Matthew Yglesias (March 13, 2008) - Moderate Restrictionism? (Domestic Policy)

I think another problem with the politicians who've tried to "use" this particular issue it that they've mostly been stupid, ignorant, and dishonest.

On the other hand, since the vast majority of ALL our politicians---of both parties---tend to be stupid, ignorant, and dishonest, that's a pretty generic difficulty...

Posted by RKU | March 13, 2008 12:26 PM

What do the anti-immigration folks say about the finding that restrictions on the ability to cross our borders legally is what has led to the seemingly sudden increase in undocument immigrants in the US? It used to be that our borders were porous -- both ways. So young men would come, work, make money, and go home to wives and children, come back, go home, etc. There wasn't the great increase of new immigrants that seems to have happened lately. But then the young men couldn't be sure of being able to come back, so they brought the wives and kids here so they wouldn't have to risk crossing the border. And voila, the immigrant "crisis," caused by restrictive immigration policy.

Posted by David in NY | March 13, 2008 12:32 PM

It all comes down to the word "amnesty." It's absolute political poison, even to only moderate restrictionists. Somehow the rightest of the right wing somehwere defined it as anything that doesn't involve mass jailing or deportation of immigrants, which nobody but kooks and racists support, and now it completely kills anything that gets the tag even if most people support the terms. "Amnesty" immigration plans are the new "Clinton" healthcare plan. The only way to win on the issue is to completely ignore it

Posted by Jack | March 13, 2008 12:35 PM

The imposition of repressive border and immigration policies in a context of ongoing economic integration with Mexico has thus backfired. If the rate of in-migration remains constant while the rate of out-migration falls, only one outcome is possible: Net undocumented migration will increase.

The unintended consequences of trying to shut the border, an increased number of undocumented workers, and the deflection of the flow of labor from the well-worn, but now heavily-policed, paths through San Diego and El Paso, to different crossings that led the immigrants to settle in new and different areas.

See http://www.sacbee.com/325/story/212863.html

Posted by David in NY | March 13, 2008 12:51 PM

If you read some of the comments in Douthat's post, you see that those yahoos are blaming everything on immigrants. Declining dollar, increased health care costs, stagnant wages, and budget deficits. It is interesting to note that this sort of nativist scapegoating has occured in this country for hundreds of years. In the meantime, I wonder if people will ever make the connection between problems and their real causes?

Posted by freddiemac | March 13, 2008 12:57 PM

Anyone who asserts that ALL our politicians are stupid and ignorant is stupid and/or ignorant.

Posted by nolaboyd | March 13, 2008 12:59 PM

"The unintended consequences of trying to shut the border, an increased number of undocumented workers, and the deflection of the flow of labor from the well-worn, but now heavily-policed, paths through San Diego and El Paso, to different crossings that led the immigrants to settle in new and different areas."

Actually, recent reports (look it up) suggest that the recent crackdown on the hiring of illegals, combined with the collapse of the residential construction industry, has led to a significant number of illegals going back to where they came from.

"What do the anti-immigration folks say about the finding that restrictions on the ability to cross our borders legally is what has led to the seemingly sudden increase in undocument immigrants in the US?"

Two different issues being conflated here, but that's typical of open-borders advocates. If parts of the border are heavily policed or fenced, then illegals will attempt to cross elsewhere (which is an argument for more fencing, which, despite a bill passed by Congress and signed by the President calling for it, doesn't seem to be getting built). That much is indisputable. But that has nothing to do with where illegals chose to settle once they are in the U.S.

The biggest reason illegals move to different parts of the country is because when too many illegals congregate in one area, the glut of unskilled laborers drives down wages for unskilled labor.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 1:02 PM

Wow, ~7 comments into an immigration thread, and no Kellybot autopost yet? Someone needs to fine-tune his regexps...

Posted by Doctor Memory | March 13, 2008 1:07 PM

"at a minimum, it really was tried during the 2006 midterms where, just as it always does, it failed to deliver on its promises"

It really was tried in the 1994 California governor's race, and it delivered big time for Pete Wilson.

