Rep. Cline might not get chance to present impeachment case to Senate

Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, is awaiting his turn in the national spotlight.

Whether he gets it will depend on Democrats.

Cline is one of 11 Republicans named as impeachment managers — essentially, prosecutors — to present the House’s impeachment case against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a future Senate trial.

That is, if there is a Senate trial. There’s been much talk that Democrats, who narrowly control the Senate, might move to dismiss the impeachment without a trial, the equivalent of a judge throwing a case out of court. Or, if that were considered too unseemly, Democrats could opt against a full trial but send the case off to a committee. Not all impeachments result in a full trial before the whole Senate. Cline’s predecessor, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, was impeachment manager in a case against a federal judge accused of accepting payments from lawyers practicing before him. That case was also heard by a committee, which then reported its recommendation to the full Senate. (Disclosure: Goodlatte is a member of our citizen advisory committee, but committee members have no role in news decisions.)

Republicans would obviously like a full-fledged trial before the whole Senate — that would be a primetime way for them to make their case against the Biden administration’s border policies. Democrats would just as obviously like to avoid that. Whatever the merits or lack thereof in the case, there is zero chance that Mayorkas will be convicted and removed from office. That would require a two-thirds vote, which means a lot of Democrats would have to join with Republicans and they’re not going to. It’s one thing to get a unanimous verdict to remove a corrupt federal judge, as Goodlatte did as one of the impeachment counts in that case. It’s quite another to get members of the president’s party to remove a cabinet secretary, especially in an election year.

Instead, let’s look at another aspect of the border situation that doesn’t get much attention: Why do we have so many migrants trying to get into the United States? The answer is not “lax enforcement” or “the immigration system is broken.” Both of those things might be true, but that’s missing the big picture.

The big picture is that the United States is one of the most economically successful countries in the history of the planet — and we’re within walking distance of a lot of countries that aren’t. We’re also a democratic society that’s within walking distance of a lot of countries that don’t uphold some of those same norms. That means we shouldn’t be surprised that a lot of people are trying to get into the country. In fact, the United Nations’ World Migration Report shows more people want into the United States than any other country in the world. We don’t have to let everyone in, of course, but the fact that so many people do want in is actually a testament to the success of the American experiment. You don’t see people clamoring to get into China. It would be nice if, when people are arguing back and forth about border policy, we’d take some time to reflect on this.

The bigger picture is that we’re living in an era of global mass migration, and the surge of migrants trying to get into the United States is not unique to us. The migration we’re seeing in North America is actually only the third-highest in the world — the biggest is in Europe, with Asia second. The United States is the number one country for migrants partly because we’re so big; Europe overall, though, draws far more migrants. All these are driven by the same thing: the relative proximity of affluent (and free) countries to countries where people are desperately poor, or at least desperate to get out.

Broadly speaking, if we weren’t so rich and free, none of this would be happening. This is simply the free market, writ large. As Ronald Reagan liked to say, people vote with their feet. Conservatives like to point out how, in the United States, people are moving out of high-tax blue states such as California for lower-tax red states, such as Florida. The same phenomenon is happening globally, except it’s not taxes that are the driving force, it’s opportunity and security, two things conservatives normally prize — and certainly devote more rhetoric to than liberals. 

To some extent, that means this mass migration represents the triumph of conservative ideals. Migrants aren’t trying to get into the United States so they can drive electric cars or pursue some “woke” agenda; they’re coming in hopes of finding jobs and safety. I understand it’s a problem if people can just walk willy-nilly across the border, but I’m surprised that more conservatives haven’t embraced this as a good problem to have — this mass migration is really an endorsement of the American ideal. Every migrant is a living testament to the superiority of the free market over other economic systems and other virtues that conservatives like to extol: hard work, family values, personal responsibility. Once again, people aren’t begging to get into China, but they are begging to get into the United States, and become Americans. The challenge is how we deal with this overwhelming success in some orderly and humane way when we can’t possibly let in everyone who wants in.

