Open Borders or Racism: a False Dichotomy

27 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by Nuetzel in Immigration, racism

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Amnesty, Barack Obama, DACA, Disparate impact, Dog Whistles, Donald Trump, Dreamers, Eugenics, ICE, James Taranto, Jim Crow Laws, Mark Steyn, Minimum Wage, Open Borders, Path to Citizenship, Protected Class, Public Aid, racism, Taxpayer Sovereignty

What are you, a racist? To avoid that charge, apparently you must support fully open borders with absolutely no restrictions on crossings. The basis of that bizarre claim is that most immigrants are not of the ethnic majority, or rather most illegal immigrants are not of the ethnic majority. Thus, if you favor border controls of any kind, you must hate ethnic minorities. You are a racist! This hasty generalization is commonly made by reactionary minions of the Left, and it is standard rhetoric of leftist propaganda.

As many have noted, the U.S. benefitted for many years from a relatively liberal immigration regime, but policy became increasingly restrictive over a period of six or seven decades starting in the 1870s, sometimes in ways that were racially motivated. A few reforms began to take place in the 1940s, though various quotas remained a fixture. More recently, the threat of terrorism prompted restrictions, and the large population of illegal immigrants in the country, including immigrant children, stimulated debate over deportation vs. a path to citizenship.

Disparate Impacts

A real outcome of border controls takes the form of a “disparate impact”, a phenomenon prominent in areas of the law such as employment, fair lending, and fair housing. For example, standards like degree requirements or minimum credit scores tend to disqualify minority or “protected class” applicants disproportionately. Those standards, however, are not targeted explicitly at any class of individuals. Likewise, minorities represent a disproportionate share of those disqualified under immigration quotas. And minorities represent a vastly disproportionate share of illegal entrants apprehended by ICE because, as a practical matter, most border controls are targeted at country of origin, but not at specific minorities. Almost all illegal U.S. immigrants are members of populations that are ethnic minorities within the U.S. The top 10 countries of birth for all U.S. immigrants also have predominantly Hispanic or Asian population. These countries accounted for roughly 57% of legal immigrants in 2017.

The courts have generally ruled that business standards having a disparate impact are defensible based on business necessity and the absence of effective alternatives having less disparate impact. So the issue here is whether border controls meet a compelling need having nothing to do with racial or ethnic preferences, and whether any adverse impact on protected classes can be minimized.

The simple fact is that most Americans opposing illegal immigration simply want those entrants to go through a liberalized legal process, which would of course reduce the disparate impact of tight border controls. So the worst that can be said about a preference for legal over illegal immigration is that it might have a disparate impact on prospective minority entrants, and that is uncertain under a liberalized regime of legal immigration. This preference is not racist, and it is not racist to demand that all entrants be vetted and identified, whether you believe it is economically sensible or that immigrants are more or less likely to engage in criminal or even terrorist activity.

Public Resources

Again, there are strong rationales for controlling immigration and enforcing the border that have nothing to do with racial preference. Borders are a critical aspect of national sovereignty, of course, including taxpayer sovereignty. There is no question that large numbers of immigrants strain scarce public resources in a variety of ways including public aid, education, law enforcement, housing, and other public services. In fact, the mere existence of aid programs provides incentives that encourage immigration, especially as activists push for broader accessibility of program benefits. The consequent strain on public resources escalates costs to taxpayers and compromises the quality of public programs for the qualified citizen-beneficiaries for whom they are intended. There is nothing racist about asserting that those strains should be minimized for the benefit of taxpayers and beneficiaries. Indeed, a recent poll found that a majority of Hispanics favor controls on immigration, including a border wall.

A further consequence is that citizens might perceive an unhealthy opportunism or exploitation by illegal immigrants availing themselves of what might seem like very generous public benefits. Rightly or wrongly, that perception tends to encourage forms of “otherism”. This is an example of how public policy can undermine social cohesion and the successful assimilation of immigrants.

The Labor Force

In general, immigration is a positive economic force. At a macro level, it supplements the growth of the labor force, traditionally a major driver of output gains. At the more fundamental micro level, it represents a movement of productive resources in response to incentives guiding them to higher-valued uses. The most productive workers tend to migrate away from low-wage economies toward high-wage economies. Again, however, low-productivity workers are attracted by the bundle of public benefits available, including our minimum wage laws. Those immigrants do not contribute to output gains at all if their productivity is less than the minimum wage. They will, however, attempt to compete for jobs at the minimum wage or even below that wage if their employers are willing to cheat.

