Why anti-immigration laws bug me....

[archerships]

The inimitable joelgrus writes for a group blog called Gene Expression. Normally, I find it quite interesting to read. However, a post today by Razib irritated the heck out of me.



Here's Razib's post:

Immigration-the bad kind....

My dad paid a lot of money to his lawyer when he was sponsored by the college he worked for when I was a kid. Lots of paperwork, hoops to jump and what not. So illegal immigration kind of makes me grumpy. Back in 1986, a guy my dad knew who had jumped ship and was living with some woman for many years (he was from Bangladesh) got amnesty and was normalized. My dad joked he should have come as an illegal, would have made life much easier on him.

Anyway, here's an e-mail I just got from Robert Locke, pass the word....

Dear FrontPage Reader:

I am writing to you because you wrote to me in the past.

I regret to inform you that there is a bill in Congress that would legalize many illegal aliens. These are people who have broken the law, and they should not be rewarded. For details, please see:

http://www.fairus.org/html/07418210.htm

I urge you to contact your congressman on this issue and forward this message to anyone you can. You can contact your congressman here:


http://www.numbersusa.org/contactcongress.html

Much thanks,

Robert Locke
Associate Editor
FrontPageMag.com

I suggest anyone that cares about these issues should cut & paste the above text, and forward it on, or if you have a blog, just put it up.


Here's my response:

What do you hope to gain by making it harder for illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship? We generally look with disgust upon the actions of those people who prevented tens of thousands of Jews from immigrating to the U.S. during WWII, thereby dooming them to death. While few immigrants today face such harsh alternatives to immigration, approximately 300 people die each year trying to enter the U.S., which suggests that their current environment is so poor, that they're willing to risk death to escape it. Are the gains you perceive worth a planeload's worth of people dying every year?

I find it odd, given your own father's costly difficulties with immigration laws, that you're not more sympathetic to those who don't have the resources to fight to stay legally. What if the laws had been so strict that your father would not have been able to stay? I don't know where you hail from, but I'm much happier that you're here in the U.S. than in Bangladesh or India. Have you estimated the opportunity cost of preventing people from relocating to places where their skills and intelligence can find the best use? If so, what did you conclude?

I might understand hostility to immigrants if they committed more crimes or if they used more government services than they paid in taxes. However, the evidence suggests that immigrants may actually commit fewer crimes, and pay more in taxes than they use in government services

If restricting the flow of immigrants accross national borders is a net benefit, would you also support restricting intrastate immigration? For example, according to what I've read here, as a group, blacks have lower intelligence and commit crimes at a much higher rate than the general population. Would it make sense for a state such as say, North Carolina, to ban any more blacks from entering the state?

Also, government restrictions on the flow of drugs have been a dismal failure. Why do you expect that restrictions on the flow of labor will work any better than restrictions on the flow of drugs? After all, illegal immigrants would not come if they couldn't find better jobs here than at home. The fact that most of them can find jobs here provides de facto evidence that many people want the services of these immigrants. Do you expect that demand to go away? And if anti-immigration laws raise the cost of satisfying that demand, aren't anti-immigration laws making everyone poorer than they would be otherwise?

Comments

[hep.livejournal.com]

This is very well written. I applaud your use of links to back your points.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[afb.livejournal.com]

I also found this very well-written.

When I hear people saying things like "my family did it the right way even though it cost us thousands of dollars and was really frightening and difficult, so everyone else should have to do it the exact same way even though it will be costly and scary and difficult", it really seems like sour grapes. A hundred years ago, traveling across the country was costly and scary and difficult, but nobody is suggesting we make our way from New York to Seattle in covered wagons, shooting cattle as we go, just because that was how it was done before.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, I don't understand the "...I suffered, therefore, you should suffer too.." mentality either.

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

I'm all for anybody who wants to come to this country, get a job, get an education, open a business, or engage in any other non-criminal enterprise. I believe that every person who comes to the US from another country helps to make us all more American by adding to the diversity and bringing in the different viewpoints and experiences that have been instrumental in our success as a nation.

But I am opposed to what I used to see happen when I lived in New Mexico. A group of 20 to 30 guys would come up from Mexico in two or three vans and rent a house. They would work during the week, then take their wages back down to Mexico.

Had they chosen to come to the US and live and work here, I would be cool with that, but I didn't like them being a funnel for US dollars into Mexico.

I realize there is a lot of complexity to it... They were partially forced to do things that way because of our immigration laws, they did spend *some* of their money in the US, etc..

But then, I didn't really blame the guys doing it, I just didn't like that it happened.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Had they chosen to come to the US and live and work here, I would be cool with that, but I didn't like them being a funnel for US dollars into Mexico.

Hmmm...are you similarly upset by people who live in one state but contract for work in another? For example, my friend Toli works for a software company in Silicon Valley but lives in Austin, TX. Does it bother you that he funnels "California" dollars into Texas?

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I knew as I was writing it that I should wait until I had time to fully articulate, but I went ahead anyway. The focus, of course, went somewhere other than it should have because of my poor wording. Sorry about that.

My main focus was not on the direction of money flow, but rather the conditions that cause money to flow in that direction. The jobs the migrant workers are doing don't pay enough to be a living wage in the US, so they are forced to make their primary residence on the other side of the border. The money they bring back to Mexico ends up largely in the pockets of a mostly unproductive "ruling class" via such savory methods as trumped-up charges resulting in the impoundment of personal property which is then kept, sold, or passed on by the police to the Mexican rich, obligatory "gifts" to the local politicians, and outright extortion. In the end most of the fruits of the migrant worker's labor end up going to somebody who did nothing at all to earn that money. Perhaps it would have been more clear if I had said I was opposed to them acting as funnel for US goods into the homes of the Mexican idle rich.