Of course, it’s not just the United States that people are trying to get into. Around the world, migration, legal or otherwise, has surged over the past three decades. In 1990, Europe recorded 49.6 million migrants. By 2020, that figure was up to 86.7 million, according to the UN’s migration report. In Asia, it’s gone from 48.2 million to 85.6 million. In North America, the number of migrants is smaller but the rate of change is faster — the number of migrants has more than doubled from 27.6 million in 1990 to 58.7 million in 2020. 

In the United States, the number of migrants — again, legal or otherwise — is estimated at 15.3% of the population, which may seem high to us but is not out of line with historical norms. That’s pretty similar to the U.S. population between the end of the Civil War and the start of World War II; it only seems high to us because immigration was unusually low in the post-war years that many of us grew up in. The U.S. percentage is also not out of line with other western countries. In France, the figure is 13.1%; in Great Britain, 13.8%. Some western countries see higher percentages of migrants: In Ireland, the figure is 17.6%. In Germany, 18.8%. In Canada, which has always had higher rates of immigration than the United States, and where even the nation’s Conservative Party has embraced immigration as a way to strengthen the economy in a way that our Republican Party has not, 21.3% of the population consists of migrants. In Australia, 30.1%. of the population consists of migrants. (A few years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Australia. The first place we ate was a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne. The owner had immigrated from China. Her daughter played the French horn and was on the waitlist at the Juilliard School in New York. I thought that was a pretty telling story.) 

None of that speaks to whether Mayorkas ought to be removed from office, or what our border policies ought to be, but these global trends do suggest that no matter who is president, the same factors are going to be driving migration. To take two policy extremes, neither “open borders” nor an impregnable wall across the southern border will change those larger forces at play. Europe has something better than a wall along its southern border — it has the whole Mediterranean Sea. But that hasn’t stopped hundreds of thousands of people from trying to cross in whatever kind of vessels they can find. 

Last year, at least 157,479 people crossed in the central Mediterranean, a 49% increase from the year before, according to Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. Another 60,073 people crossed in the eastern Mediterranean, where distances are shorter, a 55% increase. And 16,915 more people crossed from Morocco into Spain, the shortest distance possible. And those are only the people whose “irregular” passage was recorded, meaning the actual numbers are no doubt larger.

Geography hasn’t changed, though. So why is all this migration happening now? Why didn’t it happen in the past? Some forces may be temporary — wars and political unrest, for instance. Others are longer-term in duration but more recent in their appearance — a changing climate that has dried up agricultural lands in some places. However, one big driver is simply the widening gap between rich and poor.

Consider this: In 1800, there were 168 countries that were richer than the United States, according to a Vox analysis of gross domestic product. Even then, the United States was considered a good place to pursue opportunity. Today, there are only six countries with a higher GDP per capita: Qatar, Singapore, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland and Luxembourg.

Here’s another way to visualize this: In 1900, the GDP per capita in the United States was $4,096. In Mexico that year, the GDP per capita was $1,157. Today, the GDP per capita in the United States is $80,412, according to the International Monetary Fund. In Mexico, it’s $13,804.

Here’s what that means: In 1900, the United States was 3.5 times richer than Mexico. Today it’s 5.8 times richer. 

The delta becomes even bigger when we look at other countries to our south. 

In 1900, the United States was 4.2 times richer than Colombia. Today it’s 11.5 times richer. 

In 1900, the United States was 4.9 times richer than Venezuela. Today, it’s 233.7 times richer than the land of Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro. 

No wonder there’s an incentive to enter the United States, by whatever means seem available — and that incentive is growing. Furthermore, the more successful the United States is economically, the greater that incentive will be. An impenetrable wall might stop people from simply walking across the border, but the European example with the Mediterranean suggests that desperate migrants would simply put out to sea — to wash up, dead or alive, along the Gulf Coast. The distances are about the same, and so are the motivations.

Maybe Mayorkas is deserving of impeachment, and the case that Cline would like to make against him. To the extent that impeachment is a political act, that’s a matter of political taste. There can certainly be better policies, or worse policies, to deal with immigration than the ones we have now. Again, much of that is a matter of political taste. But no immigration policy — not Joe Biden’s, not Donald Trump’s — can change the basic economics that are bringing people to our southern border.