Immigration as mutually beneficial humanitarianism.

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor
Art Carden, 05.20.10, 3:00 PM ET

Oppressive governments crush the hopes and humanity of millions. There's a pretty simple way we can help these millions get richer and freer faster while making ourselves richer too: We can open our borders.

The gains for potential immigrants are enormous. In his excellent (and free) Let Their People Come, economist Lant Pritchett argues that the additional income people could earn from working in the U.S. for eight weeks would be the same as the additional income they could earn from a lifetime of access to microcredit programs. 


Immigration to rich countries beats all other forms of aid as a way to increase the incomes of the world's poor, and it makes the world's rich richer to boot.

Consider Haiti, the reputed "poorest country in the Western Hemisphere" and the location of an earthquake that has been one of 2010's greatest humanitarian disasters. Americans were swift to come to the aid of those whose lives were shattered by the earthquake. The American government was also quick to broadcast a message telling Haitians not to try to go to the U.S. because they would be stopped and returned to Haiti.

This is penny-foolish and pound-foolish. By denying Haitians access to American markets for goods and American markets for labor, we deny them access to higher incomes and greater opportunities. The irony is that this doesn't just hurt prospective migrants. It makes us worse off too: Restricting others' access impoverishes us financially, culturally and socially.

Immigration and trade opponents assume that jobs would not disappear if the borders were closed to free trade in labor, goods and capital. They assume that Americans would fill the same jobs in agriculture, construction or manufacturing. And they would earn higher wages.

This is a mistake. These jobs wouldn't exist without free trade in goods and labor. Consider an example. In the last few months my wife and I have had work done on our roof and had a fence installed. We also pay a lawn service. These are sectors in which competition from immigrants is especially strong. If the immigrants weren't there to compete, lawn mowers, roofers and fence-builders would just earn higher wages, right? I might be a little poorer for it, but it's a small price to pay to help Americans, isn't it?

Not necessarily. If fencing, roofing and mowing cost more, we might just do these things ourselves or simply do without. Because competition lowers prices, outsourcing fencing, roofing and mowing is more attractive. This allows me to specialize in research, teaching and writing. We owe much of today's Great Conversation to the leisure afforded by specialization, trade and technological progress.

Some argue that new immigrants won't assimilate where previous generations of immigrants did. People are offended by how Spanish- or Chinese-language newspapers and television cater to immigrant audiences, but this has happened in immigrant enclaves throughout American history (I encourage you to look up foreign-language newspapers in St. Louis, for example). Furthermore, some immigrants are worried that their children are forgetting their roots because they assimilate so rapidly.

Some argue that they are only opposed to illegal immigration and that those who wish to move to the U.S. should go through the legal channels. I'm afraid this is a dodge: American immigration law is cumbersome and wasteful; further, most of the people who wish to move here stand no chance of being allowed to (Reason offers these handy directions to legality). Perhaps you're proud that your ancestors "came here legally." I'm pretty sure they would be denied entry today.

What about immigrants who wish to harm us? First, I expect they are few and far between. Most people lining up for a chance to go to the U.S. probably aren't terrorists in the making. Second, tradeoffs are important. Yes, we probably prevent a few people from entering to harm us. But this comes at the price of lots of people just looking for a job.

Some economists refer to open immigration as "the development idea no one talks about" and "the idea no one has tried." Fortunately, this is changing. There is nothing we can do for the world's poor that would be better than to throw open our borders. As an added benefit, we would get richer in the process.

Obama's Border Plan Looks Similar to Bush's

Well, this IS considered Bush's 3rd term...

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Obama's Border Plan Looks Similar to Bush's
by Jacques Billeaud

PHOENIX -- President Barack Obama's plan to send as many as 1,200 National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border appears to be a scaled-down version of the border security approach championed by his predecessor.

