Let Them In_ The Case for Open Borders - Jason L. Riley [77]
Of course, the naysayers were wrong. The Irish did assimilate. And then some. They produced writers, painters, and presidents. They produced doctors and lawyers and school teachers. They produced civic leaders and businessmen, including Henry Ford, whose father fled the Irish potato famine and who would go on to revolutionize transportation in America. According to the latest census figures, as of 2006, 31 percent of Irish Americans had at least a bachelor’s degree, versus 27 percent of the nation as a whole. And the median annual income for households headed by an Irish American was $54,000, versus $48,000 for all households. Apparently, the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of all those hard-working Irish immigrants turned out okay. And although the Irish experience has been replicated by other large immigrant groups from Europe and Asia, this history is often ignored or played down when we discuss Latino immigration today. The opposite should be the case.
People often say that they support legal immigration and oppose illegal immigration. But saying that you oppose unlawful behavior isn’t really saying much. All reasonable people oppose illegal behavior in principle. The issue with respect to immigration is whether our current laws make sense, whether they’re accomplishing the intended goals of the policy makers who put them in place. Bad laws need to be reformed, not enforced, and current immigration law has left us with upward of 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Is two-tier fencing, a militarized border, and stricter internal enforcement of current law feasible, politically or otherwise? Would it make us safer? What would it do to our traditions? What would it do to our economy? How would it impact the cost of food, housing, and countless other goods and services? Would it put U.S. companies at a competitive disadvantage in the global marketplace? Would it result in more offshoring and outsourcing of jobs?
Although it will surely be characterized as such, this book is not an argument for erasing America’s borders or dissolving our nation-state. Nor do I pretend that immigration has no economic costs. It does have costs, particularly in border regions and states with generous public benefits. But when those costs are properly weighed against the gains, open immigration and liberal trade policies still make more sense than protectionism, from both a security and an economic standpoint. The United States needs to better regulate cross-border labor flows, not end them. We still have much more to gain than lose from people who come here to seek a better life.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alesina, Alberto, and Francesco Giavazzi. The Future of Europe: Reform or Decline. MIT Press, 2006.
Anderson, Terry L., ed. You Have to Admit It’s Getting Better: From Economic Prosperity to Environmental Quality. Hoover Institution Press, 2004.
Bailey, Ronald, ed., and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death. Prima Publishing, 2002.
Barone, Michael. Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan. Free Press, 1990.
———. The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again. Regnery, 2001.
Bauer, P. T. Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion. Harvard University Press, 1981.
Bean, Frank D., and Gillian Stevens. America’s Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity. Russell Sage Foundation, 2003.
Becker, Gary S., and Guity Nashat Becker. The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affirmative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life. McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Bickel, Alexander M. The Morality of Consent. Yale University Press, 1975.
Borjas, George J. Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy. Princeton University Press, 1999.
Buchholz, Todd G. Bringing the Jobs Home: How the Left Created the Outsourcing Crisis—and How