To Respect and Protect: Expanding Our Discourse on Immigration

by Eric Haas

Last modified Wednesday, April 16, 2008 03:24 PM

Table of Contents

Economic Refugee. We rarely, if ever, hear this term. We probably don't really know what it means. And, it surely doesn't grab us.

Not like illegal alien, illegal immigrant, or just plain illegals. These terms are everywhere—on the news, in the presidential debates, on talk radio, and in coffee shops and living rooms.

Calling people illegal immigrants is as misleading as calling jaywalkers illegal walkers and speeders illegal drivers.[1] Illegal does terrible damage. It makes us think that a minor part of someone is all that they are. Illegal stigmatizes hard working people who come to the U.S. desperate to make a new life for themselves. And as they do, they make our lives better. Referring to immigrants, George W. Bush stated, "this economy could not function without them."[2] But calling immigrants illegals hides our shared humanity, as well as immigrants' good qualities and their contributions to the U.S. Worse still, the damaging stigma spreads. Constant repetition cements this false stereotype until it begins to tarnish everyone from a similar ethnic background.

And the damage spreads further. As our fear and distrust increase, our ability to empathize diminishes. We cooperate less. We don't see the effective solutions to our international problems. Instead, Congress promotes more raids, jailings, and deportations. They push a massive wall and more border agents to hermetically seal the border.[3] But these solutions will never work. As Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona says, "You show me a 15-foot wall, and I'll show you a 16-foot ladder."[4] Further, border fences miss those who simply go "underground," hiding from authorities once their visas expire. Vast resources will be wasted in a futile effort. Any successful program must deal primarily with the pressures and incentives that create the desperate situations and lucrative opportunities for people to circumvent existing immigration laws.

Economic refugee is more accurate. But we never hear it. And most people are probably uncomfortable using it. Why is that?

Repeatedly hearing immigration presented as an isolated and "illegal" issue triggers the idea that the world is an inherently dangerous place, and that America's culture, its place in the world, and its prosperity are under attack. This is a deep conservative frame that also divides progressives. These frames present the U.S. as a container of limited resources that people must fight over.[5] Your dreams must come at my expense. Empathy and cooperation are diminished. Our problems continue getting worse.

As an isolated issue, deporting immigrants, especially those who are here without documents, appears to be a silver bullet solution. If we deported all the "illegal immigrants" then somehow there would be more good, livable jobs and more money in the U.S. for "Americans." But it's a red herring. The lack of "illegal immigrant" labor, by itself, will never end worker exploitation or any of our other problems. None of our problems resulted from immigrants coming to work in the U.S. — not the huge national debt, stagnant economy, crumbling infrastructure, high urban unemployment, and the lack of livable jobs; not the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the lack of affordable housing; not our overdependence on fossil fuels, global climate change, water shortages, and deforestation; 47 million Americans without health care, and so on. And, none of these problems will be solved through mass deportations. These problems require much more: better banking regulations, returning the minimum wage to at least half the average wage and enforcing work safety regulations as steps toward livable jobs, universal, single payer health care, and zoning regulations that promote sustainable communities, among others.[6]

At the same time, there are claims that deportations protect U.S. citizens, but we know that deportations cause direct harm. Immigrants are an inseparable part of U.S. families. Many U.S. families have mixed citizenship, where the children are native-born U.S. citizens and the parents are immigrants without papers, sometimes from different countries.[7] Deporting the parents destroys these U.S. families and directly harms the U.S. citizen children. The deportation solution makes matters worse.

To see, understand, and solve the issue of immigration within these larger issues, progressives must explicitly place it there. This is not a simple task. Immigration is a complicated issue. And, it's an emotional issue. To implement effective policies, progressives must change the "common sense" that surrounds immigration. Progressives must understand and communicate a progressive vision about renewing America and place immigration policies within it. We call this cognitive policy and it's a necessary part of politics and policy making that progressives often overlook.

There are two kinds of policy: cognitive and material.[8] Material policies are familiar: they are the nuts and bolts of the plans being implemented. For example, material policy is the details of a health care plan or a plan for getting out of Iraq. Cognitive policy includes the ideas, frames, values, and modes of thought that inform the political understanding of material policies. Cognitive policy has two purposes: it shapes the development of material policies being put forward and it ensures that a material policy makes sense to people.

When a specific material policy connects with cognitive policy, the nuts and bolts of the proposed plan fits with our common sense and it is only logical for the public to support it, the legislature to pass it, and the executive to sign it. The material policy will also withstand attacks from the opposition over the years. When the cognitive policy and the material policy do not connect—for example, when a progressive material policy is supported with conservative reasoning—then the policy seems confused and unworkable. Progressive policies are trapped in conservative frames, making it hard to marshal public and political support. Failure is likely.

This can change. It takes new thinking. And, that is what this paper is about.

This paper describes the frames that shape the logic of the conservative, progressive, and neoliberal modes of thought as they relate to immigration — the assumptions, the metaphors, and the arguments, who makes them, and why. It then describes the traps that progressives often fall into: inadvertently arguing for progressive material policies using conservative and neoliberal reasoning. These traps result in failure. They are failing now.

We come out of this process with recommendations for what we call a cognitive policy for immigration — how to get key ideas related to immigration out to the public that are honest, effective, and understandable, and therefore will garner widespread support.

We begin with the conservative frames that presently dominate our immigration discussions and debates. They are the current "common sense."

The Conservative Worldview and Immigration

Moral Order and an Inherently Dangerous World

The conservative mode of thought begins with the frame that the world is an inherently dangerous place. Therefore, our national leaders' primary responsibility is to protect us from it, by stopping people's bad behavior through discipline and punishment. This is for their own good and the good of society. In this frame, evil is a palpable force in the world. Our very survival is at constant risk. There is a strict line between good and evil, and you cannot compromise. Only through superior strength can good people defeat evil. Evil must be attacked whenever and wherever it appears.[9]

The conservative belief in a strict line between good and evil leads to a rigid moral hierarchy. The moral hierarchy begins with God — the source of all that is good — and continues down into the world through a ranking of countries, cultures, communities, families, and people within a family. The United States is the leading nation in the world, just as the father is the head of the family. This is how it is today, always has been and, most importantly, how it should be. This is the moral order. At a superficial level, this is a practical result — the world works best with the U.S. in charge. At a deeper level, this can become racism — other peoples and cultures (non-white and non-western) are inherently inferior.

In the conservative worldview, the moral order is maintained through market competition.

Natural, Moral Order of the "Free" Market

The conservative mode of thought also contains the fundamental frame that open markets, "free" of "outside" government regulation and other limits, will maximize profit for the totality of buyers and sellers and so help everyone be more prosperous, including the nation as a whole.[10] This is a natural and moral process—market competition rewards the disciplined and hardworking, while punishing the undisciplined and lazy. It also reinforces the belief in a moral hierarchy: those on top deserve to be in charge because their market success means they are moral.

One result of this thinking is the concept of a "labor market," with humans as a resource. Businesses should be allowed free, unlimited access to workers, wherever they can be found. And, businesses should pay them whatever "the market" will allow. In this thinking, labor is not people; it's not the mothers and fathers with children to feed, elderly to care for, and so on. Labor is a commodity with a cost to be minimized.

From Conservative Frames to Material Policies

Within these conservative frames certain material policies related to immigration make sense. Of course, this doesn't mean the material policies are effective, based in reality, or appropriate. It simply means that if you are thinking with conservative frames, they will seem the right thing to do.

Increased Border Security. In the conservative mode of thought, every policy must include border security. Immigrants who do not have the proper piece of paper must be found, jailed, and deported. Bigger walls and more armed guards must be put in place to keep them out. This policy is currently being implemented through the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized the construction of 700 miles of double reinforced fence across parts of the Mexican border with California and Texas.[11]

The essential link to conservative frames is this: Immigrants can be allowed into the U.S. only to the extent that they can be easily assimilated. Easy assimilation means an immigrant will assist the U.S. in maintaining its role as world leader and they will adopt our culture. Immigrants must not be allowed to dilute or weaken U.S. culture. Highly skilled professional workers on short-term visas could meet these criteria. On the other hand, immigrants who cross the border surreptitiously or go underground when their visa's expire are a special problem. In the conservative mode of thought, they are attacking the American way of life. Our prosperity and our "American-ness" could be lost.

