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Wang Congyue: Using additional tariffs to solve the problem of immigration at the US-Mexico border: drinking and quenching thirst
Author: Wang Congyue is an assistant researcher at the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Source: The Paper
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
Since March 2019, as the number of illegal immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border has climbed again, U.S. President Trump attributed Mexico's improper measures and passive sabotage, and then publicly declared at the end of May that it is imperative to impose tariffs on Mexico if the situation does not turn around. Even if the two countries choose to return to the negotiating table for the time being, the above threats will not be implemented for the time being, but the trick of using tariffs to force other countries to comply is reminiscent of several similar situations, such as the use of tariffs as a diplomatic means to impose sanctions on Turkey on the grounds that the Turkish authorities arrested American pastor Andrew Brunson; and for example, Trump once publicly expressed the ease of using tariffs as a "master key", and even threatened to threaten Allies such as Canada and the European Union with the economic pain it will bring "Serve soft".
From this point of view, the current round of using additional tariffs to force Mexico to increase border control is still within the scope of "special routines", and the second is to unilaterally trade and trade complex and delicate public policy issues, further reflecting Trump's abuse of "tariff power".
A wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Neither the construction of walls nor the dispatch of troops has been able to stop the migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border
Since last year, in order to block illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border, Trump, led by the slogan "America First", has "found money" for the renovation of the US-Mexico border wall, resulting in a prolonged government shutdown and declaring a "national emergency" on the southern border; continuously dispatching active U.S. troops to the border and giving them border defense functions such as using force, controlling the field, and temporarily searching and detaining; and now holding up the tariff "big stick" that has been used many times.
Regardless of whether the idea of linking tariffs to illegal immigration is feasible or not, at least from the data alone, the effect of trump's previous measures is not obvious.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Southwest Border Statistics show that (as of January 2019), households seeking entry have increased by 280% compared to the same period last year (an average of 31,188 households per month this year, compared to 13,210 in 2017, up 136%), 2018 was a record year, and if it goes according, this year will only be more tricky than last year.
At the same time, the number of "caravan migrants" groups of more than a hundred people arrested surged. In just four months, in el Paso, the Rio Grande Valley, Tucson and Yuma on the southwestern frontier, coyotes transported 53 groups of illegal immigrants, totaling 8,797, into the country. In May 2019 alone, Border Patrol agents experienced more than 144,000 illegal immigrants, the number of which exceeded 100,000 for the third consecutive month and the highest number of monthly arrivals in 13 years. No wonder John Sanders, the acting commissioner in charge of the matter, said bitterly: "The current border situation is 100,000 hot, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the US border control system and even the immigration system are on the verge of collapse." ”
It can be seen that Trump's high attention to the problem of illegal immigration and the overrun response during his presidency are in strong contrast to the runaway situation at the US-Mexico border, and those who try to cross the border into Texas and Arizona from the "Northern Triangle" of Central America (El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala) seem to be as "willful" as President Trump, and they collectively hide in truck cars without ventilation and refrigeration equipment, climb over the wall, dig tunnels, and create false identities after legal entry. He paid the price of blood and lives to enter the United States.
Mexican scholars have shown that the high-pressure law enforcement at the US border has not stopped people's original intention of crossing the border, but has raised the practical difficulty and psychological obstacle for some people to return to Mexico, thus ironically increasing the security risks that smugglers need to bear and the number of permanent residents of illegal immigrants in the country.
Are the tariffs a "master key" or a "Molotov cocktail"?
This time, Trump uses tariffs to threaten to transform the pressure of border, population, security, and cultural conflicts that the United States bears into an economic blow to Mexico, which cannot be said to be without stimulus in the short term, but in the long run, it is not only conducive to eradicating the "heart disease" of illegal immigrants, but may even be a short-sighted act of drinking and quenching thirst and setting fire to the fire.
First, Trump has misunderstood and misjudged the situation of illegal immigrants. No matter when and where, Trump's thinking logic when talking about illegal immigration in Mexico is relatively consistent: most of the illegal immigrants enter the United States from the southern border; the reason for the blatant entry is that the Border Guard facilities and personnel in the United States are insufficient, and the Mexican government does nothing or even condones in disguise; most of the illegal immigrants are of low quality, and the non-"drug" or theft is the main reason for the high rate of domestic violent crime and opioid addicts, and it is also the "moth" of the national welfare and social security system. But the problem is that if you speak with facts, Trump's three judgments seem to be a bit "taken for granted".
First of all, illegal immigration includes "unverified entry" (commonly known as smuggling) and "abuse of visas" (that is, entering with a legal visa but overdue), as far as the current situation in the United States is concerned, the former type of people that Trump tried to intercept with the wall accounted for only one-third of the total population of illegal immigrants, in other words, the chaos at the US-Mexico border is only a dime, and "blocking" alone is far from alleviating the pressure of illegal immigration at home.
Secondly, even if there is a small number of officials and bandits colluding, neither the U.S. nor Mexico's border inspection department can talk about corpse vegetarian food, the United States in addition to planning to expand the tangible wall also set up 1800 detection towers equipped with the most advanced video, detection sensing, and detection technology, using virtual isolation belts to provide arrest assistance for the Border Patrol. Mexico, for its part, has not been without success, and since 2010 the United States and Mexico have worked together under the Mérida Initiative to address border conundrums. In 2015-2018, mexico intercepted 524,000 illegal immigrants and asylum seekers, and after the Tightening of Immigration Policies in the United States, Mexico had to resettle more illegal immigrants from Central America, taking into account the need for humanitarian protection.
