Borjas: What's His Problem?

“Exile for millions of hardworking immigrants”? They’re already in exile from their native countries, and nothing we do can “exile” them. Your rhetoric is full of loaded words like that, such as when you say that immigrants are “equally human”. When was the last time an immigration opponent ever claimed otherwise? The quality of being human doesn’t automatically qualify anyone to live here. Immigration is not a human right, and if it hurts Americans, then they have every right to object to it. And as Borjas shows, it does hurt them. And besides, he made it to Harvard on his research, so the default presumption is that it has great merit, despite the carping of critics.

First of all it may be interesting for your readers to point out that Borjas is the most “academically reputable” immigration economist, not just the most reputable “critic”. He is the man asked to write the The economic analysis of immigration article in the handbook of labor economics.

“There isn’t a decent economist alive who would oppose free trade in textiles by pointing out that it hurts American textile workers. But Borjas has made a career out of pointing out that unskilled immigration hurts unskilled natives.”
Let me point out just a couple of the differences.

1. Chinese textiles do not collect 1% of GDP in net welfare benefits (probably doubling within a generation). To quote a “decent economist” Milton Friedman opposing American open borders:
“You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”

2. Chinese textiles cannot vote themselves “free” health care and more benefits.

3. Trade largely involves distribution between Americans citizens with different stocks of human capital. Low skill immigration mainly involves distribution between Americans and foreigners. Today the benefit overwhelmingly goes to the later, while the property rights belong to the former. Yet immigrants and their leaders refuse to even consider a Coasian pareto improving deal where they would give some of the benefits to the Americans, for example by paying in order to enter.

Here is another “decent economist” who points out this problem, notes the different problems free trade and free immigration involve, and suggests a 50.000 dollar fee for the right to enter the US.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/archives/2005/02/sell_the_right.html

4. Chinese textiles do not commit crime at 261% of the native white rate.

5. The most convincing argument why nations should not engage in strategic trade policy is NOT that they never work, but that they are a zero sum between nations. If the US puts tariffs on Chinese textiles they can respond. This simply does not apply to unskilled immigration, that is one way.

6. The effects of free trade policy on lower income Americans is theoretically ambiguous. They sometimes lose as workers, but gain as consumers of cheap manufacturing goods, through more variety, more competitive markets. Most importantly the most famous trade economists emphasize the political economy of trade policy: If you allow some industries to lobby for benefits, all of them will try to lobby. Than you lose both the deals that hurt low skill Americans AND the trade deals that help them. No such ambiguity exists regarding low skilled immigration.

“but I’d think the obvious solution (drug legalization aside) is harsher punishments for a few thousand murderers”

No, the obvious solution is to take into account all effects of immigration when analyzing the policy.

Here is another basic economics lesson: The MARGINAL effect of increasing punishments is not that large. Otherwise we would already have done it (duh). Punishments are already very tough in the US. If we are not increasing them that implies that there is some cost, either political or social. That cost should be taken into account if you are calculating the social cost.

The strong effect of violent crime through immigration is happening DESPITE the harsh punishments and large (and increasing) investments in security, policing, housing segregation. This demonstrates that underlying effects are mighty strong.

The first thing a decent economist should learn is separate normative and positive analysis. Borjas has done that. If the best research overwhelmingly indicates that unskilled immigration is good for the immigrants but bad for the American Economy all decent economists have a freaking responsibility to POINT THIS OUT.

If you feel because of your personal preferences that American do not have the moral right to determine their policy this disclaimer should be made laud and clear. If someone needs to obfuscate the interest of American citizens to make them support unskilled immigration they are not being a particularly decent economist. You don’t get to pretend immigration is good for the US economy, when by US you mean foreigners.
People not wanting to reduce their welfare for the sake of outsiders is not “bias”, it is enlightened self interests. Someone writing the book on the issue should be able to distinguish the two.

“What’s Borjas’s Problem?”

That he actually knows what he’s talking about, unlike most economists when they theorize off the top of their heads about the complicated subject of immigration.