I understand basic economics and that as a general rule a person's labor is worth more than they are compensated. That's what makes money work. I get that.

I understand that money that flows from a country will eventually flow back to that country.

Those aren't the problems. The problem (from my POV) is that the structure is in place that prevents the large number of migrant workers from deriving anything close to a fair benefit from their labor. It is fine and good to say "If the job doesn't pay enough, don't take it," but when you realize starvation is knocking on the door, you'll take any job that will pay any wage at all, even one that is totally unfair.

Nothing you can say will convince me that paying somebody $2 an hour to load and unload trucks in the US is anything but a predatory practice designed to take advantage of the desperate. I understand the drive to get best value for your dollar, but I also believe in dealing fairly with people. I'm perfectly happy walking away after an exchange thinking "I got a good deal. Cool," but I never want to walk away from a deal thinking "Hah! I screwed that moron out of a pretty penny!"

And I think that our immigration laws and practices, and our minimum wage laws, encourage just that sort of predation in the areas within a few hundred miles of the US/Mexico border.

I know I'm still not expressing it well, but hopefully it's a bit more clear.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

But presumably, the "predatory pay" that immigrants receive is better than what they had at home, or they wouldn't come to the U.S. By blocking their ability to come to the U.S., you're dooming them to work at a job, that, by their own lights, is even worse.

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

???

I don't recall saying anything about preventing them from coming to the US. What I was trying to communicate was that I would prefer we have a system that makes it more advantageous to immigrate rather than migrate.

[fishsupreme]

"Funneling US dollars into Mexico" is a net benefit for the United States.

When someone works for a wage, the employer pays them that wage because the work they do for the employer is worth more to them than the wage being paid. Thus, those workers are putting something into the economy (work) worth more than what they take out (money).

In addition, what they take out is in American Dollars. The only use, ultimately, for American Dollars is to buy stuff in America. Sure, they can convert them to Pesos in Mexico and buy stuff in Mexico with them -- but you don't really "convert" money from one currency to another. "Converting dollars to pesos" really means "selling your dollars to someone who has pesos but wants dollars." Then the buyer (the currency exchange company) uses them... to buy stuff in America (or sells them to a Mexican company who has pesos but wants to buy dollars -- that is, exchanges pesos for dollars at the same currency exchange company). That's ultimately all they're good for.

So these immigrants come to the U.S., do work that's worth more than what they're paid, then get paid in dollars that are spent in the U.S. I fail to see a problem with any of this.

Note that this doesn't apply if they're also receiving state welfare benefits -- but the people in question here were working for their money, and I don't support state welfare benefits anyway.

[perich.livejournal.com]

Your notion about "deficits of trade" (implied in the "U.S. dollars" vs. "Mexican dollars" point) has been defunct for two and one-quarter centuries, thanks to a Scotsman named Smith and a book named Wealth. In sum:

The notion that Mexican laborers working in the U.S. is somehow bad for the U.S. is an example of looking at only one side of a balance sheet. We are losing money (pieces of paper which only have value when exchanged for other goods) and we are gaining cheap labor. The Mexican in question is gaining real dollars (infinitely more valuable than the whimsical peso) and giving up free time (which, without a job, wasn't doing him much good anyway). Both sides benefit; neither side loses.

The notion that dollars or jobs or goods are peremptorily "ours" or "theirs" is also a bit outdated. If a quality good can be had for cheaper elsewhere, or can sell for more abroad, it is beneficial to engage in that form of trade.

[candid.livejournal.com]

I have two (related) objections to libertarian support for open immigration:

(1) welfare. As Uncle Milty says, "You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state."

(2) democracy. We live in a society wherein my neighbors get to vote on a large number of things affecting me. Given that, I think restrictions on who gets to be my neighbors make a lot of sense. I don't want, for instance, a bunch of Middle Eastern nuts moving to my town and imposing Sharia.

I consider the second objection the more compelling, but other people worry more about the first.

--

I am not as anti-immigration as Razib, and I don't presume to speak for him. I just want to point out that there are sensible objections to "open immigration" that libertarians fail to appreciate.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the response, Joel. BTW, I would've posted this comment on GNXP, but the comment system doesn't seem to be working. No comment links appear in IE 5.5 on Windows 2000, and on Mozilla 1.0 the links appear but

1. Welfare would only be an issue if immigrants consumed more than they paid in taxes. Simon's research suggests that on net, they don't. Perhaps you have data that I haven't seen yet.

If it were an issue, I think the solution is to abolish welfare. Complaining about abuse of the welfare system is like complaining about the violence caused by the illegality of drugs.

In any case, I don't know why Friedman was so uptight about two classes of citizens. Surely barring them from welfare benefits is better than not allowing them to work at all. And we already effectively have two classes of citizens with the various visa programs (H1B, etc.)


2. Sure, I wouldn't want Sharia either. I would argue though, that part of the reason that Sharia survives is because a) many muslims who practice Sharia don't realize better kinds of law exist b) muslims who do can't escape. Open immigration would help alleviate both problems.

Besides, we have our own religious nuts here in the U.S. Yet I don't see calls for closing the borders of Alabama. If you're going to put travel restrictions on people whose culture you don't like, why limit it to people who happen to live outside U.S. borders?

I would argue a better solution to the "idiots/fanatics voting problem" would be some sort of test of one's knowledge of history, economics, sociology before you're allowed to vote. Or voting proportionate to the amount of money you pay in taxes. Or an idea futures market.