Posted by dogfacegeorge | March 13, 2008 1:12 PM

Well, the richest man in the world testified before Congress yesterday and he is pissed that he is losing top talent that used to stay here, he is pissed that he has to set up a second campus in Vancouver BC because the scientists can't get visas, and he's pissed that politicians try to use the issue to get elected. He is so pissed that he all but told Dana Rohrbaker to STFU up you ignorant buffoon. Its enough to make me throw out my mac. No, not really, but this was from a man with almost nothing to gain at this point.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | March 13, 2008 1:13 PM

"If you read some of the comments in Douthat's post, you see that those yahoos are blaming everything on immigrants. Declining dollar, increased health care costs, stagnant wages, and budget deficits."

The 'yahoos' have a point on the middle two, health care costs and stagnant wages, but not so much on the other two, declining dollar and budget deficits.

Nevertheless, massive unskilled immigration is great for Democrats:

it increases poverty levels, lowers per-capita incomes, and increases inequality -- all data points Democrats can use to justify more 'progressive' redistribution policies.

it swells another low-achieving demographic group, the members of which will become reliable block voters for Democrats in return for promises of transfer payments from more productive Americans and affirmative action.

It warms the cockles of Jewish Democrats like Matt, who are nostalgic for Ellis Island and who don't quite get that the immigrants from Mexico have a pathetic track record of socioeconomic advancement, even after four generations in this country.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 1:14 PM

If you extrapolate the current immigration pattern, the country is going to look more and more like New Mexico. I've never seen anyone bother to check out what that might mean, but it's easy enough to do.

Posted by gcochran | March 13, 2008 1:17 PM

To take Ross more seriously....

Uh, why?

Him, Sullivan, McArdle. Back in the good old days I forked over money for it myself, but now it's really really really really weird to imagine that the Atlantic was actually worth paying for.

Posted by sglover | March 13, 2008 1:19 PM

"Well, the richest man in the world [sic] testified before Congress yesterday and he is pissed that he is losing top talent that used to stay here, he is pissed that he has to set up a second campus in Vancouver BC because the scientists can't get visas..."

All the more reason to import millions more 4th grade dropout campesinos from Mexico, right?

This is another great conflation of open-borders advocates. While there are some immigration restrictionists who want to clamp down on highly-skilled immigrants too, because they believe it depresses wages in the tech industry, there are plenty of reasonable folks such as myself who would like to increase highly-skilled immigration while decreasing unskilled immigration.

Unlike unskilled immigrants, highly-skilled immigrants contribute more in tax revenues than they consume in government services. And although I agree that high skill immigration may depress tech geek wages somewhat, I don't see this as a terrible thing: it will encourage more of them to jump ship and start their own businesses. A busboy or meatpacker whose wages stagnate is less likely to be able to start his own business.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 1:25 PM

I'm kind of surprised that more idiot GOP members weren't happy to see talk radio go apeshit over illegal immigration. They just got another group to demagogue in addition to African-Americans, Muslims and gay people while offering up expensive ideas that won't actually work, thus not hurting business interests that much.

Also, anyone who goes apeshit over labor mobility has no business calling themselves a capitalist.

Posted by Reality Man | March 13, 2008 1:34 PM

"Ross Douthat explains that anti-immigration politics hasn't failed, it's just never really been tried. I think this is what my late grandfather used to say about Marxism."

The original, I think, was Chesterton, who said it about Christianity.

Posted by Bill Gardner | March 13, 2008 1:42 PM

Freddy One-Note has one factoid, and he's going to use it at all costs. Funny, that: regurgitation is the mark of a poor education.

(Still, unlike Whack O'Mole, he doesn't appear to be hinting that the dirty brown hordes are planning to rise up and conquer his pasty ass.)

As for Gates, he's pointing to a genuine structural problem with the allocation of skills-based visas. The H1-B is subject to quota-gaming and exploitation; the EB2 certification hasn't evolved fast enough to include new technology.

I've known people have to wait a year and work in Europe on PST hours because a large internet company couldn't secure a H1-B, and the type of job that person was doing was too new for USCIS to include it in the EB2. This is for a six-figure salaried position.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 13, 2008 1:44 PM

Fred, still stupid on every subject. Labor follows capital in the "free market". From New England to the Carolinas to Guatemala and Indonesia. From Pittsburgh to Birmingham to Shanghai. Open borders in every direction or just one? If you want to stop the illegal dishwashers, send the good jobs overseas. It will stem the brown tide here as they wash dishes in Bangalor and Dublin.

