countries have.
Just as private firms compete for consumers by offering them lower prices, so governments compete for corporations by offering them lower prices (i.e., taxes). Of course, everyone from President Obama to the IMF and OECD, to the new progressive rock star, economist Thomas Piketty, abhor the idea of governments competing against each other, but why should we object to competition? After all, it was good old-fashioned economic competition that helped make the U.S. the richest country in the world. Instead of trying to avoid competition, let's embrace it and win. That's the American way. That would be true economic patriotism, American-style. *