In the conservative mode of thought, any program that does not punish and deport immigrants who are here without the required papers is considered an "amnesty" and is wrong. It rewards bad behavior. It weakens American culture. It endangers the U.S. role as moral leader of the world. It risks the world's prosperity. The logic of the anti-amnesty position in the conservative mode of thought can be seen in the piece, "Amnesties Beget More Illegal Immigration: Will somebody tell Congress?" published in the National Review.[12] The opening paragraph states the position clearly:

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas and several other Republican congressmen released an INS draft report Thursday on the illegal-alien population, which shows that the 1986 amnesty of 2.7 million illegal aliens led to a surge in new illegal immigration.

Illegal acts beget illegal acts. Millions more immigrants surging into the U.S. is an attack on our culture.[13]

Increased immigration levels for skilled professional workers. This policy currently occurs under NAFTA.[14] Workers in fields such as computer programming, scientific research, and nursing can easily enter and renew their visas if they are employed by a U.S. company. This policy harmonizes the potentially conflicting conservative frames of the free market for labor and the inherently dangerous world.

Here is the conservative thinking: Business owners should be free to get workers from anywhere in the world. This allows them to lower costs and increase profits by finding people who will work for lower wages and fewer benefits. Access to more workers also protects business owners from "labor shortages." That is, business owners can and should avoid both slowdowns in productivity and increases in cost that result from the lack of people with needed skills within a given area who are willing to work for the wages and benefits that business owners want to pay. Competition between businesses, between workers, and between businesses and workers is preserved, if not enhanced, which ensures that the best will prosper. This is the moral and efficient thing to do.

Further, these highly skilled professional workers are considered to be less of an economic, cultural, and security threat to the U.S. than low-skilled workers, at least in the conservative mode of thought. Increasing their levels of immigration avoids some of the conservative concerns within the inherently dangerous world frame. A person's development of needed skills demonstrates success in the competitive marketplace, which is evidence of discipline and hard work, the building blocks of a moral life within the conservative mode of thought. Besides, highly skilled workers will likely contribute more to the economic prosperity of the businesses they work for than they will take out in social services, such as education for their children, medical care (they will have employer-based insurance), and run-ins with law enforcement.

Temporary guest worker program. Another agreement between conservative frames is a temporary guest worker program, especially for low-wage workers. A temporary guest worker program, as envisioned by George W. Bush, would bring in large numbers of mostly young, low-wage workers as a cheap resource for U.S. businesses.[15] These immigrant workers' rights and activities would be restricted in order to keep their impact on U.S. society to increasing business profits. They would be brought in as individuals, not as families; they would not be able to seek jobs with other employers; they would not be able to sue their employer in court; and they would be returned to their home country after one to two years. They would never be able to vote.[16] As a sub-class of U.S. residents, any negative influence will be contained, while they can learn from U.S. culture and bring what they learn back home.

There is much conservative opposition to this plan. Even with these restrictions, many conservatives believe that an increase in temporary low-wage immigrant workers threatens American culture, security, and prosperity.[17]

Go to the back of the legal immigration line. Another policy is forcing the "illegal" immigrants into the "legal" immigration system. Versions of this policy have been supported by Sen. John McCain, as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, among others.[18] Under this plan, currently "illegal" immigrants would pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line of the legal immigration process.[19] After a designated cut-off date, no more "new" immigrants would be allowed to participate. At the same time, efforts to hunt down and deport all immigrants who do not abide by these rules would be continued, possibly increased. Many conservatives advocate against this plan, considering it to be an "amnesty;" it lets the "illegals" off too easily.[20]

Conservative frames are well-entrenched in American brains as the most active ones for thinking on immigration and so these policies make sense to most people. At some level, almost everyone can understand them, even if they don't agree with them. At the same time, most Americans also have progressive frames in their brains, but they are more passive and must be triggered to become the more active frames for thinking about immigration.

The Progressive Worldview and Immigration

Interdependence through Empathy and Responsibility

The progressive mode of thought begins with progressive morality — the morality of empathy and responsibility, for oneself and others.[21] Others, because life is interdependent; "no person is an island" and our interdependence is increasingly becoming globalized. Indeed, most U.S. families have mixed heritages and many have mixed citizenships. From empathy and responsibility flow gratitude and respect for all that we receive from one another. We thrive together when we help each other to prosper.

Protection and Empowerment

Based on empathy and responsibility, we act to protect and empower each other. We do this collectively through our government, in the form of our basic infrastructure and institutions. For example, we protect each other and the environment from harm through government institutions such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and local fire departments, as well as through the military and the police. We protect each other through government regulations such as worker safety laws, minimum wage laws, and social security. We also empower each other through government investment and support for such things as our roads, our schools, our libraries, our courts, and our banking system. Together, these collective actions of protection and empowerment help us thrive collectively and individually at the same time.

Empathy and responsibility lead to a progressive view of markets. Markets should serve to make people free and secure: help achieve freedom from want, illness, harm, and fear; preserve our environment; and enhance democracy. In other words, markets should provide people with the opportunity to work hard in places that are free of hazards and that their hard work provide them with enough wages to get food on the table, a roof over their heads, medical care when they are sick, and an education for their children, in neighborhoods where the water and air are clean. We call this living the American Dream.

For progressives, government is necessary to make markets successful. Government provides the infrastructure to enable markets to function effectively. As Warren Buffett is fond of saying, he needed the U.S. infrastructure to be successful: he wouldn't be a billionaire if he hadn't been born in the U.S. in the 20th Century.[22] In addition, government regulation and enforcement is needed where and when ideal "free" markets are not helping people become free and secure. Government support makes markets possible.[23]

But progressives also understand that many people in the U.S. are not able to live free and secure lives. So, in the progressive mode of thought, empathy and responsibility begin with social and market reforms that aid those who most need our protection and empowerment. This is only fair; it's a matter of human dignity. This is why progressives have acted to protect low-wage workers—our most vulnerable people—through increases in the minimum wage and through strong work safety regulations that help promote livable jobs. That is why progressives seek to empower poor children by creating a free public education system that gives every student the teachers, curricula, and other supports necessary to learn and develop. That is why progressives seek to both protect and empower everyone through a health policy that not only provides universal quality care when you are sick, but also a rich, sustainable environment through such things as limits on CO2 emissions, clean water requirements, recycling programs, and zoning regulations that protect forests from destruction and promote healthy lifestyles.

And progressives understand that these government protections and supports, can, and if permitted, do work. The New Deal and other social programs have led to tremendous economic prosperity and a strong middle class. The dismantling of government protection and support over the last 30 years has led to economic disintegration.[24]

Respect and Gratitude

Progressives believe that protection and empowerment are grounded in respect and gratitude. That is, we should respect and thank everyone who contributes to America. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as a nation. We should be especially thankful to those whose contributions we all depend on but who are not rewarded in good wages and working conditions, including the very low-wage workers and those doing the "dirty jobs" we are glad we don't do ourselves. From the school teachers to the fire fighters to the nurses to the bus drivers to the restaurant dishwashers to the garbage collectors to the care givers in pre-schools and nursing homes, we should be thankful to all the people who make our lives better and easier. Out of respect and gratitude, we should act to improve their lives through the protections and empowerments described above so that they, too, can live the American Dream.