BTW have you priced a virtual fence from The Arctic Circle to Juneau and Vancouver WA to Eastport ME? Thats got to be about 6,500 miles. Problem is, the engineers are on the wrong side of the fence.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | March 13, 2008 1:52 PM

Fred,

I'm not sure how immigrants drive up health care costs, at least not moreso than general indogenous factors like aging population and increasing obesity. Can you explain?

Posted by freddiemac | March 13, 2008 2:02 PM

Well, I'll admit I've never studied the issue that closely, but it always seemed to me that the really easy way to "fix" the H1-B problem would just be to allow unlimited visas for anyone being paid (say) over $100K per year.

That would solve the way companies "game" the current system by using it to import cheap technical workers, while allowing companies that really did want to hire "extremely skilled" foreign workers to do so without any delays, fuss, or wasted payments to semi-crooked H1-B lawyers.

Obviously, this would tend to hurt the economic position of all American workers currently paid well over $100K per year by driving down their wages. But this is a feature rather than a bug, since such workers are the economic elite, and driving down their wages would tend to equalize the overall wage-distribution.

I'm curious whether anyone can see an obvious flaw in this very simple measure, which should also attract huge support from all the (honest) big corporations AND support from all the (mostly blue-collar) labor unions.

If you don't like the $100K figure, just adjust it to any desired value...

Posted by RKU | March 13, 2008 2:07 PM

Actually, recent reports (look it up), says Fred.

The sign of a true troll. Thinks people can look up his rectum, where his facts come from.

Posted by David in NY | March 13, 2008 2:16 PM

Fred says, "It warms the cockles of Jewish Democrats like Matt, who are nostalgic for Ellis Island and who don't quite get that the immigrants from Mexico have a pathetic track record of socioeconomic advancement, even after four generations in this country."

Yeah, if only we could have been lucky enough to have been born a black politician...

Posted by Bob Oso | March 13, 2008 2:50 PM

Man, again, I think this shows the urban bias in the media. Anyone who thinks extremely anti-immigration sentiment can't be whipped up into a mainstream frenzy a) probably didn't live in California during the Pete Wilson '90s and b) probably lives in a city where people mostly cohabitate (or at least have the appearance of doing so). It's the xenophobic suburbs and racially divided rural communities where this stuff really plays, and a lot of people live in those places.

Wacky anti-immigration sentiment is boiling in this country. We're only lucky we're (probably) going to be spared it in this presidential election.

Posted by How Insane Is John McCain? | March 13, 2008 2:57 PM

It's already VERY difficult to immigrate to the United States legally. Yiyun Li received an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, was named a Best Young Novelist by Granta, has been published in the New Yorker and the Paris Review, holds a steady job at Mills College, and had David Remnick write a letter on her behalf... and her application for a green card was rejected. My parents, both of whom hold advanced degrees from a top twenty university, were only able to gain legal residency because Tiananmen happened while they were here. I am sure that most undocumented workers in the United States would absolutely love to be documented, but immigration policies are so restrictive that this is simply not possible.

Posted by Katie | March 13, 2008 3:27 PM

who don't quite get that the immigrants from Mexico have a pathetic track record of socioeconomic advancement, even after four generations in this country.

Fred = historical illiterate.

It's 1607, Fred. There are 3 European settlements in the future territory of the Untied states. Jamestown is one; can you name the other two?

Posted by rea | March 13, 2008 3:44 PM

Well, I'll admit I've never studied the issue that closely, but it always seemed to me that the really easy way to "fix" the H1-B problem would just be to allow unlimited visas for anyone being paid (say) over $100K per year.

That's not a bad approach, though you could do it simply by having smarter certification for the EB2.

MSFT, like Yahoo and Google, is in a position where it's using the internets -- and the world -- as its recruiting base. You'll find people who are 'niche experts' -- that's to say, they have prominence in a particular sector of tech/internet, and their skills aren't replicable. But unlike, say, an old-school profession or sports/performers, there's no real visa class for them. There's an established consensus that an NBA draft pick from abroad or a distinguished professor should be qualified for a visa, but not one to say that the creator of a web scripting framework deserves one.