A US Border Patrol agent stands near the border fence between the United States and Mexico on May 2 in Nogales, Arizona. US President Barack Obama is to send up to 1,200 more troops to the joint border with Mexico and ask for 500 million dollars in extra funds to battle drug-trafficking, a US official said Tuesday. (AFP/Getty Images/File/John Moore) The 6,000 troops who were sent by President George W. Bush to the border from June 2006 to July 2008 were generally credited within law enforcement circles as having helped improve border security, but restrictions placed on the soldiers were denounced by advocates for tougher enforcement who are now leveling similar objections at Obama's plan.

Some law enforcement officials along the border said they worry that Obama will repeat Bush's mistake by limiting the troops to support roles, such as conducting surveillance and installing lighting, rather than letting them make arrests and confront smugglers. They also believe the scale of the force - one-fifth of the size of the one sent by Bush - is too small to make a difference along the length of the 2,000-mile border.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, whose jurisdiction includes about 80 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border, said 1,200 soldiers might make a difference in a smaller portion of the border. "But if you spread it across the border, it's like spitting into the wind," Dever said.

Under the Obama plan, the troops will work on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support, analysis and training, and support efforts to block drug trafficking. They will temporarily supplement border patrol agents until Customs and Border Protection can recruit and train additional officers and agents to serve on the border. Obama also will request $500 million for border protection and law enforcement activities.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat who has prosecuted rings of drug and immigrant smugglers, said the planned deployment was a good first step, but believes that the president's plan should evolve to include more troops and more authority for the soldiers.

"I'll take what we can get," Goddard said. "Again, I don't think this is the final response."

The Mexican government issued a statement saying it hoped the troops would be used to fight drug cartels and not enforce immigration laws. Mexico has traditionally objected to the use of the military to control illegal immigration.

When Bush sent the National Guard to the border, the troops performed support duties that tie up immigration agents, who then had more time to arrest illegal immigrants.

The troops under the Bush deployment didn't perform significant law enforcement duties. They installed vehicle barriers, operated remote cameras, repaired vehicles, worked as radio dispatchers and performed other duties. Troops who manned mobile observation towers had used binoculars to search for and report border breaches.

The effect of the troops was felt by the smugglers and would-be border-crossers during 2006 in Palomas, Mexico, a smuggling hub south of the village of Columbus, N.M., where a buildup of border agents, surveillance cameras, vehicle barriers and troops were credited with reducing smuggling traffic.

Vendors in Palomas reported a significant drop in the number of backpacks they sold to border-crossers for carrying their food, water and clothing in during their walk into the United States. "There are not many people because of the soldiers that were put on the border," vendor Elisco Hernandez Gonzalez told The Associated Press two months after the Guard was sent to the border.

Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce of Arizona, the author of the state's new immigration law, said he fears Obama will repeat Bush's mistake in not giving the troops the power to confront violent smugglers and other armed criminals along the border.

Pearce was disturbed by an incident in 2007 where National Guard troops backed off and called in federal agents as gunmen approached their post near the Arizona-Mexico border.

While supporters of the decision said the Guard members did as they were supposed to, Pearce questioned the point of having troops on the border if they can't confront such dangers. "It was a welcome-wagon role last time," Pearce said. "They weren't allowed to do anything."

T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, a union representing 17,000 agents, said he doesn't see the broad outlines of the Obama plan as a solution to border violence.

"People shouldn't be surprised if the violence continues," Bonner said. "They shouldn't expect that the announcement of up to 1,200 National Guard members will send a shock wave of fear in the cartels and that they will start playing nice."

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, a major in the Arizona Army National Guard who served as a commander in Yuma, Ariz., during the 2006 deployment, said Obama's plan is welcome news that will help confront border security weaknesses, but it doesn't go far enough.

Babeu, who wasn't speaking on behalf of the National Guard, said the visible presence of armed soldiers is an effective deterrent for illegal immigration. "They're not given law enforcement authority, but the fact that they're there, keeping watch, 24/7, has proven to be the most effective solution for border security," Babeu said.