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts

In addition to respect and gratitude, protecting and empowering each other also benefits all of us. We know that empowering each other helps us all to prosper. We want everyone participating together and contributing to society; then, we all thrive. For example, we all benefit when those around us are healthy and safe. We certainly want everyone—our coworkers, our neighbors at church, the people in the restaurant we eat at, and the teachers at our children's school to get medical attention when they have the flu. We want them to get screened for tuberculosis, and receive medicine to cure it, if they are infected. For progressives, doing what's right and doing what's smart go hand-in-hand. Again, we learned this lesson from the economic prosperity that resulted from social programs that emerged through FDR's New Deal.

In the progressive mode of thought, empathy, responsibility, protection, and empowerment form the basic covenant that we have with each other. The government is responsible to help make it happen and should be held accountable to the people. When this happens, we are all better off. Of great importance, this basic covenant is bigger than immigration. Immigration is just one part of ensuring that we protect and empower each other.

Links to Immigration

The progressive mode of thought links to immigration in a number of ways.

There is an obligation to the welfare of all people. So, we have a responsibility to protect and support the welfare of both native born and immigrants, whatever their legal status. Basic human dignity and fairness means that we should help immigrants and native born alike. It is the human need, not the legal status, that matters most. That's respect.

Respect leads to gratitude. Gratitude means being thankful for the contributions of others and taking responsibility to recognize and value that contribution through helping improve their lives. The U.S. currently depends upon immigrant workers, both with and without papers, in two ways. For the U.S. as a whole, immigrants keep our economy growing. With a declining U.S. birthrate, working immigrants contribute to social security and Medicare, which millions of seniors depend upon. In addition, many businesses benefit directly from immigrant labor, from farmers to high tech industries. Further, many individual Americans, most often in the middle and upper classes, depend on lower wage immigrant workers as nannies, landscapers, home contractors, and so on. In the progressive mode of thought, gratitude, like respect, does not depend on legal status.

The progressive mode of thought understands that people's welfares are interconnected across the globe, so our prosperities rise and fall together. People enhance their own prosperity when they assist others to be strong. Wealth can be grown. For example, we should provide health care to all immigrants, first, because it is the right (that is, empathetic) thing to do and, second, because everyone's health is more secure when those around us are healthy. The same is true for education. And, at the same time, we should promote sustainable economic development in other countries because that, first, is the right thing to do and, second, it creates more wealth, which means better markets for American goods. Further, foreign development also makes it less likely that people will seek to emigrate from these other countries to the U.S. The result is that these progressives want to manage immigration within certain levels, relying primarily on foreign development as the key to mutual prosperity. This is the progressive thinking behind the Marshall Plan, and the lack of immigration pressure from Canada. Prosperity is not a zero sum game; we can gain when those around us succeed. We thrive as much from cooperation as we do from competition.

People thinking within the progressive mode of thought know that concerns about "over immigration," [25] as the sole cause of any of our economic and environmental problems is wrong. Likewise, calls for immigration reform as a silver bullet solution to the problems that plague the U.S. are misguided. Immigration is, at most, a small factor in some of our national problems, while also making important and necessary contributions, in others, and to the nation as a whole. More importantly, any negative impact resulting from immigration into the U.S. can be eliminated by moving away from our exploitation-based economic policies, both foreign and domestic. If the U.S. had invested in the infrastructure — for example, health, education, criminal justice, and employment — in Mexico and other Latin American countries (as well as the U.S.) as part of NAFTA and CAFTA, then it is likely that the level of immigration, especially by economic refugees, would have decreased significantly and possibly reversed. Why? Because the pressure to emigrate and the incentives to exploit immigrants would have been severely reduced. When lower and middle class workers have the real possibility to improve their lives at home, then they stay. They don't take the perilous gamble of trying to re-start their lives in a new country. Further, if the U.S. were to similarly invest in its own infrastructure and vigorously enforce its own labor laws, then there would be little incentive for businesses to encourage and facilitate over-immigration to the point of harming workers, the environment, and so on. Infrastructure investment that benefits all people creates more skilled workers, more livable jobs, and greater markets for U.S. products, both here and abroad.

Spain's entry into the European Union demonstrates the power of this approach. The EU invested heavily in Spain's infrastructure as part of the entry process. Even though Spain has lower wages than Northern Europe and near open borders, Spanish emigration has decreased dramatically. In fact, more Spaniards are now returning to Spain than leaving. Spaniards could earn more money in other parts of Europe, but they choose to stay in Spain where they speak the language, know the culture, and have families, friends, and familiar places of worship nearby.[26]

From Progressive Frames to Material Policies

Currently, there a few, if any, policies in the public debate that directly fit with progressive frames. Worse yet, the progressive frames are not there either. But they could be. Progressives must change the terms of the debate by explicitly promoting their worldview and linking it directly with their material policies. Here are some guidelines.

Proactive cognitive policy to expand the discussion beyond immigration. Progressives must change the fundamental ways in which we understand and talk about immigration. Conservative frames currently dominate. Progressive policies will make little sense, even though they are more effective, until progressive frames shape the discussion. Progressives should begin now to proactively change the discourse:

reject the immigration frame as too narrow;
end our acceptance of cheap labor and the practice of worker exploitation as appropriate in American society;
promote and ensure that government, ours and of other nations, take an active role in creating the infrastructure to protect and empower people, bringing those from the margins into the mainstream so that all can prosper together; and
acknowledge the plight of "Economic Refugees" and that immigrants are an important and necessary part of our prosperity.

Putting the cognitive and material policies together, we get progressive requirements for policies that must go beyond the narrow immigration issue. Attention must be given to two related issues: managing the flow of immigration to prevent "over immigration" and resolving the second-class status of the immigrants without papers who are already here.

Protection and empowerment infrastructure to stop "over immigration." In the progressive mode of thought, "over immigration," whether from inside or outside the legal process, results from deep problems in our infrastructure. It results from the lack of supports and protections that people need to prosper on both sides of the border. To prevent "over immigration," we must improve the U.S. infrastructure and assist other countries to do the same. Stronger protection and empowerment for ALL people will allow us to better manage the flow of immigration by significantly reducing the pressure to emigrate and the incentive of businesses to use "over immigration" as a means to increase profits through driving down wages to unlivable levels.

Here are some criteria for a system of simultaneous reforms, both foreign and domestic:

Include and enforce worker and environmental protections in trade and other international agreements;
Invest in the social and economic infrastructure of our trading partners, such as Mexico and other Latin American countries;
Reduce incentives for U.S. companies to exploit workers, both native born and immigrants, by

Raising the minimum wage substantially and enforcing compliance with wage and safety regulations;[27]
Investing in U.S. education and job skill training; and
Enforcing sanctions against employers who knowingly hire workers without work papers; and

Expand the voices setting immigration policy: labor, management, environmentalists, immigrant advocates, and others should be included at the immigration policymaking table.[28]

Foreign and domestic U.S. policies must promote basic infrastructure protections for ALL people. These include police and fire protection, disaster assistance, food safety, health care, social security; and workplace safety, among others. Foreign and domestic policies must also promote basic means of empowerment for ALL people, including high quality public education; fair banking regulations and expanded access; just legal system, and so on. All people, should also be able, and encouraged, to take advantage of those government benefits that empower all of us to lead more active, fulfilling, and productive lives. Support for community infrastructure will lead to successful markets.

End immigrant exploitation in the U.S. In the progressive mode of thought, we must change the institutions and systemic practices that enable exploitation and we must end the suffering of people being harmed. The reforms above will improve the system. We must also assist the immigrants currently here and being exploited, both with and without papers. This is a means of respect and thanks for all the benefits they contribute to our society, especially economically, through their hard work. It is also practical: when we strengthen each other we all thrive. All people, including all immigrants, should be encouraged to participate in society. We must end the acceptance of second-class people.

To do this, we must make the many government benefits we take for granted available to all immigrants, both with and without papers. These include

drivers licenses so they can freely, safely, and lawfully use public roads and bridges,
enrolling their children to enroll in the local public schools, and
access to the courts in order to stop hazardous working conditions and managers who cheat them out of their pay, and so on.