There was a radio programme I heard not long ago about how MSFT brought a group of programmers over from Romania when they bought their antivirus company. Most antivirus software development happens outside the US, particularly in Eastern Europe, so if you want to bring it in-house, you have to acquire the companies and the staff.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 13, 2008 3:55 PM

I'm pretty sure that, at a minimum, it really was tried during the 2006 midterms where, just as it always does, it failed to deliver on its promises.

This shouldn't be surprising because, at the end of the day, immigration just doesn't have much of an impact either way of the quality of life of the average American. That's why, despite polling data, immigration policy simply doesn't affect actual elections in the same manner as, say, the price of gas, or proposals to cut Social Security, or mortgage rates. Yes, lots of low-skilled illegal immigration places downward pressure on wages, but, as even Borjas would concede, the actual effect is pretty modest, and affects a relatively small part of the workforce.

America has plenty of problems. What it doesn't have is plenty of problems that have anything to do with immigration.

Posted by Jasper | March 13, 2008 4:06 PM

Several conservative ideas are illuminated by this tempest-in-a-teapot that has been stirred up by intellectuals on a par with LouDobbs.

First, the Right's claim that only they understand the power of the marketplace. Yet in virtually every question that does not involve the 'rights' of corporations to enrich themselves unhindered they DO NOT believe in markets. They restrict the free travel of labor (enriching 'coyotes' at the expense of honest would-be laborers); they restrict recreational drugs (enriching terrorists and criminal gangs in third world countries); they restrict prostitution and marriage and in many localities 'Adult' toys and entertainment. And so on and so on.

And their belief that local solutions are possible when global developments are behind whatever 'problem' they focus on today. Shouldn't someone point out that the movements of large numbers of people is a feature of modern civilization? And that we in America are extremely fortunate that we don't have the problem of a huge Islamic world on our southern border?

Fools and hypocrits, our conservative brothers and sisters.

Posted by John McC | March 13, 2008 4:10 PM

Now up to 28 comments and nothing from the Kellybot. I'm starting to worry. Maybe one of us from L.A. should drive by his house and see if he's feeling well?

Or perhaps the agents of the MexicanGovernmentSecretService finally got him...

Posted by Doctor Memory | March 13, 2008 4:19 PM

It's simply not a high-salience issue for the majority of Americans who aren't rabid Mexican-haters.

Amazing then that so many Mexican-Americans in the Southwest that have seen their schools and medical care and wages and job opportunities thrown into crisis by uncontrolled mass invasion of Mexicans have said the Borders Must Be Controlled ---thus transformed in an Open Borders Jewish columnist's eyes - into rabid Mexican Haters.

Amazing that others that look at the long range demographic effects - American population at 420 million and us already in water, habitat, gridlock crisis in the Southwest - and want immigration stopped almost cold until we can figure out what population levels in America will not destroy our present culture and standard of living. 420 million. In so many of our problems and our politics - people in the media and who see getting to America as a human right of any of 6 billion 3rd Worlders and 2nd Worlders to do - make up their trite little energy solutions like "no SUVs", "More Wind Power!", "Flourescent Lightbulbs" - ignoring the demographic tidal wave. That assures that we will see those "savings" wiped out and we will need either more vastly more nukes and more CO2-coal or we will all have to have a substantial reduction in our standards of living to accomodate the energy needs of 120 million new Americans in under 50 years.

Posted by chris ford | March 13, 2008 4:22 PM

Well, the richest man in the world testified before Congress yesterday and he is pissed that he is losing top talent that used to stay here, he is pissed that he has to set up a second campus in Vancouver BC because the scientists can't get visas, and he's pissed that politicians try to use the issue to get elected.

Well, I'm pissed that they holler for more H1-B "captive worker" visas after admitting that they throw away something like 90 percent of the resumes they receive sight unseen.

(Also, I believe that Warren Buffett has moved back into the top spot.)

I've known people have to wait a year and work in Europe on PST hours because a large internet company couldn't secure a H1-B

And I've known people to spend more than a year looking for a tech job while tech companies piss and moan about needing more H1-Bs. Yeah, American higher education is in the toilet, or something, but I'm still not seeing this preference for H1-Bs. Unless it has something to do with the inability to freely switch jobs, or something? Naaaah.

