instead we’re getting waves of people with high school educations or less. Nice people, no one doubts that, but as an economic matter this is insane. It’s indefensible, so nobody even tries to defend it. Instead our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this. We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.
This is what Tucker Carlson of the Fox News Channel said on December 13 about some immigrants to the United States coming through our southern border. He replayed it at about the 15:07 point here.
Let’s consider what he said point by point:
Nice people, no one doubts that.
But Donald Trump has expressed a lot of doubt about that. Is Tucker, a guy who claims to follow the news, not aware of that? Hard to believe.
It’s indefensible, so nobody even tries to defend it.
It’s actually quite defensible. Which is why many people–Bryan Caplan, Alex Nowrasteh, David Bier, and I, to name four–have defended it. And here’s the economic defense (as opposed to the moral defense) in a nutshell. There are gains from exchange. Many of those people bring valuable skills that they will provide at a relatively low price. Both sides gain.
Can Tucker Carlson, who has had Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute on his show more than once, really believe that “nobody even tries to defend it?” Either Carlson has a really poor memory or he’s a liar.
Instead our leaders demand that you shut up and accept this.
He’s probably right about some of our self-appointed leaders. If so, they’re wrong to tell you to shut up.
We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor, they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.
We seem to get nowhere when we talk about moral obligations and so I won’t try. But the last part about making our own country poorer and dirtier is absurd. Immigration makes us wealthier; again, think about gains from exchange. And if Tucker is right that we get a lot of people with high school educations or less, immigration probably makes our country cleaner. Immigration makes it less costly to hire people to clean our houses and our yards and to cut our trees.
As to making our country more divided, he may well be right about this. If he were to switch positions, though, it might make our country slightly less divided.
READER COMMENTS
Steve S
Dec 18 2018 at 6:04pm
David,
Appreciate your commentary on this. I saw Carlson’s comments derided on another website, and they took the angle of just calling him racist, nationalist, bigoted, etc. Which he may be…but it’s not directly evidenced by what he said. And I was reading it thinking, “there are good arguments against this, arguments that show immigration is good and doesn’t make our nation poorer and dirtier! Why don’t you just address that directly rather than coming at it from a racism angle where you aren’t going to convince anybody to change their minds?!”
So thank you for coming up with the response I was pleading for.
Mark Z
Dec 18 2018 at 6:23pm
Carlson’s ” nobody even tries to defend it” is of course not true, if one is looking, but as far as the arguments made in the popular political sphere (the lowest common denominator of intellectual discourse), the arguments made are often sub-par, and the arguments made in defense of immigration do tend to often be couched in terms of morality. E.g., we privileged Americans have an obligation to help poor, underprivileged, ‘marginalized groups.’ I think many strident defenders of immigration are defending it for reasons tangential to the (actually rational) arguments libertarians make, that immigration isn’t economically harmful.
Plenty of the people who are calling Carlson racist for making this claim would I’m sure accept the dubious premises of his argument on matters like international trade and labor regulations. Many also would happily use statistics indicating that the US is becoming ‘less equal’ ignoring that, by definition, when poor people move to a rich country, it immediately becomes statistically ‘less equal’, even as they’d denounce the idea that immigration makes the US poorer.
David Henderson
Dec 18 2018 at 7:32pm
Thanks, Steve S. And good points, Mark Z.
Michael Sandifer
Dec 18 2018 at 6:42pm
Great post.
John Alcorn
Dec 18 2018 at 6:45pm
Cogent!
A classic blogpost by Bryan Caplan explains “how everyone can get richer as per-capita income falls” in America when people with little formal education immigrate.
Benjamin Cole
Dec 18 2018 at 7:22pm
Immigration makes it less costly to hire people to clean our houses and our yards and to cut our trees.–David Henderson.
Well, we finally get to the nub of it. Usually, the storyline is that immigration does not cut wages.
But set-aside morality or economics, or rank self -interest, for a moment.