It’s amusing how virulent nationalism is assumed without argument to be the appropriate moral stance by just about everyone in the debate (and in these comments). But unfortunately you’re not entitled to that assumption. If you want to defeat the proponents of open immigration, you’re going to have to say something about why cosmopolitanism is false–i.e. the view that all humans are equal objects of moral concern and that they’re welfare should be given equal consideration in the design of political institutions and policy. Until then, by just showing that some relatively wealthy group loses out in the United States (wealthy relative to the rest of the world), you haven’t convinced anyone on the opposing side–at least, that consideration shouldn’t convince anyone.

Chinese textiles cannot vote themselves “free” health care and more benefits.

Can illegal immigrants do that?

Is it surpiring that a professor at a school of government argues that we need more government?

On Boras’s CV: kennedy school econ is not even close to the same thing as fas econ at harvard.

almost none of his pubs are not top tier, wheras at fas harvard econ a tenured prof. will have almost all of their pubs. in top tier journals. he could not be a tenured prof. at harvard econ or any other top 10 econ department.

“all humans are equal objects of moral concern and that they’re welfare should be given equal consideration in the design of political institutions and policy.”

You consider this Marxist view “libertarian”? Why are you not giving away 95% of your income to people in Africa? Are you worth more than them? Do you support taxing “rich” Americans and invading Darfur?

Here is the simple and powerful libertarian morality. People have the innate right of self determination, and of secure property. If I want to ask homeless people live in my house I should be able to. If I don’t want them there I have no obligation.

Property can be owned collectively, in a club or a corporation. If the members of a condo association don’t want to sell to someone this is their right. Americans have the same right to pursue policy that benefits them, not what Mexico wants.

“that consideration shouldn’t convince anyone.”

Probably over 90% of Americans agree that they have the right to keep their property, and are “not convinced” by your absurd moral belief that you have the right to force them to give it away. The only reason the immigration bill is probably going to pass is bias, due to intentional obfuscation. Bad economist and worse public intellectuals are falsely claiming that this policy benefits the American economy.

“Can illegal immigrants [vote themselves “free” health care and more benefits]?

Yes. Once they are inevitably given citizenship (and even before that through electoral laws).
Next question? Or are you one of those economists that has not yet got to the “rational expectation” part if the book?

“On Boras’s CV”

Jj are you intentionally trying to demonstrate your ignorance?

George Borjas is without comparison the highest ranked immigration economists on the planet. He has 70-80 publications, including 9(!) articles in The American Economic Review, several in Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly, Journal of Public Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Labor Economics, and Nature.

http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~GBorjas/VITA.pdf

He has written the immigration article in both the Journal of Economic Literature and the immigration article in the Handbook of Labor Economics. This is not a coincidence. It means other economists consider him the best in the field.

Got it?

“Is it surpiring that a professor at a school of government argues that we need more government?”

Yes, demostrating that unskilled immigrants are putting pressure on the welfare state is wanting more goverment, but blindly fighiting for open borders in a welfare state is “true” libertarianism.

“try and do what secures the maximum good for the most amount of people (Rawls).”

Acttually the logical implication of Rawls idea is to secure the highest minimum level of the lowest individual, not the maximum good for most.

Rawls accepted the right on national (associational) self determination. Nozick also accepted immigration controlls.

It’s interesting that antis propose that we need to do exactly the opposite of what America has stood for for 200+ years that led to our great success, and that their prognostications of doom and gloom are correct unlike the prognostications of doom and gloom from anti-immigrants we have heard incessantly over the past 200 years. They also claim that todays immigrants are different more criminal and inferior, although those same claims were made (with some justification, think about the Italian mafia or various immigrant political machines) about many immigrant groups in the past. Indeed many of the most vocal anti-immigrationists belong to some of these formerly-despised groups.

And in the end they all discount the human rights of those who want to travel so they can work in the name of nationalism, a bloody secular religion which killed 50+ million over the past century (far more than hispanic drunk drivers could ever hope to match).

We could use the same arguments they provide to justify nuremburg-type laws and internal passports to restrict the movement of statistically more criminal subpopulations within our borders in the interest of fighting crime and avoiding tax burdens in the more affluent areas. It is the same tribalistic xenophobia at work in both cases. A wish to punish the masses who only want to come here and work for the sins of a small fraction.

Where they do have a point is that we have no business inviting immigrants to come to America to collect welfare benefits. There can certainly be common ground there to prevent immigrants from using welfare programs such as EITC, food stamps, medicaid and the like. But our idiotic programs to encourage government dependency should not be used as an excuse to attempt more idiotic programs to prevent people from working.

