The Immigration Crisis in Context
2021-04-28 · Guest: Alex Nowrasteh (Cato Institute) · 52:54
Legal economic and cultural history of US immigration
Bob Zadek and Alex Nowrasteh discuss the legal, economic, and cultural history of immigration in the United States. They debunk common myths regarding wages, crime, and welfare while arguing for a market-based approach to immigration policy rooted in the country’s founding principles.
Topics: Immigration, Constitutional Law, Economics, Cato Institute, Chinese Exclusion Act, Assimilation, Border Crisis, Welfare State
Speakers:
- Bob Zadek: Host
- Alex Nowrasteh: Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute
Introduction [00:21]
Bob Zadek: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to The Bob Zadek Show, the longest-running live libertarian talk radio show on all of radio. Thank you so much for listening this Sunday morning. We are, this Sunday and always, the show of ideas, never, ever once the show of attitude. Thank you so much for listening.
This morning’s show, I’m going to apologize in advance. I may, during the hour, demonstrate spontaneously, I suspect, moments of emotion. We are talking this morning about a topic that is, for some reason, it’s built into my psychology, it’s built into my DNA: the subject of immigration. Immigration affects my mind and my heart in so many ways, far too complex to talk about. It is a subject which never seems to leave the news. Now, perhaps more than ever, it was for the first 100 years of our country’s life kind of taken for granted. There may have been some rumblings in the background in our young country about foreigners coming to this country, but it was not a matter of policy. It was personal dislike, personal fear of the unknown, of the strange, perhaps economic fear, but not much of that in the first century of our country’s life.
But as of late, perhaps starting in the 1880s, it starts to become a bigger and bigger deal, and it starts to move from privately held biases and beliefs. It finds its way into public policy, into legislation, and now it seems to have consumed us. And it is very important that there be a public discussion at a dispassionate, unemotional level, just to at least understand the issues. So when Americans make a decision or form an opinion about how they feel about a subject as complex as immigration, at least, at least when they form their opinion, they form so based upon facts and not based upon hyperbole.
I often have commented when I speak with my friends or when I speak with my guests, I often have shared the observation that what people’s opinion is is kind of boring. An opinion as a standalone concept is kind of boring. But why you think what you do, why you have formed an opinion that you have—the whys, the analysis—is to me fascinating and instructive. I learn from people who have made an informed opinion because their information will help me form my own opinion.
With that introduction to this important topic of immigration, I’m delighted to welcome back Alex Nowrasteh. Alex is a dear, dear friend of mine. Alex is—Alex, you may remember this—you were my first Cato friend at my very first, at my very first Cato meeting when I ventured out and discovered Cato. And there I was on a Thursday night of my first weekend, and by the accident, by simple chance, you were sitting next to me. And I learned even before the salad plate was taken from me, I had learned a lot already. So Alex, I have learned so much from you over the years, and I want my friends out there to share the experience of learning from you the important facts which drive the formation of an opinion about immigration.
And I’ve invited you back to the show because you have recently written an important book entitled—and we’ll spend some time on the book—Wretched Refuse. What a title, Alex. Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions. You co-wrote that with Ben Powell over in Texas. So Alex, we are going to try to help our friends out there at least understand factually and dispassionately, although both of you have a hard time suppressing our feelings, but we will do our best. What’s going on with immigration? Why does it never leave the news? Why is this issue that we will discuss, why this issue seems intractable? We have a Congress, we have a president, we have a political system, the purpose of which is to enact and to repeal legislation so that life in this country is better and more true to our founding principles. We have the tools. We can pass laws. We can pass laws subject to the Constitution that say what we want them to say. But this has become intractable. So we’re going to do the best we can, Alex, to help our friends out there understand why this issue is so darn hard to resolve when for us, Alex, the answer or the solutions are so obvious. So first of all, welcome back to the show this morning. Thank you so much for your book and for joining us.
