Racists win 2.0

[Kuciwalker]

I suspect that as many immigrants - legal or illegal - will come as there's economic demand for, unless we devote a lot of resources towards managing the border*. It's good to fill that demand and better to fill it with legals, so best to just open the borders** and use those resources to deal with the national security aspects of immigration.

*and any solution we come up with will still be porous

** or at least make it very, very easy to come here

[Drake Tungsten]

I suspect that as many immigrants - legal or illegal - will come as there's economic demand for, unless we devote a lot of resources towards managing the border*. It's good to fill that demand and better to fill it with legals

I agree with this (including the footnote).

so best to just open the borders

Not this.

** or at least make it very, very easy to come here

But probably this. Getting a visa should as easy as possible if you meet certain criteria (basically having an education/skills or being a young single/couple for unskilled workers).

The real trick is fine-tuning the legal immigration system to get as close as possible to the responsive of a pure market/open borders system. Or, conversely, devising an open-borders system that avoids immigration from predominately one source or the immigration of undesireables (the elderly, in particular).

[Barnabas]

Drake, the system is already quite oure market, Mexico just has a comparative advantage over nations in which you need an expensive airplane ticket to go to the USA

[Drake Tungsten]

A smart system would attempt to level the playing field. An immigrant population dominated by Mexicans is riskier for the US in the long run than a more globally distributed immigrant population would be.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten Don't get me wrong, I think it's in the best interest of America to have huge numbers of immigrants. I just think the immigration should be managed to achieve ethnic/cultural diversity and to value skills/usefulness to American society over family ties, something that is impossible if illegal immigration/open borders are the main source of your immigrant population. The main priority for the US is to fix its broken legal immigration system. Naturalizing the current illegals (which will have to be done at some point) can and should wait until significant progress has been made in replacing America's dependence on illegal aliens with legal ones.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker It's good to fill that demand and better to fill it with legals, so best to just open the borders**

How could that even work? Could you imagine the stress on the infrastructure of the United States if we annouced an open border policy with the entire world? Countries would be sending us their entire prison and hospital populations. Any country with political or economic problems would ship their excess & problematic citizens here. We'd receive a sudden influx of dirt poor people numbering in the tens of millions at the very least, maybe even in the hundreds of millions. It would be impossible to accommodate.

The only rational course is to start with the assumption that, in today's environment, open borders is an impossibility. We need some sort of immigration system that limits the number of immigrants to a size that we can handle, provides the U.S. with the most useful immigrants possible, and ensures a diverse blend of newcomers.

[Drake Tungsten]

Dirt poor people aren't going to move to America in the tens of millions once there are no more jobs left for them to take. Don't overstate the problems with open borders.

[Barnabas]

How many immigrants does the USA need per year?

[Kuciwalker]

Probably millions.

[Drake Tungsten]

The number would change all the time, depending on economic conditions. The biggest thing an open borders approach has going for it is that a market-based system is going to get much closer to providing the ideal number of immigrants than a government regulated system is.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten Dirt poor people aren't going to move to America in the tens of millions once there are no more jobs left for them to take. Don't overstate the problems with open borders.

Maybe not after the initial rush. However, there would certainly be an initial rush. You don't think that the governments of some countries would be paying for people to leave and come to the U.S.? It would certainly be a severe short term shock to the system.

Even assuming that the system could handle it, I think that it would still be likely that people would want to come to the U.S. after the jobs have dried up. What would they have to lose? They're already dirt poor, and the U.S. does have the "land of opportunity" mystique. If they're given aid to leave by governments who are eager to get rid of them, then I wouldn't be surprised if the people kept on coming.

[Kuciwalker]

I don't think an open borders system implies that we accept countries actively sending groups of people here.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I don't think an open borders system implies that we accept countries actively sending groups of people here.

How do you draw the line? Would you send back people who came here willingly, but who were able to make the trip because their trip was subsidized by their government?

[Drake Tungsten]

Even assuming that the system could handle it, I think that it would still be likely that people would want to come to the U.S. after the jobs have dried up. What would they have to lose?

I'd choose a job in my own country over no job in America. Unless I lived in Zimbabwe, that is.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten I'd choose a job in my own country over no job in America. Unless I lived in Zimbabwe, that is.

Yes. However, if people are faced with the choice of staying in their country and having no job or moving to the U.S. and having no job, I wouldn't be surprised if many took the chance and came to the U.S.