I think we can also find common ground that immigrants who abuse their opportunity by driving drunk, committing violent crimes, and the like, should be dealt with with no lenience whatsoever — probably a permanent expulsion enforced by biometric identification would be appropriate, and / or extremely long prison sentences.

The real religous hallucination within this debate is the belief, on the part of immigration’s critics, that somehow if we continue to outlaw immigration the problem will go away. If only an army(Im in literal disbelief that Im writing this) were stationed on the border between Mexico and the U.S then the problem of illegal immigration will cease to exist. We all know that this is false and a terrible use of scarce resources to say the least. The only thing that will put an end to illegal immigration is the U.S job market. As long as the economy has work to offer to so many then government regulation will be almost powerless to stop the ceaseless flow of those willing to risk their life to help their families.

“So let me get this straight. Those that oppose the immigration of low skilled labor believe that it hurts the low skilled natives?”

No. You didn’t get it straight. Instead you misunderstood the relatively simple argument in a way to fit a pre-made cliché.

Low skill immigration hurts ALL groups of Americans. The skilled through hundreds of billions in additional taxation, the lower skilled through lower wages. Unskilled immigration only in net benefits one groups, the unskilled immigrants.

You don’t have much sympathy for the American lower class. Fine. It is not the libertarian lack of sympathy that bothers me, it is the lack of logic.

For someone this disdainful of the American underclass, why do you want to double the size it?

More mindless ignorance:

“All they ask for is work and we treat them as though they are an invading army.”

No, they ask for billions in welfare spending. They ask for tax funded health care, tax funded education, affirmed action to college, in-state (tax funded) tuition, Medicaid, Medicare, social security. They also ask for the right to vote so that they can further expand these programs.

Even today on average each unskilled immigrant household (of 3.5 people it should be noted) gets 20.000$ more per year in benefits that they pay in taxes.

Next cliché?

“real religous hallucination”

The question is whether or not we want to enforce the immigration law. There simply is no issue if this is technically possible. OF COURSE it is. Every other advanced nation on the planet easily stops large scale illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is a political choice.

Here are a few foolproof ways.:

• Go after businesses that hire illegal’s with the same scrutiny as the government goes after business that avoid paying taxes. Make it a crime to knowingly hire illegal’s. How many businessmen do you know who are ready to go to prison to save a little money?

• Build a fence, which will immediately stop half of all new immigration.

• Make it illegal and punishable to be an illegal immigrant. If you catch them, put them in prison until they are deported.

• Check all arrests for immigration violation.

Even a combination of two of these policies will work very well, by increasing self-deportation. ¼ million illegal’s leave every year anyway. If you want to be compassionate give illegal’s that come forward a (say) 4 year temporary work permit, so that they have time to save some money. The enlightened libertarians and liberals can supplement this with as much private charity as their want.

I agree with everything Tino wrote, but I just have to make a comment in regards to the role of economists. Bryan writes:

“There isn’t a decent economist alive who would oppose free trade in textiles by pointing out that it hurts American textile workers.”

This, I belive, reveals a dangerous view on the role of economists in society. The job of an economist is to estimate economic and social effects scientifically.

If negative wage effects from trade on the poor then leads one to oppose trade, that has nothing to do with whether or not one is a “decent economist” or not – it is a matter of preferences.

A person with a high preference for income equality, for instance, might oppose trade even if he agrees that total real income increases because of trade. (There is no need to assume those hurt by trade will be compensated by transfers – that doesn’t always happen). That in turn has nothing to do with his or her skill as an economist. As soon as you explicitly connect preferences with “being a decent economist”, you equate economics with punditry – we should aim higher than that.

What a ridiculous post. The American elites, both left and right, have forfeited their country.

“All they ask for is work and we treat them as though they are an invading army.”

Worse than an invading army. Armies usually don’t stick around, and conquerers usually only get rid of the elites. Immigrants affect every single part of the social matrix, except, perhaps, the elites, who also decide everything. It’s a good system all right.

I would also add to Tino’s points – make it IMPOSSIBLE to become a US citizen, this is what Japan does. Japan barely recognizes the concept of an immigrant.