I'll listen more sympathetically to tech executives squealing about the need for more H1-Bs when they start using them to hire their vice presidents.

See, it'll get hard for the working class to "vote their economic interests" by going Democratic when they do the retraining in "technology" that was to be the panacea for previous job losses, only to see Democratic pundits cheer on tech executives going "Wah wah wah, it's so hard to fill all our open positions from Bangalore!"

Posted by mds | March 13, 2008 4:42 PM

it increases poverty levels, lowers per-capita incomes, and increases inequality -- all data points Democrats can use to justify more 'progressive' redistribution policies.

And in turn that's a good thing for Republicans, since prosperous people are more likely to vote Republican. Remember, if you want to live like a Republican, vote Democratic!

Listen, Fred. Brushing your teeth doesn't cause tooth decay, even though dentists recommend you brush your teeth and tooth decay generates business for dentists. George W. Bush is not a supporter of Hugo Chavez, even though Bush supports policies that drive up oil prices and Chavez's regime is almost entirely dependent upon high prices for oil. Come back when you have a point; the one at the top of your head doesn't count.

Posted by cminus | March 13, 2008 5:24 PM

If you read some of the comments in Douthat's post, you see that those yahoos are blaming everything on immigrants.

You ever notice how many things that the yahoos blame on immigrants are problems that they deny even exist when there are no immigrants around?

Global warming? It's a myth, and the reason we can't cut down on energy use is because of immigrant-driven population growth! Stagnant wages? Wages aren't stagnant, it's just liberal class warfare, and immigrants are responsible for flooding the labor market and keeping wages down! And so on, and so forth.

Posted by cminus | March 13, 2008 5:34 PM

It really was tried in the 1994 California governor's race, and it delivered big time for Pete Wilson.

And destroyed the California Republican Party in the process. (They've won about 3 or 4 out of 25 or so statewide elections since then, and they used to win upwards of 50 percent. California used to be in play in presidential elections. Now it is solidly blue. The only way they retook the governor's office was with a celebrity in a recall, obviously a very unusual situation. And Democrats now dominate the legislature, whereas Republicans could get close to or even to a majority back in the 1990's.)

So yeah, go ahead and repeat the experience of Pete Wilson in 1994. It really works well if your goal is to mobilize all the Hispanics to register to vote for Democrats. In any state with a significant number of Hispanics, the strategy backfires... it only works in the long term in states that don't really have a lot of Hispanic immigrants in the first place.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 13, 2008 5:53 PM

freddiemac,

"I'm not sure how immigrants drive up health care costs, at least not moreso than general indogenous factors like aging population and increasing obesity. Can you explain?"

Illegal immigrants, who happen to be unskilled, poorly-paid, and lack health insurance, drive up health care costs by seeking treatment at emergency rooms and not paying for it. Incidentally, I should have included this in my bullet list in a previous post, but this is another benefit of unskilled immigration for Democrats: it increases the number of uninsured, which they can then use to justify the need to further socialize health care.

Peter Driscoll,

"Fred, still stupid on every subject."

Always inauspicious to start with ad hominem nonsense...

"Labor follows capital in the "free market". From New England to the Carolinas to Guatemala and Indonesia."

Is this obtuseness deliberate? Labor follows capital from New England to the Carolinas because both regions are within the same country. Countries have the sovereign right and responsibility to regulate who enters them. That's why they issue visas. I would have no problem with Mexican labor flowing here freely if Mexico became the 51st state. Then we could get something useful in return for hosting its 4th grade dropouts: royalties from its oil and other natural resources; the ability to break up its telecom and other monopolies and let our companies compete there; the right to develop its coastlines and Baja California, etc.

"BTW have you priced a virtual fence from The Arctic Circle to Juneau and Vancouver WA to Eastport ME?"

Why would I care what such a fence would cost when there is no need for one? We aren't being inundated with unskilled workers from the Arctic Circle, are we?

Rea,

Fred = historical illiterate.

Again, always inauspicious to start with ad hominem nonsense...

"It's 1607, Fred. There are 3 European settlements in the future territory of the Untied states. Jamestown is one; can you name the other two?"

