The correct answer to the Emma Lazarus rhetorical point is the argument Milton Friedman made decades ago: you can have open borders or you can have a welfare state, but you can’t have both. /1https://twitter.com/tedfrank/status/1161432849909768193 …
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(Indeed, when reporters query why factories are employing illegal aliens, the answer is that the employers don’t want to hire unemployed African-Americans. Why don’t we see more reporting on this intolerance and discrimination?) /7
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But adding low-skilled immigrants who are uneducated and unlikely to acquire human capital (1) has the negative externality of depressing wages among the poor Americans they compete with and (2) adds a net drain to the public fisc. /8
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That could change! Import enough high-skilled workers, and the complementary demand for low-skilled workers might increase enough that we would have a shortage at a later date and need to let in more of the unskilled. /9
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But until incomes for the bottom 40% stop stagnating, we have a moral obligation not to spend tax dollars making things worse for them. Fix the immigration system. Auction the spots even: wouldn’t it be great to accept a million new citizens who each paid $200,000 to be here? /10
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To the people asserting that low-skilled immigrants aren’t a net cost: come on. We have a trillion-dollar deficit because the *average* American takes in more benefits than he or she pays in taxes. Of course someone in bottom two quintiles isn’t going to pay for themselves./11
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(And that’s before considering the negative externality on the school system of having to provide bilingual education to nonnative speakers. That’s not cheap.) /12
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We already sell EB-5 visas to anyone with a certain amount of wealth willing to invest. But that money doesn’t go to the treasury, and it’s not even a real cost to the visa holder, who still owns the investment. /13 https://twitter.com/shrinkingvyolet/status/1161444133657096192?s=21 …
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Note that I’m arguing against self-interest. My work is protected against immigration by licensing creating huge barriers to entry: more immigrants, more demand. My family owns real estate that will be more valuable if immigration increases. But I don’t want favelas in the US./14
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End of conversation
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