Finally, we all agree that some people abuse drugs and cause harm to themselves and others. But the severe restrictions on drug distribution have been far more costly and futile than the direct effects of drug abuse. Even if open immigration has bad effects, it's not clear to me that the benefits of trying to prevent people from crossing the border outweigh the costs involved.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Never mind about the comments on GNXP--seems to be working now.

[candid.livejournal.com]

Welfare would only be an issue if immigrants consumed more than they paid in taxes.

But I think you're falling victim to a basic economic fallacy here. I'm willing to grant that today immigrants pay more in taxes than they consume (I have no evidence to the contrary).

Nonetheless, it seems plausible (and likely) to me that, faced with somewhat stringent immigration restrictions and penalties, those who still come will be precisely those most likely to make a net positive contribution.

Eliminating the restrictions altogether might suddenly attract a whole different crowd. Of course, I can't say for sure that it will. But it's certainly plausible.

If it were an issue, I think the solution is to abolish welfare. Complaining about abuse of the welfare system is like complaining about the violence caused by the illegality of drugs.

I agree, in some sense. In Libertopia, free immigration would make a lot of sense. But that's not the world we live in.

Would you say to someone living in a gang-infested neighborhood: "I don't think we need to protect you against drug-related violence, since the real problem is drug prohibition."?

I don't think so. Ideally, all drugs would be legal. But -- given that they're not and given that it's not going to happen anytime soon -- something has to be done about drug-related violence.

One could make a similar case regarding immigration.

If you're going to put travel restrictions on people whose culture you don't like, why limit it to people who happen to live outside U.S. borders?

I imagine it would be unConstitutional to prohibit transplanted Alabamans from voting in another state. Nonetheless, it doesn't strike me as a bad idea necessarily.

Imagine you're starting some sort of organization, with bylaws, voting rules, etc... Presumably you'd want to structure it in such a way that outsiders, potentially hostile to the aims of the organization, couldn't just waltz in and take it over.

(When I was working with folks in Seattle to start a local libertarian group, we worried about precisely this.)

So it doesn't seem unreasonable that the people living under a government might want some sort of analogous restriction.

--

I don't actually have terribly strong opinions on immigration, but -- as you can tell -- I'm skeptical of the libertarian line on "free and open immigration." I don't think my objections are "the death blow," but I think they have some merit.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

You're right. Current immigration laws may be filtering for those people who are most productive, and if lifted, less productive immigrants may decide to emigrate.

Would you support freely available work and residency permits, if the permit holders would not be allowed to vote and would not be eligible for welfare or other social services? Not allowing voting would address the "ignorant voter" problem (if it exists; I'm not sure that recent immigrants vote any more irrationally than the native population), not allowing welfare would prevent (in part) the potential for social parasitism.

Would you say to someone living in a gang-infested neighborhood: "I don't think we need to protect you against drug-related violence, since the real problem is drug prohibition."?

Yes, we should protect people from drug-related violent crime. But where do you put your efforts to solve the problem? Do you push for harsher sentences for drug crimes, more border patrol agents, and Columbian crop dusters?

I would not be concerned if Razib were pushing to prevent immigrants from using welfare and social services. Instead, he seeks to prevent people from entering the country altogether, and to kick out the people who are here illegally, the majority of whom behave peacefully and productively.

Imagine you're starting some sort of organization, with bylaws, voting rules, etc... Presumably you'd want to structure it in such a way that outsiders, potentially hostile to the aims of the organization, couldn't just waltz in and take it over.

I agree that groups need rules governing appropriate behavior. And I have no problems with ejecting individuals who prove to be violent, dishonest, thieves, or are hostile to the aims of an organization. In fact, this is one of my worries regarding the FSP. Assuming that the FSP is successful, how do you prevent people who are attracted by the prosperity, but who have little understanding of the economic principles behind it, from voting in the same dumb laws as in every other state?

However, it seems to me that if you're going to establish such rules, they should be based upon an individual's past and current behavior, not upon where they happened to be born. Your group didn't decide to set limits on the number of Mexicans who could join, I presume?

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

Let's begin by making sure we agree on a fundamental principle. To wit, that any nation has an absolute right to determine who it will allow to enter onto its territory and whom it chooses to confer citizenship upon.

The United States is under no obligation at all to allow so much as one person to become a citizen and, it admits persons out of pure generosity.

I remind you that many nations have, as a practical matter, no procedure for a foreigner becoming a citizen. So to begin with, stop whatever you are doing and say "Thank God the USA is a generous nations that allows immigration and makes it relatively easy to become a citizen." As the child of immigrants myself, I do so on a regular basis.

Generally speaking, immigration has been of great benefit to the United States. But just because something has been beneficial in the past does not mean that it will be so in the future. The current citizens of the United States should determine immigration policy solely with regard to how it will benefit the United States. Any other position is ludicrous and insupportable.

The bottom line on amnesty is that it gives a benefit to criminals. What you benefit with public policy you encourage. It is insane to encourage criminality. I care not one whit whether an individual commits a crime out of a desire to better his economic condition. That is the motivation of everyone who holds up a a 7-11 and shoots the clerk thru the head. That the nature of the crime is less offensive does not mean it is not a crime. Neither crime should be excused by a plea of economic necessity.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Let's begin by making sure we agree on a fundamental principle. To wit, that any nation has an absolute right to determine who it will allow to enter onto its territory and whom it chooses to confer citizenship upon.


Yes, but the issue is what those laws should be.