Off the top of my head, I'd guess Roanoke and St. Augustine, but of what possible relevance is this to the comment of mine you pasted in italics, about the the pathetic track record of socioeconomic advancement by Mexican immigrants in this country?

Jasper,

"Yes, lots of low-skilled illegal immigration places downward pressure on wages, but, as even Borjas would concede, the actual effect is pretty modest, and affects a relatively small part of the workforce."

The "relatively small" part of the workforce effected happens to be the lowest paid and most vulnerable part. Also, IIRC, Borjas's estimate was that illegal immigration depressed the wages of this "relatively small" group by 8%. I guess that counts as "pretty modest" when it's not you, but why import unskilled workers to depress the wages of native born unskilled workers at all? Since these unskilled immigrants consume more in government services than they pay in taxes, the country as a whole is worse off. The only ones who benefit are employers of low-wage workers.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 5:56 PM

"And in turn that's a good thing for Republicans, since prosperous people are more likely to vote Republican."

Great point, cminus. A perfect example of this is black Americans: they started voting en masse for Democrats when FDR wooed them with welfare, and then after being the beneficiary of Democratic redistribution policies for a few decades, they became prosperous; and once they became prosperous, they started voting for Republicans en masse. Today, gleaming, prosperous black cities like Detroit and Camden are GOP strongholds.

"And destroyed the California Republican Party in the process."

How many times does Steve Sailer need to refute this meme? Maybe he'll deign to do it one more time.

"Democrats are supporters of Hugo Chavez, even though they support policies that drive up oil prices (e.g., opposing domestic drilling and opposing the expansion of nuclear power) and Chavez's regime is almost entirely dependent upon high prices for oil."

There, fixed that for you.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 6:10 PM

"Illegal immigrants, who happen to be unskilled, poorly-paid, and lack health insurance, drive up health care costs by seeking treatment at emergency rooms and not paying for it. Incidentally, I should have included this in my bullet list in a previous post, but this is another benefit of unskilled immigration for Democrats: it increases the number of uninsured, which they can then use to justify the need to further socialize health care. "

Fred, while it may be true that illegal immigrants tend to go the emergency room and not pay, isn't that true of all uninsured. If illegal immigrants make a small portion of the uninsured, then wouldn't they be a small reason why the cost of health care is ballooning? Or to put it another way, how can you isolate the illegal immigrants from the rest of the uninsured masses in counting health care costs?

Posted by freddiemac | March 13, 2008 6:16 PM

Fred, it is a strange theory that benefits of someone's work to the rest of the society are equal to the taxes paid.

For example, one can reasonably believe that with good enforcement of immigration laws we can whip a real food crisis, especially concerning fruits and vegetables, but also dairy products and even meat: lots of workers in packing plants are illegal.

Perhaps we should find a way for this country to function well without millions of shitty jobs, but right now, we are not there. It would make a major restructuring of the economy, on top of what we already go through.

Posted by piotr | March 13, 2008 6:20 PM

Just to continue the theme, if suddenly all hedge fund managers evaporated, how big blow that would be to our economy, compared with 10% of the fruit pickers?

Posted by piotr | March 13, 2008 6:24 PM

Re: That assures that we will see those "savings" wiped out and we will need either more vastly more nukes and more CO2-coal or we will all have to have a substantial reduction in our standards of living to accomodate the energy needs of 120 million new Americans in under 50 years.

Whatever problems immigrants cause, energy problems are not among them. People do not pop into existence from nothing when they they cross our borders and believe it or not them thar Mexicans have electricity and automobiles too-- and we are competing with them in a global energy market. Their demand drives up the price of oil no matter they live (see: China, India and oil demand), and their CO2 adds to the greenhouse effect even if they live on the far side of the planet.
Racism from the Right does not surprise me, but basic economic illiteracy does.

Posted by JonF | March 13, 2008 6:37 PM

Freddiemac,

"Fred, while it may be true that illegal immigrants tend to go the emergency room and not pay, isn't that true of all uninsured."

Sure, but illegal immigrants make this problem worse, and increase Medicaid costs.

"If illegal immigrants make a small portion of the uninsured..."

Considering that estimates of the number of illegal immigrants in this country range from 12 million to 20 million+, and illegal immigrants tend not to have health insurance, illegal immigrants are much more than a "small portion" of the uninsured. They probably comprise 30% or 40% of them.