Constitutional Authority [03:55]
Bob Zadek: Now, immigration is a mess, obviously. But that’s a very vague starting point. Immigration, regulating who is allowed to enter this country—who has responsibility for it? When I say who, do I mean the president? The Congress? What does—what did and does the Constitution tell us about who’s in charge? So at least we know who to yell at when things are a mess. So let’s start with the basics, just a very brief introduction. Who’s in charge of immigration if your source of reference is the Constitution?
Alex Nowrasteh: So the Constitution says nothing about immigration. The powers of Congress that are enumerated in Article I, Section 8, do not list immigration there. They list everything else: the power to raise taxes, raise an army, build a navy, establish post offices and post roads, and weights and measures. But it does not mention immigration anywhere. So in the idea of the sort of central of the system, the federal system envisioned by the Founders, essentially the states would have a lot of power over this, but it would not be Congress.
Now, this changed in 1889 in a Supreme Court decision where the Supreme Court invented the power, said that Congress has what’s called plenary power over immigration, which means that they can do whatever they want. So the Supreme Court invented this power out of nothing, and they say it’s an inherent power of sovereignty. There’s no sovereignty clause in the Constitution that they appealed to; they just invented this out of whole cloth. And since the late 1880s, or since the 1880s, Congress has created an enormously complex law that’s second in complexity only to the income tax. The income tax law is probably the only law more complicated than the immigration law. And at the same time, it has given the president an enormous amount of power over the system. So part of the problem is with the Constitution not having any designation for immigration, not giving that power to anybody, to any organization. The Supreme Court invented it, gave it to Congress, but because it’s invented plenary power, they have given most of their power to the president. And this is the sort of extra-constitutional system of immigration regulation that we find ourselves in today, and I think is a primary reason why it’s so complicated and has resulted in such a mess, both at the border, inside of the United States, and such a restrictive government-created system to limit who can enter this country.
Legislative History and the Chinese Exclusion Act [07:28]
Bob Zadek: Now, what’s—so now Congress is given both a gift and a curse of putting in charge of immigration. I mean, what a horrible thing to be in charge of, because as you said, it’s a mess. So you would think every branch of government would say, “Give it to somebody else. We don’t want it because we’re just going to get yelled at.” Okay, so now Congress, now we have a history of immigration legislation starting, I guess, 1889 was, I think, the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Alex Nowrasteh: So 1882 was the Chinese Exclusion Act, and that was sort of approved by the Supreme Court in 1889.
Bob Zadek: And so we have from the very first, as soon as Congress exercises its power, they do so in a way that if you were to read the legislation today, you would be embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed of what Congress has done. Because for sure it was not based upon any findings. It was not based upon good government. It was based upon: Chinese look different, act different, have a different culture, and who wants them around? And there are too many of them. And I hate the word “them,” always hate that word when referred to people. There are too many of them.
So from the Chinese Exclusion Act up to and including today, immigration policy has for the most part been driven by that total absence of intellect, of important governmental policy, of economic considerations. It simply is Congress reacting to biases of the people. And almost—now, there have been instances, of course, when there have been vague attempts, and we may discuss them, but we’re not going to—we’re going to do far more than the history of immigration legislation. But that’s what Congress has done with this power.
The Founders and the Declaration of Independence [11:54]
Bob Zadek: Now, one speculative question, Alex. The Founders, as you said, had nothing in the Constitution about immigration. Did they forget, or did they not care?
Alex Nowrasteh: So they cared a lot, and they didn’t forget. They just thought that it was, one, good for the United States to have free immigration with the world. And two, they thought it was an important portion of the Enlightenment values that they supported, which was that people should be free to leave their home countries and to go to other countries so long as they aren’t, you know, criminal, so long as they aren’t violent, so long as they aren’t spies or an invading army or otherwise, right? And sort of the notion that this freedom of association across borders is an important liberal value. It was something that was part of our natural rights inherent to us being human beings. And also a policy that would grow the United States into a wealthier, larger, and more powerful country and secure for us the blessings of liberty and prosperity and independence that have been brought down to us today. So it was very much sort of a weird system, right? We have like this American nascent nationalism as well as the liberal values that they supported, both pushing in the same direction.
