Far from a call for "open borders," the Message nonetheless boldly suggests a highly constrained view of the substantive scope of the appropriate use of force in keeping people apart: e.g., the interdiction of drugs and criminals, not the separation of friendly, economically interdependent peoples.

Under "Advocating for F?;ir and Generous Laws," the Message lists among objectives "giv[ing] content to our understanding of fair and generous immigration laws: 1. To admit to our permanent population a steady proportion of new

comers:.

b. by facilitating the entry of persons possessing special skills or other capacities needed by the American economy and culture; " [pp. 6–7]. Finally, the Message recognizes that "The existence of a permanent sub-group of people who live without recourse to effective legal protection opens the door for their massive abuse and exploitation and harms the common good" and goes on to "urge leaders and citizens to seek feasible responses to this situation that offer flexible and humane ways for undocumented persons who have been in this country for a specified amount of time to be able to adjust their legal status" (p. 8).

In Who is My Neighbor: A Statement of Concern (LIRS, 1994), we acknowledge that "persons may feel their jobs threatened by newcomers into their communities" (SII.3) but also recognize that "To place one person or one need over another builds once more the walls which Christ came to remove" (SII.1). We affirm that those "fleeing desperate situations in which grinding poverty threatens the life and health of their families," no less than those fleeing persecution, are our "brothers and sisters." We must weigh "the needs of the very poor who leave their homes to seek a better life in this country and the needs of this Nation to provide for the welfare of its citizens. .. We can help to fashion a national immigration and refugee policy that justly and compassionately weighs the rights and the legitimate needs of both those who reside within our borders and those who seek to enter" (811.4). Our Study Document of Principles on the Issue of Undocumented Aliens (LIRS, 1979), among "Recommended Current Criteria and Principles," states that

.

it is imperative that . people in underdeveloped countries are dealt with justly and are able to pursue an adequate and satisfying way of life. Yet until such development is achieved, there must be a broadening of definition and understanding of those eligible for proper admission into the USA. Stewardship compels acceptance of as many as possible of those who have endured economic suffering. Acceptance should not be limited to the victims ofpolitical persecution. Whatever this richly endowed Nation can do it must do. 5. The advances that have been made in the field of civil rights demand that no restrictions be placed on the employment of the undocumented Employer sanctions for hiring the undocumented could be an invitation under color of law' for an employer to reject the applicant who is not an Englishspeaking Caucasian. Furthermore such sanctions would place the employer in an enforcement role which is inimical to good order.

A viable option [preferable to national identification] might be . . . enforcement of the labor practice laws already enacted, since one of the charges against the undocumented is that they lower present labor standards. This neither helps the U.S. worker nor the undocumented. [p. 4, emphasis added].

Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture (ELCA 1993) states prophetically that we "look forward to the time when people will come from east and west, north and south to eat in the reign of God (Luke 13:29)" p. 2. In that light, it sets forth a bold advocacy agenda for equality that can inform the way we look at immigration:

.

This church will support legislation, ordinances, and resolutions that guarantee to all persons equally: civil rights, including full protection of the law and redress under the law of discriminatory practices; · opportunity for employment with fair compensation, and possibilities for job training and education, apprenticeship, promotion, and union membership; We of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will advocate for just immigration policies, including fairness in visa regulations. . . [p. 7, emphasis added]

CONCLUSION

I thank Chairman Leahy, Senator Kennedy and the Senate Judiciary Committee for the opportunity to present this written testimony. I trust that you will bear it in mind in your quest for a just and equitable solution to the problems our present immigration system poses for economic migrants. We share President Fox's hope

that an agreement can be reached before the end of the year, even as nearly a hundred more may die between now and then. We share Congressman Sensenbrenner's hope that INS can be substantially restructured but do not feel that reform of our economic migration policy can wait until then. Independent worker visas could be implemented largely through the Consular Affairs office of the State Department without adding any substantial burdens to the INS.

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much.
Mr. Moore?

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN MOORE, SENIOR FELLOW, CATO
INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. MOORE. Thank you, Senator Brownback and Senator Kennedy, for the privilege of testifies on this very important issue.

Let me start by telling you how much I appreciate what you have done over the last 30 years on this issue, Senator Kennedy. I am sure that there are many issues that you and I would disagree on, but I think on this one I really applaud your leadership on this issue. It has meant a lot to the American economy and to millions of people around the world who come here and become Americans. I would like to, if I could, just highlight three quick points because I know it is getting late in the afternoon.

First, immigration is not out of control. We hear it said that we are under siege by immigration and that we are accepting record levels of immigrants that we cannot absorb. And if you look at my testimony, if you look at some of the graphics I have put together, what you find is that in absolute numbers, sure, we are pretty near a peak point, about 1 million entrants per year; but this is about equivalent to the number of immigrants who came in during the great Ellis Island wave of immigration at the beginning of the century. But, of course, we are much more populous country today than we were 100 years ago. And if you look at immigration relative to our population, we are actually at a fairly low level of immigration, at least historically. About four new immigrants come into the country for every thousand Americans that are already here. I think that is a number that we are well able to absorb, and we have been absorbing them well.