Piotr,

Unskilled immigrants are a net drain on this country, even when you take into account that they might knock a penny off of the cost of a head of lettuce. Economists have quantified this, if you want to look it up. The only net beneficiaries of illegal immigration are the illegal immigrants themselves, and their employers. An American unskilled worker who gets paid a dollar less per hour because of the glut of unskilled laborers is worse off even if he can save a penny on a head of lettuce. The lettuce would probably be even cheaper if we imported it from Mexico.

As for your claim that industries such as meatpacking wouldn't survive without illegals, this is simply false. The vast majority of these jobs (especially since the recent crackdown) are filled by American citizens and legal residents.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 6:38 PM

"Just to continue the theme, if suddenly all hedge fund managers evaporated, how big blow that would be to our economy, compared with 10% of the fruit pickers?"

Piotr, why don't you take advantage of this as a teachable moment for yourself? Do a little research on how much hedge fund managers as a group earn; how much they pay in taxes; how much they pay in payroll to their secretaries, traders, etc.; how much they pay vendors like prime brokers and outsourced back office operations; how much they spend in restaurants, auto dealerships, and other local businesses; how much they spend on real estate and custom construction; etc. Next, do the same thing for 10% of the fruit pickers. Let us know what numbers you come up with.

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 6:49 PM

Well, the richest man in the world testified before Congress yesterday and he is pissed that he is losing top talent that used to stay here, he is pissed that he has to set up a second campus in Vancouver BC because the scientists can't get visas, and he's pissed that politicians try to use the issue to get elected.

Hmm... I think a more accurate statement would be:

Well, the richest man in the world testified before Congress yesterday and he is pissed that he is losing dirt cheap talent that used to stay here,

Posted by Glaivester | March 13, 2008 7:43 PM

The reality-based community always has trouble arguing this issue with facts, probably because the facts are against them. I'd like to see Matt write a post using his Harvard-trained mind to cogently argue why it is in the interests of the U.S. to import millions more 4th grade dropouts who will depress the wages of native unskilled workers and consume more in government resources than they pay in taxes. I won't hold my breath though: when the facts are against you, it's far easier to deride those who point out the obvious downsides of importing another country's underclass as "rabid Mexican-haters".

Posted by Fred | March 13, 2008 10:04 PM

It's 1607, Fred. There are 3 European settlements in the future territory of the Untied states. Jamestown is one; can you name the other two?

I'm actually curious about this myself.

St Augustine is obviously one. But Roanoke was gone by then.

And a French colony near St Augustine and Jacksonville was also gone by then (due to the Spanish at St Augustine) The remaining pre-1607 French colonies were all in Canada

Oh never mind, I think I see now. The third is San Juan, Puerto Rico (founded 1521 even before St Augstine), right?

Posted by Kolohe | March 13, 2008 10:45 PM

Fred, how long have people from Mexico been immigrating/becoming inhabitants of the United States?

JonF: "Racism from the Right does not surprise me, but basic economic illiteracy does.

*Why?*

Posted by Dan S. | March 13, 2008 11:25 PM

"Fred, how long have people from Mexico been immigrating/becoming inhabitants of the United States?"

In large numbers, since the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Posted by Fred | March 14, 2008 2:44 AM

"It really works well if your goal is to mobilize all the Hispanics to register to vote for Democrats. In any state with a significant number of Hispanics, the strategy backfires... it only works in the long term in states that don't really have a lot of Hispanic immigrants in the first place.

Posted by Dilan Esper | March 13, 2008 5:53 PM"

Very true. That's why in 20 years, maybe less, states like Georgia are going to be solidly blue, especially once we get off our asses and start registering Latino voters there.

You have to sit back and enjoy watching conservatives claim that the best way to deal with the dead-weight loss of illegality is to increase... illegality. It makes you wonder if they are capitalists in name only because their version of capitalism enriches old conservative white guys and that they aren't working from any deep principles at all. It's like how we solved our drug problem by criminalizing drugs and then the problem went away, except when it didn't. One of the most ironic things is that if we went to voters in the reddest states complaining about immigration and said, "how about we cut your agricultural subsidies so that Mexican agriculture can come back and people will have a better chance of making a living down in Mexico," they would go apeshit. They don't want either the "problem" of more brown people or the solution of more capitalism.