Bob Zadek: Now, that’s not just Alex’s own speculation. One might refer to a document as important as the Declaration of Independence. We all know that in the Declaration of Independence, our initial founding document, in the Declaration, it starts off with that wonderful, wonderful language that Jefferson authored: “All men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” We have that beautiful language. But then we have in—if you will, the third section of the Declaration—we have the indictment, America’s explaining to the world why they are entitled to declare independence from the King. And they list their complaints against the King. This was the indictment. This was so the world would understand what the King had done to the colonies, which was so offensive that the colonies felt they had not only the right but the duty to declare independence. And one of the specific indictments of the King was that the King endeavored to prevent immigration to the United States. So the King, in denying immigration to the colonies, was important enough to be mentioned specifically in the Declaration. So you need to go no further than that if you at all say we must be true to our founding principles. It can be said without qualification that free immigration is part of and enumerated—I’ll borrow a word from constitutional study—it is an enumerated complaint against the King and therefore one of the specifically listed values that drove independence in our country.
Okay, so now we have learned that because the Supreme Court went beyond what it ought to have been doing and it made a decision to bestow upon Congress the gift or the curse of legislating immigration, and Congress does whatever it does when it has a hard job—it subcontracts it out to somebody else so they get yelled at—so the president is stuck with this task of regulating immigration.
Economic Myths: Jobs and Wages [18:28]
Bob Zadek: Now, so now we are here today fighting every night in the media, in the mass media, in the blogs, in the news, we are fighting about immigration. Now, there are—what are—because your book addresses them all—give us an understanding very briefly about what are the perceived, perceived reasons, the justification? Because nobody defends their position if they are supporting restrictive immigration, nobody defends expressly restrictive immigration on the grounds that “I hate Hispanics” or “I hate Asians” and “I just hate them because they are inferior,” whatever the hateful language they’re going to say. So there is a perceived reason that people have embraced for restricting immigration. And just so our friends out there understand what we’re talking about, this show will spend the rest of the hour discussing: should we restrict immigration or not? What are the principles that govern the answer to that? And let’s try to say whatever conclusion you reach, it ought to be fact-based and not emotion-based. So Alex, what are some of the—and if you can, it’s kind of hard, but try to rank them if you can—what are the reasons that people have who oppose immigration? Why are their reasons so strong? What are the strong reasons? And then one at a time, we’ll see whether those reasons are grounded in rational analysis or just in emotion and in ignorance of the facts. So list them, address each of them, the two or three or four that come to mind. Address the reason and then speak to that reason.
Alex Nowrasteh: So I think the first one that people always say is that immigrants are going to take our jobs, lower our wages, and especially hurt the working poor. And the evidence for this is very poor. It doesn’t really exist. And the reason is, you know, immigrants increase the supply of labor, which is true. If you think of the supply and demand curve, it increases the supply of labor. But they also increase demand for labor because immigrants are people. They buy things. So the net effect of more immigration is actually to slightly increase demand for labor a little bit more than it increases supply, which means that we actually get slight wage increases as a result of having more immigration here. And it’s the same reason why countries that have a baby boom, you know, like the United States did after World War II, saw such large increases in wages and productivity as a result. Because more people are good for the economy. I mean, it seems so obvious to have to say it, but it’s true whether these people come from a natural increase from more births, and it’s true if it comes from more immigration. The economics are the same.
Bob Zadek: Now, one comment if I may just respond a bit. You used the phrase that I have a negative reaction to, and when I express my negative reaction, it doesn’t make people very happy. And you said, “They’re going to take my,” speaking as the person who opposes immigration, “they’re going to take my job.” The concept of “my job” is profoundly offensive. No, you don’t own a job. You have no contractual right to that job. If you did, people couldn’t take it away because you have a contract. So the concept of “my job”—you don’t have a right to that job anymore than if you are selling a used car for $5,000 and you have a buyer who is considering buying your car, and along comes another seller who has the exact same car who will offer your prospective buyer the same car for $4,500. That other seller is not taking your customer away. It’s not your customer. It’s only your customer if your customer says, “I’ll do business with you.” So no, it is not your job. It is only a job or any of those economic benefits of being here. It’s only yours if somebody is willing to hire you at the price you demand for the quality of work you’re going to give. So the whole concept of “taking my job” is a starting point.
