U.S. immigration policy in the 21st century: a market-based approach.

AuthorHall, Joshua C.
PositionEssay

On most issues of public policy one can predict the position that individuals will take based on their ideological orientation. Immigration policy, however, is one topic where ideological perspective is historically useless in predicting individual positions. The decision of whether or not to liberalize immigration policy or to place greater restrictions on it is something that creates a divide not only between political parties but also within the parties themselves. Peter Brimelow (1999) is one prominent voice from the right who believes that the current immigration policies not only second-guess the American people but threaten the American nation. Brimelow is a strong supporter of placing restrictions on immigration at levels that are much lower than those that currently exist. A similar position is taken by the libertarian political philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe. Specifically, Hoppe (1998) argues that the United States will continue to suffer until policies are implemented that subject all migration to the condition of legally binding contractual invitations between the private domestic persons and the arriving immigrants.

Yet other important voices on the right have supported past efforts to liberalize government restrictions on immigration, including former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (Mehlman 2000). These liberalization efforts stem from the argument that markets work as efficiently in the area of human mobility as they do in other forms of economic activity. Additionally, important voices from the libertarian movement, Walter Block in particular, support liberalized immigration policy by defending the argument that "like tariffs and exchange controls, migration barriers of whatever type are egregious violations of laissez-faire capitalism" (Block 1998: 168).

Liberals have also found themselves divided on issues surrounding immigration. Labor unions and their leaders have historically opposed immigration, although this view is beginning to change as they are realizing that the number of immigrant union members has been rapidly increasing (Migration Policy Institute 2004). Also, the increasing dominance of public sector unions in the labor movement has reduced the influence of private sector unions, which have historically opposed immigration (see Norcross 2011 for more on the distinction between public and private sector unions). But as the anti-globalization movement has shown, many on the left favor reductions in the international movement of not only goods, services, and capital but human labor as well (Bhagwati 2004). However, there are others on the left such as the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who have generally favored efforts to expand immigration to the United States (Kiely 2009).

When examining these various views on immigration it's important not to fall subject to the all too common misperception that one's immigrant status dictates one's position in the debate, viewing immigrants as pro-immigration and nonimmigrants as anti-immigration. This is dearly not the ease as Brimelow (1999), Hoppe (1998) and Borjas (1999) are some of the most prominent skeptics of immigration and are immigrants themselves--anti-immigrant immigrants. In fact, the anti-immigrant immigrant is not a new phenomenon. It stems from the growing instinct for individuals to think that their generation is the Great Generation and that those who follow are somehow inferior. So it goes with immigration. One can speculate that the individuals who arrived on the Mayflower lamented newcomers arriving to Massachusetts on subsequent boats in the 1620s as lacking the motivation, the ingenuity, or some other positive attribute allegedly possessed in abundance by those arriving earlier.

In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin lamented the allegedly deleterious effects of new German arrivals to Philadelphia by disparagingly speaking of how Pennsylvania was being "Germanized."

In the mid-19th century, the great American inventor Samuel F. B. Morse denounced new arrivals from Ireland and spoke of the dangers to America arising from the Roman Catholic faith of the newcomers. A half-century later, Woodrow Wilson pronounced that new arrivals from Italy and eastern Europe were of an inferior stock compared with those coming earlier from the northwestern part of the same continent. So it is not surprising when Borjas (1999) and Brimelow (1999) lament the arrivals to America after 1965 as inferior to those coming in the 1950s or early 1960s. The question that ultimately arises then is, if conventional political ideology does not explain differences in opinion on immigration then what does? The next section of this article will begin to answer that question by examining the more prominent perspectives on immigration.

Differing Perspectives on Immigration

Long Run vs. Short Run

The prominent English economist John Maynard Keynes (1923: 65) once argued that "'in the long run, we are all dead." He thought the long run was irrelevant. Yet that is clearly not the case for people interested in their living standards 10, 20, or 30 years from now or those interested in the lives of their children or grandchildren. Many individuals who oppose immigration are concerned with the adverse consequences that immigration has on life today. One argument consistent with this short-run opposition can be found in the complaint that foreigners enter the country with fewer skills on average than native-born workers (Brimelow 1995). Immigration thus, according to this argument, lowers the average skill level in the American work place, which causes a decrease in the per capita human capital stock.

An additional short-run complaint is that immigration tends to lower wages for native-born Americans in occupations where immigrants are more prevalent. The arrival of huge numbers of immigrants has provided Washington and New York, for example, with an abundant stock of potential taxi drivers, which may have lowered wages or job opportunities for native-born Americans with similar vocational interests. However, the jury is still out on the existence of a wage effect caused by immigration. Borjas (2003) finds evidence that the wage impact of immigration differs dramatically across education groups, decreasing wages by 8.9 percent for high-school dropouts, by 4.9 percent for college graduates, and by 2.6 percent for high-school graduates. Peri (2007), on the other hand, finds evidence that not only are immigrants imperfect substitutes for natives with similar education but they also stimulate the demand for and wages of most U.S. native workers. Additionally, Simon (1995) argues that while immigration has a negative effect on wages for some groups, it has positive effect for others and the overall effects are small.

Those favoring immigration, on the other hand, usually have arguments that focus on the potential long-run benefits. In general, these proponents concede that immigration can have some short-run adverse consequences on native-born Americans but argue that immigrants make America a better and more prosperous place in the long run. Specifically, they believe that in the long run immigration attracts new investment and promotes entrepreneurial initiative. For example, Cowen (2010) argues that immigration, skilled and unskilled, not only creates more jobs in the long run but it also increases tax revenues and improves our nation's business environment. Additionally, it has been argued that immigration makes the American labor market more competitive, thus enhancing its overall efficiency (Lehman 1995).

The education system in the United States is another common component of the long-run pro-immigration argument. As Crovitz (2009) points out, immigrants are awarded about 60 percent of the advanced degrees in engineering in the United States. This fact seemingly shows that immigrants are filling occupational voids left by deficiencies in America's education system. Therefore, it is no surprise that companies including Yahoo, eBay, and Google were founded or co-founded by immigrants or that roughly 50 percent of the new business start-ups in Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants (Crovitz 2009: 13).

Melting Pot vs. Multiculturalism

The national motto of the United States is "E Pluribus Unum"--out of many, one. Our nation has historically delighted in its ability to take individuals from different nations and cultures and meld them into American society. We have turned Italians into Americans, Chinese into Americans, Somalians into Americans, and so forth, for hundreds of years. The nation as a vast melting pot is one of the leading themes of American exceptionalism.

The assimilation of foreigners into a broad American culture has been one of the enduring dramas of American history. Those supporting immigration delight in this, and use it to demonstrate that our nation is not threatened by newcomers who look different, who speak different languages, or have different religions. Yet in the past generation there has been a rise in multiculturalism and it has become politically correct to celebrate diversity, to promote differences in cultures and attempt to preserve them. Of particular interest with respect to immigration is the attempt to promote bilingual education, promoting the notion that immigrants and their children can and should maintain their ancestral language identity. In fact, there is some evidence that a greater knowledge of ancestral language can help maintain and reinforce ethnic identity (Phinney et al. 2001).

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