Sometimes, all of life comes together. I wrote a paper on illegal immigration, I had been planning to write a column about it, and when I opened up Monday's Eagle, I saw that Seth Johnson had given me a perfect jumping-off point. Illegal immigration is a problem - on this, I think, Johnson and I agree. The difference is that his approach has no basis in fact. In essence, Johnson doesn't understand the proper way to look at immigration - as a market.
From the perspective of many Mexican workers, getting into the United States is a good - a good that they're willing to pay for. The costs borne by Mexican immigrants are high - a risky border crossing, the absence of worker protections once they're here and the threat of deportation - and would undo all the work they took to get here.
Nevertheless, millions of Mexicans are willing to pay this price. Why? Contrary to Johnson's suggestion, it's not the welfare policies of the United States that are so appealing. Economists agree that there is one thing driving Mexicans here: the availability of jobs, at higher wages than they can earn in Mexico.
This is not a contested fact. In fact, illegal immigrants are already barred from most federal welfare programs, according to the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies. I've been reading reams of information and academic studies about Mexican immigration over the last week, and welfare benefits or other social policies have never been mentioned. The availability of relatively high wages is the most important factor that causes Mexican immigration, legal or illegal.
Johnson and I can agree, however, that a large number of workers are moving. The Mexican-born population in the United States increased tenfold from 1970 to 2000. A significant portion of this growth was from illegal aliens. And I agree, this is a problem. Nobody wants a porous border - as Johnson notes, it's a gaping hole in America's security. First and foremost, we should know who's crossing our borders. So the question becomes: What is the best way to decrease illegal immigration? Again, entry to the United States is a good that exists in a market (in the broadest sense). The best way to decrease illegal immigration is to increase legal immigration.
Most Mexican workers, if they had a choice, would rather immigrate legally than illegally. They have less risk of being deported, employers can no longer threaten to report them to the INS, and they are able to be fully legal members of society. Meanwhile, the United States would also rather see them immigrate legally; then we would know who they were, whether they had criminal records or were suspected terrorists, and so on. In addition, they would also pay taxes, rather than participate in the black market.
So both sides in this debate would rather have legal than illegal immigrants. Up to this point, I agree with Johnson. It's here, however, that we diverge. He maintains that the best way to decrease illegal immigration is to crack down - more military patrols, more enforcement, fewer rights for illegal workers. I think that the best way to decrease illegal immigration is to increase the availability of its substitute: legal immigration.
Johnson's plan only works if the goal is to decrease the total level of immigration, legal or illegal. But who said that was the goal? There are a wide variety of benefits to having more immigration, as long as it's legal.
Most immigrants, now and in the past, come here to work. They are predominantly young and willing to work hard for a living. Because of these facts, they would help solve some of our most pressing problems. For example, the projected deficits in Social Security and Medicare are based on assumptions about population growth. Add in a large pool of young workers, and you change those assumptions for the better. More legal migration would bring significant benefits to the country.
Illegal immigration is a problem, certainly. It is unfair to legal migrants from far away, and it poses a major security risk to the United States. When illegal immigrants arrive, they go into low-wage, under-the-table jobs that make both them and society worse off. Immediately doubling the number of legal immigrants we allow each year would go a long way toward cutting demand for illegal immigration, making it politically feasible for Mexico to police its border and greatly easing the burden on the INS, allowing it to focus its resources more efficiently.
The problem of illegal immigration is a market problem. The government artificially limits the supply of a good (legal entry to the U.S.); therefore, people turn to a close substitute (illegal entry). The best way to get rid of illegal immigration is to make it cheaper and easier for people to immigrate legally. Both the government and the immigrants benefit from this plan, as does the U.S. economy - a far cry from the divisive and draconian measures that Johnson endorses. The real solution here is to dramatically increase the availability of legal immigration.