And just one more comment on “my job.” A machine takes away a manual laborer’s job. Is that an argument against machinery, against efficiency, against robotics? Is that an argument against a combine? Because clearly a combine took away somebody’s job.
Alex Nowrasteh: Or a shovel, right? Or a shovel, or a pencil, or anything. I think you’re absolutely right. In order to believe the arguments that nativists use against immigration on the economy, you have to also be anti-technology because they’re the exact same argument. You know, I think about that story supposedly when Milton Friedman went to China and he saw a giant construction project and thousands upon thousands of laborers using shovels to dig a giant hole. And he asked the Chinese managers, “Why aren’t you using heavy equipment? Why aren’t you using bulldozers?” And they said, “Oh, well, we wanted to create more jobs for people.” And then Milton Friedman said, “Well, if you wanted to create more jobs, why don’t you give all the workers spoons instead of shovels?” You know, this type of attitude, this make-work bias that people have, is the reason why we have so many bad economic policies that we have today, including anti-immigration policies like these. So you’re 100% right, Bob. I couldn’t agree more.
Bob Zadek: Okay, so now we have the economic fear. And while the fear is justified, but the same could be expressed if you are working in an office and a recent college grad is able to do your job for entry-level workers. Do you want to forbid that college graduate from entering the workforce? He’s going to take away your job, and you had better lower what you demand or become better at your job. Okay, so so much for “take away my job” and so much for negative impact on the economy. It’s just not true. And if anybody takes a contrary position, the only request at least from me and from Alex is: support it by data of the same authenticity and quality as Alex’s data. Because Alex’s response is purely data-driven.
Crime and Public Safety [24:20]
Bob Zadek: Now, another—what’s another reason offered by those who oppose increasing the number of immigrants? What’s another reason in addition to or instead of fear of losing one’s job?
Alex Nowrasteh: A lot of people are worried about immigrants committing crime. They think that immigrants are more likely to commit crime than native-born Americans. They especially think illegal immigrants are. But this is one area where the evidence, going back as long as we’ve ever had crime statistics in this country, show that immigrants—legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, the both combined—are much less likely to be criminals than native-born Americans. They’re much less likely to commit property crimes than native-born Americans, much less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born Americans across the board. So which means that the more immigrants you have in your community, just mechanically because they’re less likely to commit crime, the lower crime rates these places have. And so this is something where, of course, there are individuals, right? There are always individuals in any large number of people, in any group, who are bad people who will commit a crime, and we should absolutely punish them to the fullest extent of the law and try to keep them from coming to the United States in the first place. But as a general rule and a general principle, statistically, immigrants, whether legal or illegal, are much less likely to commit real crimes than native-born Americans are.
The Welfare State Argument [25:40]
Bob Zadek: Now, I guess also there’s a fear—and Milton Friedman, who you quoted earlier in our broadcast, spoke to this issue—there is a fear or a suspicion that they—that offensive word, they—are coming here because we have a generous welfare policy and they are just coming here for free money.
Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah, and there’s really no evidence of this. So for one thing, we do have a large welfare state in the United States. But the way that these programs are structured is they’re very restrictive against new immigrants. So for instance, you have almost—you have very little access to these programs for the first five years that you are here in the United States legally. Very little, almost no access if you are here illegally. And even when you do have access, immigrants are much less likely to use these programs than native-born Americans. And when they do use these programs, use them generally for a shorter period of time and consume less money.
Now, I’m, you know, I’m opposed to the existence of the welfare state. I don’t think it should exist for anybody across the board. But if you want—if you’re worried about immigrants using welfare, then I think the only real solution is to build a higher wall around the welfare state instead of around the country. You know, make it illegal for anybody to use welfare until they become an American citizen, and you basically resolve almost all the concerns that people would have about immigrants coming here to use welfare. Furthermore, what we see is immigrants in the United States are less and less—they’re not going to the states anymore that have large welfare programs that even allow some immigrants to use. They’re much more likely to go to states now like Florida, like Texas, like Arizona, states that have smaller welfare states, welfare programs, and that make it more difficult for immigrants to use them. So some immigrants, of course, still go to California, New York, New Jersey, these other places. But compared to 20, 30, 40 years ago, as a percentage of all immigrants coming to the United States, these places are declining. And the places that are booming where immigrants want to go are the places that are governed, you know, much more so by Republicans, that have smaller welfare states, that don’t let immigrants get welfare as much. And that’s because immigrants aren’t coming here for welfare, Bob. They’re coming here for jobs. They’re coming here to work.