“So where is the data for the true benefits/costs of immigration to natural Americans? To first order, it should be an average benefit. ”

Tino has, above, laid out the case for why it is likely to be a net loss to virtually all non-immigrant americans. You, on the other hand, fail to support your position in any way whatsoever.

“Even if a detailed analysis shows an average loss due to immigration, it almost certainly would not show a loss to high skilled workers. So why should we oppose immigration? ”

Again, no actual supporting argument whatsoever for your position.

“Don’t give me crap about lower average IQ or per capita GDP. What matters is how people living here now are affected.”

A worse-educated population and lower per capita GDP will indeed impact “people living here now”. Increased crime, increased redistribution (both via wage effects as well as political effects), more quotas, more affirmative action, more ethnonationalism and separatism, multilingualism, etc. The list goes on and on. And you don’t even attempt to adress a single bullet point. Weak.

Right. It’s pure status seeking. If a member of the elite says something rational about immigration then he is forever shunned from dinner parties etc. Being pro-mass-third-world-immigration is one of the prerequisites of entry into the eliteosphere, after that you can be a heartless libertarian, bomb the world neocon, or bleeding heart leftie, doesn’t matter, as long as you say mass immigration is a Good Thing.

So I will repeat, if politics is impotent would the anti-immigration advocates still maintain their position? Im pretty sure that restricting the immigration of the unskilled only helps one group, the unskilled natives. So the economic case is still very much sound. Borjas’s work after all has only found a SLIGHT dip in the wages of the native unskilled. Again, the only real problem here is government. It is precisely because the government has power and advantage to offer that there is a debate. If all that was available to new immigrants was merely work and not political power, I feel that many of you would not argue so passionately against new immigration.

As for the problems with cultural assimilation, I dont have much to say. Many new poor latin immigrants move into ethnic enclaves. Does that seem like such a grand departure from the Italian, Irish, Swedish, Middle Eastern, or German immigration experience of the past? I guess those groups came to the U.S and quickly morphed themselves into good little Americans right away. That is why you do not find any remnants of their early group identity in neighborhoods occupying cities such as Chicago, Cleveland, or New York. They merely dispersed themselves across the U.S. upon arrival.

BTW, somebody argued that defending the U.S from illegal immigration was possible because the Nordic states were so successful at it. I believe that this is a case where some arguments refute themselves.

The welfare state has manifestly changed immigration.

Comparing immigration pre-New Deal and post-New Deal is almost comparing apples and oranges. People have always been concerned about the quality of immigrants. What has changed is that America has become a huge magnet for those who aren’t very bright and will never suffer hardship if they fail. The opposite is true: they will have it better here as failures than in their home countries as failures.

If not for the welfare state, people would still be upset, but not apoplectic the way you see now.

“So I will repeat, if politics is impotent would the anti-immigration advocates still maintain their position? Im pretty sure that restricting the immigration of the unskilled only helps one group, the unskilled natives. So the economic case is still very much sound.”

Yet you don’t offer a single argument for that case. Or any counterarguments to Tino’s case for why unskilled immigration hurts most groups in the end. Which is very weak, yet is pretty representative of how the pro-immigration side in general argues.

“Borjas’s work after all has only found a SLIGHT dip in the wages of the native unskilled.”

If you consider around an eight percent pay cut as “SLIGHT”, would you be willing to take it? Not to mention all the negative side effects that occur when low-skill men get pushed out of the regular labor market. (Hint: Crime is always there as an attractive alternative career path.)

“As for the problems with cultural assimilation, I dont have much to say. Many new poor latin immigrants move into ethnic enclaves. Does that seem like such a grand departure from the Italian, Irish, Swedish, Middle Eastern, or German immigration experience of the past?”

It is. After three generations (roughly a century) , Mexican income and educational attainment statistics do not converge on the majority population norm. The development is closer to the permanent US underclass. (I.e. African Americans)

It should be added that the US closed down immigration for 50 years during the early 20:th century. It was during this period that assimilation was allowed to happen.

Add to this the ideology of multiculturalism (making it very attractive to belong to a “victim group”), the abysmal social statistics of Mexican immigrants (roughly three times as criminal as whites, 25 percent welfare dependence, 70 percent without a high-school diploma, etc.), and the picture looks pretty bleak.

“It is precisely because the government has power and advantage to offer that there is a debate. If all that was available to new immigrants was merely work and not political power, I feel that many of you would not argue so passionately against new immigration.”

