Immigration: My Eyes Work Fine

[Cutlerzzz]

By Byran Caplan

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/03/immigration_my.html

[Zippyjuan]

Good article.

[axiomata]

Good article.

Way to few voices for liberal immigration in these parts. Thanks for the link.

[AlexAmore]

I suppose the two biggest reasons I hear from "libertarians" for closing the borders is that they'll lower wages and vote Democrat.

1. Any real libertarian knows you don't make economic decisions based on wages. You could, theoretically, make a decision that increases wages, but has the unfortunate side effect of increasing unemployment. Therefore, wages is not an axiom upon which to make economic arguments. We know that for every job an illegal immigrant takes, a new body enters the market place that requires food, shelter, and so forth. Even low skilled immigrants create jobs.

2. Yeah they have babies and they vote Democrat. Considering immigration is economically good, and majority rule is bad, we can conclude that this is an argument to get rid of government and not immigration. You could say this is a fallacious black and white argument, but what are our options? You can't stop anchor babies from voting, it's in the Constitution (14th amendment). Are you gonna open Pandora's Box and suggest a constitutional convention in order to promote a strengthening of invisible borders which will inherently legitimize government's role in society?

3. Interestingly if we had 100% private property, all borders would be closed. Ancap for the win. See how getting rid of government makes everything so easy? Hehe...

[Zippyjuan]

The libertarian argument against cracking down on illegal imigrants is the intrusion on freedoms it would require.

1). Keep them out. That means tighter border security which in turn means more government security apratus and higher taxes to pay for it. And that does not catch the about 50% of illegal aliens who entered the country legally and simply over-stayed their visas (travel, student, or work visas).

2) Get rid of those already here. First you gotta be able to tell who is "them" and who is "us". ID's and papers please. Maybe a National ID card to make identification easier. Again, more security apratus and taxes to stop people and check for having those proper IDs. Left your ID at home? Free one- way ticket to the nearest bus station and a trip out of the country. ID checks for everything. Buy a house. Rent an apartment. Appply for a job. Open a bank account. Buy a car. Apply to colleges or school.

[angelatc]

Way to few voices for liberal immigration in these parts. Thanks for the link.

There are actually way too many liberal voices here on everything. We can't have a country without borders, and we can't have open immigration in a welfare state. At least the liberals don't have the, "but that's the way they do it in Europe!!!" argument in this position.

I want to allow the state government the right to refuse to educate illegal immigrant children. I want to take away the automatic citizenship provision from children born here legally. I will not support an amnesty in any way, shape of form.

Give me those things and I will believe we are discussing sensible immigration reform instead of an invasion of locusts.

[axiomata]

There are actually way too many liberal voices here on everything. We can't have a country without borders, and we can't have open immigration in a welfare state. At least the liberals don't have the, "but that's the way they do it in Europe!!!" argument in this position.

I want to allow the state government the right to refuse to educate illegal immigrant children. I want to take away the automatic citizenship provision from children born here legally. I will not support an amnesty in any way, shape of form.

Give me those things and I will believe we are discussing sensible immigration reform instead of an invasion of locusts.

Stop calling people who come to a new country to try and better their lives locusts and I'll be happy to discuss policy issues like anchor babies and public education of illegal immigrants (I suspect we'll even agree.)

[oyarde]

What is needed are free markets and no welfare , then immigration for people to work is not a problem , if there are no jobs , they will not stay . Since there will never be a no welfare US with a Senate such that exists . People who have to pay for it are most certainly free to call it how they see it as far as I am concerned .

[angelatc]

Stop calling people who come to a new country to try and better their lives locusts and I'll be happy to discuss policy issues like anchor babies and public education of illegal immigrants (I suspect we'll even agree.)

An appeal to emotion combined with an anti-bullying cry. Wah.

The people who come here illegally and devour our resources are called locusts deservedly.

[Zippyjuan]

What is needed are free markets and no welfare , then immigration for people to work is not a problem , if there are no jobs , they will not stay . Since there will never be a no welfare US with a Senate such that exists . People who have to pay for it are most certainly free to call it how they see it as far as I am concerned .