Political Impact and Government Growth [28:12]
Bob Zadek: And when Alex says they’re coming here to work, I just want to add one thought to that. They’re coming here to work, and therefore, yes, they are going to compete with native-born Americans or naturalized Americans for the same job. But what does competition mean? That means that this immigrant is determined to give you, the consumer, exactly what you want at a lower price. So competition should give you, you the listener, goosebumps. It means somebody has uprooted their life and done a dangerous, highly risky activity for the sole purpose of giving you exactly what you want at a lower price than you’re now paying. Because if they’re going to charge more, they’re not going to be hired. What can be better than somebody having the determination to give you, the listener, what you want at a lower price than you’re now paying? That’s what competition means.
Alex Nowrasteh: And it’s—and it’s a great benefit, Bob. You know, we’re all—you know, most of us are workers, but we are 100% of us all consumers. And we are just made so much better off by having people around the world trying to sell us goods and services in the most efficient way possible, competing with each other, competing with us. This is how capitalism flourishes and leads to better results.
Bob Zadek: Now, there is also a fear that they are coming here to vote out our system of government. They are coming here with socialist—whatever that means to the person thinking it—they are coming here with a plan, an insidious plan to upset our political system. And they, once they—they—achieve the right to vote and sufficient numbers, they will vote us out from our entire system of government. Now, that seems absurdly irrational, but for me to just give a label is not persuasive argument. But on the merits, on the factual merits, speak to that issue: that they are here to undo our system of government so that it’ll be unrecognizable once they achieve a substantial voting block.
Alex Nowrasteh: So I’m glad you brought that up. That’s actually basically the topic of my book with Ben Powell, Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions, published by Cambridge University Press. We took a look at this topic in the United States and around the world to see if there is any kind of relationship between more immigration and more socialist or big government policies. And we find that there’s either no relationship at all, and in some cases, more immigration leads to more economic freedom, more representative government, more prosperity along the lines that libertarians believe in and want.
There are, you know, there’s just this pernicious stereotype in our literature that immigrants vote for socialists, but it’s just not true. You see it, I think, a lot in the 2020 election. You saw a swing of a lot of Hispanic voters in favor of President Donald Trump and a large swing in terms of immigrant voters, you know, the immigrants themselves who are naturalized and able to vote, swinging toward President Donald Trump. But you also see it around the world in places from Israel, Jordan, in Europe and other places. Like, more immigration is generally correlated with more economic freedom.
Historically, in the United States, the government has grown the most and the fastest when immigration was the most closed, which was during the period of time from about 1930 to 1970. The size of government during that time increased the most historically when immigration was closed. Time periods since then, since 1970 and before 1930, the government has grown much more slowly in both of those time periods when immigration was more open. So the folks who are making this argument, the correlations aren’t even going in their direction historically in the United States and even today on the state level. States with more immigration are not growing—the governments in those states are not growing more quickly than states and governments in states with less immigration. It’s simply this myth, and it’s a pernicious myth, and it’s one that unfortunately makes a lot of my Republican and conservative friends against immigration when they otherwise wouldn’t be.
Cultural Assimilation and the “Stew” of America [33:22]
Bob Zadek: Now, the—I guess the last first-tier objection, it almost doesn’t deserve any airtime, but we’re going to give it a bit. And that is the cultural fear that somehow the image of the yeoman farmer holding a pitchfork with OshKosh B’Gosh overalls, the traditional American values, apple pie and not sushi and whatever—it’s the loss of culture, the loss of who we are. That’s a very strong feeling. The reason I denigrate it, but I’ll ask you to speak to it, is because it’s all emotional. There’s—I’ll start with, Alex, because I respect the man so much, I’ll start with introduce this topic, a quote which of course you and I are both aware of, from President Reagan. And I’m going to quote President Reagan to introduce this topic of fear of loss of culture. President Reagan said, and I’ll quote: “You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.”