Well, if I had a billion dollars, I would buy a brand new maserati. Millions of people with a common identity living in a democracy will find a way of getting into a position of power given enough time.

Still, even if Libertarian Utopia was to materialize through an act of God, having a powerless helot class in society doing all the dirty work is sort of a mixed bag, imho.

“BTW, somebody argued that defending the U.S from illegal immigration was possible because the Nordic states were so successful at it. I believe that this is a case where some arguments refute themselves.”

Please read more carefully. It would help the debate. (I.e. – that particular argument doesn’t exist anywhere in this thread)

The main reason America does not have Muslims burning cars is not that they are politically more assimilated. They are (so far) 0.6% of the population, not 7-8% as in France. But with the help of all the enlightened libraltarians we will get there.

Make up your mind, is this about Mexican and hispanic immigration or about immigration from muslim countries?

If the latter, I think a careful screening to avoid importing terrorists, and covert monitoring is appropriate. But conflating the two populations is not going to work. . .

California is becoming Mexico.

Do you have evidence that a large percentage of second-generation immigrants do not learn english?

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I came back this morning to see if some smart open borders guy gave me a good challenge. Jesus Christ the quality of the argument is even lower than yesterday .

1. “Borjas’s work after all has only found a SLIGHT dip in the wages of the native unskilled.”

Yes, he found a relatively small dip, 7,4%. But 95% of the pro-immigration people do not seem to be able to understand the economic implication of this.

Since the cost of labor did not change, the much prompted gains to the economy through cheaper goods and services are also small. Borjas figure is 10 billion (although that is for both high and low skill immigration).

10 billion covers the net taxfunded transfers to 1.6 million unskilled immigrants. Tell me, how many unskilled immigrants does America have? More or less than 1.6 million?

2. “Make up your mind, is this about Mexican and hispanic immigration or about immigration from muslim countries?”

It is obviously about BOTH, since BOTH groups are immigration, and BOTH getting amnesty. Why should I have to ”make up my mind”?!? According to what logic?

3. “Im pretty sure that restricting the immigration of the unskilled only helps one group, the unskilled natives.”

That is because you are not well informed. Importing tens of millions of poor people hurts all American groups. In pure dollars it hurts the skilled Americans most, because they have to pay through taxes (of course they also have more to take from, and can more easily isolate themselves from crime).

4. “If all that was available to new immigrants was merely work and not political power, I feel that many of you would not argue so passionately against new immigration.”

If immigrants and their children worked, did not collect hundreds of billions in tax funded benefits, did not vote for more taxes and benefits once they got the chance, did not commit violent crime, and assimilated to Americans of course I would have no problem. Even if they did some of the bad stuff but some of the good I might be OK with it.
So?

“Many new poor latin immigrants move into ethnic enclaves. Does that seem like such a grand departure from the Italian, Irish, Swedish, Middle Eastern, or German immigration experience of the past?”

Yes. It does. The fact that you think it doesn’t is again due to misinformation.

It took the Irish no more than 3 generations to surpass the native average in measured success (such as share that worked as professionals). Obviously the Scandinavian and German immigrants did even better.

The Germans did have cultural problems. This was met with fierce demands from Americans, so that the Germans were assimilated. The Middle Easterners (at least the Muslim part) simply have not assimilated sufficiently, unless you think it is normal that 15% support terrorism against civilians.

“BTW, somebody argued that defending the U.S from illegal immigration was possible because the Nordic states were so successful at it. I believe that this is a case where some arguments refute themselves.”

Oh? Why don’t you go ahead and refute them?
Sweden and Finland have almost no illegal immigrants, despite the later having long borders with Russia. Sweden did give amnesty last year, but the numbers were even in a per capita basis 5% of the American estimates. Why? Because of ID requirements for working, renting, getting government services.

“There aren’t a hundred million potential immigrants. But even if there were, you don’t own the entire country. That is collectivist thinking at its worst.”

Is it “collectivism” for shareholders of Microsoft to own an ENTIRE company? Newsflash: Americans do own, have decision right over, America. Deal with it.

“Do you have evidence that a large percentage of second-generation immigrants do not learn english?”

Well, of course almost all of the people born and raised here learn SOME English. That is not the problem.