Most ARE coming the jobs- not the welfare. If you are too lazy to work, you are also likely too lazy to move your life to a different country and different culture so you can do nothing. You can do that at home and keep your friends and family near. As further evidence that it is jobs and not welfare, the number of illegal aliens in the country today is about two million LOWER than it was before the economic crisis hit (10.6 million vs 12.6 million). Jobs declined and people on welfare went up. If it was welfare which was the attraction, the number if illegal aliens should have gone up- not down. Net immigration (both legal and illegal) has been zero or less the last seven years in a row.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/28/graph-of-the-day-illegal-immigration-has-dropped-sharply-since-2007/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/01/hispanic-2012-12-06-hispanic-01.png

Over the last seven years. the net illegal immigration has been negative- more have left than come in. Is negative illegal immigration a serious problem we need to spend more taxes on and have more government workers involved with?

[FindLiberty]

What is needed are free markets and no welfare, then immigration for people to work is not a problem, if there are no jobs, they will not stay.

100%

[MRK]

we can't have open immigration in a welfare state.

I understand this argument. Immigration is ok, but because there's a welfare state, immigrants lead to the welfare state being abused, so immigration should be outlawed.

Using this same logic, you could say that bank account transfers and cashing checks allow for the welfare state to be abused because they allow for anonymously taking public funds, so bank account transfers and cashing checks should be outlawed.

Even if immigrants came solely to drain the welfare banks, where is the problem with that? They are only bringing the sustainable possibility of the welfare state to its inevitable conclusion. It's going to fold, it might as well do it next year rather than 100 years from now. If the problem explodes overnight, no one can deny the problem. If it's incremental, it can be explained away by other things. Let it happen today so we don't have to suffer for the next 100 years.

[Zippyjuan]

Citizens are more likely to be abusing the welfare system than immigrants.

[Brian4Liberty]

I see that every criticism that the author makes about "natives" applies equally, if not more, to immigrants.

[AlexAmore]

There are actually way too many liberal voices here on everything. We can't have a country without borders,

You've made my point. Put me down as a "yes" for this "no country" you speak of. Liberals are for these collectivist ideals such as countries.


and we can't have open immigration in a welfare state. At least the liberals don't have the, "but that's the way they do it in Europe!!!" argument in this position.

...so save the welfare state by closing borders and hurting businesses? That's assuming illegals don't work as much as natives. In fact, they have a higher labor force participation rate than natives. When a country is in deep debt, you want to bring in more people with a higher rate of working as fast as possible even if they eat up welfare. You can't just measure the welfare, you have to measure the economic output to get the whole picture. Economic output is supremely important as it can overcome treasury deficits through creating a bigger economy....I'll explain under the next quote.

In 2012, the labor force participation rate of the foreign born was 66.3 percent, compared with 63.2
percent for the native born. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf



I want to allow the state government the right to refuse to educate illegal immigrant children. I want to take away the automatic citizenship provision from children born here legally. I will not support an amnesty in any way, shape of form.

A 2006 analysis by the Texas comptroller estimated that low-skilled unauthorized workers cost the state treasury $504 million more than they paid in taxes in 2005. Without them, however, the state’s economy would have shrunk by 2.1 percent, or $17.7 billion, as the competitive edge of Texas businesses diminished. http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/16/dont-believe-what-youve-heard-about-immi


Give me those things and I will believe we are discussing sensible immigration reform instead of an invasion of locusts.

[nobody's_hero]

3. Interestingly if we had 100% private property, all borders would be closed. Ancap for the win. See how getting rid of government makes everything so easy? Hehe...

Eh, except when you have a mob of people who don't support private property, think everything should be collected by a central entity and distributed evenly, and would likely erect some sort of government to enforce that belief. I haven't quite figured out how to work around that one.

[oyarde]

Citizens are more likely to be abusing the welfare system than immigrants.
:) , Well , naturally , I wish to pay for none for them as well . I am equal opportunity , I wish to pay for nothing for others that is not through my own charitable contributions , nor should I be required to.

[AlexAmore]

Eh, except when you have a mob of people who don't support private property, think everything should be collected by a central entity and distributed evenly, and would likely erect some sort of government to enforce that belief. I haven't quite figured out how to work around that one.