Obviously, the legal minimum wage does not adjust to market conditions such as excess supplies of labor. The development of such a surplus would mean unemployment, including job losses among low-skilled legal residents. That is unfortunate not just for those losing jobs, but because these effects create more fertile ground for racism among both groups. This is another example of how public policy can create barriers to social cohesion.

So Who’s a Racist, Anyway?

Those casting aspersions of racism are often guilty of of losing historical perspective, and sometimes worse. A recent example is the refusal of democrats to deal with “the racist” Trump on the DACA bill he proposed in early 2018. That bill would have offered amnesty and a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, individuals who arrived in the U.S. as undocumented child immigrants. How easy it is for progressives to forget that President Obama dithered away four years during which he could have proposed legislation to end the prosecution of Dreamers.

A more cogent example of selective memory among progressives is the history of the Democrat Party as one of racism, Jim Crow, and eugenics. The contention that the Republican Party has a history of racism is categorically false. We constantly hear that Republicans are guilty of using “dog whistles” to appeal to racist sentiment, but Mark Steyn provides a marvelous quote of James Taranto in which he gets at the truth of these divisive claims: “… if you can hear the whistle, you’re the dog.” There is great truth in that statement.

No one should forget that immigrants attempting to enter the country illegally are exposed to real dangers, and it should be discouraged. Natural conditions are harsh along the southern U.S. border, and many of those wishing to cross must contract for the services of guides who are often dangerous and untrustworthy. The risks for families and children should not be trivialized by those who would encourage massive flows of illegal entrants as a tool of policy change.

Border security is important to Americans because of the risks inherent in an uncontrolled border. These risks span national security, drug policy, taxpayer sovereignty, and other economic concerns. While racists might hate most immigrants, opposition to illegal immigration is often paired with support for liberalized legal immigration. That fact does not square with accusations of racism. Perhaps most importantly, encouraging an uncontrolled flow of immigrants in defiance of existing law creates harsh risks for the immigrants themselves, and especially the children who become innocent human collateral in the process. That the same shortsighted individuals who encourage such flows make a blanket charge of racism against those who demand a more rational and even liberalized process is grotesque and an affront to decency.

Human Potential Exceeds the Human Burden

30 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by Nuetzel in Abortion, Mobility, Redistribution

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Abortion, Border Control, central planning, dependency, Economic Burden, Economic Freedom, Eugenics, Human Footprint, Human Ingenuity, Immigration, Left Tail, Margaret Sanger, Open Borders, Planned Parenthood, Population Control, Private charity, Public Safety Net

Are human beings a burden, and in what way? Between two camps of opinion on this question are many shades of thought, and some inconsistencies. But whether the discussion is centered on the macro-societal level or the family level, the view of people and population growth as burdensome promotes centralized social control and authoritarian rule, with an attendant imposition of burdens on human freedom and productive effort.

Naysaying Greens

The environmental Left views people as a net burden on resources while failing to recognize their resource value, without which our world would yield little in the way of food and other comforts. It is mankind’s ability to process and transform raw materials that makes the planet so hospitable.

The world’s human population has increased by a factor of 18 times in the last 400 years, but food supplies have grown even faster. Each person has potential as a resource capable of a net positive contribution to societal and global well being. If we wrongly conclude that people are burdensome, however, it offers a rationale to statists for regulating the lives of individuals, preventing them from producing and consuming as they would otherwise choose.

Sirens of Dependency

There will always be individuals who cannot provide for themselves, sometimes due to temporary circumstances and sometimes as a permanent condition. If the latter, these individuals find themselves in the lower tail of the distribution of human productive capacity. The undeniable burden of this lower tail for humanity can be dealt with through various social support structures, including family, religious organizations, private social organizations, and the public safety net.

People of true compassion have always helped to fill this need privately and voluntarily, but “compassionate” motives can be a false and corrupting when the public sector becomes the tool of choice. Actual and potential beneficiaries of public largess can vote for their alms at the expense of others, along with those well-meaning partisans who confuse forced redistribution with compassion. And benefits and taxes often create disincentives that undermine a society’s productive dynamic. Under such circumstances, the lower tail and its burden of dependency grows larger than necessary, and society’s ability to carry that burden is diminished.

Burdensome Children

Children are unable to provide for themselves up to varying ages, so they do create an economic burden for their parents. That burden might loom large in the event of an unexpected pregnancy, but most parents find the burden well worth bearing, whether planned or unplanned, ex ante and ex post, and for reasons that often have little to do with material concerns. But many individuals and families in the lower tail simply cannot bear the economic burden on their own; others not in the lower tail might simply find the prospective burden of an unexpected pregnancy a bit too heavy or inconvenient for non-economic reasons.

