If conservatives are adept enough to recognize the opportunity to win not only the Latino vote, but public policy gains long out of reach, then the GOP can become a permanent majority. Or, it can ignore the prospects for inclusion, opportunity, and success, and drive over the cliff on an overly constrictive "enforcement only" truck.

As the current debate over illegal immigration drifts towards the extremes, a refocused inquiry suggests several things. Specifically, the debate contains three sets of issues: 1) those items agreed to by nearly all reasonable people (e.g., that some effective measure of border security is necessary), 2) issues in dispute (e.g., the propriety of a guest worker program, earned legalization, etc.), and 3) issues whose facts are undisputed, but nevertheless unnoticed in the ongoing dialogue. This Article assumes 1 and 2, and focuses on the third category.

A significant portion of the immigration debate concerns border security. Nearly all sides agree that national sovereignty includes the right to define and control one's borders. With the exception of the "open borders' and "Reconquista" advocates who challenge the fundamental assumption that the United states may control its borders, Republicans and Democrats agree that, particularly in a post 9/11 world, America's borders must be safeguarded, but divide and subdivide on the issue of the means. Apart from the aforementioned crazies, the debate over controlling the orders is important, but legally uninteresting. The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8 clearly empowers the Congress to regulate naturalization and immigration, and to repel insurrections and invasions. The mechanics of controlling border security is highly important, but the decision itself is universally accepted by all but a few.

There is in fact an entirely appropriate debate over the economic and demographic issues, namely, the feasibility of what is essentially mass deportation, the necessity of a guest worker program, and the propriety of any earned legalization or amnesty plan. Numerous scholars and pundits have opined on these issues including George Will, Bill Kristol and others, and there views need not be restated here. However economic and demographic data do suggest an argument not made and a dialogue not currently creatively engaged.

As George Will has suggested, there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the nation, most of whom work, many of whom have American-born children. That they work and otherwise contribute to the economy by for example, buying goods, gasoline and other consumer durables seems without question. That they perform necessary labor in numerous industries also seems unquestioned. Whether those jobs could be done by legal residents and citizens and at what cost, is an appropriate and contested subject, but the ongoing reality appears to be undisputed.

The primary locus of dispute is whether the benefits and contributions to the economy of the undocumented population outweigh the increased strain this population exerts on the governmental structures, including education, healthcare, and criminal justice systems. Here, conservatives can offer the most creative reforms.

Healthcare

Illegal immigration burdens the public healthcare system. This is a truism, but also a chimera. Illegal immigrants burden the healthcare system not because the lack of a birth certificate or green card automatically increases the charge, but instead the increased costs are the results of two important policies. One, current law requires hospital emergency rooms to treat anyone who walks through their doors, regardless of the patient's ability to pay. Two, the guarantee of free healthcare encourages overuse of emergency rooms (the most expensive form of care). Thus, those who actually pay hospitals for their services, as well as the taxpayers, subsidize the care of those who do not. Notably, these policies result whether the non-paying patient was born in the poorest section of Guadalajara, Green Bay or Greenville.

In sum, healthcare has a "free rider" problem. The uninsured and those too poor or choosing not to pay, can access the identical services with none of the responsibilities. It is a system destined for collapse. Assuredly, an undocumented population in excess of eleven million living off the books is the most likely to not purchase health insurance. Low wage jobs coupled with an inability and unwillingness to prove identification, all but insures [no pun intended] a demographic bloc overwhelming the system. The problem, fortunately, bespeaks of the answer.

There are several alternatives being explored in other, non-illegal immigrant- related arenas. In Massachusetts, Republican Governor Mitt Romney has endorsed a mandatory health insurance program. Every employer and each individual are required to have healthcare insurance, no more free riding. For the poorest individuals, the State provides a subsidy.

Lost in the ongoing non-dialogue over the Medicare debacle, is the relative success of Jeb Bush's Florida. Most states, such as California, provide direct payment for those on state rolls unable to afford medical care. Administered by unaccountable, well-funded, clumsy bureaucracies, these direct payment systems embolden gratuitous over-billing and outright fraud. For the residents on such rolls who have no concept of the actual costs of care, the system encourages overuse. Florida utilizes its Medicare dollars differently. The State utilizes its bargaining power and leverage to purchase private insurance on behalf of its neediest citizens. Insurers, forced to compete for the business, and with a bottom line to watch, are incentivized to innovate, streamline, and control costs. As the Congressional Budget Office has reported, Florida has begun to see its costs come down. See, http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=2731&sequence=16

In sum, illegal immigrants overwhelm the healthcare system along with their free riding native born brethren not because they are "illegal", but because state and federal entitlement policies permit such persons to sample all of the benefits with none of the burdens.