The bottom line on amnesty is that it gives a benefit to criminals. What you benefit with public policy you encourage. It is insane to encourage criminality. I care not one whit whether an individual commits a crime out of a desire to better his economic condition. That is the motivation of everyone who holds up a a 7-11 and shoots the clerk thru the head. That the nature of the crime is less offensive does not mean it is not a crime. Neither crime should be excused by a plea of economic necessity.


I distinguish between victim-less crimes, such as prostitution, gambling, drug use, and actual crimes, such as robbery, murder, arson, etc. Victimless crimes should not be illegal, and in my view, illegal immigration falls into that category. To the extent that immigrants commit legitimate crimes, I think that they should be made to pay restititution like everyone else.

I think that not granting amnesty encourages actual crime, because illegal aliens fail to report it, for fear that they will be deported.

Re:

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

While there may be things that are criminal and ought not to be, the notion that any crime is victimless is difficult to support upon anything other than a surface analysis.

Illegal entry into the USA is not a victimless crime even if it were appropriate to classify some other crimes (such as prostitution or drug use) as such.

If you say that illegal entry ought not to be a crime than, it appears, you believe that the USA has no right to forbid anyone to enter into its territory. But I was under the impression that you beleive it has such a right.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Who do you think is a victim of illegal immigration? How have they been harmed?


I think that the U.S. government should have the right to bar entry to people who are wanted for actual crimes in their own country, and to eject immigrants who commit crimes here. Beyond that, I think people should be as free to cross the U.S. national borders as they are free to cross state borders.

Re:

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

I think people should be as free to cross the U.S. national borders as they are free to cross state borders.

So, in short, you do not believe the United States has a right to control its borders. Which means that you do not recognize the United States as a sovereign nation.

Re:

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I would prefer that peaceful people be free to cross national boundaries at will, and be able to work and live freely, just as U.S. citizens can do now between states.

It seems to me that the people who make up the U.S. government will do whatever they think they have the power to do, whether I recognize them as a sovereign nation or not. My hope is to eventually persuade them that it is in their best interest to have a much more open border than the U.S. has today.

Re:

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

If the USA opened its borders then entire world population would move here.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

How do you know that? Everyone in North Dakota doesn't move to Florida, even though there's no legal barrier to doing so.

Re:

[rillifane.livejournal.com]

I take it you haven't had an opportunity to travel much.

Believe me, I am routinely beseiged by people who want me to help them get into the United States.

Hell...

[ex-nostradom25.livejournal.com]

At times I've been more afraid of the effects US citizens [individuals, business AND government] have on their own country than immigrants.

Great rebuttal.

few quick points..

[darwinx0r.livejournal.com]

"Have you estimated the opportunity cost of preventing people from relocating to places where their skills and intelligence can find the best use? If so, what did you conclude? "

Have you considered the cost of everyone being an American? Even if we disregard points others have raised and concede your welfare vs. tax information, the economics don't work out. Despite the legions of self-loathing progressive Americans, almost everyone else in the world wants to be an American. Americans consume many times more (resources (energy/water/open space/etc) per capita than almost everyone else.

Lets hypothesize that every person who wants to be an American is suddenly able to move here. Is 250,000,000 people a good estimate? This is 1/8th of the current population of only the two largest (and poorest) nations, China and India. So, lets estimate that, over the next 40 or 50 years, 250 million people are able to migrate to America from China, India, and Mexico.

So: 2052. Not only has the population of the United States doubled in a short time, but half of the population doesn't speak English as a first language. This negatively impacts their ability to function as working poor in America. Most third-world immigrant poor are less educated than average first world poor. This means that immigrants displace the poorest first world citizens through willingness to work unskilled labor harder and for less reward. From my personal experience (although I cannot find a reference right now) most immigrant families contain more than the first-world average of 1.5 children. This makes perfect sense in the developing world, as children are useful for unskilled manual labor. However, even a poor immigrant American child is outconsuming his Indian counterpart by far. Doubling the amount of American citizens simultaneously doubles the amount of consumption, and this is extremely important from a global perspective.

Even if you disagree with aspects of my hypothesis wrt the result of opening our borders, I think you must concede that incredible environmental damage would result from a significant increase in American population. This is one of the many factors that determine the "anti-immigrant" attitude of the Western world. It's really not as simple as "lets just let everyone in! there's enough for everyone in our land-of-plenty!" As others have pointed out, it is far easier to become an American than a citizen of many other developed nation.. but people keep coming and I don't think their poverty is an overwhelming reason to grant them a short-cut to franchisement. Unfortunately, people are still having sex, which means there's hundreds and hundreds of poor people born every minute. It is impossible for every one of them to live like an American. It's not barbaric to prefer those who play by 'our' rules to those who can't (or won't).

Like it or not, 6billion+ people means that there will be rich and poor. You, as an American (even a poor American) are RICH and everyone else is poor. No amount of self-loathing will make life better for the 5billion+ who aren't so lucky. Any attempt to raise those 5billion+ to our current standard will only result in the standards for "rich" and "poor" shifting to a higher consumption baseline. If you could point me towards a reference to a modern human culture that has existed without a "rich" and "poor," I'd be very interested to read it. As far as I know, there has always been those who have more power and those who have less. This does not mean we should be callous towards the poor, but it does render many "raise people to our level and all problems will disappear" arguments quite implausible. What mechanism could possible allow this conclusion?

As an aside, using Nazis as comparison is a sure-fire way to encourage your readers to tune out. Similarly, emotional pleas about a "plane-load" of immigrants dying do not advance your point. While you were writing your post, a "plane-load" of people died, and (despite the bleatings of the left) the United States didn't have anything to do with it. While you make a few coherent points, your over-emotionalizing detracts from the effectiveness of an otherwise interesting post.

=darwinx0r

Re: few quick points..