The US in a good year produces net less than a million housing units. Scott Sumner says the US is so bad a building infrastructure that we should not even try. He may be right. Ironically, the respect for property rights ( as defined presently ) often prevents construction of new housing and infrastructure.
In any event, just where do libertarians plan to put all the immigrants they wish to admit?
PS: How should gardeners and janitors feel about proposals to allow more immigrants into the United States?
David Henderson
Dec 18 2018 at 7:37pm
Usually, the storyline is that immigration does not cut wages.
I’ve never bought that idea. I think it cuts them marginally and, moreover, the evidence is that it does.
In any event, just where do libertarians plan to put all the immigrants they wish to admit?
Speaking for all libertarians, since they have appointed me to do so, I don’t plan to “put” them anywhere. I think they’ll figure out where to put themselves.
PS: How should gardeners and janitors feel about proposals to allow more immigrants into the United States?
How should they feel? They should feel good about giving their fellow humans a chance for a better life, and also good about the other services that immigrants will provide at a somewhat lower price. Gardeners and janitors tend to want to eat, to buy housing, to buy other goods, and to buy other services. Immigrants will make more of these available.
john hare
Dec 18 2018 at 7:50pm
I think you are possibly missing one point. Good gardeners and janitors should welcome more people that will do the work so that they can move up the ladder. Can’t move up when there are so few entry level that experienced people have to do it all themselves. Quite often people in our company with decade plus experience are doing the entry level jobs because there are so few people available at that level.
Poor gardeners and janitors on the other hand could lose jobs to people that actually want to work.
David Henderson
Dec 18 2018 at 10:01pm
Good point.
Jon Murphy
Dec 18 2018 at 10:14pm
Excellent point, John. High-productivity people are only highly productive because low-productivity people are there to do low-productivity jobs. Stephen Curry is only a phenomenal basketball player because he doesn’t have to mow his lawn, cut his hair, make his clothes, etc.
CZ
Dec 19 2018 at 10:53am
Good professionals should also welcome greater opportunities for collaboration. For example, over 30% of US doctors are immigrants but I have never heard a doctor complain about foreign competition and I would not go to a doctor who did because that would be a sign that he is not a very good doctor! Instead, top doctors frequently collaborate with their foreign peers to make new discoveries and improvements in medicine. Likewise in tech, it seems like workers in the most innovative companies welcome nationality-blind hiring as they want their company and product to be the best possible, while it is the back office workers who complain about H1Bs. If your mindset is that you are in a profession to provide valuable services to consumers and not just collect rents, then you should welcome more immigrants in your profession as they will improve the capacity of your profession as a whole. And as a consumer, I would never hire a professional who complains about competition because that would show that he is just in it for the money.
John Alcorn
Dec 19 2018 at 10:56am
David,
Re: The impact of immigration on wages of other workers in the destination country.
According to Bryan Caplan’s summaries of the best empirical research (e.g., studies by George Borjas and by David Card), immigrants with little formal education diminish wages of a) recent like immigrants and b) native high-school dropouts. These effects are estimated to be less than 10%. By contrast, most workers benefit (as complements rather than substitutes in labor markets, thanks partly to their native English fluency, and as consumers of goods and services). Were politics less dysfunctional, the vast gains from integration of international labor markets could also reach the subsets of workers identified by Borjas.
Recent studies by Giovanni Peri (and his fellow researchers) indicate a broad positive impact of immigration on wages of workers already present. Here is an example:
Mark Bahner
Dec 18 2018 at 11:51pm
Generally, people don’t need to be “put” anywhere. They go where they want to go. And people either sell or rent them places to live.
RPLong
Dec 19 2018 at 8:54am
The United States ranks 179 out of 241 countries, by population density. That’s 85 people per square mile.