According to the Pew Latino survey 61% of second generation Latinos describe their language as primirary English, the rest either mainly Spanish or bilingual. Note that this includes all groups of Latinos, Cubans, Spanish, Columbians, as well as Mexican and Central American (that tend to do worse).

About half of second generation Hispanics are high school dropouts. The skilllevel is not very high, despite the “pro-foreign” bias of the population.

One point no one mentions here is that mass immigration is making the US more crowded. An open, spacious America is one of the things that those of us born in the 30’s loved about the US. “O Beautiful for Spacious Skies”, etc.

There will be less room in Yellowstone and Yosemite and on the beaches, etc. It will take longer to get out of the cities and past the suburbs for a hike. This is not a part of the argument today because the Sierra Club was bought off by an immigrant enthusiast and because people don’t want to be thought to be racist so that any critique of immigration if the immigrants are not white is forbidden. US Citizens will no longer be the envy of the world in pretty short order, although immigrants from all over the world will continue to come for as long as our welfare system and residual wealth will ensure that they have a higher standard of living than where they are coming from. I don’t see why we should not end up with a population of about 2 billion; importing food by selling off our wealth.

I suppose we can always do what the antis want and round up ten million families and ship them back to Mexico.

Perhaps we can use railroad cars to accomplish this.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a smart exercise of national sovereignty. . .

Hey, at least they aren’t citizens!

Matt C.

Question – should Israel have an open border with the Arab world? Keeping in mind that the most popular name in Israel at the moment is Muhammad.

Somebody argued what the maximum allowable amount of new immigrants should be? In response to that question, I would merely state that people will not RISK their lives to come here if it is of no benefit to themselves or family. To argue that once America opens its borders, we will inundated with a flood of hundreds of millions of people is childish. If politics is impotent then the labor market will be the arbiter of the flow of new immigrants. Nobody in their right mind will argue that somebody will immigrate to a new country where they can not eat. Since this an economics blog, maybe I should reiterate the point that people will respond to incentives.

I sympathize with the line of anti-immigration thinking that is fearful of new immigrants coming here merely to suckle off of the government dole. However, I think there is a fair amount of evidence that illegal and legal low skilled immigrants come here to work first and foremost. The welfare issue is a matter of public policy, not a problem of libertarian doctrine.

Horatio I will not waste more time on you, if you really are this thick.

Borjas ONLY LOOKED AT THE DIRECT MARKET BENEFIT OF IMMIGRATION. He never claimed to do anything else.

I used “statistics” to add the vastly larger cost to Americans through TAXES AND TRANSFERS
10 billion benefit – 100 billion cost = 90 billion cost.

Got it? Or should I explain it in even more simple terms?

The fundamental problem with illegal immigrants is that they short circuit the natural evolution of capital allocation precisely because they will do jobs Americans will not at wages and under conditions they will not. (Americans will lay sod in the 90 degree heat: they just won’t do it for the same or cheaper wages they can earn working in an air conditioned grocery store or, better, a call center where they sit on their rear end all shift.)

Investments in capital and engineering talent are made when markets force them. For example, I see lawns mowed now mostly by crews with ride-behind or zero turning radius lawn mowers that propel themselves. These machines cost several thousand dollars, but they enable one person to mow a lot more grass a lot faster with less effort than the type of mower consumers use, which twenty years ago is what commercial lawn services did too. (Or they used a small tractor and a bush hog.) They were developed when lawn service operators had to pay-let’s just say it-surly blacks $10 to $15 an hour to do this work. This is now done at half those wages by Mexicans-mostly stoic-faced Indios whose feelings regarding their employing group are a cipher, even to those of us who speak un poco Español, because they don’t (!) and because, well, they’re about as talkative as a the proverbial cigar store Indian.

Why build agricultural machines with engineering innovation when stoop labor is as cheap as ever?

That this hurts the blacks disproportionately is simply explicable. Most blacks can only do the kind of work that the people heading north in Mexico can do. It isn’t because of racism or lack of education or poverty or a deprived childhood. It’s because they are not terrifically smart, most of them. The Southernmost North American indios are not either, but they are here illegally and know it. They are a more manageable population and business owners know it as well.

As these indios and mestizos reproduce, their children are under American law citizens. What are the odds that they are going to be any more civically competent or even interested than they were in Mexico, a xenophobic kleptocracy? They will respond to political demagoguery and vote-pandering just as they have in Mexico since the time of Benito Juarez.