Americans are not a cruel people, thus, it is unlikely that the entitlement system will be eliminated. We won't leave children, of any ancestry or national origin, to bleed in the streets. However, a system of mandatory insurance, with some matrix of the Florida and Massachusetts subsidy system for the most vulnerable, can begin to bring healthcare costs down to a manageable level. If coupled with a sensible guest worker and/or an earned legalization program designed to bring the undocumented population into the light, there is every reason to believe that those immigrants who simply seek a better life would participate. As they increase their earning power and station in life, they would migrate from the publicly subsidized rolls into employer-provided or private insurance.

Reforming entitlements and using market forces to accomplish public good are hallmarks of conservative philosophy. Who better to lead the charge?

Education

The other twin burden of illegal immigration is the cost of educating such a large population. The education issue is slightly more complex in that many children of illegal immigrants are actually American-born citizens, but the reforms necessary are equally plain. It costs billions to maintain America's public education system. Largely policed by teachers' unions and their political offspring, the system is large, unwieldy, and inefficient. Necessarily, the additional influx of students who are the children of undocumented aliens increases the costs and burdens the system. The problem is not the number of students, the problem is the costs of educating them within the current, antiquated, inefficient system.

Here again, conservatives have been offering solutions for years. The high costs of the current education system are not reflected by their performance. Testing results indicate that despite billions of dollars spent over the last several decades, students are receiving a less valuable education. Such is the case of monopolies with no incentive to change or improve. The introduction of competition into the educational system could revitalize our education infrastructure.

America is not short of education reform choices. Charter schools, voucher programs, and hybrids of the two have been demonstrated to make the entire system better. By injecting competition into the educational monopoly every school must compete for the customer (the student) by offering more [education] for less [cost].

Educational reform does offer one critical advantage in the context of the immigration debate. Unlike healthcare which focuses primarily on costs, educational reform invokes the option of parental choice. The illegal immigrant population, by and large, seeks a better life, including more opportunities for their children. Immigrant families no more want a failing educational system than do anyone else. Given the choice to choose, among charter schools, or to use a voucher at a private school, illegal alien parents will make the same choices- for better education. Further, does anyone doubt that the migrant worker who does three jobs would not willingly do what it takes to match a voucher to buy private school tuition. Does anyone doubt that a largely Hispanic Catholic population would not willingly jump at the chance to enroll their children at elite Catholic schools?

None of these reforms are easily won, but this article proposes a "call their bluff" strategy. If the Left wants to urge an inclusive policy which recognizes immigrants as valued members of society (read liberals and unions salivating at the potential for swollen ranks), then conservatives should engage the battle, but with better ideas. Let liberals defend their entitlement programs. Let Barbara Boxer explain to an immigrant who works four jobs and 20 hours a day, why it's acceptable for John Doe in Modoc County California to become the fourth generation welfare recipient in his family. Let Ted Kennedy explain why an immigrant's child needs to attend a school which neither prepares nor educates his child for the American reality because to permit a parent to choose would undermine the political donations the Democratic Party requires from its teachers' unions.

These reforms are unique in two ways. First, they assume the federal government enacts some form of comprehensive immigration policy involving border security, internal immigration controls, and a guest worker/earned legalization program. Second, and more importantly, each of these reforms can be enacted at a state level. Each lends itself to local campaigning and statewide elections which conservatives are more adept at winning.

None of these reforms are easily achieved. California's last voucher initiative garnered only 30% of the statewide vote. Other states have not faired much better. People for the American Way proudly displays its tally of voucher rejection at http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=2969. However, as results from the Cleveland and Milwaukee voucher experiments come in, the efficacy of competition in educational markets is illuminated. The Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University documented the benefits of the Cleveland approach in 1998 at http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/onprin/v6n1/alt.html. As the healthcare reform experiments in Massachusetts and Florida establish data on their proposals, the debate will shift: conservatives will have affirmative reforms with which to debate the Left. The Left, clinging only to its own rhetoric and four decades of wasted billions, cannot offer the nation's immigrant population anything positive.

If conservatives are adept enough to recognize the opportunity to win not only the Latino vote, but public policy gains long out of reach, then the GOP can become a permanent majority. Or, it can ignore the prospects for inclusion, opportunity, and success, and drive over the cliff on an overly constrictive "enforcement only" truck.