Mark Z
Dec 19 2018 at 2:47pm
Indeed, the inflated housing costs are highly concentrated in a few dense major metropolitan areas, areas where, incidentally, relatively few of the people who’d compete with immigrants for jobs live; it’s not a nationwide phenomenon. In other words, if all these immigrants move to the Bay Area or New York, where there are housing shortages, they won’t have much of an effect on ‘blue collar’ Americans’ wages. If they move to the places where most ‘blue collar’ Americans live, then housing isn’t much of a problem since those are places where there tends to be a good supply of housing.
Hazel Meade
Dec 19 2018 at 12:10pm
You’re correct that immigration will tend to drive up housing prices, in the absence of additional construction. But surely you realize there will be an equilibrium where the increased wages they can get from coming here don’t make up for the higher housing prices. And just as it has in places like San Francisco, that will tend to drive up wages too, as workers won’t be willing to go there unless they are paid enough to afford a place to live. The market will adjust.
David Henderson
Dec 18 2018 at 7:32pm
Thanks, Michael Sandifer and John Alcorn.
Alan Goldhammer
Dec 19 2018 at 8:00am
David has another good post on immigration. I’ve observed in our area (suburban DC on the Maryland side) that virtually all the people who do yard work and house cleaning are Latin Americans. A large proportion of those working construction and doing handyman work likewise. These folks work hard and pay taxes and for those of us who need to outsource such work (I’m not climbing up on my roof to clean gutters or mowing my lawn any longer) they provide an invaluable service. Perhaps Tucker Carlson still does these types of jobs himself; if he doesn’t I wonder who does.
John Westkaemper
Dec 19 2018 at 4:32pm
Not all Latin Americans are immigrants – Latins are the population majority where I live. Many are born citizens and they work at all skill levels.
Billy Kaubashine
Dec 19 2018 at 9:35am
Any discussion of standards for admitting immigrants, or quantities of immigrants to be admitted is wasteful kabuki unless we enforce whatever laws the political process enacts.
pyroseed13
Dec 19 2018 at 9:37am
I’d dispute the claim that low skilled immigration necessarily makes our country cleaner, as it often leads to negative externalities such as congestion and pollution in urban centers. One possible solution to this would be to have a policy that encourages immigrants to move to areas other than big cities in a handful of states. Even so, is it true that without low skill immigrants we would stop cleaning our houses and doing yard work? Yes, having them increases our productivity, because high skilled workers can spend less time on household production, but I don’t think this leads to houses and yards being cleaner than they would be otherwise.
David Henderson
Dec 19 2018 at 9:44am
pyroseed 13. You write:
Even so, is it true that without low skill immigrants we would stop cleaning our houses and doing yard work?
No. And I didn’t say that people would stop cleaning houses and doing yard work. It’s a “think on the margin” thing, which is one of the ideas in economics that non-economists have the most trouble understanding. Without low skill immigrants, our houses and yards would be somewhat less clean and tidy, respectively.
pyroseed13
Dec 19 2018 at 9:56am
That’s fair enough. I just don’t think that on the margin the effects would be very large. Or at least, large enough to outweigh the environmental costs I outlined above.
Mark Z
Dec 19 2018 at 2:50pm
“One possible solution to this would be to have a policy that encourages immigrants to move to areas other than big cities in a handful of states. ”
We already have a marvelous ‘policy’ to do this: the price mechanism.
RPLong
Dec 19 2018 at 3:05pm
Great response!
pyroseed13
Dec 19 2018 at 4:14pm
Well I’m thinking of this in the context of low skill Hispanic immigration, who tend to live in southwester part of the U.S. Presumably they choose to live there because they prefer the climate and can easily find low-skill work. The problem is that this leads to an increased use of public goods in those areas and congestion as a result of a lack of housing. Now, this lack of housing supply is totally a policy problem not related to immigration, and we should fix this. But until we do, we face this set of constraints which makes it difficult to assimilate so many people into our society. Perhaps some reforms to our visa system would help shift immigrants to different employers across the country. I’m not sure what the best solution is but I’m merely suggesting that the effects of immigration are a bit more complicated than is commonly presented.