As technology with a decentralized bent (3d printing, bitcoin...etc) becomes advanced, prevalent, and user-friendly, it will make government more obsolete. Crypto-anarchy, to be specific, will allow people to make voluntary transactions and transcend government and their borders. I think this is the future for freedom.

[nobody's_hero]

As technology with a decentralized bent (3d printing, bitcoin...etc) becomes advanced, prevalent, and user-friendly, it will make government more obsolete. Crypto-anarchy, to be specific, will allow people to make voluntary transactions and transcend government and their borders. I think this is the future for freedom.

I keep hearing this but government has a knack for adapting, albeit, usually slowly. When free people invented planes the government invented the FAA. When free people invented the radio the government invented the FCC. People invented internet, the government has the tech to shut it down. We got smart phones and hell if you bought an I-phone the past year you might as well have been signing a contract for a spy gadget you carry around in your pocket. When people invented the automobile, gov't didn't just say, "oh well, guess you don't need us anymore." Instead they invented the police car.

I'd argue that advances in technology have made centralized government MORE possible and more invasive. In 1750, King George, half a world away in Britain, would have had a hell of a time collecting taxes on a guy buying tobacco from native Americans along the Appalachian border, days of travel away from the nearest authority figure and months of sea travel away from the British themselves. Today, D.C. can shut down an internet cigarette wholesaler's website with the click of a mouse. Remember Silk Road? Silk Road failed because it was possible to track it through the internet (though the people who ran it thought it wasn't possible, somehow the 'obsolete' FBI sniffed 'em out). Now if two guys had met in a remote desert somewhere, away from prying eyes, and made a black market transaction, then the lack of technology would have ensured secrecy. —oh but wait, I forgot about drones. You aren't even safe in the middle of f'ing nowhere, thanks to advances in technology.

I admire your optimism but historical trends just don't support the idea that tech makes government 'obsolete'. At best, we'll only manage to stay a half step ahead.

[Zippyjuan]

Lack of secrecy works both ways- it is also harder for them to do things and keep it from the public. (side note- the government was the one who really invented the internet)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet


The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to serve several billion users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure to support email, and peer-to-peer networks.

The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks. While this work, together with work in the United Kingdom and France, led to important precursor networks, they were not the Internet. There is no consensus on the exact date when the modern Internet came into being, but sometime in the early to mid-1980s is considered reasonable.

The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. Though the Internet has been widely used by academia since the 1980s, the commercialization of what was by the 1990s an international network resulted in its popularization and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of June 2012, more than 2.4 billion people—over a third of the world's human population—have used the services of the Internet; approximately 100 times more people than were using it in 1995

[AlexAmore]

I keep hearing this but government has a knack for adapting, albeit, usually slowly. When free people invented planes the government invented the FAA. When free people invented the radio the government invented the FCC. People invented internet, the government has the tech to shut it down. We got smart phones and hell if you bought an I-phone the past year you might as well have been signing a contract for a spy gadget you carry around in your pocket. When people invented the automobile, gov't didn't just say, "oh well, guess you don't need us anymore." Instead they invented the police car.

I'd argue that advances in technology have made centralized government MORE possible and more invasive. In 1750, King George, half a world away in Britain, would have had a hell of a time collecting taxes on a guy buying tobacco from native Americans along the Appalachian border, days of travel away from the nearest authority figure and months of sea travel away from the British themselves. Today, D.C. can shut down an internet cigarette wholesaler's website with the click of a mouse. Remember Silk Road? Silk Road failed because it was possible to track it through the internet (though the people who ran it thought it wasn't possible, somehow the 'obsolete' FBI sniffed 'em out). Now if two guys had met in a remote desert somewhere, away from prying eyes, and made a black market transaction, then the lack of technology would have ensured secrecy. —oh but wait, I forgot about drones. You aren't even safe in the middle of f'ing nowhere, thanks to advances in technology.

I admire your optimism but historical trends just don't support the idea that tech makes government 'obsolete'. At best, we'll only manage to stay a half step ahead.

You make some really good points. I think the difference is that technology up until recently was never intended to regard someone's privacy from government. There was never any substantial market for privacy from government, because the masses were ignorant. This is a whole new industry that has never existed. It's anyone's guess what will ultimately happen, but I would posit that this precedent has not been historically set.