A related issue with respect to this particular hearing is what about Mexican immigration. Has that been increasing or decreasing? And in preparation for this testimony, I looked at the historical data on where we are with Mexican immigration. What I found, Senators, is that over the last two decades we have seen an increase in immigration from Mexico, but not a startlingly large increase in Mexican immigration. And, in fact, I compared, Senator Kennedy, the percentage of immigrants coming from North America pre- the Kennedy Act of 1965 versus post-1965 Act, and what I found is there is almost no real shift in terms of the number of immigrants who are coming from our neighbor to the North and to the South. The actual big shift, as you know, has been away from Europe and towards Asia.

So my point is just that, you know, we are not being overwhelmed right now with Mexican immigration, and I think that the proposal that is put on the table of a legalization program and guest workers would be very consistent with our historical policy.

The second point I would like to make to you-and I think this is something that there is just an increasing economic consensus on

the issue that immigrants are good for our economy. You know, this is something, if we had been debating it 20 years ago, a lot of the people who were in the anti-immigration camp, if we had told them we are going to let 15 million new Americans into the country over the next 20 years, they would have predicted increased unemployment rates and all sorts of economic damage done to American workers. And if you look at the evidence over the last 20 years, when we have had a fairly generous immigration policy, my gosh, today even with the increase in the unemployment number that was reported today, we still have the lowest unemployment rate in the industrialized world, even though we take more immigrants into the United States than all of our industrialized competitors combined.

So I think as my former mentor used to say, Julian Simon, immigrants don't just take jobs, they create jobs through the businesses they create and through the demand that they create when they buy goods and services here in the United States.

The last 20 years has been a great period of prosperity, and it has been a period of a fairly high level of immigration. My only point is that I think this period really proves that prosperity and immigration can co-exist.

By the way, one area in particular where I think immigrants have just made an incredible contribution has been in the kind of information age, high-tech area. Again, in preparing this testimony, I was looking at some of the evidence from what has happened in the high-tech area, and it is estimated, for example, that in Silicon Valley, one out of every four businesses started over the last 20 years in Silicon Valley in the high-tech area was either founded by an Indian or a Chinese immigrant, which is really incredible. But they constitute almost 25 percent of the new businesses, which, by the way, gets to the point that immigrants don't just take jobs, they create jobs.

The final point I would like to make to you which is of most relevance to the legislation that you will be looking at later this year and next year is with respect to the temporary guest worker program. And I just wanted to make this point because I feel very strongly about this. Over the last 50 years, we have tried all sorts of measures to reduce illegal immigration, and I just want to go on record right now that I am very pro-legal immigration, but I am also very anti-illegal immigration. I think we do need to take steps to try to reduce the number of people who come into the country illegally. We have tried all sorts of types of measures to do that, including, for example, back 10 or 15 years ago when we implemented the employer sanctions law, which I think was a grand failure. I would agree with Grover Norquist that we ought to repeal that law.

But there is one program, interestingly enough, that as actually worked fairly well in reducing the number of illegal immigrants who come to the country, and I would, if I may, Senator Brownback, refer you-if you have a copy of my testimony-to Figure 6 which looks at the last 50 years with respect to undocumented apprehensions at the border. And then I compared that with the number of temporary workers that were permitted to come into the country in the 1950s and 1960s. And the point of this

graph, Senator, is that you see very high levels of undocumented immigration in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and then in about the mid-1950s, we implemented a legal guest worker program. And what happened is that the number of illegal immigrants just plummeted. În other words, when we allowed Mexican immigrants a legal way to come here, the number of illegal immigrants dramatically declined. And, in fact, you see that happening for about the 15 or so years that that legal temporary guest worker program was in existence. Then when we eliminated that program, that is when illegal immigration started to go way back up again.

So I think the historical record shows that if we do have a kind of humane guest worker program—and the guest worker program that we had in the late 1950s and 1960s had a lot of problems associated with it. But it does show that if you allow these workers a legal way to come, we can reduce illegal immigration. And I do believe that these workers who after all, the immigrants who are coming here are the ones who are literally putting the food on our table, and our agriculture work has been done for 100 years by these migrant workers. We ought to really give them the decency and dignity of a legal program. And so I would really applaud any effort in that direction.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Moore follows:]

Statement of STEPHEN MOORE, SENIOR FELLOW IN ECONOMICS, CATO INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Thank you Senator Kennedy and Senator Brownback for the privilege of beingasked to testify before your Committee on the impact of U.S. Mexico migration issues.

In this testimony I wish to make three points to the Committee. First, I wish to refute the widely held myth that immigration from Mexico is out-of-control or out of line with historical levels of immigrants admitted from our Southern neighbor. The percentage of immigrants coming from Mexico and other Central American nations is very much in line with rates of immigration for much of this region of the world for the past 100 years.

