"The Immigration Problem"; L.W. Reed

The lessons of free immigration may be drowned out by a host of current concerns, but they are as real and vital as ever. In a widely acclaimed 1989 book entitled The Economic Consequences of Immigra tion, University of Maryland Professor Julian Simon demolished virtually every fallacy of the seal-the-borders mentality. He proved that immigrants do not subtract from the total number of available jobs, are net contributors to the public treasury, do not commit more crimes than natives, and gen erally work harder, save more, and are more likely to create businesses than native Americans. All things considered, newcom ers add wealth, culture, and human capital to the economy. Simon has demonstrated that immigrants are really not the huddled masses, helpless Dr. Reed, economist and author, is President of The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a free market research and educational organization headquartered in Midland, Michigan.

by Lawrence W. Reed and dependent, that many people think. Instead, they are usually young and vigor ous adults with excellent earnings potential. His detailed studies show that on balance, even accounting for all public welfare and other government "social service" costs imposed by our homegrown nanny state, each immigrant still contributes far more than he "takes" by being here. In a 1990 Wall Street Journal article, Simon made another point worth repeating. The foreign-born population in the United States today is only about 6 percent-less than the proportion in such countries as Britain, France, and West Germany, and "vastly lower" than in Australia and Can ada. We are not a nation of immigrants. We are a nationofthe descendants ofimmigrants. People are only economic problems in systems which deny them the ability to be enterprising, to use their talents and ambi tions to produce more wealth than they consume. Systems that encourage sloth and idleness with generous public welfare trans form people-natives as well as immi grants-into dependents who subtract more than they add to the economy and society.

What often is perceived as a crisis of immi gration is really a crisis of our own politi cized and half-socialized economy, which attracts some foreigners because of the subsidies it grants rather than with the opportunities for self-reliance it offers. Sometimes, American foreign policy has generated the very waves of immigration that so many in our government lament. In 551 552 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1994 recent months, far more Haitians fled their country for our shores because of an Amer ican trade embargo against Haiti than fled because the military dictatorship targeted them for persecution. (After all, Haiti h~s almost always had a military dictatorship but when its people starve because of em bargoes, they have to go somewhere.) In any event, it seems self-evident to me that of the many pressing problems facing America these days, none are caused by immigration or immigrants. Foreigners didn't impose on us an expensive state education monopoly that doesn't educate; red-blooded Americans did. A Congress that can't balance its own budget at the same time it attempts to micromanage every as pect of other people's businesses is not made up of Haitian boat people. It wasn't Korean-born shopkeepers who set fire to downtown Los Angeles in 1992.

The case for free immigration today is strongest when it is coupled with the general argument for a free society, private prop erty, and individual rights. I can think of no better way to illustrate this than bya per sonal example. A Model Citizen While visiting the Soviet Union in 1985, I met and befriended a young man named Constantin. In subsequent correspondence and during later visits I made tohis country, he expressed to me an intense desire to make America his home. A naturally enter prising, optimistic, and self-reliant individ ual, he chafed at the endless inhibitions of the socialist system. Wanting to help him, I assisted in his eventual journey to America in 1991. He arrived on my doorstep with his wife and five-year-old son and within weeks requested permanent asylum. Constantin's values precluded the accep tance of any government benefits. He even enrolled his son in a private, Christian school. A local church helped him get off to a good start with donations of clothing and food. As his sponsor, I did all I could to help as well. Though it wasn't easy for him-he bounced from one low-payingjob to the next-he never let a productive opportunity pass without seizing it. While we waited to hear ifhis request to stay would be granted, he managed to earn enough to buy a house and became a highly regarded model citizen.

Only a few months ago, the bureaucrats in Washington notified him that yes, he could stay in America and eventually even become a citizen of this country. He was grateful, but I was angry. The same government that gave us the permissionwe all hoped for, I thought, couldjust as easily have denied it. Frankly, I didn't think it should have been any of the government's business. Keep in mind that Constantin was not a burden on anyone. He never put in a claim for something at someone else's expense. He acquired nothing except by his own efforts or by voluntary charity. He or I or the church or others interested in his wel fare made sure he had what he needed. He trespassed on no one's property, posed no threat or danger to anyone, even paid taxes to support a school system he didn't patron ize. He was an obvious net contributor to our community and no one who knew him thought he should be held hostage to the whims of some bureaucrat or to any legis lated immigration quota.

What rightfulclaim over the disposition of his life could the U.S. government possibly have? That anyone could force him to va cate the country and get away with it was, to me, an unthinkable invasion of his indi vidual rights and of my freedom of associ ation. Fortunately, that didn't happen, but it could have, and it does happen to others all the time. Most Americans think that freedom means the government gets to tell us who can come here and live with us. Even many Americans who believe strongly in free trade in goods can't quite bring themselves to embrace free movement of people. De-socialize society and the immigration "problem" resolves itself into a great bless ing for us all. Foreigners will come-the best and hardiest of them-because of the abundance of opportunity a free society represents. [] THEFREEMAN IDEASON LIBERTY SchoolChoicefor Inner-City Kids by Timothy P. Ehrgott T here is a report that the U.S. postmaster general responded to a call for privat izing the postal service by mailing a stem rebuttal to the offending group' s headquar~ ters, a block away in Washington, D.C. The letter arrived eleven days later. We face a similar irony in education. "A Nation at Risk," a much-cited 1983 report, called for major reform in the way our country edu cates its children. Eleven years later, the public education establishment has yet to deliver.