Solutions are available, of course. They range from sexual abstinence and prophylactics to adoption services, as well as hard sacrifice by new parents. And then there is abortion. The pro-choice Left makes the argument that children are so burdensome as to justify the termination of pregnancies at almost any stage. The ease with which they make that argument and traffic in the imposition of that burden upon the innocent is horrific. Furthermore, regimes dominated by the Left have often instituted formal population control measures, and Western leftists such as the late Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, have advocated strenuously for eugenics.

Burdens at the Border

Are migrants a burden or a blessing? In general, the latter, because mobility allows individuals to exploit economic opportunities, with consequent gains to themselves and to those who demand their services. This is generally true from the perspective of nations; it is the basis of the traditional economic argument in favor of liberalized, legal immigration to which I subscribe. But some partisans on both sides of the immigration debate accept the idea that immigrants impose a burden. That may be correct under some circumstances.

Opponents of immigration reform certainly identify immigrants as a burden to productive citizens and taxpayers. Critics of border control, on the other hand, are motivated by compassion for political refugees or economically disadvantaged immigrants, whether employment opportunities exist for them or not. In fact, would-be immigrants are often attracted by generous public benefits in the receiving country, and so they are likely to add to a country’s lower-tail burden, as I’ve described it. But the no-borders crowd insists that society must shoulder any burden created by the combined effect of an open border with generous public benefits, and even immediate voting rights.

The Burdens of Overbearance

The Left imagines that people create many burdens, but the Left is happy to impose many burdens in pursuit of their “ideal” society: planned by experts, egalitarian, highly regulated, profit-free, and green. They wish to “save the planet” by imposing burdens, regulating and restricting economic growth and sparing no expense to minimize the human “footprint”. They wish to fund redistributive social programs by burdening productive resources with taxes, while crowding-out private efforts to provide charitable relief. They wish to prevent the perceived burden of children by offering, and even funding publicly, the “choice” to impose an ultimate burden on those too weak to register a protest. And they wish to burden taxpayers by availing all potential migrants, without question, of generous public benefits.

Burdens are a fact of life, but people with the freedom to exploit their own effort and ingenuity for gain have increasingly shouldered their own burdens and much more. Over the last few centuries, human ingenuity has expanded the effective quantity of all resources by many orders of magnitude. In so doing, the scale and scope of real poverty have been reduced dramatically. But those who would deign to manage our burdens for us, under the authority of the state, are more threatening to our well being than beneficent.

Economic Freedom and Mobility Reduce Poverty; Alms Are Impotent

02 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by Nuetzel in Free markets, Immigration, Property Rights

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Direct Aid, Direct Assistance, Economic Freedom, Growth Accelerations, Immigration Quotas, Labor Markets, Labor Mobility, Lant Pritchard, Migration, Open Borders, Poverty Reduction, Property Rights

It’s very difficult to lift people out of poverty via redistribution or philanthropy. Small gains in income can be expected at best, but there are far more powerful ways to improve well being. These have to do with expanding the fundamental freedoms, rights and rewards available to private individuals. Harvard’s Lant Pritchard divides these efforts into two broad categories: policies that improve labor mobility, and those that lead to gains in-place via economic growth. His working paper, “Alleviating Global Poverty: Labor Mobility, Direct Assistance, and Economic Growth”, is available here.

Economic Benefits of Migration

Pritchard first explains that the freedom to migrate across borders in pursuit of economic opportunity allows workers from low-productivity countries to contribute much greater output in high productivity countries. In so doing, the workers gain far more than can be practically accomplished via direct aid, and according to Pritchard, at zero or little cost. So granting this freedom is a much more effective anti-poverty measure than aid payments.

Pritchard seems to imply that this is a persuasive economic argument for open borders. On that question, I take the position that countries are sovereign entities and that their citizens possess the right to determine the extent of immigration flows. And in fact, there are real costs of immigration flows that must be considered. Pritchard’s paper offers a powerful rationale for liberalizing immigration quotas, but here again, he dismisses certain issues that limit even that more narrow argument.

The prospective economic gains of the immigrants themselves are important, of course, but the economic needs of the destination country matter too. In the U.S., employers in many markets face a shortage of low-skilled labor, so immigration quotas bind on those markets. Making them less binding would certainly encourage economic growth. A greater influx of younger workers from abroad would also help America weather its demographic crisis, narrowing the shortfall in funding entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Unfortunately, to those who do not already recognize these needs, Pritchard’s contribution is likely to carry little weight.

