Washington Post (Opinion): What is it about the immigration issue that brings out the worst in politicians?
Neither Mitt Romney nor Rick Perry has a history of being an immigration hard-liner. Romney supported George W. Bush's attempt at comprehensive immigration reform in 2005, which included a (difficult) path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Yet Romney has attacked Perry for allowing educational benefits in Texas for the children of undocumented immigrants - calling this policy "a magnet to draw illegals into the state." Perry has responded that Romney's Massachusetts health care reform permitted the medical treatment of undocumented immigrants, which a Perry campaign spokesman calls an "illegal immigration magnet." In this exchange, both campaigns have managed - extending the metaphor - to be repellent.
It is one thing to debate techniques of enforcement along America's southern border. Most of the Republican candidates seem to prefer construction of a physical wall - a public-works program of questionable utility that would make the Egyptian pyramids seem a minor, shovel-ready project in comparison.
But a wall, at least, is a defensive measure. Building it would be wasteful instead of vicious. It is another matter to attack the provision of health and education benefits. This approach to immigration policy imposes penalties on the sick and injured, or on students who have often violated no law themselves. In most ethical systems, both groups would merit particular sympathy.
Apart from moral considerations, the denial of basic public benefits to undocumented immigrants and their children raises a number of practical questions: How does it benefit America to purposely limit the educational and life prospects of a whole category of students? Isn't public health broadly undermined by untreated disease, whatever the legal status of those who suffer from it?
Supporters of harsh restrictions argue that - however unpleasant - these measures are necessary to end incentives for illegal immigration. But the whole magnet theory is questionable. There is not much correlation between the level of illegal immigration to a state and the breadth of its health and education benefits. Immigrants generally do not come to America for the pleasures of its emergency rooms, or expecting to need future cancer treatment, but in pursuit of economic opportunity.
Romney, Perry and the others are, unfortunately, reflecting current Republican sentiments. But it is the responsibility of political leaders to address this issue without inflaming it. Republicans have a direct interest in avoiding ugliness. Latino political influence is not only increasing but concentrated in competitive states - a key to electoral success in Nevada, Colorado and Arizona.
To gain a respectable level of Latino support, Republicans don't need to play a sophisticated game of ethnic politics. They need to offer the realistic hope of job creation and economic mobility. And one more thing. They need to stop targeting the sick and aspiring.
Neither Mitt Romney nor Rick Perry has a history of being an immigration hard-liner. Romney supported George W. Bush's attempt at comprehensive immigration reform in 2005, which included a (difficult) path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Yet Romney has attacked Perry for allowing educational benefits in Texas for the children of undocumented immigrants - calling this policy "a magnet to draw illegals into the state." Perry has responded that Romney's Massachusetts health care reform permitted the medical treatment of undocumented immigrants, which a Perry campaign spokesman calls an "illegal immigration magnet." In this exchange, both campaigns have managed - extending the metaphor - to be repellent.
It is one thing to debate techniques of enforcement along America's southern border. Most of the Republican candidates seem to prefer construction of a physical wall - a public-works program of questionable utility that would make the Egyptian pyramids seem a minor, shovel-ready project in comparison.
But a wall, at least, is a defensive measure. Building it would be wasteful instead of vicious. It is another matter to attack the provision of health and education benefits. This approach to immigration policy imposes penalties on the sick and injured, or on students who have often violated no law themselves. In most ethical systems, both groups would merit particular sympathy.
Apart from moral considerations, the denial of basic public benefits to undocumented immigrants and their children raises a number of practical questions: How does it benefit America to purposely limit the educational and life prospects of a whole category of students? Isn't public health broadly undermined by untreated disease, whatever the legal status of those who suffer from it?
Supporters of harsh restrictions argue that - however unpleasant - these measures are necessary to end incentives for illegal immigration. But the whole magnet theory is questionable. There is not much correlation between the level of illegal immigration to a state and the breadth of its health and education benefits. Immigrants generally do not come to America for the pleasures of its emergency rooms, or expecting to need future cancer treatment, but in pursuit of economic opportunity.
Romney, Perry and the others are, unfortunately, reflecting current Republican sentiments. But it is the responsibility of political leaders to address this issue without inflaming it. Republicans have a direct interest in avoiding ugliness. Latino political influence is not only increasing but concentrated in competitive states - a key to electoral success in Nevada, Colorado and Arizona.
To gain a respectable level of Latino support, Republicans don't need to play a sophisticated game of ethnic politics. They need to offer the realistic hope of job creation and economic mobility. And one more thing. They need to stop targeting the sick and aspiring.
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