May 28, 1995
"The Effect is Negligible - Immigration and Your Wallet"
San Jose Mercury News
By Timothy Taylor
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SOME OF those who are most enthusiastic about restricting immigration to the United States have made an interesting concession: their case against immigration isn't about economic factors.

The leading example is Peter Brimelow, whose recent book, "Alien Nation," is a powerful manifesto for the anti-immigration cause. He discusses the economic consequences of immigration at length, and then concludes by quoting the economist George Borjas, who says, "The economic arguments for immigration simply aren't decisive."

Borjas is perhaps the leading academic expert on the economics of immigration. By following his lead, Brimelow rests his arguments against immigration on a weaker claim: instead of arguing that immigration is economically harmful, he claims only that it is not necessary for a healthy economy.

Many reviewers of Brimelow's book have agreed that the reasons for restricting immigration are not primarily economic.

For example, the conservative magazine National Review, which has been supportive of the anti-immigration position, ran multiple reviews of the Brimelow book. Conservative writers like Samuel Francis, Francis Fukayama, and Nathan Glazer all agreed that, as Fukayama put it, "the heart of the immigration issue... is not about economics but about the nature of American nationality."

Brimelow opposes immigration because it is shifting America's racial and ethnic composition, and he doubts the desirability and sustainability of a multi-ethnic society. He refers to anti-immigrant groups as "patriots," which has clear implications for how he views those who favor present or higher levels of immigration.

Two economic arguments against immigration have some plausibility: that immigrants drain public coffers, and that they hurt the labor market prospects of Americans.

Many studies have tried to tote up a balance sheet of all the taxes paid by immigrants, and all the public costs they impose by their use of schools, welfare and other government benefits. In a review of these estimates in a recent article in the Journal of Economic Literature, George Borjas finds a range from a gain of $25 billion a year to a loss of $40 billion. The plausible intermediate estimates are close to zero.

Of course, the public costs of immigration fall disproportionately on certain geographic areas. But public policies are often harder on some areas than others; for example, the cuts in defense spending since 1987 have hurt areas that had acquired a dependence on that spending, like Southern California. Arguments about hurting one region are not decisive; they rely on whether the policy makes sense for the nation as a whole.

A variety of other studies have analyzed the labor market impact of immigration. Immigration does not seem to affect unemployment rates, but there is some evidence that competition from low-skilled immigrant labor has held down the wages of American low-skilled workers.

On the other side, the presence of recent immigrants has benefited those with higher incomes, who found it easier to hire people to work in small and large businesses, clean houses, prepare food, care for children, and so on. On Borjas' estimates, the overall labor market effect on the economy is positive, but small in the context of our $7 trillion economy, perhaps in the range of $20 billion annually.

Even if immigration places a burden on low-skilled workers, this is not sufficient reason to oppose it. For example, improved education and technology training also tends to hurt low-skilled workers who don't acquire these skills. But no one suggests dumbing down the American workforce to help the low-skilled.

In a world where several billion people live in terrible poverty, almost no one believes that wealthy countries like the United States and Europe can simply open their borders. But if we are going to have a limited number of slots for immigrants, then we must decide who will fill those slots, and set up an enforcement mechanism. These issues deserve an open discussion, which needs to go beyond worrying about racial and ethnic balance.

Current law has allowed levels of immigration that are quite high by historical levels. Does America need to take a breather and slow down immigration for at least a few years, to give itself a chance to digest this wave of immigrants?

Most of the immigration slots are given to relatives of U.S. citizens. I'm all for reunifying parents and their young children, but most current immigration is about reunifying an entire family chain of parents and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts. In choosing immigrants, should we give greater preference to immigrants who already speak English, or who have certain desirable job skills? In terms of enforcing our immigration laws, increasing the number of Border Patrol agents considerably above its current level of 4,000 would be a start. The best strategy is to have enough enforcement to discourage most illegal immigrants from even trying.

In these discussions, everyone should turn down the superheated rhetoric about the economic impact of immigration. Many factors like savings and investment, new technology, education, and international trade will have a far greater impact on this nation's economy and standard of living than any plausible change in our immigration laws.

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