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Even in the absence of immigration restrictions, moving around the world is an expensive proposition, especially for a third world citizen.

As more people moved to the U.S., at first, the wage rate for unskilled labor would decline, and the cost of housing, food, etc. would increase. At some point, the cost of moving would exceed the expected return from living in the U.S.

Also, the immigrants to the U.S. would not keep all of their resources here. Many would send money back, and many would return with skills that would make their own companies more productive. Eventually, the standard of living in their native country would rise to match that of the U.S.

I don't concede that more Americans would cause great environmental damage. Environmental conditions in the U.S. are much better than China, India, or Russia, because the U.S. is wealthy enough to be less concerned with the struggle for day to day survival, and can afford to pay for environmental pollution controls.

Thanks for the feedback regarding the Nazi analogy. Perhaps it is too much of a hot button. However, I don't think that many people are aware that thousands of Jews were prevented from immigrating to the U.S.

Re: few quick points..

[darwinx0r.livejournal.com]

Even in the absence of immigration restrictions, moving around the world is an expensive proposition, especially for a third world citizen.

This does not seem accurate. Even if we completely disregard Mexico (which is a third world country from which you can walk to America) there are _at least_ 200,000 people per year who attempt to emigrate illegally into the United States. 200,000 * 50 years = 10,000,000 extra Americans, even assuming people don't reproduce.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/east/04/05/china.smuggling/
"
Approximately 100,000 Chinese leave the country illegally every year in search of better livelihoods.
"

According to the INS :

"
In 2000, as in 1999, the leading countries of origin for legal immigrants included Mexico (173,919), The People's Republic of China (45,652), The Phillipines (42,474), India (42,046) and Vietnam. These five countries represent 39 percent of all immigrants in 2000.
"

This means that, each year, at least as many people attempt to illegally immigrate to America from China as are able to legally. Doesn't seem like they're having a lot of trouble getting themselves here..

As more people moved to the U.S., at first, the wage rate for unskilled labor would decline, and the cost of housing, food, etc. would increase. At some point, the cost of moving would exceed the expected return from living in the U.S.

In other words, a lot of poor people moving to a rich country makes the country poor.

Also, the immigrants to the U.S. would not keep all of their resources here. Many would send money back, and many would return with skills that would make their own companies more productive.

http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=immigrant&r=67 :

1.) A person who leaves one country to settle permanently in another.

Eventually, the standard of living in their native country would rise to match that of the U.S.

I don't concede that more Americans would cause great environmental damage. Environmental conditions in the U.S. are much better than China, India, or Russia, because the U.S. is wealthy enough to be less concerned with the struggle for day to day survival, and can afford to pay for environmental pollution controls.

http://www.cnr.umn.edu/WPS/cd/ev7.html :

"
A measure of consumption in developed vs. developing nations is provided by examining gross consumption in relation to population. For instance, the developed nations, which together comprise approximately 22% of the world's population, account for a much larger percentage of annual consumption of industrial raw materials.
"

Now lets do the math :

22% of the worlds population (the "rich") consume over 50% of the resources

If 100% of the current world population were able to consume like that 22%..

100/22=~4.5

4.5 * 50 = 225% !!!

Please provide for me the magic bullet that makes these numbers work, bearing in mind that we're already assuming that population will not grow, which is obviously untrue.

Thanks for the feedback regarding the Nazi analogy. Perhaps it is too much of a hot button. However, I don't think that many people are aware that thousands of Jews were prevented from immigrating to the U.S.

No problem. I think the important thing is the way you attempt to use this fact out of context to make a completely unrelated point. The US wasn't keeping Jews out from 1924-1965, they were only allowing in 150,000 people period. This means that thousands of Europeans, Jewish or not, were kept from immigrating to the United States. Note that this does not suggest they should not have been offered political asylum, etc., etc., etc. Phrasing it as you did draws a direct corellation between the persecution of the Jews in their home country and the poverty of modern immigrants. Unfortunately, although both are unpleasant, this is comparison of apples and oranges.

=darwinx0r

Re: few quick points..

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comments and the statistics.

I agree that we would have substantially higher immigration than we do now, if the U.S. had open borders. However, your originally question was "...Have you considered the cost of everyone being an American?..." Perhaps I was taking you too literally, but we agree that everyone would not want to move to the U.S., right?

The question is whether this increased immigration would cause net harm to existing U.S. citizens.


In other words, a lot of poor people moving to a rich country makes the country poor.

No, this is an economic fallacy. To see why, imagine that a Mexican ("Juan"), who is willing to work for $12 K per year, moves to the U.S. and displaces a native gardener ("Tom") who works for Mr. Howell for $18 K/year. Who wins in this scenario?

Juan wins, because he wouldn't have moved unless he perceived that moving to the U.S. was better than staying in Mexico.

Mr. Howell wins, because he gets gardening services for $6 K/less per year.

What about poor Tom? Doesn't he lose his job as a gardener? Yes, but ask yourself: what is the Juan going to do with his money? He's going to spend it on clothes, food, apartments, creating demand for those items that did not exist before. Who is going to fulfill that demand?

What is Mr. Howell going to do? Either spend his savings on other desires he couldn't afford before, or save it in a bank. If he saves it, it will be lent out by the bank to new or expanding businesses, both of which will require new employees. If he spends it, it will create demand for new goods and services. Who is going to fulfill that demand?

What about housing? Won't Juan drive up home prices? Yes, temporarily, because new houses can't be built in a day. But it would only be a long term problem if a) new housing couldn't be built or b) existing housing couldn't be used in a more efficient manner. Eventually, new houses would be built to meet the increased demand, and the prices will drop. The flow of immigrants will be limited in part by the rate at which new houses can be built, because as the prices rises, it reduces their incentive to move.