Posted by Reality Man | March 14, 2008 3:28 AM

Re: how much they pay in payroll to their secretaries, traders, etc.; how much they pay vendors like prime brokers and outsourced back office operations

??
Why would hedge fund managers be paying these people out of their own pockets? Shouldn't these epeople be getting their salaries from the companies that employ them, and the hedge fund managers?

Re: how much they pay in payroll to their secretaries, traders, etc.; how much they pay vendors like prime brokers and outsourced back office operations

??
Why would hedge fund managers be paying these people out of their own pockets? Shouldn't these epeople be getting their salaries from the companies that employ them, and the hedge fund managers?

Re: St Augustine is obviously one. But Roanoke was gone by then.
And a French colony near St Augustine and Jacksonville was also gone by then (due to the Spanish at St Augustine) The remaining pre-1607 French colonies were all in Canada

Possibly Pensacola, which was founded c. 1540, destroyed by a hurricane, then resettled, I think, before 1607.

Posted by JonF | March 14, 2008 6:39 AM

"Why would hedge fund managers be paying these people out of their own pockets? Shouldn't these epeople be getting their salaries from the companies that employ them, and the hedge fund managers?"

Most hedge fund managers aren't employees, they're owners. As owners they are responsible for the payroll of their business.

Posted by Fred | March 14, 2008 10:23 AM

I'll listen more sympathetically to tech executives squealing about the need for more H1-Bs when they start using them to hire their vice presidents.

That misses the point: when VPs are recruited from abroad, it's generally easier to use one of the other visa classes because the USCIS knows how to certify executive VPs.

Take my earlier example: if a large, US-based tech firm wants a top-tier antivirus product in-house, it's more than likely that they'll need to go abroad for the expertise. In that context, saying 'well, there are plenty of tech people needing work in the US' is just a platitude.

The only net beneficiaries of illegal immigration are the illegal immigrants themselves, and their employers.

Funny how Freddy One-Note -- soon he'll be calling his pet hate 'pre-K dropouts' -- passes over that last bit so quickly. After all, the price of Dole or Del Monte or Tyson or Smithfield or ADM or ConAgra in his portfolio has nothing to do with such things.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | March 14, 2008 1:18 PM

That misses the point: when VPs are recruited from abroad, it's generally easier to use one of the other visa classes because the USCIS knows how to certify executive VPs.

Also because they wouldn't dream of giving own of their own a visa with such a one-sided balance of power.

Take my earlier example: if a large, US-based tech firm wants a top-tier antivirus product in-house, it's more than likely that they'll need to go abroad for the expertise.

"More than likely." Wow, how compelling.

In that context, saying 'well, there are plenty of tech people needing work in the US' is just a platitude.

As opposed to the rigor of flatly asserting "we can't get qualified people" without making an effort to look domestically? Talk about platitudes.

Look, this has been creeping into other areas. For several years now, life science firms have been posting "positions" that say, "This is not a currently-existing position; submit your CV for possible future consideration," then turning around and complaining about all sorts of jobs going unfilled because they can't bring in enough overseas talent on restrictive visas. Dismissing these imbalances out of hand doesn't seem like a particularly good electoral strategy. "They're not filling high-tech jobs domestically, so all domestic talent must be shit" is perilously close to "Let them eat cake." Having watched the behavior of multinational corporations over the years, are alternative explanations really that hard to figure out?

Posted by mds | March 14, 2008 1:36 PM

"Funny how Freddy One-Note -- soon he'll be calling his pet hate 'pre-K dropouts' -- passes over that last bit so quickly. After all, the price of Dole or Del Monte or Tyson or Smithfield or ADM or ConAgra in his portfolio has nothing to do with such things."

Pseudomonas,

I don't happen to own any of those stocks, but it wouldn't matter if I did: for the most part, large, publicly-traded companies don't hire illegal aliens -- they have too much to lose. Most employers of illegal aliens are small businesses: construction contractors, restaurateurs, affluent couples employing domestic help, family-owned farms, etc.

Posted by Fred | March 14, 2008 10:08 PM

Moderate Restrictionism?

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