Is xenophilia a word?

Emmanuel Celler, former Congressman and the son of immigrants, stated, "I had fought against the unjust restriction of immigration." I contend that nearly all restriction on immigration is unjust, and I propose this: the United States should eliminate all restrictions on immigration for non-criminals over the next decade.

This idea likely strikes you as insane.  But hear me out. I will seek to demonstrate the failures of the most common objections to open borders and furthermore, to show that eliminating immigration restrictions will massively benefit America and the world at large.

We begin with the moral aspect of immigration. Bryan Caplan of the CATO institute, a libertarian think tank, provides the following scenario: imagine you and your family have gone to Haiti to aid in earthquake recovery efforts. When you attempt to return to the United States, the government turns you away. You are, understandably, devastated: you’ve been consigned to a lower quality life. But how can we consign a Haitian to that standard while refusing it for Americans?

The question is this: is there a sufficiently compelling reason to forcibly prevent people from improving their lives by immigrating? To justify immigration restrictions, we must demonstrate tremendous harms to America and American citizens, and it is to those purported harms that we turn next.

The first argument from pro-restriction advocates is that migrants drive down wages. It seems reasonable: more labor means cheaper labor. But economists have shown, both in models and in data, that if anything, immigrants raise the wage of the average American. Here's why: immigrants not allowed into the United States are very low-skilled. Most don't have a high school education. Because of this, the wage depression impact is the largely confined to high-school dropouts, who, according to economist and philosopher Michael Huemur, experience less than a 5% depression in wages. Indeed, American high-school dropouts tend to be more skilled than their immigrant counterparts because of their English proficiency, and so the 5% estimate is probably on the high side. Economists Peri and Sparber point out that because of this language gap, as the economy grows from immigrant involvement, more demand will cause higher wages for low-skilled Americans. Between a growing economy and increasing demand for English language skills, most economists agree that American net wages will rise with more immigration.

In reality, we need labor from immigrants. Business leaders have been among those most opposed to migration restrictions because immigration expands the labor market. The Chamber of Commerce says that migrants “significantly benefit the U.S. economy” and many economists project that if the 12 million undocumented workers in the US were suddenly deported, the effect would be recession.

Closed border advocates also argue that immigrants will drive up government expenditure—both for social services and infrastructure. The facts debunk this idea. Economist Sari and William Kerr, after surveying the literature on the subject, conclude that the net fiscal impact of immigrants is negligible, whether positive or negative. So immigrants don't seem to impact the government's spending relative to its revenue, which seems incredible given that they're much poorer on average than native-born citizens.

Bryan Caplan explains why: first, entitlements in America—a full 60% of the federal budget-- are geared towards the old-- not the poor. Immigrants are young, in general, and in fact, help subsidize entitlements for the elderly. The chief actuary of Social Security estimated that without immigration, their “long-term funding hole…would be 10 percent deeper."

Second, much of the government's spending is nonrival-- meaning that there's no limit on how many people can benefit from it. Spending on the military, for instance, which is around a fifth of the federal government's expenditures, doesn't need to increase with more American residents-- but tax revenue will increase, so immigrants could actually have a positive fiscal effect in this regard. Most infrastructure, while not fully nonrival, does experience economies of scale—everyone pays taxes whether or not they use each governmental service.

Even if immigrants in the status quo had a negative fiscal effect, this doesn't justify excluding them, and here's why: we can control the fiscal effect immigrants have. We can make them ineligible for benefits, or make them pay higher taxes and their fiscal impact will become positive. In the status quo, immigrants help the American government’s budget-- but even if you don't believe that, our inadequate fiscal policy doesn’t justify preventing these people from migrating.

The next source of pro-restriction sentiment is the desire for cultural unity. When immigrants come to America, these people argue, they bring their own languages and cultures, creating friction and often refusing to adapt. Indeed, this argument has been used throughout American history, especially concerning Irish and German immigrants. It is now applied, of course, to Latino immigrants. The Pew Research Center evaluated language learning among Latino immigrants, concluding that 88% of second generation and 94% of third generation immigrants speak English very well, rates roughly equal to European immigrant linguistic assimilation, so language is not an issue.

Cultural unity, though, is not just linguistic unity. It is true that immigrants come with cultures different from the American mainstream. But excluding people on the basis of their culture is called racism. It is neither the government's job to regulate non-harmful culture nor the government's right to exclude people on the basis of culture. What's more, America's cultural centers of New York and California, according to the Census Bureau, have a higher percentage of immigrants than any other regions in the United States.

America is not built on linguistic or cultural similarity but on common values. By coming to the United States, immigrants demonstrate their acceptance of American values like hard work and independence. Excluding them on the basis of cultural deviation from the norm, when America's culture is itself an amalgam of cultures from around the world, is arbitrary and discriminatory. Immigrants strengthen American culture.

So what, then, do I envision? Why should we let these immigrants enter our nation?

Remember that we are harming these people by keeping them from entering the United States. At the very least, we restrict their autonomy, quite often, we consign them to extreme poverty. Immigration restrictions should not be the default: they can only be justified if there are severe harms, and I have shown there are none.

But will I create a massive underclass of low-wage laborers? The empirics suggest otherwise: immigrants have a habit of working really, really hard and are some of the most socially mobile members of our society.

In the short term, migrants won't take American jobs because most Americans are far more skilled than the immigrants who are not currently allowed in. In the long run, the economy will expand with more supply and demand because of a larger population, and so even as immigrants and their children become more educated, the expanding American economy will raise net wages.

It's challenging to find a credible estimate on how many immigrants would come if we had open borders. The immigrants who would come would be largely Asian, African, and Latin American, and probably quite a lot would come. Fortunately, America's population density is well below the international average. Ultimately, though, if something begins to happen-- some major, negative effect we didn’t predict, we can put restrictions back into place. Abstract fear of some vague negative consequence shouldn't prevent us from eliminating a system with major concrete harms.

If everyone's lives matter the same amount then there's no question that immigration restrictions should be lifted. If the United States government has a special obligation to its own citizens, then we should lift restrictions because of their substantial benefits for citizens. If you remain unconvinced, consider this: economists project that with all world borders open, global gross domestic product would double—meaning world poverty would end.

So next time you hear of a push for comprehensive immigration reform, keep in mind that immigrants built America. Keep in mind that immigration helps Americans and helps foreigners. Fight back against state attempts to restrict immigration, and support Federal reform of immigration policy: let people come to America, and let America and the world flourish.

Works Cited

Caplan, Bryan. "Why Should We Restrict Immigration?" Winter 2012. Cato Journal 32(1), p.5-24.

Hanson, Gordon. "The Economics and Policy of Illegal Immigration in the United States." Dec. 2009.         Migration Policy Institute.

Huemer, Michael. "Is There a Right to Immigrate?" Social Theory and Practice 36 (2010): 429-61.

Kerr, Sari and William Kerr. "Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Survey." Jan. 2011. Harvard Business    School: Working Paper.

US Chamber of Commerce. "Immigration Myths and Facts." Reports & Studies.