You seem to be skeptical that many immigrants return to their home countries. See this excerpt from Willing Workers by David T. Griswold:

"...Workers from less-developed countries migrate to wealthier countries to diversify risk and gain access to capital. Poor countries such as Mexico typically have underdeveloped insurance and capital markets. To protect themselves from downturns in their own economy,
families will send a worker to a more advanced market to send back remittances— cash transfers sent across international borders.
The remittances are also a ready source of capital in markets where families cannot easily obtain bank loans and other forms of commercial
credit. Remittances can provide investment funds to improve housing, pay medical bills, and finance community improvements.
Most Mexicans who migrate to the United States do not come intending to settle permanently. They come to solve temporary problems of family finance—by saving dollars and sending them back home in the form of remittances.

Their goal is to rejoin their families and communities after a few months or years as sojourners in the U.S. labor market. From the
end of the Bracero program in 1964 until the passage of the IRCA in 1986—a period during which Mexicans were practically if not legally
free to cross the border and work the flow of labor was largely circular. During that period, Massey estimates that 28 million Mexicans
entered the United States and 23.4 million eventually returned to Mexico, for a net immigration total of 4.6 million.12 In other words,
when free to enter and work in the United States, more than 80 percent of Mexican migrants still chose eventually to return to their
homeland..."

Re: few quick points..

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Please provide for me the magic bullet that makes these numbers work, bearing in mind that we're already assuming that population will not grow, which is obviously untrue.

You're assuming that natural resources are a fixed quantity. While this is true in some sense (there's only so much gold in the earth's crust), human ingenuity is also constantly finding new and better ways to use resources. For example, whale blubber oil was a highly prized commodity in the 19th century, as a fuel for lamps. Electric lights displaced whale oil entirely, and there's now plenty of it for its remaining uses (primarily as a delicacy, and a base for perfumes and cosmetics).

If commodities were becoming scarcer, in the face of constant or increasing demand, we would expect that the real price for commodities would increase. However, this is not what we observe

[(Anonymous)]

godlesscapitalist from Gene Expression here.

Read the reply to crasch's comment in our comments section (http://gnxp.blogspot.com/2002_10_01_gnxp_archive.html#85611078).

Highlights:

-Grouping all immigrants together obscures the all important differences between European & East/South Asian immigrants and Hispanic immigrants

-If economic grounds alone were the issue, open immigration would be fine

-It is the externalities imposed by mass immigration that are the problem. Specifically: the high crime rates of Hispanics, the tremendous strain on social services, the relative failure to assimilate (do East/South Asian children have trouble with English?), and the demand for affirmative action for a class of *voluntary* immigrants.

Citations present in the comments section and in our old posts - more upon demand. Basic point that Razib & I are making is that we want a Canadian-style points system for rational, skills-based immigration. We have no problem with mass immigration of skilled individuals ready to assimilate and/or already fluent in English.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Godless--

Thanks for the detailed reply. Very interesting. However, although such measurement is fraught with difficulty, I suspect that if you added up the lower cost of goods and services, jobs and inventions created by immigrant entrepreneurs, and the savings from the dead-weight loss of INS enforcement, the net benefit of free immigration would outweigh the externalities (possibly increased crime, increased welfare benefits). Although I haven't read all of your work, I haven't seen many attempts to measure the benefits of immigration against the costs. Keep in mind, even if the rates of crime among hispanic immigrants are three times higher than whites, the absolute amount of crime may still be low enough to be outweighed by the benefits--most hispanic immigrants will be peaceful and productive.


Note that I would support not allowing immigrants to receive welfare benefits, and no voting rights, at least initially, to prevent possible social parasitism.

Razib--

Thanks for the response.

1. I will look into Borgas' work. Thanks for the link.
2. The opportunity costs of people whose talents are lost in a third world country are also difficult to quantify.
3. I don't understand why your anger isn't directed at the laws and bureaucrats who make entry so difficult, rather than the immigrants who don't go through "proper channels" What if your father couldn't have afforded to leave Bangladesh? It seems to me that you're advocating obeying the law for it's own sake, whether the law is sensible or not.
4. The point of the analogy was that potential immigrants perceive their current situation to be so bad, that they're willing to risk death to escape it. To prevent someone from escaping such a situation seems aesthetically repugnant to me, especially if allowing escape causes little or no harm others.
5. While perhaps the lower and upper classes would benefit more, I think that the middle class would benefit from free immigration as well.

To both--

The Canadian Style Points system seems like a variant of the fallacy of central planning. How do you know what the "right" qualities are for an immigrant to possess? Why do you think that some INS bureaucrats would make better decisions about "what kind of person the U.S. needs" than the individual choices made by the managers of millions of different businesses? If demand for immigrant labor weren't there, then wages would decline to the point that it wouldn't be worth moving.

Also, it's a bit of a catch-22: many people come to the U.S. for the opportunity to get a better job and education. But many of the points seem to be awarded to people who already have a good job and education. My grandfather was a construction worker. My great grandparents were peasant farmers. They probably wouldn't have earned enough points.

[(Anonymous)]

godless again:

We haven't focused on immigration a lot, but can post on it some more. As for the central planning analogy, you are quite right that this is a government intervention. However, the fact that immigration causes negative externalities provides a theoretical justification for government regulation. See here (http://www.personal.kent.edu/~ccasper/EEChapt3.htm) for more on externality theory.

