“A couple employees left for the rest of the day. They were pretty rattled.” Those were the words of multi-restaurant owner and Georgetown Events Hospitality Group president Bo Blair, in a Washington Post report by Tim Carman, Warren Rojas, and Maria Luisa Paul. Blair was referencing the arrival of ICE agents at various restaurants in town, including at least one of his own, and “demand letters” served by the agents who were asking for documented proof that employees were eligible to work in the United States.
It was difficult to read the report without feeling similarly rattled. As a member of the right, it’s difficult to countenance an ideology long associated with liberty cheering what tramples on it.
The nature of the right-leaning has historically been skepticism about government. Yet here we have the right supporting the arrival of government agents at private places of business, and asking for papers. Unknown is what’s limited government, or conservative about harassing business owners and their employees.
Some will respond that immigration is different, that the arrival of individuals from across the border is a cost, and in particular a cost to taxpayers. Some will follow with the famous Milton Friedman (1912-2006) quote about open immigration not being compatible with a welfare state. The bet here is that if Friedman were alive, he’d speedily walk back what’s increasingly associated with his good, freedom-loving name. The meddling of the ICE agents shows why.
Lest critics of immigration forget, the agents didn’t show up to welfare offices in search of border crossers, rather they showed up to places of business. They did because it’s generally the case that people who love themselves enough to get to the United States don’t do so for the alleged welfare perks, but for the much greater earnings and life that can be achieved from hard work.
Evidence that what’s written above is devoid of emotion can be found in the empirical truth that remittances exceed both oil and tourism as the biggest drivers of consumption in Mexico. Willie Sutton robbed banks because that’s where the money was, and now it seems ICE agents go to businesses to harass workers because that’s where immigrants are.
As opposed to a cost, immigrants are an essential and well-compensated (see remittances once again) input for American business owners. Which is just a comment that when ICE agents show up during business hours in search of “papers,” they’re meddling in the operations of U.S. businesses. Again, what is conservative about this?
No doubt some conservatives will claim they’re for immigration so long as it’s “legal,” but as evidenced by the number of foreign workers who seemingly lack papers, the need for workers far exceeds the number of legal workers allowed by the central planners in Washington. Funny here is that while conservatives would most certainly mock left-wing members of Congress so delusional as to presume to set the number of computers, televisions, and cars legal to arrive at U.S. ports, they’re seemingly blind to the irony that their own claim to know just how much human capital is necessary for American businesses to successfully operate.
In short, the sick-inducing arrival of government at places of business is a certain effect of the right’s attempt to centrally plan what is a market phenomenon. As members of the right have long and correctly said, the American Way is the prosperous way, and prosperity is a magnet for those who live in places where it’s less evident. What’s unsettling yet again is that it’s self-proclaimed conservative patriots who are empowering government to accost and arrest the very people who embrace their up-by-the-bootstraps, growth-focused view of the world. What's happening is not just anti-conservative, it's anti-American.