Hazel Meade
Dec 19 2018 at 12:04pm
I suspect that our immigration laws might actually be biased in *favor* of less educated immigrants due to the relative difficulty of obtaining a visa via the employment route versus via refugee or asylum status. People who are able to claim asylum or refugee status probably come from relatively poor countries, and hence are likely to be less educated. Moreover, they don’t have a job lined up in advance so there’s not necessarily a demand for their skills. Whereas people who come here to work are already desired by some US company due to their particular skills. But US law throws up all sorts of barriers to obtaining a work visa such that it is effectively impossible to get without at least a Bachelors degree and a few years experience. Thus, it may actually be easier for a refugee from Guatemala to get a legal visa than a welder from Mexico.
I have no problem shifting the immigration laws towards more employment driven, market-driven demand for labor. Let employers hire who they want, and let immigration be driven by demand for labor, in exchange for tighter criteria on family sponsorships, refugees, and asylum seekers.
John Alcorn
Dec 19 2018 at 12:58pm
Hazel Meade,
Here (below) are broad international findings relevant to your comment. They are from a 2009 overview of research by Gordon H. Hanson, a top ‘mainstream’ economist in the field:
Of course, the patterns might have changed somewhat in the past 10 years.
Hazel Meade
Dec 21 2018 at 10:33am
That’s interesting, but it doesn’t exactly contradict what I’m saying. It just says we get a bigger share of the world’s educated immigrants. Probably highly educated immigrants – doctors and holders of advanced degrees. Probably true, because the US is the center of much of the worlds academic research.
I kind of think we probably have something of a U-shaped distribution – it’s easy to get an employment visa if you have an advanced degree, and then it gets increasingly hard for people at lower skill levels. But then when you get to the very bottom, we have this loophole for asylum seekers and refugees, that makes it easier for people from really, really, poor societies to get in. And then there are the family sponsorship categories, where there are no education criteria, and nobody gets turned down for those – they just have to wait a long time. Poorer people tend to have larger families, so that also probably sets up a small bias towards less educated immigrants.
If we flipped the system to make it much harder to get a family sponsorship or asylum and much easier to get an employment visa that would likely change the mix of immigrants to higher skilled, or more importantly people with skills that are in demand in the market.
Robert Schadler
Dec 19 2018 at 1:04pm
A main problem with many libertarian ideologues is that, because they don’t want any relevance for political borders, they think as if they do not exist.
Milton Friedman made a major and rather obvious point: Open borders are incompatible with a robust welfare state. Put more starkly, an open, or laxly enforced, political border when transportation costs are relatively low and there are one or two billion people living in poverty, no nation-state can absorb unlimited numbers of immigrants, especially over a short period of time.
As a child of immigrants, I am hardly “anti-immigrant.” I see the value of the “exchange” or, rather, the movement of people to where their skills (even if limited) are of greater value. But the receiving country has a right to restrict or otherwise vet who comes in and who does not. That is a political matter and deserves more than ignoring it entirely — which is what Carlson was referring to. Henderson argues in favor of immigration at a very abstract level, implying utterly unlimited numbers still fit into his argument; and regardless of who they are and why they are coming. Addressing these political arguments would seem appropriate.
John Alcorn
Dec 19 2018 at 1:41pm
Robert Schadler,
Some prominent libertarian economists have addressed head-on the good-sense concerns that you raise. Most notably, Bryan Caplan & Vipul Naik provide a succinct, but comprehensive analysis, in their essay, “A radical case for open borders.” The essay includes discussion of various potential regulations (or qualitative and quantitative limits to immigration), tailored specifically and narrowly to address your concerns and more, whilst nonetheless broadly liberalizing immigration. They call such policies “keyhole solutions.” A PDF of their essay in typescript form is available online here. The essay is available in published form in a fine collection of essays edited by Benjamin Powell, The economics of immigration: Market-based approaches, social science, and public policy (Cambridge U. Press, 2015), chapter 8.