In other words, the employers are *not* paying the full cost of immigration. Though the analogy is unfortunate, the best parallel is pollution. A company that can pollute at will can defray its operating costs by forcing the community to involuntarily accept part of the cost of production. In the same way, a company that employs immigrants that (as a group) do not assimilate/demand affirmative action/commit crimes/etc. is forcing a substantial cost on the surrounding population.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

How do you know that the negative externalities caused by government restrictions on immigration don't outweigh the negative externalities of free immigration?

Advocates of the "War on Drugs" argued that anti-drug laws were required to deal with the negative externalities of drug use. Yet corruption, rent seeking, moral hazard (growth of prison industry), gross understatement of the costs of enforcement, huge opportunity costs (in the form of lost wages and lifespan of prisoners ), and collateral damage (drug-related violence) characterize anti-drug laws/programs. Even by their own lights (reducing drug use) most anti-drug laws/programs could not be considered a success. What makes you think that regulations restricting the flow of immigrants will work any better than regulations restricting flow of drugs?

Even if the average hispanic immigrant is dumber than the average white, does that necessarily mean that their presence would be a net cost to the U.S.? After all, don't dumb immigrants free up the more intelligent natives from tasks that dullards could do just as well? How do you know that the increased productivity of the more intelligent natives (freed from mundane chores), in combination with the other benefits of immigration (lower costs of goods and services, the jobs and inventions created by immigrant entrepreneurs) don't outweigh any negative externalities they would impose?

Any screening test is susceptible to at least two basic kinds of errors, false negatives (accepting immigrants who will impose net costs) and false positives (rejecting immigrants who will be productive). The costs of accepting "bad apples" are very visible and easily measured. However, the costs of rejecting "good apples" are much less visible and difficult to measure, since the "good apples" never make it into the U.S. to be measured, and people are never aware of the benefits of which they have been deprived.

What evidence do you have that the benefits of screening outweigh the costs of false positives? What about those who are intelligent, but grew up in an environment where their intelligence could not be expressed? Many people come to the U.S. for the opportunity to get a better job and education. But many of the points in the Canadian system, seem to be awarded to people who already have a good job and education. My grandfather was a construction worker. My great grandparents were peasant farmers. They probably wouldn't have earned enough points.

Since it's easy to criticize someone else's policy proprosals, let me make a positive suggestion that isn't fully what I want, but which would be much more acceptable to me than the current system, and might be acceptable to you:

Freely grant work/residence permits to anyone who can find someone willing to "bond" them. The bond amount could be set at say, 1.5 times the median amount paid in taxes by U.S. citizens in the previous year, about $20,000.00. If an immigrant was ever convicted of a crime, the bond amount would be forfeited, and the immigrant would be deported.

Permit holders would be ineligible for welfare benefits, and would have no voting rights. Full citizenship and voting rights, for both native-born and foreign born, would be reserved to individuals who pass a test verifying a working knowledge of English, basic math, U.S. law, economics, and history. The tests would be selected by a randomly selected sampling of the general population. Welfare and other social services would not be available until the immigrant had paid the median payout to welfare recipicients in taxes.

This would have three advantages:

1. Requiring bonds would give employers of immigrants incentives to better screen for "bad apples", yet avoid the problems of centralized planning.

2. Delaying welfare and social service benefits until the immigrant had paid out the same amount as the median benefit would reduce incentives for social parasitism.

3. Granting voting rights only to those who demonstrated mastery of subjects deemed important by a sampling of the existing population would reduce the influence of dullards/ignorant/insane.

[(Anonymous)]

godless here:

Even if the average hispanic immigrant is dumber than the average white, does that necessarily mean that their presence would be a net cost to the U.S.?

Read the WSJ statement on IQ here: link (http://www.lrainc.com/swtaboo/taboos/wsj_main.html) and look at the IQ/GDP correlation here (http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm). IQ is an excellent predictor of a huge number of individual variables, including criminality, income, etc. It's also an excellent predictor of an important national variable: per capita GDP. If the percentage of low IQ individuals in the US gets too high, we won't be able to maintain our current standard of living. It's my opinion that genetic engineering will head off this demographic imperative eventually, but until then we should reduce the influx of low IQ, crime prone groups.

Point being: No matter what level of legal immigration per year we felt was acceptable - whether it be one hundred thousand or one million or even multiple millions - we could always choose people of high IQ rather than people of low IQ. Statistically speaking, high IQ people contribute more to the economy and cost us less in social services/incarceration costs/etc.

Re: bond proposal

Interesting idea, but it requires overhead and tracking for EVERY immigrant. That would require a huge bureacracy. We're talking about the equivalent of a parole worker for every immigrant. It's far easier to screen upon entrance to look for those likely to pay taxes, obey the law, and rapidly assimilate.

[(Anonymous)]

One other point re: false positive cost

1) We agree that a Canada style filtering system will identify people likely to succeed in this country, correct? Try it for yourself here (http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/index.html). Point: the false positive cost is not large , as can be seen from any analysis of Canadian immigration.

2) We also agree that there is a surfeit of immigrants ready to enter the country - to the extent that we turn away tens of thousands per year - correct?

3) Thus, we're really only dealing with a false negative cost - the cost of rejecting immigrants on the basis of the Canada system, who would nevertheless be successful in the US. This sort of thing will happen, but when dealing with populations, those rejected on the basis of the Canada criteria are (statistically speaking) not going to be successful - as a group - in the US. This is b/c the Canada system is largely a proxy for an IQ test.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

1) Yes.

2) Yes.

3) No. "...but when dealing with populations, those rejected on the basis of the Canada criteria are (statistically speaking) not going to be successful - as a group - in the US. This is b/c the Canada system is largely a proxy for an IQ test..."