I won’t lie to you, I have no feelings for these peoples as peoples. I personally don’t give a care one way or the other about them: I can no more hate them than I can hate dogs for copulating in public or fish for biting the same old lures decade after decade. But I am certainly no obligation to treat them better than they would treat me if I decided to go to Mexico, demand I be allowed to practice my trade for what I could get there (believe it or not, I could make more down there than I get here….if I were a Mexican national) and demand they speak English so I could communicate in my preferred language.

Should Israel have an open border with the Arab world?

No, because they are in a state of war with radical islam and their neighbors are hotbeds of islamic terrorism. And I do not necessarily advocate “open borders” to America. What I advocate is allowing the hard working latin american workers I see everyday doing the hardest jobs in America to continue to come here and get ahead. Screening out ideological terrorists and keeping close tabs on populations that foster most terrorists is a good idea. And if that means some inconvenience for Saudis who wish to come here and work, I will not shed too many tears.

When I see evidence that large numbers of Mexican immigrants want to come here to infiltrate our societies and murder us, instead of cleaning our houses, picking our food, and building our homes, I’ll concede your point.

I’ve just had another great revelation.

Obviously this operation to drive the trains to Manzanar and Tule Lake for operation New Echota will require a tremendous amount of materiel and labor.

How fortunate that we have citizens of such tremendous loyalty and concern for our republic. We will need some volunteers to assist in this great project of national ethnic cleansing^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h glory and pride.

I nominate Steve Sailor to watch the children’s car. Tito can run the mess line at one of the camps. Of course some jobs will require a stouter constitution than others. I think we can trust Stan Whiting to have what it takes to kick any of these “copulating dogs” who need to be taught some manners before we toss them into the southern Sonora.

[Comment deleted and commenter banned for supplying false email address.–Econlib Ed.]

tino
Don’t throw stones in a glass house! Read what you cite. Borjas included government redistribution in his analysis as well. You double counted you fool.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Immigration.html

You should also check out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic

“I nominate Steve Sailor to watch the children’s car. Tito can run the mess line at one of the camps. Of course some jobs will require a stouter constitution than others.

I think we can trust Stan Whiting to have what it takes to kick any of these “copulating dogs” who need to be taught some manners before we toss them into the southern Sonora.”

This sort of gets down to the real root of the pro-open-borders argument. Wanting to enforce immigration law is Nazi, hence it is wrong.

It is, of course, an argument (if you can call it that) that defies most conventional logic, but it appears to have strong emotional appeal.

DEPORTATIONSThe US is supposedly totally incapable of deporting 12 million people, either directly or though creating incentives for self-deportation. Still, the Bush administration brags about deporting 6 million people since coming into office. It should be noted that those 6 million deportations were handled without the use of nor boxcarts, nor gas chambers. (Amazingly enough!)

DON’T FALL FOR THAT LIE!
These 6 million are just about all done at the border. We catch Mexicans and they agree to voluntary deportation on a bus back home. Some (5% or so) of these were done from the interior and just about all were voluntary after they receive order of deportation. The USA is too lazy to to deport people. I will admit a lot of “catch and release” at the border has ceased. Those Central Americans and South Americans are now mostly deported. It’s harder to send them home than Mexicans which are simply bussed back. Logistics and funding are the bugaboo

These “other than Mexicans” caught at the border where booked and released into the USA. Because we are (were) so damn lazy and GWBush and the hacks in DC think this immigration invasion is one big joke

Stilichio

You had a very good reason for not including the next sentence of that paragraph.

“Because national income increases by somewhat more, immigration is still beneficial”

The onus is on the anti crowd to show that the redistribution that is unaccounted for is greater than this benefit.

Economics is inherently a soft science. Like other soft sciences, it can provide value when it is understood clearly that its conclusions must always be applied with appropriate “sanity checks”. Pure libertarians and purely academic economists have always been, in the realm of realpolitik, convenient tools.

As it is being applied today, unlimited immigration is being applied as a method of labor arbitrage to commonize costs and privatize profits. Wal-Mart can import goods from China where their internal value is low and sell them where their value is higher, without having to pay its proportionate cost of the underlying reasons why its value is higher. You do not have to be an economics major to comprehend this.

