Bush's unwelcome welcome mat: divorced from reality on immigration.

NEXT time President Bush explains his immigration policy, he should avoid the usual wonky details about "earned legalization" and non-amnesty amnesties, launching instead into a full-throated rendition of the opening number from Cabaret. It would entertain millions of people, soften his image, put some gay voters in play, and hit the mark. "Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome" expresses the Bush immigration policy far more crisply than any white paper could.

Most ordinary Americans, especially conservatives, have been slow to grasp this. In the campaign, when both candidates answered a question on immigration, Kerry outflanked Bush on the right. He attacked the president for failing to secure America's borders against illegal immigrants. Bush rather feebly maintained that the borders were secure--and was slapped down by the challenger. To anyone who followed the controversy over immigration, Kerry had scored a small and insincere but definite victory.

But most viewers (and even some pundits) read this wrong. Their preconceptions got in the way. Since Bush was known to be a fire-breathing conservative, they jumped to the conclusion that he could not possibly be defending lax border enforcement or praising illegal immigrants. They must have misheard him. And they readjusted their perceptions. Indeed, the GOP has benefited electorally from its reputation as the party least favorable to both law-breaking and immigration--even as it has winked at mass illegal immigration.

Since the election, however, this veil of ignorance has been torn asunder. Bush himself has repeated that he intends to liberalize immigration policy. And if a man repeatedly does something apparently out of character, his neighbors are bound eventually to revise their opinion of his character. The first post-election controversy was whether intelligence reform should include measures against illegal immigration. When the White House lobbied furiously to remove such controls from the bill, the lesson was driven home that the Bush administration was determined to make immigration easier and more abundant. Again, people inevitably noticed--including the increasingly alienated rank and file of the GOP.

In short, the great tectonic plates of elite support for mass immigration and popular resistance to it are beginning to grind against each other. A major earthquake seems to be in prospect. In these circumstances small changes can create large shocks. Just recently two publications--which a year ago might have passed relatively unnoticed--have jolted the political world.

The first is the illustrated guide, published by the Mexican government, for Mexicans intending to immigrate to the U.S. It begins quite piously by suggesting that the best way to emigrate to the U.S. is via a legal American visa. Then it gets to the point. It lays out guidelines for the best and safest way to cross into the U.S. illegally, suggesting for instance that would-be immigrants walk during times of low heat, add salt to water to avoid dehydration, cross rivers only in light clothing, and so on. This guide makes the Mexican government the accomplice of anyone seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.

Some politicians and journalists claim to be shocked that illegality is going on in the Mexican government. But this publication merely formalizes what everyone has long known: Mexico encourages its citizens to go north. Nor is there any mystery why. Illegal immigration allows the Mexican elite to reduce social and political unrest without reforming Mexico's economy by exporting its unemployed. Once in the U.S., these Mexican emigrants are encouraged to retain their citizenship, their language, their culture, their family links, and their national identity (even while becoming U.S. citizens legally). Again, the reason is simple. Mexican governments hope to build strong pressure groups for Mexico within the U.S. Illegal migration makes Mexican elites more secure at home and more influential abroad. Why should they ever renounce it?

What is shocking is the reaction of the United States. A State Department spokesman said: "Both the United States and the Mexican government have a strong commitment to ensuring that migration into the United States is safe, orderly, and legal." I count five falsehoods in that statement. (It would have been six except that the illustrated migrant guide suggests that at least Mexico wants migration to the U.S. to be safe.) But the media reaction was different. In the past, newspaper editorialists have been reliable cheerleaders for open immigration. Under pressure from talk radio and bloggers, however, the establishment media are changing their tone: Several metropolitan newspapers called for a crackdown and official protests to Mexico.

The second document was a report in Barron's about the growth of the black economy in the U.S. Reporter Jim McTague--drawing heavily on a research paper by Bear Stearns senior managing director Robert Justich--suggested that illegal immigrants number not the 8 to 11 million usually quoted but a staggering 18 to 20 million. As many as 15 million illegal immigrants, he estimated, might therefore be working in the growing black economy. This estimate confirms what other economic statisticians have noticed: namely, that many more jobs are being created than the official payroll statistics suggest but that they are going disproportionately to illegal immigrants.

If these estimates are correct, very serious consequences follow. If there really are 15 to 20 million illegal aliens in the U.S., then their output accounts for much of the acclaimed productivity "miracle"; their non-payment of taxes explains much, if not all, of the large budget deficits; and legalizing them (while it would produce a rise in tax revenue) would also stimulate a much larger rise in welfare and other costs as they became eligible for programs such as food stamps. (They are already eligible for free emergency medical care, and their children for public education.) McTague even suggests that their legalization could create a situation not unlike that of German reunification, which triggered huge increases in demand for social services. So: If we are unsure of the costs of our existing immigration levels, should we be blithely planning to increase them?

In this less sympathetic climate, advocates of the Bush reform proposals have adopted a distinctly moderate and cautious tone. In a recent lecture, for instance, Tamar Jacoby argued that the Bush program of matching willing workers to willing employers would stabilize rather than increase the inflow of immigrants from Latin America. By recognizing reality, it would create a climate in which both business and public would support enforcement of laws against employing illegals. And immigrants would go home when their legal jobs were finished since neither government nor public opinion would turn a blind eye to mass violation of the law.

This is a pleasing vision, since it is designed to please. But it is questionable at every point. Allowing an immigrant to enter the U.S. if he can find an employer to offer him a job amounts to a major reduction in his current costs of entry--which include paying smugglers, dying in the desert, and being sent back. If these prices fall, then immigration will rise; and since the price reductions would be substantial, it would likely rise very sharply.

Nor will the new legal immigrants necessarily go home, as Jacoby suggests, when their legal job comes to an end. After all, illegal jobs in the U.S. will still pay more than the work available in their home village. They will simply "go underground" between legal jobs--which they could then do a good deal more easily than by walking through the desert. With the existing illegal-immigrant population of between 11 and 20 million supplemented by an unknown number of new potential immigrants, there would be a wide immigration sea in which they could disappear and swim undetected. Given the greater numbers of immigrants both legal and illegal in the community, the political costs of enforcing employment and deportation laws would not fall but rise. And we would be back to where we are now--except that the costs would be higher and the difficulties more daunting.

Ordinary people grasp these points. It is sophisticated economists who see here only visions of harmony and plenty. They should be truer to the traditions of their "dismal science."