Conservatives resist amnesty for the undocumented for fear it may stimulate further illegal immigration and because it rewards illegal entry into the US.
A market-based visa (MBV) system would address the former concern by closing the unsecured southwest border to illegal immigration, albeit at somewhat higher migrant numbers overall. At the same time, keeping migrant numbers within conservative tolerances implies that MBVs would carry a substantial price, $2.50 - $3.50 / work hour, or up to $7,200 / year / visa for an unskilled Mexican laborer.
Given the high visa price, incoming migrants could have an incentive to allow their legal status to lapse and join the undocumented, alongside whom they would be working daily as is. This in turn could be prevented by materially draining the domestic market of undocumented labor -- by providing legal status to undocumented residents of the country.
Conservatives lump any legal status into the category of 'amnesty', but an MBV program would provide nothing more than an H2 (in our case, H2-MR) visa which could be voided by the government annually at renewal, should policy-makers so decide. The H2-MR does not provide permanent residency, access to social welfare programs, or the right to vote. It is just the right to reside in the US legally and work without fear of arrest or deportation. And the US government could charge for it, by our estimates $1,200 / adult immigrant / year, about $6 bn in free money for the Federal government annually.
Right now, such a program would be incredibly helpful.
The White House and Congress are near to agreeing terms on the coronavirus stimulus (bridging) package. Samuel Hammond of the Niskanen Center reports that the package should cover undocumented immigrants with US-born children or those with US Social Security numbers. This is helpful (although rewarding migrants for using fake Social Security numbers is troubling from the conservative perspective). Still, even with these provisions, several million undocumented immigrants may remain uncovered.
And that could matter. Given that most of undocumented live hand-to-mouth, they cannot afford to remain unemployed for any stretch of time. As a result, they are likely to continue to work when they feel ill, and are likely to return to work while they are still contagious. And they are heavily involved in ensuring our food supply, from picking fruits and vegetables, to processing poultry, pork and beef, and serving dairy farms. Just one or two adverse media headlines about sick migrants preparing raw food could make for real public panic over food safety.
And this highlights the weakness of the anti-amnesty case. Undocumented immigrants already enjoy amnesty as a practical matter. The odds of ICE deporting an illegal immigrant who did not otherwise commit a crime was 8 in 10,000 last year. That is amnesty in all but name.
But failing to give it a name means that the government has minimal control over the undocumenteds. How does one distribute official government support to people who are not officially in the US? How does a migrant prove their legal status if they have none? On what basis does the government hand out money beyond 'scout's honor'? Without a massive invitation to fraud, it's hard to do.
And that means, for the moment, we are running the risk of a material humanitarian crisis among the undocumented coupled with a potential risk to critical parts of our supply chain. This is a bad place to be, and most decidedly not conservative. It is a danger to the group and its members.
If we had a market-based system, the currently undocumented population and incoming migrants would be enrolled in the most advanced system in the world, allowing us to monitor, communicate and transact with them in real time. The proposed MBV system is predicated on smartphones and authorized bank accounts (which the government could debit for visa fees). This system would enable real time monitoring of the respective population's health, employment status, and financial resources. It would also allow direct deposit into authorized accounts already known and visible to the US government -- a quick, efficient and documented way to get money into the hands of those who need it. We would have better information about and control over H2-M and H2-MR visa holders than literally any other segment of society, and this would greatly reduce associated risk and broaden policy options.
For the moment, we need to make sure we are addressing the undocumented population -- both for their safety and ours. In the context of pandemic, invisibility equals risk. In the medium term, however, we need to consider that a blanket rejection of any sort of legal status for the undocumented is frankly inconsistent with conservative values -- if we are unwilling to deport the undocumented as a practical matter. A hard line against 'amnesty' is a de facto endorsement of lawlessness and puts all of us at risk.