A fair path to residency and citizenship. Empathy requires that we acknowledge the plight of "economic refugees." The empathy we have for people who are suffering due to forces beyond their control, such as political persecution, war, and natural disaster, should extend to victims of economic exploitation. For people who are already here because they were desperate to escape extreme poverty, there should be a path to residency and citizenship. This is the final step toward ending second-class people in the U.S. With the implementation of systemic infrastructure reforms, both in foreign and domestic policy, a large-scale push to assist undocumented immigrants gain residency and citizenship should not be necessary again.

Many people hold progressive frames in their brains. They are empathetic toward the suffering of others. They understand that when protection and empowerment for ALL people becomes a central part of society, we all thrive. But these progressive ideas are currently dominated by conservative ones, so they must be triggered for people to apply them to immigration. Progressives need an effective cognitive policy as well as effective material policies.

Before describing an effective cognitive policy in more detail, there is third mode of thought to examine: neoliberal. At first blush, the neoliberal mode of thought may look like the progressive one because it shares the progressive values of empathy and the responsibility to act on that empathy to improve people's lives. There are, however, key differences. We have said previously that the neoliberal mode of thought can lead to a surrender-in-advance of progressive values.[29]

The Neoliberal Material and Cognitive Policy on Immigration

Self-Interest, Pragmatism, and the Swing Voter

The neoliberal mode of thought has an Enlightenment-based faith in universal rationality as logical, unemotional, and serving human interests. To argue primarily on the basis of empathy would be emotional and hence irrational and weak. To argue on the basis of material interests is seen as rational and strong. People thinking with a neoliberal mode of thought search for incremental solutions to satisfy the material interests of various constituent groups. This is both a moral imperative and a campaign strategy. It also sends a mixed message that reinforces conservative frames.

In the neoliberal mode of thought, pragmatic incrementalism is moral. It is moral and right to work toward improving the well-being of individual people now, especially those who have little or less of what they need—the poor, people of color, the elderly, veterans, and so on. And, they support an incremental approach to achieving these results — it is politically effective to appeal to each constituent group's material self-interest through individual programs that improve their lives through small changes in the current economic and political system, each one step at a time. Over time, it is assumed, these incremental steps add up to substantive change.

As a political strategy, the neoliberal mode of thought emphasizes lists of practical program solutions geared to satisfy the wants and needs of different interest groups — soccer Moms, NASCAR Dads, immigrants, African-Americans, Latinos, business leaders, and so on. Further, the neoliberal mode of thought is grounded in "centrist politics." Thinking this way, people try to attract the swing voters, people they see in the middle, slightly to moderately to the right of most progressive voters. When in doubt, a neoliberal will adopt conservative values by adding in a program component that addresses the concerns of some more conservative demographic groups, but attempting to do so in a progressive way. This way of thinking and acting is known as triangulation. As Bill Clinton's campaign strategist, Dick Morris, put it, "The essence of triangulation is to use your party's solutions to solve the other side's problems. Use your tools to fix their car."[30]

But cognitively it doesn't work. Triangulation is a trap for progressive values and programs because it goes against how people actually think and vote. People are biconceptuals. We all have in our brains both conservative and progressive frames. They exist side by side and, in any given area, one frame or set of frames dominates, neurally inhibiting the other. As a result, most people think with progressive frames in some areas of their lives (say domestic policy) and conservative frames in others (say foreign policy). One set of frames is dominant on any issue; we don't mix across worldviews, grabbing bits and pieces here and there. The middle isn't mushy; it is people with a collection of strong views, both conservative and progressive, on specific issues.[31]

This is why it is essential that a material policy (the nuts and bolts) match with the cognitive policy (the underlying worldview). That's how and why a policy makes sense. That's how it gains support and withstands attacks. If the material and cognitive aspects don't match—you appear to have surrendered your values in advance. You look like a flip flopper or a fraud.

Government regulation is a prime example of how triangulation can undermine progressive values and programs. If you think government regulation is bad — a conservative idea — then Bill Clinton's statement, "the era of big government is over,"[32] makes perfect sense and you welcome it. If you believe that government's mission is to protect and empower people — especially those marginalized by the economy and the "free" market, which is a progressive idea — then the statement sounds frightening. Conservatives supported the material policy of outsourcing government because it fit their cognitive policy perfectly. As a result, they used Clinton's rhetoric to gut government's mission of protection and empowerment, which further reinforced the belief that government is bad. Progressives were left out in the cold.

One significant problem for the neoliberal mode of thought and its strategy of triangulation is its belief in the rationality of the market: whenever possible, use the market to fashion a solution. This is an attempt to bend the conservative frame of a moral "free" market into achieving progressive ends, such as increasing wealth for the lower and middle classes. The results of this thinking can be seen in their foreign policy: it is based in expanded globalization realized through the more open flow of money, trade, and people along with increased competition. For example, the Clinton Administration expressed its support of NAFTA this way: increasingly open markets will lead to higher Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the rising GDP will lift the boats of not just the wealthy, but also the poor and middle-class. The stated promise was greater economic prosperity for all.[33] But the open market first approach ignores the existing power inequalities—between Mexico and the U.S. and between workers and international corporations—which the increased competition only makes worse.[34]

Competition on a level playing field would have required, at a minimum, significant infrastructure investment in Mexico and additional livable job and sustainable environmental regulations and enforcement in both countries. This was not a part of NAFTA, and, as we have seen, NAFTA has not worked out as promised. Both the U.S. and Mexico have higher GDPs but the increased wealth has gone mostly to the already rich, with no economic change or loss for most people. And our immigration management hasn't improved.[35] Workers continue to surreptitiously cross the border into the U.S. as their only real means to escape poverty. And now, NAFTA's business-directed open border policy for highly skilled professional workers is being used to make immigration a tool for suppressing wages in the U.S.[36] The conservative car is humming.

In practice, market fundamentalism[37] is the core of neoliberal triangulation and a fundamental contradiction between conservative frames and progressive material goals. The neoliberal reliance on unregulated or minimally regulated markets accepts and supports three key conservative concepts that undermine progressive attempts to build effective policies based on empathy, responsibility, interdependence, and government action. These are (1) markets involve competition on a level playing field; (2) people are "labor," which is a market commodity; (3) government infrastructure is separate from markets; and (4) the economy consists of markets, not people.

None of these is true. Multinational corporations have more political and economic power than individual people and unions. Leveling the playing field requires active support for unions and support for livable jobs, including a significant increase in the minimum wage and its enforcement. Minimizing labor costs means profit first. As a result, people suffer: through layoffs, shipping jobs overseas, and hiring new workers at lower wages and fewer benefits. Without international agreements and enforcement to the contrary, this will continue. And, market-based solutions favor short-term corporate profits over infrastructure building—why invest in public education, when you can import highly educated workers for free? The practical result is that markets don't serve people and even cause harm. They aren't successful. We see this in the current exploitation of immigrant farm laborers with H-2A visas,[38] just like we see it in the little regulated subprime mortgage industry.[39] In the end, neoliberal thinking converges with conservative thinking and undermines its stated progressive goals.

Triangulating Immigration

As a result of policy triangulation, neoliberal immigration reform will tend toward conservative ideas and eventually policies. Immigration affects and is affected by a number of issues, so there are many constituent groups that have a material interest in an "immigration policy." These groups include union members worried about downward pressures on wages and working conditions, environmentalists worried about population increases, corporate managers concerned about "labor shortages," and recent immigrants who want to be reunited with their family members. It also includes people who fear immigrants, especially those who across the border surreptitiously, as a threat to the U.S. moral order and way of life.