Now, that ought to say it all, Alex, but just speak to this fear. And it’s very hard to speak to something which is hard to quantify and it’s so driven by just fear of the unknown, comfort in the known. So just speak to that fear only because it seems to drive a lot of people.
Alex Nowrasteh: So a lot of economists have spent a lot of time thinking about how you measure something like this, a measure of cultural assimilation. And so they’ve narrowed it down to whether an immigrant or their kids are sort of indistinguishable from other Americans based on some measures. And these measures are, you know, size of family, religiosity—which doesn’t mean the specific religion you believe in, but whether you go to church, attend services, etc.—the education level, civic participation like voting, joining the military, rates of things like that, and income. And generally what we find is that immigrants and their kids assimilate on average by the third generation. The third generation are the grandkids of the immigrants themselves are generally indistinguishable from all other Americans who have been here for a longer period of time along those metrics.
Now, that’s an average. That means that a lot of immigrants in the first generation itself, the immigrants themselves who moved here, are indistinguishable from Americans on a lot of those metrics. Um, and in some ways are, you know, much, much better in terms of some ways, like crime, for instance. Like Americans commit a lot of crime. The sad thing is immigrants assimilate so much that their kids and grandkids start to commit more crime like the rest of us. They assimilate in terms of crime, which is a bad thing, right? Like, I wish they didn’t assimilate in terms of crime. But in terms of everything, this is how powerful the United States is as a cultural force in the world. And when you’re living here, it is so full and so complete that sociologists call the United States a graveyard of languages. Because millions of people used to live here who spoke German, who spoke Yiddish, who spoke Hungarian, who spoke Polish—all languages that are basically dead in the United States. And in the next 50 to 100 years, languages like Mandarin, like Urdu, and even I would venture languages like Spanish—if it weren’t for more immigration coming in, these languages would be practically dead too. Because immigrants today and their kids are learning English at such an astonishing rate and forgetting the languages that they came with, that the United States will—the graveyard of languages in the United States will grow.
Bob Zadek: And thank you for that. The importance of your response, Alex, is that it’s fact-based. You, you and other scholars have not just said, “Well, this is my opinion and you’re stuck with it.” You have—what you have just said is the result of the very best scientific analysis possible. So it’s not like you started with the conclusion and were determined to prove it’s right, but this was what the data shows us.
Alex Nowrasteh: Yeah, and that’s absolutely true. I mean, and one of my favorite aspects of this, right, is the stuff that I’m continually learning. So there’s this great research called ethnic attrition. And what this means is the sort of intermarriage of ethnic minorities who are the kids of immigrants or the immigrants themselves marrying outside of their racial or ethnic group. The kids are much less likely to identify as that racial minority. And that’s a big reason why there’s so much assimilation, especially amongst Hispanic immigrants. And it’s something that I learned something about myself and my family, because my father’s side are all Iranians, my mother’s side are all Europeans. And I have always identified on surveys and everywhere else as a white European background. And it’s not, you know, and it never mattered to me. It’s not like an important part of my identity, right? But I always checked that box and never, ever thought about it. And it turns out there’s tens of millions of other Americans today who are just like that, who’ve never thought about it. And it’s just because of the way that this country, through intermarriage, through assimilation, through the power of our culture, turns us all into Americans. And it’s continually doing that even today.
Bob Zadek: Now, I have just one additional comment on the issue of assimilation and of fear of loss of the American culture, which is absurd because the American culture by definition has as its component assimilation. It is the mix of everybody. It started off being zero. It wasn’t any. American culture is the result of a mixture. It’s the stew. That’s what American culture is. And the fact if the stew has a little more carrots and a little less potatoes and a little more meat, it’s still stew. And stew is the American culture.
