Coming to America; T. Lehman

COMING TO AMERICA: THE BENEFITS OF OPEN IMMIGRATION 777 couraged for the purpose of destroying Es tonian culture and nationalism. In Yugosla via, Tito enforced a policy offorced mixture and resettlement of Serbs,. Croats, and Slovenes, exploiting the resulting animosi ties to justify further e~pansion of state power. A population thus divided against itself at the local level can pose no threat whatsoever to the central state. And this, of course, is the point. Barring the establishment of a pure pri vate-property system, the only sound liber tarian approach to immigration is thus a radical devolution of power from the central state to the local level, and to allow individ uals and communities to decide the issue for themselves. A facile advocacy of "open borders" gives the central state exactly what it wants: the chance to supersede the preferences of property owners, and to provide the pretext for further encroachments on local and in dividualliberty. Such a system, in short, will make Americaless free. That's a goodenough reason for libertarians to rethink it. D 1. Murray N. Rothbard, "Nations by Consent: Decompos ing the Nation-State," Journal of Libertarian Studies 11 (Fall 1994), pp. 1-10.

2. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "Free Immigration or Forced Integration?" in Thomas Fleming, ed., Immigration and the American Identity (Rockford, Ill.: The Rockford Institute, 1995), pp. 212-20. 3. See Murray N. Rothbard, "What To Do Until Privati zation Comes," in Making Economic Sense (Auburn, Ala.: The Ludwig von Mises Institute, forthcoming), pp. 144-47. 4. Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 5. Coming to America: The Benefitsof Open Immigration by Thomas E. Lehman F or centuries, the American culture has been a beacon of hope to the oppressed peoples of collectivist economies and au thoritarian or totalitarian governments throughout the world. Why then do the American people-descendants of immi grants, beneficiaries of open and unregu lated immigration, whose culture, economy, government, and way of life are so deeply tied to open borders-exude such a passion against free immigration? Why do they wish so desperately to deny late twentieth century immigrants the benefits to which their own eighteenth-and nineteenth-cen tury ancestors were privileged? What do Americans have against open borders?

Mr. Lehman is Adjunct Professor ofEconomics and Western Civilization, Adult and Professional Studies Division, Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, Indiana. American immigration policy is a laby rinth of regulations and barriers to free travel and migration. One wishing to enter this country must possess all the legal and "proper" documentation in order to be permitted entry. The poverty-stricken and homeless foreigners who expect to benefit most from immigrating into the American economy rarely possess resources adequate for legal entry. Hence, they are denied. Such immigration policy is based upon a xenophobic confusion regarding econom ics, the mobility of labor, the American welfare state, and cultural diversity. Immigration and Labor Many Americans argue that free immigra tion would destroy "working class" Amer icans' ability to earn a living. They claim 778 THE FREEMAN • DECEMBER 1995 that allowing free and open borders to any and all immigrants would put decent, hard working Americans out of work. Perhaps what these Americans really fear, however, is that someone will emerge from the "im migrant class" who would be willingto work for less than they while producing equal or greater output.

The present immigration policy of the United States amounts to nothing less than a tariff or barrier to entry on the commodity of labor, and harms American consumers in the same manner as tariffs and trade barriers on other capital or consumer goods. A policy of open immigration would in deed force unskilled American laborers to compete for their jobs at lower wages. However, far from being an evil, this is a desirable outcome, one which should form the basis for a new immigration policy. By inviting competition into the American labor markets, artificially inflated labor costs could be eliminated and a greater level of labor efficiency could be achieved. As the cost of labor (itself a cost of production) decreased, entrepreneurs and producers could produce more efficiently, enabling them to offer products and services at lower prices as they compete for consum ers' dollars. Lower prices in turn increase the purchasing power of the American con sumer, and thus enhance living standards for everyone. This is happening even now as some small business owners use "illegal"

immigrant labor to lower their operating costs and thus lower consumer prices: " ... smallbusiness executives do agree that some of their competitors who knowingly or unknowingly hire illegal immigrants use the cheap labor to undercut prices of business owners who play by the rules." 1 This is good for both consumers and the economy at large. As immigration makes the American labor market more competitive, costs of production are reduced and prices decline. In the long ron, even the domestic laborer who is forced to lower his wage demands is not any worse off, since what he loses in terms of lower nominal wages he may well regain in terms of lower prices on the goods and services he purchases as a consumer. Meanwhile, everyone else ben efits, and no one is privileged at the coerced expense of anyone else.2 Immigration and Welfare Another argument used in favor of immi gration controls concerns the American wel fare system and its potential abuse by im migrants who migrate into America merely to feed at the public trough of social ser vices. The claim is made that the welfare system, not potential economic freedom, is the lure which draws immigrants into the American economy. tmmigrants-unpro ductive, slothful, and indigent-constitute a dead-weight loss on the American economy, and further increase the tax burden on productive Americans. Therefore, we must police our borders and keep out the unde sirables.