Bigger fences and a path to citizenship. Attempting to appeal to a number of interest groups simultaneously, neoliberal thinkers have used a cognitive policy of talking tough on border security and a material policy that includes both more and bigger fences and a path to citizenship that includes fines and getting to the back of the legal immigration process. This policy will achieve the conservative goal of the rigid stopping of immigration, but it will fail to reach the progressive goal of more dignified treatment of immigrants here without the proper papers. Why? Because the material policies are only partly consistent with the cognitive policy. The border fence is consistent with conservative cognitive policy, but the path to citizenship is not. The cognitive policy of the border fence is built on the conservative frame of the world is an inherently dangerous place and the immigrants who secretly cross the border are threatening the American way of life. If these are true, then we should be keeping these "bad immigrants" out, not allowing or even helping them to stay. With this mindset, penalties and going to the back of the line will never be seen as enough.

Further, the justification for allowing a path to citizenship is pragmatic, not respectful — it's impossible to track "them" down and deport them. This is not a progressive message of respect or gratitude — just the opposite. The likely results of these mixed messages: the border wall will continue to be built; the path to citizenship will be branded an "amnesty" and die or be severely weakened; progressive constituent groups will be insulted and others frustrated; and the real economic, environmental, and social problems we face will remain unresolved.

Punishing "illegal" employers. The neoliberal straddling of conservative and progressive frames is further complicated by another immigration reform proposal: emphasizing the punishment of employers who knowingly hire immigrants without papers, more than the workers themselves. This is presented as a form of empathy for the desperate situation of many immigrant workers who are essentially economic refugees — a progressive value — but the focus on illegality and punishment again triggers the conservative frame of an inherently dangerous world and undermines progressive beliefs in empathy and respect.

Given the current dominance of the inherently dangerous world frame in the public debate, it is likely that the conservative mode of thought is strengthened at least as much as it is challenged by neoliberal reforms that consistently begin in these ways. And, as above, the real problems we face remain unresolved. To connect with progressive values, punishing "illegal employers" should be a secondary component. The material policy should focus, instead, on the systemic changes to domestic and foreign policies needed to protect and empower all people to prosper. Progressives need to change the discussion.

Changing the Predominant Mode of Thought

The progressive response to conservative and neoliberal framing of immigration should be this:

challenge the immigration frame as too narrow;
reject the focus on "illegal immigration";
reject the zero sum game between interest groups that says that your dreams must come at my expense; and
enlarge the issue to one of general protection and empowerment of all people.

Changing the predominant mode of thought from conservative, and even neoliberal, to progressive, begins with progressives having a cognitive policy that directly supports the material policy for each issue position. For immigration, we briefly recommend some of the key elements for a cognitive policy for immigration.

Avoiding Conservative Traps
One first step that progressives can take is to stop falling into conservative traps. That is, unintentionally using conservative frames when promoting progressive material policies.

Gentler Illegal Immigration Trap

Conservatives, news reporters, media talk show hosts, and politicians (among others) often call immigrants who cross the border surreptitiously to look for work or overstay their visas to keep working in the U.S. "illegal immigrants."[40] Progressives who respond by trying to soften the label actually reinforce the frame. Negating it alone — "they are not 'illegals'" — will not work. Nor will just repeating the phrase and adding something afterward — "these people you call 'illegals' are good people." Both reinforce the frame and the negatives that go with it. Once embedded in the brain, stereotypes are hard to control. They must be continually confronted to be changed. So, progressives must confront the label as shameful, use other terms, such as "economic refugees" or "immigrant providers" — people who immigrate to provide for their families — and change the discussion from simplistic scapegoating to systemic solutions.

Empathy Hierarchy Trap

Seeking to be pragmatic, progressives may view empathy in a hierarchy: we have a greater obligation to attend to the needs of U.S. citizens than to immigrants. This thinking is based on two key ideas: (1) the U.S. contains limited wealth[41] and (2) direct causation.[42] For example, high unemployment among urban black males is explained in this way: there are only so many jobs available (limited wealth) and so every employed immigrant directly takes a job away from someone else (direct causation).[43] As Americans, we should attend first to the needs of individual Americans when they conflict with immigrants over scarce resources. The result is that some progressives want to severely limit immigration in order to solve unemployment problems.

The underlying frame is mistaken. The solution is systemic reform — better infrastructure to support people and the environment, more government protection and empowerment. With urban black males, for example, that requires an increase in the minimum wage so jobs offer a future, rather than a slow fall into greater poverty; better schools offer more job skills; and universal health care offers more productivity on the job. In addition, the flow of immigrants must be managed at levels that prevent cheap labor exploitation. This requires foreign policies and trade agreements that reduce poverty and oppression in other countries and so reduce the need for desperate people to immigrate to the U.S. Immigrants, even those without papers, are never the sole problem and punishing or excluding them cannot be a silver bullet solution.

Privilege Trap

This might also be called the driver's license trap. Many progressives are uncomfortable showing respect or gratitude for immigrants who are here working hard and contributing to our quality of life, but without the proper work papers. These immigrants broke our laws, their thinking goes, so we shouldn't support them in any way. We can make nice statements about the importance of immigrants to America, but we shouldn't give them driver's licenses, an education for their children, or health care until they go through the legal immigration process. This reasoning undercuts progressive thinking in several ways.

First, these actions negate the responsibility to help those in need, a central progressive value. Further, it ignores the vast majority of immigrants, whatever their legal status, who have worked hard enough and contributed enough to have earned these abilities. Also, this argument negates any statements of respect and gratitude for immigrants. Actions speak louder than words.

Second, it falls into the "illegal immigrant" trap by focusing the issue on this one small aspect of both the larger systemic issues — lack of U.S. infrastructure to protect and empower Americans — and also the sub-issue of the immigration process. Legal immigration can be exploitive, too. It is not the silver bullet solution to America's problems.

There is an additional trap here, too. It is the argument that safety and support for immigrants without work papers are appropriate, but only for practical and safety reasons. If these immigrants get treated for the flu or tuberculosis, then the rest of us will be healthier. If these immigrants have driver's licenses, then the rest of us will be safer on the roads. But this argument again negates empathy, responsibility, respect, and gratitude. It also reinforces the negative stereotypes — immigrants, especially those here "illegally," are dangerous.

First and foremost, progressives should seek to protect and empower immigrants like they do all people because it is right to do so. Practical benefits can be stated, but they are in addition to arguments based on progressive values.

Environment-First Trap

The argument goes something like this. Our first priority for empathy and responsibility is the environment. Immigration into the U.S. should be greatly reduced because immigrants contribute to overpopulation and so are degrading and destroying local and national eco-systems. This is another silver bullet, scapegoating solution with a bit of the negative stereotyping thrown in: get rid of the irresponsible, polluting immigrants and our environment will be cleaner and more beautiful. But this is mostly false and a distraction. Immigrants aren't creating the zoning laws that allow housing developments to destroy forests. Immigrants aren't using water, like golf courses do in Phoenix, for example. Progressives must reject this simplistic solution, and state that our environmental problems require systemic solutions. The focus must be on stronger U.S. environmental protections, including enforcement, investments in green technologies, and new zoning laws that promote healthy sustainable communities. Similar ideas and protections must be incorporated into international trade agreements.

Immigration Reform Trap

This trap underlies all the rest. Framing the issue as "immigration reform" is too narrow. The real problems and solutions are broader, deeper, and inter-related: they include simultaneous attention to worker safety reforms, living wage reforms, foreign policy reforms, environmental reforms, and zoning reforms. Properly done, these reforms will lead to manageable immigration levels. The narrow "immigration reform" frame will not only cause harm to immigrants, who are unfairly blamed as the primary cause for employment, environmental, and crime problems, but also distract us from the real solutions. Thinking in terms of a "system of reforms" — of renewing America — could substantively change the current debate — it could inject a primary concern for the welfare of people, both those within the U.S. and people who are displaced from their homes and migrating here, and not simply the promise of profits resulting from globalization.[44]

More than avoiding traps, progressives must present their own vision relating to immigration.