Just one thought, one observation which I’ll just share with our listeners. We have in this country a large—I don’t know how large—but there are the Amish, who live totally separate. They live in the Midwest. They have their culture. They are nothing, Alex, like you and I, nothing at all. As foreign as foreign can be. Does any one listener to this show feel that they represent an existential threat to America, the Amish? And if you—before you answer that, I’ll ask the same question about the numerous Chinatowns and Japantowns that exist around the country, and the Little Italys that exist around the country. And what about the Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and in other places in New York? Does anybody feel threatened, like somehow America is diminished by the fact that there is a Little Italy? And that represents as extreme as non-assimilation gets. And so does the Amish. If you want to know what the extreme non-assimilation looks like, go to Amish country, buy a pretzel, and come home. And you will be happy for the experience, be happy that they’re there, and hardly feel that the musket has to come out of the barn because they’re taking over.
Alex Nowrasteh: And my favorite example, Bob, if I could add one great example, is the fundamentalist Latter-day Saints. It’s the Mormons who did not agree with the Church of Latter-day Saints turning against polygamy and some of their other more modern rulings. So they live in the desert, a lot of them in the Arizona Strip, which is that portion of Arizona north of the Grand Canyon that’s separated from the rest of the state, isolated. They practice polygamy, they live in collectivist organizations, they live off the grid. They have certainly not assimilated to American culture I think in almost any way, right? They’re like the Amish, they’re so separate. I don’t mind it. I don’t think that’s an existential threat to America either.
The Current Border Crisis and Biden’s Policy [43:00]
Bob Zadek: Now, to bring this all to the “news we can use” part of the show, we have today the border, a mess. Finally, Joe Biden has declared it to be a crisis. He swallowed the Kool-Aid and agreed it is a crisis. So, regretfully as we always do, you and I, when we spend time on the air, we always find ourselves up against the clock. So tell us: what is the present crisis? What caused it, and what is the solution? Because your book addresses the very issue which you will identify as the source of the crisis.
Alex Nowrasteh: So the fundamental source of this crisis—and we have had border crises in 2014, 2018 and ‘19, and now again today—and the fundamental problem is there are people in Central America who want to come to the United States. There are Americans who want to hire them. These people from Central America can have incomes of three to six times higher coming here, but there are no visas available for them. There is no way for them to come lawfully. So what they do is they come up to the U.S. border, they try to enter unlawfully, or they try to enter on asylum. A lot of them have legitimate asylum claims, but some of them are lying, right? Because they want to get into the country to work. And they try to game the system to come in. And this has produced a crisis along the border. It happens every couple of years. The government tries to solve it by using strict enforcement, and it works for a few years here and there, but it always comes back because the black market always wins in the long run. And that is the fundamental source of the problem: there are just no visas available for these people. Americans want to hire them, so they’re going to try to come in. And that is what is going on along this border. It is nothing more complicated than that.
Bob Zadek: Now, of course, that—Biden wants to—and I can’t believe I’m going to say this—he wants to, among other plans, pay these would-be illegal immigrants to stay where they are. So let me get this straight. He wants to use tax dollars, net outflow, to prevent people from coming here and providing a net inflow to the economy. It’s like paying a factory not to produce. It’s like paying a farmer not to grow the crop. How—I have to have my head examined for even saying the words “paying somebody not to come here.” And before you respond, Alex, you mentioned they want to come here to work. They want to come here to buy stuff. They want to come here to rent a house and to buy a house. They want to come here to purchase appliances. They want to come here to contribute to the economy, to pay into my Social Security. So they want to come here to do all of that, and we’re going to pay them, “Please, we’ll pay you whatever you want, do not provide us with a benefit. Don’t you dare.”
Alex Nowrasteh: And it really is, yeah, they want to do all those things. And the good thing about the Biden plan is it wouldn’t work. What it would probably do, actually, is cause more of these people to come. Because one of the things is a lot of these folks find they have to pay smugglers to come up to the U.S. border. In order to pay a smuggler, they have to borrow money, usually $5,000 to $10,000. So if the U.S. government is handing them money saying, “Don’t come,” what that will probably do is just cause a lot of them to be able to pay a smuggler to bring them up to the United States. So it won’t even succeed on Biden’s own standards, right?