Second, the economic impact of immigration over the past two decades has been highly positive. An economic consensus has begun to emerge that U.S. workers and industry benefit from a generous immigration policy. In fact, many of our competitors from other industrial nations have begun to grudgingly concede that U.S. immigration policy has allowed the U.S. to attract many of the top minds and talents from around the world. Mexican President Vicente Fox was exactly right when he asked President Bush in their recent meeting: How can it possibly be that Mexican immigration has hurt the U.S., when your economy has performed so well over the past two decades? The answer is that on balance Mexican immigration has been a benefit not a burden to our economy. Even though Mexican immigrants tend to be less skilled and less educated than American workers and immigrants from other regions of the world, these migrant workers fill niches in our workforce that help our economy perform at a high level of efficiency.

Finally, I wish to comment on the legislative proposal to allow temporary guest workers into the U.S. I believe this policy would be highly desirable both in terms of reducing the flow of illegal immigration and in helping our vital agricultural and service industries attract the workers they need to remain competitive.

Point #1. Immigration Levels Are Not Out of Control, Nor Is Immigration from Mexico Especially High

A popular myth about current U.S. immigration policy is that the number of immigrants admitted has reached unprecedented heights. Here are the basic historical facts. In the 20th century America experienced two great waves of immigration to these shores: the first occurred in the early 1900s when huge throngs of European exiles the tempest tossed from Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Russia, and elsewhere arrived by ship and entered through Ellis Island. The second great wave began roughly 25 years ago and continues to this day.

Our current immigration levels range from the moderately high to the historically normal range depending on what measurement we use. Certainly in absolute numbers the U.S. has increased quotas substantially. We now add about 1 million new foreigners every year to the stock of Americans, which is about equal to the historical peak levels of the early 1900s. See Figure 1.

On the other hand, Pat Buchanan and Forbes writer Peter Brimelow, author of Alien Nation, are dead wrong in lambasting this flow as a kind of out of control alien invasion. The most meaningful way to measure our capacity to absorb immigrants into our culture and our economy is to calculate the number of people admitted relative to the size of the population already here. We now admit almost 4 new immigrants per year for every 1,000 Americans, which is a higher rate than in the past 50 years, but still only about half the historical average. See Figure 2. About 10% of Americans today are foreign born, which is just below our historical average, but is up a lot from 6% in the early 1970s. See Figure 3.

An issue of direct relevance to the recent negotiations between George W. Bush and Vicente Fox is whether immigration from Mexico has reached levels that are abnormally high. That is to say: How has the ethnic composition of the "new immigrants," changed over time? The 2000 Reform Party presidential candidate, Patrick Buchanan, has insisted that immigration is causing America to lose its "white European culture" and there are many Americans who agree with him. A prediction by Census Bureau demographers that whites may soon by a minority in Texas and California has received front page billing in many newspapers. The Census Bureau also predicts that Hispanics who now constitute 8% of the U.S. workforce, will constitute more than 20% by 2050. This is not just a cultural issue. Some economists maintain that the Europeans of earlier periods brought to the U.S. had much higher skill levels than the Asian and Hispanics do today.

It turns out that although Latino immigration has been on the rise in the past two decades, the current percentage of immigrants from Spanish-speaking nations like Mexico is only slightly higher than historical levels. See Figure 4. It is very true that since the enactment of the 1965 Immigration Act, the ethnic composition of immigration has changed markedly-but not in ways that most people suspect.

It is commonly believed that the big shift in the ethnic composition of immigrants in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s was toward allowing entry of more Hispanics from Central America and fewer Europeans. That is wrong. In fact, since the 1920s immigration from the rest of North America has remained steady at between 35 and 50 percent of the total. Hispanics have been coming to the U.S. in large numbers for 70 years. A 1988 U.S. General Accounting Office report concluded that the number of immigrants from Mexico has been "quite stable in this century." Over the past 10 years, there has been a rise in Mexican immigration flows, mostly because of legalization that occurred in the early 1990s.

What is different today than in 1965 is that European immigration has been supplanted by Asian immigration. Figure 5 shows that whereas in 1965 almost half of all immigrants came from Europe and 10 percent from Asia, by 1990 those percentages had essentially reversed (Moore, 1989, Heritage). I am not at all suggesting that there is a major problem with Asian immigration. To the contrary, Asian immigrants have from Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Vietnam, for example-been some of the most economically successful groups to ever come to these shores.

I am only suggesting to this Committee that if we were to allow more migrant workers to come from Mexico, this would not be a major shift from our historical immigration policies.

Mexican migrants have been coming to the U.S. for almost a century to work in agriculture and service industries. The flow will almost certainly continue regardless of actions taken by Congress. The only real issue is whether we will continue to treat these workers as second class citizens, or whether we will start to confer upon the the full protections of our laws and legal system. I believe that we ought to treat the Mexican migrant workers with the dignity and decency that they deserve and have earned over many decades of contributing to our country and our prosperity.

Point 2. The New Immigrants have been economically beneficial to the U.S. and will continue to play a critical role in coming decades.

Here is a little thought experiment. Imagine for a moment that we were transplanted back in time twenty years ago and that this were 1981, not 2001. And imagine further, that you all on this Committee, were told at the start of the 1980s that over the next two decades the United States would admit more immigrants some 15 million newcomers than during any other 20 year period in American history. Given these conditions, if immigrants harm the U.S. economy or hurt American workers, we should certainly see some evidence of it by now.