Promoting Progressive Ideas and Values

Progressives must recognize first that fear is a powerful framing technique. It is more difficult to convince people to support a policy that moves the country toward a positive outcome, such as prosperity, than to move away from a negative one, such as the fear of losing American culture and prosperity.[45] For progressives to move the issue of immigration toward thinking in terms of long-term prosperity and systemic thinking and away from short-term, isolated responses to the (unfounded) fear of a criminal invasion will require the active coordination of progressive cognitive and material policies. Progressive must do the more than counter conservative and neoliberal policies. They must actively re-frame the debate.

Here are some recommendations:

Making America Prosper. Talk first and foremost about prosperity and how we achieve it as a country united and working together in an increasingly globalized world. State that we must explicitly end cheap labor exploitation. Begin with empathy for the middle and lower classes, including gratitude and respect for the necessary work that people do everyday for the United States. This includes all workers, native born and immigrants. And, it includes all immigrants, both with and without papers. We are renewing America.
Helping Each Other Prosper. Repeat that we are responsible to each other for our prosperity. That requires protection and support through government programs from fire fighters to the EPA and schools to the courts. This must include and be extended to the middle and lower classes, including all immigrants. Then we all benefit together. Protection and empowerment through government action makes markets successful.
Prosperity is Security. Stop leading with the idea that only force—such as border fences and deportations—will bring us security. Promoting livable jobs on both sides of the border creates security through prosperity.
Immigrant Tax Payer. Use progressive labels. Begin using terms such as "economic refugees," "immigrant provider," or even "immigrant tax payer." Challenge conservative and neoliberal ones. Stop using terms such as "illegal immigrants."
State progressive understandings of the contested concepts in the immigration debate. These include:

managing the flow of people[46] across the border through reducing economic and environmental pressures abroad and at home, plus protect workers by reducing the incentives for employers to hire and exploit immigrant and U.S.-born workers;
walls don't work — explicitly state the pointless attempt to use walls to seal the border; and
emphasize the systemic solutions — protections and supports that renew America — that the lower and middle class need to solve the problems they face. These include workplace protections, improved education, and single payer universal health care.

State the known facts—they are on the progressive side! In other words, we can act right by acting smart. We must protect the lower and middle classes against conservatives using immigration for their continued exploitation.

Immigrants are nearly all law abiding, contributors to the U.S. We depend on them. They can help support prosperity for all in the U.S.
We are connected across the world. By cooperating we can prosper together.

If the debate is on immigration alone, progressives will lose and people will continue to suffer with no end in sight. The conservative worldview will continue to dominate the discussion and we will continue to only use the policies that fit with it: raids, deportations, and border fences, with at most a temporary guest worker program that makes immigrant workers into "second-class people" used to drive down "labor costs." These are failing policies, but they make a certain sense within the conservative worldview.

Progressives must change the discussion by integrating immigration into an overall policy for renewing America. This change requires a shift in the fundamental values and frames that shape our political discussions: protection and empowerment that promotes prosperity for all people on both sides of our borders. We resolve the immigration issue through improving people's lives.

Footnotes

[1] Lawrence Downes describes this well:

I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments — penalties and fines — and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.

Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It's the crime you can't make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.

"What part of "illegal' don't you understand?" New York Times, October 28, 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/opinion/28sun4.html.

[2] State of the Union Address by the President, January 31, 2006. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/.

[3] Fact Sheet: The Secure Fence Act of 2006. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026-1.html.

[4] Quoted in "The Human Tide," Notre Dame Magazine, Winter 2007-08, p. 29.

[5] The nation as a physical container, like a bowl or box, is a commonly used metaphor. The container metaphor has two important characteristics that are applied to the U.S. as a nation: (1) the U.S. has a clear, rigid inside and outside and (2) the U.S. has only a limited amount of resources that are being emptied as we use them. In the conservative mode of thought, this physical sealing of the border is necessary to keep the U.S. secure and therefore should be attempted. Even though throughout history it has never been achieved, we must work toward improving the seal at the border. Walls, guns, soldiers, and electronic sensor technology must be applied to enforcing that separation.

In the progressive mode of thought the border cannot be totally sealed and so money should not be wasted doing so. Further, it should not be totally sealed for three additional reasons, because (1) empathy extends to all people; it does not end at national borders; (2) our prosperity is globally intertwined with the other countries of the world; isolationism is harmful to the U.S.; and (3) many of our resources are not finite; we can expand our wealth by changing how we live and work in cooperation among people within the U.S. and with other countries.

[6] See for example this statement from the Economic Policy Institute:

The rigorous enforcement of protective labor legislation, especially a higher minimum wage, also would make many jobs held by unauthorized immigrants more attractive to domestic workers. Some experts believe that a higher minimum wage would be sufficient to stem unauthorized immigration. (Citing to Michael S. Dukakis and J.B. Mitchell, "Raise wages, not walls," The New York Times, July 25, 2006, p. A23).

"Getting Immigration Reform Right," by Ray Marshall (March 15, 2007). Available at http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp186.html.

[7] According to Jeffrey S. Passel, Senior Research Associate at the Pew Hispanic Center:

Unauthorized families with children come in many combinations of legal and illegal statuses, both among the parents and their offspring. Of the 14.6 million people in unauthorized families in the March 2005 estimates, there were approximately 4.9 million children. Of these, about 3.1 million children, or 64% of all the children in unauthorized families, were American citizens because they were born in the United States. About 1.8 million of the children in these families were themselves unauthorized. Thus, children make up 16% of the entire unauthorized population of 11.1 million in the March 2005 estimates.

Out of the total of 6.6 million unauthorized families, a significant share can be classified as being of "mixed status" — in other words, families in which at least one parent is unauthorized and at least one child was born in the United States. There were 1.5 million unauthorized families in which all the children were born in the United States. These families represent about one-quarter of all unauthorized families and more than half of unauthorized families with children. Another 460,000 families, or 7% of unauthorized families, had both U.S. citizen children and children who were unauthorized. Taken together, these mixed status families represent about one-third of all unauthorized families and five out of six unauthorized families with children.

"The Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.: Estimates Based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey," p. 13, Research Report, Pew Hispanic Center, May 7, 2006. Available at http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/61.pdf.

[8] For more on the link between cognitive and material policies, see Why Voters Aren't Motivated by a Laundry List of Positions on Issues (2008) by Joe Brewer and George Lakoff. Available at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/laundry-list.

[9] For more on the conservative mode of thought, see the Rockridge Institute book Thinking Points (2006). Available for download at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints.

[10] More on the conservative understanding of markets, see the Rockridge Institute book Thinking Points (2006), Chapter 5 "Morality and the Market." Available for download at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints.

[11] Fact Sheet: The Secure Fence Act of 2006. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026-1.html.

[12] Written by Mark Krikorian, Executive Director for the Center for Immigration Studies, and published October 16, 2000. (Downloaded on January 17, 2008, from http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment101600c.shtml.)

[13] The concern that immigrants are an attack on U.S. culture is based, in part, on the metaphor of the Bad Apple. This metaphor is central in the conservative mode of thought.

The Bad Apple metaphor begins with the understanding that individuals are in complete control of their actions. People act badly because there are undisciplined and choose to act inappropriately. Everyone can behave correctly and it is our own individual responsibility to ensure that we do. In the Bad Apple frame, no societal pressure, such as the hunger and humiliation that result from the lack of living wage job opportunities, can cause someone to break the law. We can influence others, act on them to be weak, but ultimately it is still an individual choice—who we associate with and how we decide to behave. People who act illegally, such as being in the U.S. without a valid visa, are individual Bad Apples.

Bad Apples must be removed from society, for the direct harm they cause through their misbehavior and for their corrupting influence. They can and should be removed when one understands the United States as a "container," a solid object with a physically distinct inside and outside.
More discussion on the Bad Apple frame can be found in the Rockridge Institute's book Thinking Points (2006), Chapter 8, p. 126 (http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints/ThinkingPoints_Chapter8.pdf/view).

