One of the themes here is that the more complex and onerous the regulation, the more likely it is to lead to corruption when people try to get around it. Limited government leads to honest government, is one way to put it, while big government leads to favoritism, influence-peddling, and shakedowns. The immigration bureaucracy is no exception in this regard, and a good argument for more open immigration and simpler immigration law is to reduce the opportunity for special treatment of the sort outlined in this Washington Post article about a new report by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Post article talks about how Terry McAuliffe — the Bill Clinton pal who is now governor of Virginia — asked a top Homeland Security official to speed visas for potential investors in GreenTech Automotive, his electric car company. Other prominent Democrats also got special treatment, the Post reports:
In addition to the case involving McAuliffe's car company, the inspector general focused on actions Mayorkas took on behalf of a film project in Los Angeles that was backed by former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, and on the construction of a casino in Las Vegas supported by Reid, who was Senate majority leader at the time.
Mayorkas told investigators that in all of those cases, "he intervened to improve the EB-5 process or to prevent an error," the report said.
With less restrictive immigration policies, you wouldn't need to be a friend of Ed Rendell, Harry Reid, or Terry McAuliffe to get your visa approved. A cynic might say that explains why Democrats did so little on immigration reform when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress in 2009 and 2010.
