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151. Why Should We Restrict Immigration?

Author:
Bryan Caplan
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Consider the following thought experiment: Moved by the plight of desperate earthquake victims, you volunteer to work as a relief worker in Haiti. After two weeks, you're ready to go home. Unfortunately, when you arrive at the airport, customs officials tell you that you're forbidden to enter the United States. You go to the American consulate to demand an explanation. But the official response is simply, “The United States does not have to explain itself to you.”
Political Geography:
United States

152. Immigration and Economic Growth

Author:
Gordon H. Hanson
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
As the 2012 presidential campaign gets under way, there will be intense public debate about the direction of economic policy. The continuing torpor of the U.S. economy and mounting government debt oblige candidates to detail how they would improve prospects for economic growth and reduce the federal budget deficit. We are sure to hear a great deal about plans to lower taxes, reduce government regulation, improve U.S. education, and rebuild infrastructure. But it is a near certainty that no candidate will make immigration part of his or her vision for achieving higher rates of long-run economic growth. To be sure, stump speeches will contain pat pronouncements about securing American borders, restoring the rule of law, or bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows, depending on the candidate's political orientation. Yet, it is a safe bet that after getting through these bullet points candidates will seek to change the subject. Immigration is a divisive issue that most national politicians prefer to avoid. President Obama checked his immigration box by making a halfhearted call for immigration reform in May 2011. That proposal was quickly buried under many more pressing items in his legislative outbox.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and America

153. Immigration, Labor Markets, and Productivity

Author:
Giovanni Peri
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
According to a survey in 2008, about 50 percent of Americans perceived immigration as a problem rather than as an opportunity (Transatlantic Trends 2008). Similar surveys conducted in the prerecession years of 2007 and before also showed that Americans were much less supportive of more open immigration policies than they were of other aspects of globalization such as free trade or free capital movements (Pew Research Center 2007). Since the onset of the recession of 2008–2009 and during the jobless recovery of 2010–11, public opinion about immigration further deteriorated. The idea that immigrants take American jobs, depress national wages, and threaten the U.S. economy has become even more rooted, as often happens during economic recessions. The political discourse accompanying the economic and labor market impact of immigrants is very intense and pervasive in the media but often generates “more heat than light”.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and America

154. America's Demographic Future

Author:
Joel Kotkin and Erika Ozuna
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Perhaps nothing has more defined America and its promise than immigration. In the future, immigration and the consequent development of what Walt Whitman (1855: iv) called “a race of races” will remain one of the country's greatest assets in the decades to come.
Political Geography:
America

155. America's Incoherent Immigration System

Author:
Stuart Anderson
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
If the U.S. Congress and executive branch agencies formulated coherent policies, then here is what our immigration system would look like: highly skilled foreign nationals could be hired quickly and gain permanent residence, employers could hire foreign workers to fill niches in lower-skilled jobs, foreign entrepreneurs could easily start businesses in the United States, and close relatives of American citizens could immigrate in a short period of time. If all those things were true, then we wouldn't be talking about America's immigration system.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and America

156. The Economic Consequences of Amnesty for Unauthorized Immigrants

Author:
Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Immigration policy reform has reached an impasse because of disagreement over whether to create a pathway to legal permanent residence and eventual U.S. citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. The United States first—and last—offered a large-scale amnesty as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986. Despite increased border enforcement and provisions for employer sanctions, the law failed to curtail unauthorized immigration. The 9/11 terror attacks renewed the emphasis on national security and led to stricter policies regarding undocumented immigrants. Over the past decade, border and interior enforcement has increased, while avenues that allowed some illegal residents to adjust to legal status have been eliminated, and a growing number of states have adopted laws aimed at driving out unauthorized immigrants.
Political Geography:
United States

157. Immigration and Border Control

Author:
Edward Alden
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
For the past two decades the United States, a country with a strong tradition of limited government, has been pursuing a widely popular initiative that requires one of the most ambitious expansions of government power in modern history: securing the nation's borders against illegal immigration. Congress and successive administrations— both Democratic and Republican—have increased the size of the Border Patrol from fewer than 3,000 agents to more than 21,000, built nearly 700 miles of fencing along the southern border with Mexico, and deployed pilotless drones, sensor cameras, and other expensive technologies aimed at preventing illegal crossings at the land borders. The government has overhauled the visa system to require interviews for all new visa applicants and instituted extensive background checks for many of those wishing to come to the United States to study, travel, visit family, or do business. It now requires secure documents—a passport or the equivalent—for all travel to and from the United States by citizens and noncitizens. And border officers take fingerprints and run other screening measures on all travelers coming to this country by air in order to identify criminals, terrorists, or others deemed to pose a threat to the United States.
Topic:
International Security and Immigration
Political Geography:
United States and Mexico

158. Internal Enforcement, E-Verify, and the Road to a National ID

Author:
Jim Harper
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Successful “internal enforcement” of immigration law requires having a national identity system. If expanded, “E-Verify,” the muchdebated effort to control illegal immigration through access to employment, will become such a system, and it could easily be converted to controlling many dimensions of Americans' lives from Washington, D.C.
Topic:
Immigration
Political Geography:
America

159. Is Birthright Citizenship Good for America?

Author:
Margaret Stock
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The Declaration of Independence famously asserted that “all men are created equal,” but this assertion did not become an American constitutional reality until the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868. The Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause—intended to overturn the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott (1857) case—states that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Traditionally, the clause has been interpreted to confer U.S. citizenship on anyone born within the United States whose parents are subject to U.S. civil and criminal laws—which has historically meant that only babies born in the United States to diplomats, invading armies, or within certain sovereign Native American tribes have been excluded from birthright American citizenship. Alarmed by the thought that unauthorized immigrants, wealthy tourists, and temporary workers are giving birth to thousands of U.S. citizens, some want to change the long-standing rule by reinterpreting or amending the Citizenship Clause. But will this proposed change be good for America? Will it benefit America to reduce substantially the number of birthright U.S. citizens—and put in place more complex rules that would provide that U.S.-born babies are not created equal?
Political Geography:
United States and America

160. Immigration and the Welfare State

Author:
Daniel Griswold
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Among the more serious arguments against liberalizing immigration is that it can be costly to taxpayers. Low-skilled immigrants in particular consume more government services than they pay in taxes, increasing the burden of government for native-born Americans. Organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies, the Heritage Foundation, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform have produced reports claiming that immigration costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year, with the heaviest costs borne by state and local taxpayers. No less a classical liberal than Milton Freidman mused that open immigration is incompatible with a welfare state. Responding to a question at a libertarian conference in 1999, Friedman rejected the idea of opening the U.S. border to all immigrants, declaring that “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state” (Free Students 2008).
Political Geography:
United States and America