Still, Pritchard’s assertion that the cost of liberalized immigration is zero needs further examination. First, there are the very real costs of vetting and processing new immigrants. Second, unless all immigrants and employers are matched ex ante, which is virtually impossible, there will be adjustment costs that continue at least until the matching is complete. In the interim, and even post-employment, new immigrants might well require public aid to support themselves and their families. It is also quite likely that new tax revenue generated by immigrants will be insufficient to pay the full incremental costs of public resources consumed in providing marginal infrastructure, education, and other public subsidies.

Pritchard employs static calculations of the net benefits to be gained through greater labor mobility “at the margin”, but as the absorption of new immigrants into the workforce takes place, excess demands for low-skilled workers may turn into excess supplies, creating downward pressure on wages. In the presence of a minimum wage, that implies unemployment and a probable drain on public resources. So the source of the benefits discussed by Pritchard should not be viewed as limitless. He offers some mild rebuttals of this point and references one of his own papers in so doing, but the possibility cannot and should not be dismissed.

Economic Benefits of Economic Freedom

Pritchard’ second major point of emphasis involves the effectiveness of different kinds of private and public direct assistance, or “treatments”, in producing income gains over time. He offers evidence that the gains are relatively weak. He contrasts this with the potential gains from “growth accelerations” stemming from a variety of causes. The upside of a normal business cycle is one form, but that doesn’t really count if the gains are lost on the downside.

The most profound form of growth acceleration occurs upon the advent of a liberalized social order. This may accompany the downfall of an authoritarian government, the stabilization of a formerly unsound monetary regime, or as more sophisticated market institutions take hold in a formerly primitive economy. The main point is that there are fundamental social underpinnings of growth. These are the many dimensions of economic freedom: secure property rights, freedom of contract, minimal regulatory interference, low taxes, and competitive markets for goods and capital. These conditions are so straightforward that in developed economies we take many of them for granted, through they are threatened even there. But these conditions are sadly lacking in much of the under-developed world.

Conclusion

Allowing workers to migrate freely in search of the best opportunities is undoubtedly more powerful in improving their welfare than any form of direct assistance. That is a fundamental truth put forward by Lant Pritchard. However, in-migration can come with significant costs for the destination country. Therefore, immigration laws should allow sufficient flexibility with respect to flows to enable the capture of economic gains from immigration when they exist. Pritchard also emphasizes that economic freedom and the growth acceleration it makes possible do far more to reduce poverty than massive private and public efforts at direct assistance, however well-intentioned. Several earlier posts on Sacred Cow Chips have highlighted the impotency of redistribution for eliminating poverty. The Left has a tendency to dismiss such views as mere ideological assertion, but it is much more than that: it is the difference between penury and prosperity.

In Praise of Refugee Aid and Precautions

23 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by Nuetzel in Immigration, Terrorism

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Davis Bier, Director of National Intelligence, Foundation for Economic Education, Glenn Reynolds, Homeland Security, Ian Tuttle, ISIS, James Comey, National Counterterrorism Center, National Security, National Sovereignty, Open Borders, Paris Attacks, Pew Research, Private Refugee Sponsorship, Refugee Vetting Process, Syrian refugees, Terrorism, Virtue Signalling

Libertarians differ from conservatives on the Syrian refugee issue and on immigration policy in general. I’m in favor of liberalized immigration because it confers powerful economic advantages. That does not imply, however, a willingness to sacrifice border security and control over the flow of immigrants. Border security is critical to the notion of U.S. sovereignty, and though I am loath to do so, I will credit Donald Trump for asking two pertinent questions: “Do we have a country? Or do we not have a country?” This is all the more important in an age when terror on the scale of a 9/11, Paris, or terrorist use of WMDs is a threat.

One of the few legitimate functions of government is national security, and the U.S. Constitution sought to assure that security would be provided without compromising the liberties of individual citizens. I’d like outsiders to feel welcome to join us and partake of those liberties, but only subject to precautions related to security. Given current threats, it is reasonable to insist on deliberation and caution in admitting new immigrants and refugees. That should include a careful vetting process and possibly post-entry safeguards such as mandatory touch-points with immigration and security officials.

Recent commentary on both sides of the Syrian refugee debate has featured conservatives waxing enthusiastic over police-state security measures and cavalier dismissal of security concerns by the Left, including a moment of apparent delusion from The Daily Kos when it weighed-in on refugees and certain principles of religious ethics, probably not that outlet’s strong suit. The Left’s usual approach to commentary on social media amounts to an exercise in “virtue signaling” (HT: Glenn Reynolds) without much critical thought, and this is no exception.