To see why this is false, imagine that you were able to transport a group of Japanese medieval peasants forward in time to the present. Their IQ's should be comparable to modern Japanese (humans don't evolve that fast). Would such peasants be able to get enough points for admission? No. Does that they would be unproductive citizens? No. Yet many potential immigrants come from countries/circumstances comparable to those of medieval peasants. I

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Let me make sure that I understand your theory. 1) Hispanics, and blacks as a population have much lower I.Q.s than whites and asians 2) Low IQ is correlated with higher rates of crime, poverty, and poor decision-making. 3) Countries with large populations of low IQ races therefore have lower GDPs, due to the negative externalities and lower productivity of low IQ races. 4) If the U.S. allowed free access to low IQ immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere, the U.S.'s GDP would eventually drop to unacceptably low levels (perhaps as low as Mexico's or below). 5) Therefore, it is important that that the U.S. only allow immigrants with an I.Q. above a certain threshold (as measured by a Canadian style I.Q. test).

Is this a fair summary of your views?

As evidence of the link between IQ and GDP, you cite the Lynn and Vanehans data, showing an apparent correlation between IQ and GDP.

There's some interesting anomalies in the data. Your theory would predict that a high IQ population would have a GDP higher than a low IQ population, no? So we would expect that China, whose citizens have an average IQ two points higher than the average IQ of U.S. citizens, would have a GDP at least equivalent, if not higher, than the U.S. Yet, the per-capita GDP of China is roughly 10 times lower than the per capita GDP of the U.S., whose average I.Q. is presumably dragged down by a much higher percentage of low-IQ hispanics and blacks.

I'm skeptical of a model that does not fit a sixth of the world's population. "Prodigy" and "Mentor" threw out China as an outlier, since it doesn't have a market economy, yet for some reason did not also throw out the data for African nations, most of which are dictatorships, or socialist economies.

The authors of the paper also dismiss South Africa as an anomaly due to it's resource-rich environment. Yet, other African states have comparable natural resources (Angola, for example, also has rich sources of gold, diamonds, oil, and lumber). What most do not have, however, is the comparatively free economy enjoyed by South Africa. (At least until recently; the post-apartheid government is much more socialist.)

I haven't done the analysis, but I would bet that economic freedom is a better explanation for GDP differences than IQ.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Statistically speaking, high IQ people contribute more to the economy and cost us less in social services/incarceration costs/etc.

Yes, but so long as someone produces more than they cost, over the long term, then it is a net benefit to allow them to enter, no?

For example, let's assume that a Mexican laborer is worth $6 K/year working in a factory in Mexico. Let's assume that he can make $12 K/year mowing lawns in the U.S. Let's assume that the median income of lawn mowers in the U.S. is $18 K. Lawns must be mowed whether a $18 K/year person does it or a $12 K/year person does it. If we assume that that the $12 K/year person displaces one $18 K/year person, then the net savings to the customers of the $18 K/year person is $6 K/year. Only if the externalities imposed by the Mexican laborer are greater than $6 K/year is the U.S. worse off.

Even if the laborer is a net cost, only if the direct costs plus negative exernalties of immigration enforcement are less than this cost, does it make sense to attempt to keep him out.


Interesting idea, but it requires overhead and tracking for EVERY immigrant. That would require a huge bureacracy.

And somehow rousting out 7-9 million illegal immigrants, and patrolling the border sufficiently to keep them from coming back in again is not going to require a huge bureacracy? How much do you estimate your ideal border patrol/INS would cost annually?


We're talking about the equivalent of a parole worker for every immigrant. It's far easier to screen upon entrance to look for those likely to pay taxes, obey the law, and rapidly assimilate.

No, the only thing that would need to be tracked for most immigrants is a) the name of the bonding company b) their social security number c) a receipt that they have paid the bond. Only if the immigrant commits a crime would you have to do more.

Most immigrants want to be here legally, and I bet that most could find someone to bond them for $20 K.

Bureaucracy costs would probably be lower, since instead of trying to find and deport 7-9 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are productive, you would need only look for immigrants who are so unproductive/untrustworthy that no one is willing to bond them.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

You might also offer bounties to those who identify an unbonded immigrant. Then the immigrant community itself, rather than harboring unbonded immigrants would have an incentive to be self-policing.

[(Anonymous)]

godless again:

One other point that I didn't mention...I believe that immigration law should be structured to provide the maximal benefit for ALL Americans. If you can only select on the basis of one attribute, it makes sense for us to allow high IQ immigrants and discourage or disallow low IQ immigration. Ideally this wouldn't be done on the basis of ethnic heuristics alone - high IQ Hispanics should be allowed admission, and low IQ South Asians should be denied.

But if a shorthand is required because of practical considerations, I'd support essentially unlimited immigration of Northeast Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) and Europeans, and limited immigration for South Asians (who are a very genetically heterogenous bunch esp. with respect to IQ). I'd also support low immigration for Hispanics and essentially nil for Africans. Yeah, it's brutal, but that sort of policy would maximize the average IQ of incoming citizens and thereby maximize the return-on-investment per immigrant.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Note, I agree that IQ has an influence on wealth, criminality, and happiness. It also seems plausible that there are population differences in IQ, just as there are populations differences in more obvious traits such as skin color, eye shape, or hair texture.

However, I would argue that:

1. Economic freedom and cultural values have a much greater impact on GDP than differences in IQ.
2. The costs of attempting to restrict immigration outweigh the negative externalities imposed by immigrants.
3. Rather than attempting to restrict immigration, a more effective solution would be to find ways to transfer the costs of immigrants to either themselves or their employers.