Consider the Magic Line Theory. The typical Mexican peasant worker is worth about a dollar an hour in Mexico. When he crosses the border he is worth just about the prevailing minimum wage in the United States. Why is this? It’s because of the difference between an economy-and a country-controlled by Mexicans and one controlled by Americans.

The corruption, poverty, and general failure to thrive endemic to Mexico has not changed in a hundred years, not in two hundred, and shows no sign of changing much now except to the slight extent globalization has created small changes overall. Wal-Mart has made it possible for working-middle class Mexicans to buy the same junk Americans can for about the same money-and made it that much harder for the traditional Mexicans to make their customary living. You can buy an imported sombrero cheaper than a peasant woman can buy the handmade materials.

Likewise, NAFTA has made life tougher for peasant farmers as subsisized Louisiana farmers with high tech 4WD tractors and turbine cropdusters can produce commodity grains loaded with ag chemicals cheaper than the peasants could grow their all-organic hand chopped grains. So despite their understandable reluctance so many of them have headed north.

No, I do not hate Mexicans at all. I feel bad for them. But I don’t want to be one, which is why I don’t want them here. I wish them all the success and happiness in the world-in Mexico.

Lemmy,

First, your wages are probably being lowered more by H1-B’s than by midwesterners. Certainly the rents/home payments are being driven up in the bay area by immigrants of all sorts. Great if you own a place already, not so great if you are starting out. Indeed, I wonder if wages really are that great in SF when that is taken into account. Seems like all the really innovative companies have left.

Second, your history is wrong. ‘Mexicans’ have a very tenuous link with upper california. The first mission here was founded in 1769 — over 200 years after Cortes’s conquest, and after that a unique ‘Californio’ culture developed. There simply was no great movement of Mexicans north. Only after those “foreign” Yankees and midwesterners , guys like Hewlett (b. Ann Arbor Michigan) and Dave Packard (b. Pueblo Colorado — does the name make him Mexican?) built up the place did the immigrant servant class start to move in. In the process, it seems to have really screwed the lifestyle, and I notice a lot of really innovative guys moving up to the northwest and elsewhere.

Actually, I favor a wall around the bay area also — but to keep you guys in !

First, your wages are probably being lowered more by H1-B’s than by midwesterners. Certainly the rents/home payments are being driven up in the bay area by immigrants of all sorts. Great if you own a place already, not so great if you are starting out.

Georgia and Texas attract far greater numbers of newcomers than the Bay area, but most metro areas of these two states offer plenty of highly affordable housing. Do you think perhaps we’ve actually stumbled on an issue we can’t blame immigrants for?

they would have to consuming a quarter of a trillion in government services more than they create in tax revenue for the country to come out in the red.

I puzzled over what this means. If it means the fiscal red you are wrong, because you are assuming that every single dollar earned by illegal immigrants goes to taxes. That is obviously wrong. What you seem to mean is we should put up with the fiscal costs of low skilled (BTW, ‘low’ is a relative term) in order to get the quarter trillion addition of extra output to GDP, then you are suggesting we subsidize low skilled immigration.

BTW GDP, while an important measure, is not nearly so important as per capita GDP, and even the latter has problems in measuring economic well being. We could start with a discussion of externalities …

There are more mediocre engineering schools in California than in any other state, and of the top ten engineering schools in the US, only three or four are anywhere near salt water. Caltech and MIT grads command a salary premium in their first jobs, a premium that in my experience is unjustified by actual performance.

Stan, that’s sheer spin, and it’s wrong.

Number one: MIT, obviously. The next two are Californian: Berkeley (a state school) and Stanford. We get one “red state” school (Georgia Tech), and then we’re back to the rust belt: UIUC and CMU. Then, more California – CalTech and USC. So, we already have 4 of the top 8 in California (not to mention “near salt water.”) Cornell and Ann Arbor – both in liberal enclaves with high-value real estate – fill out the list.

Despite talk of globalization and “flattening,” it is surprising just how important cosmopoles remain. A response to Friedman’s over-reaching twaddle can be found in Richard Florida’s “Flight of the Creative Class.” His introdction to the newest edition, “The World is Spiky,” explains (and documents) how certain environments continue to concentrate talent at an even more accelerated pace, and why flyover country can’t keep the brightest and best.