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Alex Nowrasteh

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Alex Nowrasteh is an immigration policy specialist at the Cato Institute and a frequent guest on The Bob Zadek Show. Across appearances spanning roughly a decade, he and host Bob Zadek argued for open immigration on both economic and moral grounds, and treated restrictionist arguments as factually unsupported.

On the show

8 appearances, 2013–2023.

Their books discussed on the show

First appearance and the case for open borders

Nowrasteh appeared on the 2013 episode “Let Them All In,” where Zadek framed the discussion around the position that a policy that “lets them all in” is the only policy that makes any sense whatever. Zadek described the arguments for closing the border as bankrupt and vacuous, and asked Nowrasteh to enumerate the arguments raised by supporters of a more restrictive immigration policy. Nowrasteh began by naming the claim that immigrants are going to destroy our culture when they come in here, and was about to list another argument when Zadek paused him to take the arguments one at a time. Zadek responded that American culture is an accumulation of cultures and that the notion of a purely WASP-type American culture is absurd. Let Them All In (2013)

The “which part” framing

In the 2016 episode on Proposition 187, Zadek introduced a question he would return to in later appearances: when someone opposes “illegal immigrants,” which part of that are they opposed to — the illegal part or the immigrant part? He posed the hypothetical of a law returning the country to the 1880s, under which there would be no such thing as an illegal immigrant, and asked whether opponents would then be done with the issue. Zadek said the answer is invariably that they would not be, concluding that opposition to illegal immigration is far more on the immigrant part and far less on the illegal part. He introduced Nowrasteh as an immigration policy specialist with the Cato Institute, noting that Nowrasteh was one of his very first guests, perhaps nine years earlier, and had been a frequent commentator since. Alex Nowrasteh: How Prop. 187 Turned California Blue (2016)

Zadek repeated the framing in the 2019 episode, opening by saying he hates illegal immigration and despises it, then asking which of the two words — “illegal” or “immigration” — a person opposes. He posed the hypothetical that if the law were changed so that all or almost all immigration was made legal, whether opponents of illegal immigration would then be placated and content, and said he feared not. He introduced Nowrasteh as an immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, citing his appearances in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, and Boston Globe, and noting that Nowrasteh had pushed around Tucker Carlson on Tucker Carlson’s own show. What Part of Illegal Immigration Are You Against? Alex Nowrasteh Returns (2019)

Economic effects

Asked about the economic effect of immigration, Nowrasteh said immigrants make up about 13.5% of the U.S. population and about 16% of the workforce, and that they boost GDP by somewhere around 12 to 15%. He said the only point of disagreement among economists is the effect on wages of native-born Americans. He cited George Borjas of Harvard University, whom he called probably the most skeptical economist of the benefits of immigration, finding that from 1990 to 2010 roughly 30 million immigrants lowered wages of native-born high school dropouts by about 1.7% but raised the wages of every other group of Americans by about 1% or so overall. He contrasted economists Giovanni Peri and Gianmarco Ottaviano, who found that over that entire time period immigrants raised the wages of native-born Americans by about six-tenths of 1%. Nowrasteh characterized the Borjas finding as the worst finding in the entire academic peer-reviewed literature, and said it is outweighed by wage benefits to other native-born Americans. What Part of Illegal Immigration Are You Against? Alex Nowrasteh Returns (2019)

Crime and terrorism

Zadek asked Nowrasteh to dispel what he called the nonsense that immigrants commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Nowrasteh said the foreign-born population is, as a percentage of their population, less than half as likely to be incarcerated as native-born Americans. Addressing the claim that illegal immigrants are more likely to be criminals, he said Texas counts conviction and incarceration rates by immigration status, and that illegal immigrants are about half as likely to be convicted of a crime as native-born Americans, while legal immigrants are about 70% less likely. He said the overwhelming amount of evidence going back over a century shows immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated, convicted, arrested, and jailed than native-born Americans. He attributed the popular myth partly to media treatment, citing the murders of Mollie Tibbetts in Iowa and Kate Steinle in San Francisco in 2015, and said the vast majority of victims of illegal immigrant crime are other illegal immigrants. What Part of Illegal Immigration Are You Against? Alex Nowrasteh Returns (2019)

On terrorism, Nowrasteh said the annual chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil committed by a foreign-born person is 1 in 3.8 million per year from 1975 through the end of 2017, compared with an annual chance of about 1 in 14,000 of being murdered in a homicide during that period. He advised listeners to calm down about it and view it as the very small risk that it is. What Part of Illegal Immigration Are You Against? Alex Nowrasteh Returns (2019)

Keyhole solutions

Nowrasteh described “keyhole solutions” as small, targeted fixes to specific problems of immigration, comparing them to keyhole surgery — less invasive, less likely to lead to death, and a lower-cost way of achieving the really good outcome. He said conservative friends accept such arguments on gun control, where they propose restrictions on violent felons and the mentally ill rather than banning all firearms, and said he wants them to embrace those types of solutions when looking at immigration. Zadek connected this to bedrock constitutional law, arguing that even if open borders had a negative effect, the least intrusive means of addressing the problem should be used rather than closing the border. What Part of Illegal Immigration Are You Against? Alex Nowrasteh Returns (2019)

Across episodes

The same question — whether opposition to “illegal immigration” is really opposition to immigration — is argued in the 2016, 2019, and 2023 episodes, with Zadek advancing the framing each time and Nowrasteh supplying the factual case. The 2023 episode introduces the “legalism fallacy” and the historical roots of American immigration law, and notes Nowrasteh’s co-authorship of Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions, but the episodes show no development in the underlying argument across the appearances. American anxiety about immigration is unwarranted. Here’s why. (2023)

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