Refugees or asylum-seekers may need expedited initial handling for their own safety and protection. The tumultuous experience of fleeing a hostile regime without adequate planning, and possibly involving the loss of loved ones and possessions, suggests a need for greater assistance for refugees than for typical immigrants. The expense of a large influx of refugees is likely to be high. A solution used successfully by Canada involves private sponsorship of refugees, and there are apparently a large number of Americans willing to serve as sponsors. It is possible to vet the sponsors, of course, and might provide more reliable follow-up with the refugees themselves.

Certain classes of immigrants may be considered high-risk, though refugees have not been high-risk historically. This is one of several points made by Davis Bier at the Foundation for Economic Education in “Six Reasons To Welcome Refugees“. Bier provides a good perspective, but I don’t accept all of his assertions. He says (italicized):

The Paris attackers were not refugees: No, but at least one of them seems to have taken advantage of the European refugee process.
U.S. refugees don’t become terrorists: You can certainly vouch for this in the past tense, but it’s less certain going forward. The complete lack of documentation of many Syrian refugees complicates the vetting process.
Other migration channels are easier to exploit: Probably true, if the claimed thoroughness of the refugee vetting process is to be believed. Also, the resettlement from temporary camps can take two years or more, but that kind of delay is not required.
ISIS sees Syrian refugees as traitors: This reinforces the need to protect refugees, but it strikes me as irrelevant to the question of terrorist infiltration. A better question is whether ISIS is capable of passing-off one of their own as a refugee.
Turning away allies will make us less safe: It certainly won’t win us friends.
We should demonstrate moral courage: Helping legitimate refugees is certainly an honorable thing to do. The author points to American resistance to accepting Jewish refugees prior to World War II for fear they might be German spies. This is addressed in more detail below.

A different perspective is given in “There Are Serious, Unbigoted Reasons to Be Wary of a Flood of Syrian Refugees“, by Ian Tuttle in National Review. He asserts that the comparison of current Syrian refugees to Jewish refugees prior to WWII is inappropriate, and I largely agree. The infiltration of German spies into the Jewish refugee population was a perceived threat, but no one thought the Jews represented a risk of terror on our shores. There is nothing incompatible about feeling regret for the attitude many took toward the Jewish refugees of that era while exercising caution in the face of new risks.

Tuttle cites a recent Pew Research poll of Muslims in various countries finding that 4% to 14% of respondents approve of ISIS. Can you imagine a similar level of support for terrorism in the U.S.? This is an unfortunate social malignancy that should give us pause. Another Pew Research poll of Muslims in various countries found that the minority who believe that suicide bombing was justified ranges from 3% to 45%. It is therefore difficult to argue with Tuttle when he says:

“A non-trivial minority of refugees who support a murderous, metastatic caliphate is a reason for serious concern.“

Tuttle notes that Syrian refugees will not arrive on our shores directly from Syria. Thus, the urgency of accepting those refugees comes into question. It is curious that such wealthy middle eastern countries as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have not accepted refugees from Syria.

Given the immediacy of terrorist threats, the lack of even basic documents for many Syrian refugees, and the Obama Administration’s record of failure in the Middle East, it is reasonable to question their assurances as to the adequacy of the refugee vetting process. Indeed, as this article warns:

“The director of the National Counterterrorism Center admitted that terrorist groups are very interested in using refugee programs to slip operatives into Europe and the United States. …

The director of Homeland Security had no answer when asked if the “vetting” process amounted to anything more than asking refugees to fill out an application, asking them a few questions in a verbal interview, and assuming they answer honestly….

FBI Director James Comey famously admitted last month that the U.S. government has no real way to conduct background checks on refugees.”

A substantial majority of American voters oppose the administration’s plan to accept Syrian refugees, at least under the current process. Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill requiring that:

“… the heads of the FBI, Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence certify that each refugee being admitted would not pose a threat.“

It would be nice to have our security agencies accept some accountability for, well, national security. The House bill would put the ball in their court with respect to high-risk refugees.

I concur with the general position of Libertarians who support a more open U.S. immigration policy and acceptance of refugees. I also believe that private sponsorship of refugees should be legalized in the U.S. to reduce their fiscal impact. And I believe we should welcome Syrian refugees provided that they can be thoroughly vetted. In the parlance of economics, transacting with refugees may involve severely asymmetric information. It is not advisable to make risky “trades” when due diligence is impossible. Short-cuts in the vetting process do not help to assure a mutually beneficial outcome. We must therefore temper our humanitarian impulse. Under the present circumstances, including an acceptance of terrorism by a “nontrivial minority” of Muslins, it is reasonable to proceed with caution, and only with caution.