I hope that you might consider reading Caplan’s & Naik’s effort to persuade open-minded, pragmatic people like you. Thank you!
Mark Z
Dec 19 2018 at 2:54pm
The problem of the welfare state can largely be resolved by residency status take employment into account more. Indeed, it seems far easier to structure immigration law to encourage employment and discourage entitlement dependency than it does to deter immigration altogether.
Jon Murphy
Dec 19 2018 at 3:41pm
Why do you assume “unlimited number of immigrants” would come? Indeed, you already provided very strong evidence in your comment that there would not be “unlimited” but rather very limited immigration (certainly more than is currently going on, but hardly unlimited).
Besides, open border immigration is not some stealth plot to make political borders irrelevant. Rather, it’s the simple recognition that trade with a person on one side of a border does not, in any significant way, differ from trade with a person on another side of the border.
Finally, I agree wholeheartedly that a nation, or more accurately, the people within the nation (since “nation” is not a choosing agent and thus to speak of it as something with agency is incoherent) have the right to vet who comes in. That’s why I am open borders. Those who vet and decide the person is worthy to deal with will hire them (or otherwise deal with them). Those who decide they are not worthy do not deal. Open borders is the only logical choice for those who claim that a nation has the right to vet. Restricted immigration is explicitly a refusal of that right.
Jesse Segovia
Dec 19 2018 at 3:53pm
Excellent point, Mr. Schadler. Pity that while illegal immigration continues more or less unabated, the suggestions made to resolve the issue (such as limiting the welfare state or giving private employers power over immigration) will NEVER be implemented given Democrats’ (and perhaps libertarians’) apparently limitless support for illegal immigration and Republicans’ ginger opposition, all too readily blocked by activist judges.
CZ
Dec 19 2018 at 6:55pm
The European Union disproves the idea that a welfare state is incompatible with open borders. Countries like Sweden have had open borders with much poorer countries like Poland and Romania for over a decade but were still able to keep very generous welfare states (they are having integration issues with large numbers of Muslim immigration, but that’s different from the welfare issue). Per capita welfare spending also varies significantly across US states, by some measures as much as 4x between the most and least generous states, and there are open borders among US states, yet this disparity in welfare states persists and there is no mass migration from Mississippi to Massachusetts. In reality, few people will migrate just for more generous welfare.
Of course, libertarians generally also support cutting the welfare state, so if immigration did weaken the welfare state, most libertarians would see that as a plus. What I find puzzling is when conservatives who also support cutting the welfare state suddenly turn into its defenders when it comes to immigration.
Nathan Smith
Dec 19 2018 at 2:24pm
If immigration makes a country wealthier, then why isn’t the country from which people emigrate already wealthy? And why aren’t we encouraging people to immigrate to Chad, Uzbekistan or Madagascar?
Edward Crenshaw
Dec 19 2018 at 2:50pm
A classic libertarian POV, and indeed my own research confirms that importing YOUNG (i.e., cheap) labor boosts economic growth…all else constant. Unfortunately, all else is SELDOM constant. Our urban populations (you know, the ones that increasingly vote BLUE) are burgeoning, our ethnic/racial identity politics are right off the rail, and our household inequality levels have risen (in part because we import lots of people from the top AND the bottom of the income distribution, thinning the middle — it’s OK by me, but Democrats beat the hell out of capitalism with these inequality dynamics). I for one am tired of the market-worshipers telling us to just accept unprecedented immigration as some great gift. Like anything else, there is a price to pay, and I suspect the one’s paying the price aren’t the same people reaping the windfalls of cheap labor.