Third, the relationship between illegal immigration and crime is by no means as alarmist as Trump believes, on the contrary, a considerable number of scientific research results have confirmed that there is a negative correlation between the number of immigrants in a place and the crime rate in general. Another survey found that the average incarceration rate for native-born Americans is more than twice that of immigrants , both legal and illegal. In other words, although there is a dirty smuggling trade and drug trade on the US-Mexico border, and many people have died as a result, it is a special or common phenomenon for the entire Territory of the United States, where the crime rate has generally risen in recent years, it remains to be reckoned with.
Of course, Trump also emphasized that illegal immigrants corrupt the social welfare system in the United States, but it is clear that on the one hand, the US law stipulates that only immigrants born in the United States can enjoy social security benefits, and other illegal immigrants are exempted; on the other hand, the amount of taxes and social security contributions paid by illegal immigrants is much higher than the amount of benefits they benefit.
Therefore, Trump's cognitive bias about the basic situation of illegal immigration in the United States, and the American identity crisis caused by "who are we", the inevitable white nationalist tendencies of the decision-making level, or the need for the 2020 election may be the reasons for his inability to fully face the problem and propose effective countermeasures.
Second, the historical origins and entanglements of interests of illegal immigrants in Mexico are "mirror images" of the other side of the Atlantic. The history of Mexican immigration to the United States includes three waves of immigration and two large-scale repatriations, and in the hearts of most Mexicans, unlike the sense of displacement, the land on the American side of the US-Mexico border was once the paradise where their ancestors lived (Editor's Note: The present-day New Mexico, California, Texas and other places in the United States were seized from Mexico by the United States in the 19th century through rebellion and war), and it will also be a stepping stone to get rid of their own life difficulties, and it can become a channel for their children to change their destinies. The long 2,000-mile border and the widely different social living standards within and outside the country constitute a fatal temptation for the populations of other Central American countries, including Mexican nationals and via Mexico, to enter the United States at any cost.
In addition, while blindly accusing illegal immigrants and Mexico of poor law enforcement, Americans should also reflect on the high dependence of their own markets, businesses, and populations on illegal immigrants. Most Americans, whether they are progressives who support immigrant rights or conservatives who endorse the president's wall, regardless of color and ethnicity, and partisan beliefs, enjoy the affordable prices and quality services brought by illegal immigrant workers in all aspects of food, clothing, housing, and transportation, while pointing fingers at their survival instincts and desire for security. Including Trump himself, before becoming president, as a representative of successful entrepreneurs, the accusations of hiring illegal immigrants of Mexican descent in his club were not empty.
Data from 2015 show that illegal immigrants play a pivotal role in the U.S. economy, accounting for 16 percent of the total labor force in agriculture, 12 percent in construction, and 7 percent in the tertiary sector. More importantly, the "flexibility" of illegal immigrant workers greatly meets the special needs of different enterprises for types of work, working hours, and construction sites, not to mention that they always appear in those positions with poor working environment, low salaries, and long working hours, and the above jobs are rejected by locals even if they have more rewards, this job search complementarity and low employment cost means that if the government does not set up legal channels for enterprise employers to hire such foreign workers, blindly restricting illegal immigration will bring great pressure to these industries and even the prosperity of the United States.
At the same time, the "largest wave since World War II" triggered by the "Arab Spring" on the other side of the ocean in 2011 was enough to sound the alarm bell of "cold lips and teeth" for the United States, which began with soaring prices, weak economies, and damaged rights and interests, and the mass street movement initially made the West feel the joy of the "fourth wave of democratization" sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa, but then countless refugees crossed the Mediterranean from the east, middle and west to the north, which still makes European countries anxious.
All of the above all argue from a certain side that under the impetus of historical inertia and economic pull, illegal immigration on the US-Mexico border cannot be properly solved by blackmailing the Mexican government, and once the fragile balance of Mexico's political and economic ecology is artificially destroyed, the consequences for the United States are unimaginable.
Third, the risk of using tariffs as a weapon of politicization. The threshold for Trump's use of tariff "keys" is shockingly low, and the possible anti-phagocytosis has to be worrying.
First of all, whether or not the punitive tariffs are imposed, they have already had a big impact on the international reputation and market confidence of the United States, and the decline in the three major stock indexes in the New York stock market is enough to explain the problem. Second, the imposition of tariffs may cause serious damage to the Mexican economy, after all, one-third of Mexico's GDP, more than 80% of exports, 47% of imports are related to the United States, so the sensitivity and vulnerability to US trade hostilities are high. History tells us that mexico's economic boom is necessary for the decline in the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States from the southwest border, in other words, once Trump's tariff stick hurts the Mexican economy, then any means to tighten border controls and curb the flow of central American immigrants are empty talk, and at that time, the United States will inevitably become the second European Union. Third, tariffs on Mexico actually act on U.S. producers and consumers as well, with industries such as automobiles and pork in the United States bearing the brunt of the attack, and Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, called Trump's approach a "Molotov cocktail" (another name for a gasoline bomb) policy, and his accusations of self-immolation were overflowing.
All in all, the first step in properly resolving the problem of illegal immigration along the U.S.-Mexico border is not to find "scapegoats," not to infighting, and not to build walls, but to discover and acknowledge the problems that have accumulated for a long time. Second, whether the Trump administration wants to or not, it is necessary to ensure the stability and development of Mexico and enhance bilateral cooperation in the field of border defense. The third step, Trump is time to realize that tariffs are not a master key, even if the border can be locked, but can not open the wall between the United States and Mexican people, even if the price is successful, but the price that needs to be paid later may be quite painful.
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