[14] NAFTA permits an unlimited number of visas for highly skilled professional workers from both Canada and Mexico. These TN (Trade NAFTA) visas are temporary, but easily renewable. U.S. companies can hire as many workers from Canada and Mexico as they want, and it is completely legal. See "TN Visas: A Stepping Stone Toward a NAFTA Labor Market," by Pia Orrenius and Daniel Streitfeld.

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas: Southwest Economy Issue 6, November/December 2006. Available at http://www.dallasfed.org/research/swe/2006/swe0606c.html.

[15] "President Bush Proposes New Temporary Worker Program," January 7, 2004. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040107-3.html.

[16] According to AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, temporary worker programs will negatively impact immigrant workers—and the nation.

Those programs

will assure a steady flow of cheap labor from essentially indentured workers too afraid of being deported to protest substandard wages, chiseled benefits and unsafe working conditions. Such a system will create a disenfranchised underclass of workers. That is not only morally indefensible, it is economically nonsensical. We've had plenty of bad experiences with such shortsighted answers to a complicated problem.

Quoted from Expanding Guest Worker Program — a No Winner for Immigrants or the Nation by James Parks, April 10, 2007. Available at http://tinyurl.com/3af82s.

See also Close to Slavery: Guestworker Programs in the United States. Southern Poverty Law Center (2007). More information is available at http://www.splcenter.org/center/splcreport/article.jsp?aid=250.

[17] See for example "Why Immigration Matters" (April 17, 2006) on PoliPundit.com (http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=12994).

[18] "Immigration Fact Check: Responding to Key Myths" (The White House, May 22, 2007). Downloaded February 12, 2008, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070522.html.

Similar statements have been made by Sen. John McCain — "make people go to the end of the line" — on Hannity and Colmes (March 31, 2006) (downloaded February 12, 2008, from http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189961,00.html) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — "They have to get at the end of the line" — in an interview on The Real News Network (January 10, 2008) (downloaded February 12, 2008, from http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=786&thisview=item).

From Barack Obama's campaign website:

Bring People Out of the Shadows
Obama supports a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens. (italics added)

Available at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/immigration/.

Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying:

I'm in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, which includes tightening our border security, sanctioning employers who employ undocumented immigrants, getting the 12 million or so immigrants out of the shadows. That's very important to me. After 9/11, we've got to know who's in this country. And then giving them a chance to pay a fine, pay back taxes, learn English, and stand in line to be eligible for a legal status in this country. (italics added)

American Programs Policy Report, January 22, 2008. Available at http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4917.

[19] The "line" metaphor is common but inaccurate. The metaphor is like this: the process of applying for and receiving a visa to come to the U.S. is understood as a single line which everyone waits in equally for their turn on a first come, first serve basis. It would look like a cafeteria line in a school lunchroom. So, one solution often proposed to the "problem" of "illegal immigration" is making them "get to the end of the line" of the legal immigration process. This metaphor also fits well with the conservative metaphor that the U.S. is a level playing field.

There are, in fact, multiple lines and processes, with a myriad of rules that apply differently to different groups of people with the result that some people get through quickly and easily, some take years, and some are rejected for rather arbitrary reasons.

[20] See for example "Bush's Attack on Amnesty Opponents" by Chuck Muth, on Townhall.com, May 31, 2007. Available at http://tinyurl.com/57s4lv.

[21] For a more in-depth discussion of the progressive worldview, see the Rockridge Institute's book Thinking Points, Chapters 4 – 6 (http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints).

[22] From Harvard College Investment Magazine:

It is quite amazing that someone with his [Warren Buffett's] wealth and power realizes just how lucky we, as Americans, are. You might think that someone of his social stature is careless with his material possessions and his financial status. Not Buffett. As he said, "If I were born in Bangladesh 200 years ago, I would have been someone's meal." Buffett strongly believes that his ability to allocate capital and manage valuable businesses would be worthless in another country at a different time. As he likes to say, we won the "ovarian lottery."

(George Giannukos, "His License Plate says Thrifty," pp. 36-7 (Summer 2006)).

[23] More on the progressive understanding of markets, see the Rockridge Institute book Thinking Points (2006), Chapter 5 "Morality and the Market." Available for download at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints.

[24] Princeton Economist Paul Krugman puts it this way:

[W]hen economists, startled by rising inequality, began looking back at the origins of middle-class America, they discovered to their surprise that the transition from the inequality of the Gilded Age to the relative equality of the postwar era wasn't a gradual evolution. Instead, America's postwar middle-class society was created, in just the space of a few years, by the policies of the Roosevelt administration — especially through wartime wage controls. The economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo, who first documented this surprising reality, dubbed it the Great Compression. Now, you might have expected inequality to spring back to its former levels once wartime controls were removed. It turned out, however, that the relatively equal distribution of income created by FDR persisted for more than thirty years. This strongly suggests that institutions, norms, and the political environment matter a lot more for the distribution of income — and that impersonal market forces matter less — than Economics 101 might lead you to believe.

The Conscience of a Liberal (2007), pp. 7 – 8 (emphasis in original, footnote omitted).

[25] The phrase "over immigration" is generally understood to mean more immigrants than a given area or market can handle, usually economically or environmentally. This can occur through people crossing the border surreptitiously and through legal immigration. For example, it can occur through the legal immigration process when politicians set such high immigration levels in a specific industry, such as farm workers and nurses, that businesses can flood the industry with workers in order to drive down wages and benefits, even to below livable levels. This is legal and currently happening through H-2A farm visas and NAFTA's highly skilled professional visas.

[26] See "Caution: NAFTA at Work," Miller-McCune, by Douglass Massey, April/May 2008. Available at http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/190.

[27] See for example The Impact of the Minimum Wage by Jared Bernstein and John Schmitt published by the Economic Policy Institute, June 2000. Available at http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_min_wage_bp.

Also, according to the Economic Policy Institute,

"Getting Immigration Reform Right," by Ray Marshall (March 15, 2007). Available at http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp186.html.

[28] David Sirota writes:

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is developing a proposal that would give nonprofit groups and individuals the same enforcement powers that corporations currently enjoy. Ellison floated a truncated version of this concept during the 2007 debate over the Peru Free Trade Agreement, arguing that if a trade deal gives a corporation the right to sue in international courts for enforcement of investor rights (copyrights, patents, intellectual property, etc.), then individuals and advocacy organizations should also have the same right to sue for enforcement of other rights (labor, environmental, etc.). A Democratic administration could incorporate this forward thinking into the core text of any future trade pact.

"The Upside of Nationalism," In These Times, April 4, 2008. Available at http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040608Z.shtml.

[29] We describe the surrender-in-advance position in the Rockridge Institute paper, "Don't Think of a Sick Child: The Logic of the Health Care Debate" (October 22, 2007). Available at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/health.

[30] Power Plays (2002). New York: Harper Collins, p. 91 (italics in original).

[31] Joe Lieberman is a prime example of a biconceptual. We describe his political positions this way:

Consider Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who describes himself as a moderate. In fact, little about him is moderate. He doesn't typically stake out middle-of-the-road positions on particular issues. Instead, his politics include both liberal and conservative positions, but on different issues. This makes him a biconceptual. His progressive worldview appears in his staunch support of environmental protection, abortion rights, and workers' rights. His conservative worldview emerges in areas like his support of faith-based initiatives, school vouchers, and most notably, the current policy on Iraq.

Thinking Points (2006), Rockridge Institute, p. 15. Available for download at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/thinkingpoints.

[32] President Bill Clinton radio address, January 27, 1996. Available at http://www.cnn.com/US/9601/budget/01-27/clinton_radio/.

[33] This phrase is attributed generally to John F. Kennedy (see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rising_tide_lifts_all_boats) and was recalled on many occasions by members of the Clinton Administration. See example "Rising trade, abundance should benefit all" by David Crane on thestar.com, September 3, 2006. Available at http://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/95687.

[34] See "Hope in the Time of NAFTA" by David Sirota in The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2008, p. 7.