Jesse Segovia
Dec 19 2018 at 3:45pm
It seems to me Tucker Carlson is speaking specifically about illegal immigration, not immigration ‘exchange’ as you generally respond. In fact, more specifically Mr. Carlson is speaking about the Migrant Caravan. While the economic, social and personal gains from legal immigration cannot be denied, do all of these gains necessarily result from all illegal immigration? Would nothing but positive gain result from tearing down all borders and restrictions on immigration to the United States?
John Graham
Dec 19 2018 at 5:19pm
My goal is not to defend Tucker Carlson but to argue for a revamp in immigration policy along the lines of the book, The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today’s by Heather MacDonald, Victor Davis Hanson & Steven Malanga. In short, a merit based system, an end to chain migration and the visa lottery, removing economic incentives (illegals cost the taxpayer billions each year, more than they pay in taxes), strict enforcement of employers through e-Verify, an effective tracking system for visa over stays, an end to birthright citizenship, a rewrite of the asylum process so that you must enter the US legally in order to apply for asylum and, yes, an effective border wall. Walls work. The Israeli’s have proven this along the West Bank and along their southern border with Egypt.
Gerald A. Gould
Dec 19 2018 at 9:11pm
Sorry, David, but I agree with Tucker. The people coming to our southern border are not future Nobel prize winners. They will just add to the millions of minimally educated people with minimal skill sets for a modern industrial economy. They are the same as the thousands that came under the bracero program, who were abused by low wages, an terrible living conditions. Immigration is important to our future success since we are reproducing as a less than replacement level. But who are those that will add more than cheap labor.
In our health care system in Indiana, we would be in terrible shape if it were not for the immigrant doctors, who come mostly from the Middle East or Asia. Our “American” kids seem to shun the tough courses in medicine, science, and engineering.
So I’m not against immigration, my grandparents both came here from eastern Europe. They came with skill sets that were employable in that time. They also had to provide for themselves because there were no safety nets as we have today.
Tom Weekes
Dec 20 2018 at 10:21am
Tucker is not against immigration, he is for making informed decisions about who you allow to immigrate into your country. Currently there is 1) anybody who can sneak across the border, 2) family members no matter how distant of those who have achieved legal status, 3) a lottery selecting people of no known ability, worth or ethical character. The current system does not select those who have the skills our country needs other than low wages, a shared dream of unlimited potential success, equal rights or self reliance. It’s a total crap shoot. Currently, the best and the brightest are those who successfully sneak in. It shows motivation and aptitude. A sad state of affairs.
Echarles
Dec 20 2018 at 10:51am
Economic question:
If there are going to be cap on the number of immigrants coming into the country, is there a reason to allow a mix of low, medium, and high skilled immigrants compared to just high skilled immigrants assuming the cap can accommodate all high skilled ones?
In other words, is it more economically efficient to have mix of workers or is it more efficient if only high skilled workers were allowed in?
Jon Murphy
Dec 20 2018 at 11:01am
Clarification question:
When you say “mix” do you mean within the cap any number of various skills can come in, or do you mean within the cap, only a certain percentage can be high skilled, low skilled, etc?
Echarles
Dec 20 2018 at 11:32am
Jon- say country A allows 100,000 immigrants in each year. Putting moral/humanitarian reasons aside, is it optimal from an economic point of view for country A to accept the most highly skilled immigrants or is it suboptimal by excluding some lower skilled labor among the 100,000 entrants? Thanks.
David Henderson
Dec 20 2018 at 2:55pm
I want to try to answer, but I want to clarify the question. You’re putting zero value on the gain to the immigrants, right?
Echarles
Dec 20 2018 at 4:05pm
David- not being an economist, I’m not sure what you mean by “zero value on the gain” in this context. The argument I hear from some who support immigration (but not unlimited immigration) is that as long as a country has more immigrants who want to come in than are legally allowed to, that country should prioritize high skilled labor as opposed to low skilled. They often point to Canada and Australia as examples. Is that efficient compared to prioritizing low skilled or a mix of skilled labor?