And there’s actually a ton of development work on this by development economists, which is people leave their home countries up until the point where their country—where they’re making about $10,000 a year purchasing power parity in income. And after they make $10,000, it starts to decline. But as the income goes up to $10,000, more and more of them are able to come. So if sending these countries money increases their income—because these countries’ income is like $5,000 to $7,000 a year—if Biden’s plan were to work, it would actually result in more immigration by accident. So it’s just another example of unintended consequences. It’s really crazy. You know, it’s like the government—every problem to the government can be solved by burning billions of dollars of taxpayer money. But in this one, just another situation where that problem will actually—you know, I don’t think it’s a problem that people are trying to come here, but the problem that they think exists that they are trying to solve will actually be made worse by Biden’s plan.
Bob Zadek: So just like prohibition was a wealth transfer into organized crime from the government, paying immigrants not to come here is a wealth transfer from the Biden administration to the cartels who smuggle in immigrants.
Market-Based Immigration Limits [48:11]
Bob Zadek: Now, in our last topic, we only have a couple of minutes. You and I both warmly embrace as a general principle: let them all in. Now, that’s a starting point. Now, it gets nuanced, but that’s where you and I start. Now, the hard question, Alex: can that be practiced to such an extreme that there is a net detriment to the country? Is there some theoretical or actual or calculable number of people beyond which if they come in, our country is worse off than before? Putting aside, by the way, the issue we don’t have time for, which is even if there is, those immigrants still, as you and I recognize, the right to freely travel. And we would say even with a net detriment, that it’s not necessarily an argument against letting them in. I’m putting aside that argument we don’t have time for; it’s a moral argument. But I’m asking you statistically—we have about a minute to discuss this—is there a cap where even you would say we have to stop open immigration?
Alex Nowrasteh: Well, the market regulates that. If there are no more jobs available in the United States, if the economy is doing poorly, if land prices are so high because so many immigrants are here buying up the real estate that it doesn’t make sense to come to this country anymore, then people won’t come anymore. So it’s like the rest of the economy, right? It’s like asking the question: is there a theoretical amount of steel that can be produced after which it’s bad for the economy? I’d be like, “Yes, absolutely.” But that theoretical point is determined by the market and determined by prices and determined by supply and demand. It cannot be determined by bureaucrats or politicians. So I would say to you, Bob, you know, there probably is a theoretical limit. But whatever that limit is, the government will not ever be able to identify it, will not ever be able to enforce it, but it will be identified and enforced by the free economy, by capitalism, by supply and demand. And that, I think, is one of the most powerful arguments in favor of having a laissez-faire immigration system: that that means that we actually get the numbers right because we take it out of the hands of the government.
Bob Zadek: And my last comment on that—only last because we’re running out of time—is that that actually happened a few years ago, as I recall, when we had a bit of an economic recession and there weren’t so many jobs. Immigration naturally just stopped. It was almost this magic marketplace. We stopped immigration by having our economy temporarily in the toilet. And that sent out a signal, and it was pretty gosh-darn efficient that immigration stopped because of the absence of jobs. So you’re exactly right. It’s that invisible hand of the market that operates even cross-border.
This is Bob Zadek. We’ve been speaking to Alex Nowrasteh. He’s the Director of Immigration Studies at Cato, and he has written a very important book, Wretched Refuse, discussing immigration. He wrote the book with Ben Powell. Follow Alex at Cato. Alex, what’s quickly, how do they follow you? We have about 30 seconds left at Cato.
Alex Nowrasteh: Go on Twitter and it’s @AlexNowrasteh, or go on Cato, it’s cato.org. That’s cato.org.
Bob Zadek: Alex, once again, thank you so much for giving us an hour of your time. Congratulations on your new addition to your family. And we didn’t have time to post how people can send you baby gifts; we’ll do that next time. So Alex, thanks so much. Enjoy the rest of Sunday. And to my friends out there, enjoy the rest of your weekend. Alex, thank you so much for your time.
Alex Nowrasteh: Thanks, Bob.