[35] According to Douglas Massey:

Given the increasing Mexico-U.S. income divide and the lack of institutional harmonization, it is unsurprising that migration between Mexico and the U.S. has not diminished. Before 1994, legal immigration to Mexico fluctuated without any consistent trend; after Mexico joined NAFTA in 1994, the trend has been unambiguously upward, albeit with sizeable oscillations.

"Caution: NAFTA at Work," Miller-McCune, April/May 2008. Available at http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/190.

[36] See for example "Rising Wages for Nurses? Nanny State to the Rescue" by Dean Baker, Truthout, May 24, 2006. Available at http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/60/20021.

[37] Fred Block of the Longview Institute defines Market Fundamentalism this way:

Market Fundamentalism is a quasi-religious faith that unregulated markets will somehow always produce the best possible results. It rests on the idea that markets are natural and government regulations are artificial.

Similar to other fundamentalisms, it paints the world only in black and white. Taxes, by definition are bad, so another round of tax cuts is always desirable since individuals, argue the fundamentalists, are sure to use the money more wisely than governments. A parallel logic lies behind the enthusiasm for replacing government workers with private contractors— even for such delicate tasks as interrogating prisoners— since market employment, they say, provides incentives for efficiency that government employment always lacks.

Similar to other fundamentalisms, its ideas do not have to be tested; they are simply The Truth. Even if the economy is still sluggish after three large doses of tax cutting, there is no reason to reconsider the claim that tax cuts are the royal road to a stronger economy. Or when the scientific community agrees that global warming is actually happening, there is still no need to worry. The scientific evidence is never persuasive for Market Fundamentalists since energy markets, like other markets, are necessarily benign.

"Reframing the Political Battle: Market Fundamentalism vs. Moral Economy" (no date). Available at http://www.longviewinstitute.org/projects/moral/sorcerersapprentice.

[38] The New York Times describes the exploitation of some Thai guest workers with visas.

Labor experts say employers abuse guest workers far more than other workers because employers know they can ship them home the moment they complain. They also know these workers cannot seek other jobs [due to the H-2A visa restrictions] if they are unhappy . . .The abuses take many forms. Guest workers often pay exorbitant fees and are frequently given fewer weeks of work and lower wages than promised. Many employers fail to make good on their commitment to pay transportation costs. The Thai workers, who were supposed to be paid $16,000 a year for three years, ended up earning a total of just $1,400 to $2,400. Most of the Thai workers had their passports taken away after they arrived [by their employer or recruiter], leaving them trapped. . . [One of the workers] Mr. Wiangkham also worked unpaid in New Orleans, where he said the contractor ordered the workers to sleep in a foul-smelling hotel that had no electricity, lights, hot water or potable water. In North Carolina, the living arrangements were not much better; at times 33 Thais workers slept in a storage shed behind the labor contractor's house, the workers said.

"Low Pay and Broken Promises Greet Guest Workers," by Steven Greenhouse, February 28, 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/28/us/28labor.html.

Having an official visa provided nothing for these workers. How we treat these immigrant workers makes guest worker a tragic misnomer; it's an ironic blight on America's conscience.

[39] See for example "A Catastrophe Foretold," by Paul Krugman, New York Times, October 26, 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/opinion/26krugman.html.

[40] See "Losing Our Minds Over Immigration, " November 30, 2007, by Eric Haas, Rockridge Institute. Available at http://tinyurl.com/5x8maj.

[41] See the previous discussion on the nation as container metaphor in footnote 5.

[42] We experience direct causation constantly every day. When we kick a ball we directly cause it to move. There is a direct cause — our kick — and an obvious effect — the ball moves. We often try to apply our daily experiences with direct causation of physical objects metaphorically to social issues. The result is often silver bullets and scapegoating. They occur like this. Identify a problem and present a simple, direct policy solution. Too many people sneaking into the U.S. looking for work, then build a longer and taller wall. Of course, that won't stop the people who simply overstay their visas. And, it won't stop employers from trying to lure immigrants here. High unemployment among urban black males, then get rid of the immigrants; then, there will be more jobs. But that doesn't deal with the lack of job skills due to the hunger, crime, and poor schools in their neighborhoods. Any individual problem that we can name has multiple, systemic causes, many resulting from basic problems in our infrastructure. Nevertheless, people will continually try to present individual policies and programs as solutions that will directly solve a given social problem. This is because we have a well-established direct causation frame hardened through years of experience with physical objects.

On the flip side, systemic causation is the opposite of direct causation. Systemic causation is difficult for people to think about and put into words, because it is different than the direct causation we experience in most of our day-to-day lives. As a result, people trying to think and talk about issues in a systemic way have a harder time than those looking for simple, direct solutions. Progressives will have to work to not fall into a direct causation trap in social policy.

[43] This was the premise of a question on immigration that was asked to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their debate of

This [question] is from Kim Millman (ph) from Burnsville, Minnesota. And she says, "there's been no acknowledgement by any of the presidential candidates of the negative economic impact of immigration on the African-American community. How do you propose to address the high unemployment rates and the declining wages in the African-American community that are related to the flood of immigrant labor?"

This question is based on the common metaphorical understanding of a nation as a container with rigid borders and limited resources. One limit of this metaphor is the concept of creating wealth, for example through innovation and manufacturing, not just extracting wealth as in the case of mining. This reasoning is often extended to social resources, such as school funding, and to socially created resources, like jobs. These are finite resource so groups and individuals must compete against each other to get a reasonable, livable share.

In his response, Sen. Obama rejected this framing, stating in part,

Well, let me first of all say that I have worked on the streets of Chicago as an organizer with people who have been laid off from steel plants, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and, you know, all of them are feeling economically insecure right now, and they have been for many years. Before the latest round of immigrants showed up, you had huge unemployment rates among African-American youth.

And, so, I think to suggest somehow that the problem that we're seeing in inner-city unemployment, for example, is attributable to immigrants, I think, is a case of scapegoating that I do not believe in, I do not subscribe to.

Transcript of the Clinton, Obama Hollywood debate. Kodak Theater Jan. 31, 2008. Available at http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/02/sweet_clinton_obama_hollywood.html.

[44] See "The Framing of Immigration" (2006) by George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson. Available at http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/research/rockridge/immigration.

[45] This is generally known as "loss aversion." Loss aversion is the tendency for people to strongly prefer avoiding a loss or something negative occurring to gaining something positive. Loss aversion is attributed originally to the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. See for example Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. Econometrica 47, 263-291.

[46] Metaphorically, immigration is often understood as a "flow" of people from one nation to another; a river of people. We use the word "flow" directly, as well as other terms such as "human tide," "leaky borders," "flood," and "stream," among others. People in all three modes of thought, conservative, progressive and neoliberal, commonly think about immigration with this metaphor.

Referring to immigration as a flow of water triggers several associations and they often favor conservative frames. First, the concept of flow obscures the individual immigrant and their story. It is more difficult to feel empathy and responsibility, the core progressive values, toward a nameless collection of people. Second, flow easily relates to flood, another term for immigration. Floods are large, external forces of nature that overpower and destroy homes and lives. Linked to immigration, the implication is that immigrants are destroying the economy and our culture to such an extent that it is beyond our power to stop them. "Flood" activates the conservative frame that the world is an inherently dangerous place and makes logical a standard conservative solution: greater force in the form of more military and police protection.

People thinking in the progressive mode of thought reason differently about how to respond to the flow than people using the conservative mode of thought. Using the progressive mode of thought people seek to "control" or "channel" the flow of people, while conservatives want to "stop" it, like a dam. The difference in these solutions depends in large part on three additional metaphors, people are bad (or good) apples, the U.S. is a container, and societal causes are direct, like kicking a ball makes it move.

Sections

To Respect and Protect: Expanding Our Discourse on Immigration

The Conservative Worldview and Immigration

The Progressive Worldview and Immigration

The Neoliberal Material and Cognitive Policy on Immigration

Changing the Predominant Mode of Thought

Footnotes

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