David Henderson
Dec 20 2018 at 5:55pm
I probably said it badly. In answering your question, do you want to put zero weight on the gain to immigrants? In other words, do you want me to restrict the cost/benefit analysis to U.S. residents?
Echarles
Dec 20 2018 at 8:28pm
If you think that is what policy makers should consider when deciding what sort of immigrants to let into the country, then yes. If not, then feel free to provide both arguments. I guess that begs the question of what outcome(s) is one seeking by letting in a limited amount of immigrants?
Dan Devin
Dec 28 2018 at 6:48pm
David,
I am not an economist nor do I play on on TV so I rely on your expertise. My very limited knowledge of economics can probably fit in a thimble and leave ample room for a pinky but I do have some common sense questions I would ask about immigration and how it impacts the economy of the US.
Is it true that undocumented immigrants use social programs at a much higher rate than natural born citizens? I find it logical that they would since these are people that come to this country with very little in resources and in many cases, have very limited education. Their needs are probably much greater than people who had the benefits of growing up here. The bottom line is that there is a cost to immigration long term that society must absorb. I understand that there are benefits to immigration and do not dispute that but has anyone ever done a definitive study on the net cost versus benefit?
Do undocumented immigrants have larger families with young children that then rely on public education and the related education infrastructure? I believe that there is a correlation between wealth and the size of families. I would wonder how much of the costs of these resources are generated by the users versus the rest of the community? Can a community be overwhelmed by immigrants with special needs such as language issues and lack of earlier education?
Regardless of crime rates, any crime committed by an undocumented immigrant is a crime that would not have occurred absent the individual. We just saw a police officer gunned down by an individual in the country illegally. What is the economic impact of crime that occurs from people who would not be in this country if not for illegal immigration? In those costs, I would consider the economic costs to victims and their families as well as the costs of jail, courts and prison.
California, as a Sanctuary State, has created a two tiered legal system. An undocumented immigrant driving a car without liability insurance is given a free pass where a citizen is sanctioned. They even tried to entice undocumented immigrants to purchase a cheaper and less than required limit of insurance but it didn’t go very far since there was no down side to not having insurance. So what are the economic costs to legal immigrants and citizens who pay higher insurance rates to uninsured motorists? How about the moral issues with citizens being held to a different legal standard?
There is a lot of comments made about how ineffective a wall would be and that we should rely on other forms of security yet no one talks about what happens once an undocumented immigrant steps foot on US soil. They are not pushed back over the border or sent home. They are detained, documented, screened and generally let loose before the judge mandated holding period has expired with an order to return at a much later date for a hearing on their case. That starts the process that has led to millions upon millions of undocumented immigrants flooding the US. So if we stopped people before they come into this country (such as in their native country where we have an embassy at their disposal) by not providing such an incentive to come illegally, isn’t that a safer situation than sending young children thousands of miles in the hopes of crossing the border?
Personally, as a first generation American born of a legal immigrant and naturalized citizen, I would want to see a big beautiful revolving door on that big beautiful wall/fence/barrier/whatever you want to call it to allow migrants to be screened and come and go pretty much at will. But I would separate migration from immigration. A migrant should be able to come and go at will as long as they follow our laws, are working and productive. If they want to become a citizen, they should apply like everyone else and wait their turn. That includes no more anchor babies. (I don’t believe the 14th amendment ever considered undocumented immigration as a means to legal citizenship through the birth of a child and many scholars have made a coherent case for that)
The bottom line is that we need an immigration policy that protects American citizens and allows for natural migration and immigration. It is unfair that someone who crosses the border illegally be given preference over someone who takes the legal method. That makes legal immigrants suckers for waiting in line. You know, that feeling you get when you wait patiently in traffic at an exit only to have an idiot drive around all of the traffic and cut in?
We also need to better define “refugee.” Just having a high crime rate in your native country should not be a valid basis for refugee status. If that was the case, we should be willing to give refugee benefits to citizens of Baltimore, Chicago and Detroit.
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