More Misinformation from the Media:
President Trump’s recent tweets against open borders comes as no surprise. . . . Trump, however, has it exactly backwards: the solution to America’s immigration problems is open borders, under which the United States imposes no immigration restrictions at all. . . .
Expenditure on the welfare state will contract because even if immigrants vote for welfare spending, existing residents will vote for less generous benefits. . . . Immigrants will not flood America, although the rate of immigration might increase. . . . Crime will not skyrocket. Available evidence shows that immigrants are no more crime-prone than natives. . . .
U.S. culture will not change dramatically. America’s immigrants have a long history of assimilation, and most have at least some affinity for American values. . . . Even if values and culture change, so what? That happens in free societies. Who says America’s current values—some of them deeply evil—are the right ones?
America has nothing to fear, and much to gain from open borders. – Forget the Wall Already, It’s Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders, USA Today Opinion, Jeffery Miron, 7/31/18 [Link]
Fact Check: Immigrants wouldn’t flood America? Immigration today, averaging more than one million a year for more than twenty years, is at the highest sustained level in our history. And the author admits that this rate of flooding might even increase. Most likely, that increase would be considerable as revealed by a international Gallup poll a few years ago. It found that 150 million adults abroad would like to move to the United States. That, however, would only be the start because these people no doubt would like to bring their spouses and minor children. Maybe others would come later.
The initial total could be at least as high as 350 million, more than our total current population. With open borders we extend the invitation for all of them to come as soon as they can. Many or most would come from poor countries as they do low. No doubt they would find our welfare system appealing and would cast their votes accordingly. Does the author really imagine that native-born voters could withstand this electoral tide? Also promoting poverty and welfare use would be the wage suppression caused by mass immigration.
The author claims that open borders would not boost crime by stating that immigrants are not more crime-prone than natives. This may be true for legal immigrants, but this proves the opposite of the author’s point. Legal immigrants aren’t particularly crime-prone precisely because they are vetted by our immigration system to screen out people with criminal backgrounds. With open borders there would be no screening.
The author’s most outrageous observation is that the American people should have no right to decide what the character and culture of their country should be. In effect, they must put everyone’s freedom of movement ahead of their right as Americans to decide democratically what the culture and character their country should be. The author apparently doesn’t care much about American freedom because he doesn’t really care much about America as a sovereign nation.
His perspective, as an associate of the Cato Institute, is libertarian, the ideology that views human as atomized economic units with no other concern than self-interest. In the libertarian calculus there is little provision for such affections as lover of heritage, love of country, duty to community, or concern for future generations. The author maintains that America has some evil values, and he is right about that. Examples are the myopia and greed of some Americans that blinds them to the patent lunacy of open borders.