This argument is statistically and theoret ically flawed. Contrary to prevailing public opinion, current immigrants do not" abuse" the public welfare system, even in the areas where immigration (legal or illegal) is most concentrated. In fact, immigrants have little effect on the current system of taxation and wealth redistribution. As Julian Simon re lates: Study after study shows that small propor tions of illegals use government services: free medical, 5 percent; unemployment insurance 4; food stamps, 1; welfare payments, 1; child schooling, 4. Illegals are afraid of being caught if they. apply for welfare. Practically none receive social security, the costliest service of all, but 77 percent pay social security taxes, and 73 percent have federal taxes withheld. . . . During the first five yearS in the United States, the average immigrant family receives $1404(in 1975 dollars) in welfare compared to $227~ received by a native family.3 Some may disagree with these statistics.

Others would no doubt argue that if immi gration controls were eliminated and bor ders completely unpoliced, a massive num ber of immigrants would enter the United States and overload the welfare system, causing taxes and the national debt to sky rocket. Certainly this is a possibility. But, COMING TO AMERICA: THE BENEFITS OF OPEN IMMIGRATION 779 even if we grant this argument the benefit of the doubt and concede that unrestricted immigrants would indeed flood the welfare system, the answer to the problem lies not in closing off the borders or "beefing up" border security. The answer lies in elimi nating the American welfare state, and pro hibiting anyone, native or immigrant, from living at the coerced expense of another. Immigration and Culture A final argument against immigration comes surprisingly from those generally supportive of liberty and the philosophy of the limited state. These critics are con cerned for the preservation of what they see as a distinct American culture and its traditional heritage of European-style lim ited government and market economies. 4 Their fear is that this traditional culture is being sabotaged by an influx of immigrants who are unfamiliar with and perhaps even hostile toward its institutional framework.

They contend that immigrants of the late twentieth-century variety do not possess the same ethnic characteristics of earlier immi grants, and therefore do not have an appre ciation for the" American way oflife." Such an argument suggests that recent immi grants who hail from Third World nations controlled by regimes of despotism have no understanding of the traditional institutions that have made America great. Allowing these immigrants of vastly different culture and ethnic heritage into the United States will result in a grave polarization of our society into racial enclaves that will run roughshod over our most sacred political and economic institutions. To political conservatives, and even some libertarians, this argument may appear com pelling at first blush. However, it is flawed. First, preserving' 'tradition" merely for the sake of tradition is pointless. The idea of tradition is meaningless unless we define the essence of that tradition in terms of the ideas that comprise it. Tradition alone is not what has made America great. Rather, it has been the reciprocal relationship between a limited state and economic and social liberty that has made the American way of life so coveted-in other words, the philosophy of liberty underlying the American tradition.

Expanding the power of government in order to preserve tradition is a sure path to the destruction of liberty. Americans ought to be particularly aware of this fact since the American tradition is bound together so tightly with the philosophy of freedom and limited government. Yet, it is not the first time Americans have been down this road. U.S. public education began as a concerted effort to preserve the Protestant "traditions" of the American culture against the perceived threat of Ca tholicism. By subject~ng the education es tablishment to the decisions of. legislators and bureaucrats in local, state, and eventu ally national governments, Protestants hoped to stem the tide of Catholicism flow ing into America on a nineteenth-century wave of immigration. As Samuel L. Blu menfeld relates, There was another reason why the Protestant religionists decided to join the secularists [so cialists] in promoting the public school move ment. They shared a common concern with, if not fear of, the massive Catholic immigration to the United States during that period .... [It was] argued that Protestants had to put aside sectarian differences and unite to defend Prot estant republican America against the "Rom ish designs.,,5 By making schools public rather than private, Protestants sought to use the power of the state to exclude the teachings and influence of Catholicism on their children, thereby preserving. the Protestant "tradi tion" in America by way of majority vote. In retrospect, the bankruptcy of the American public education system ought to serve as a somber reminder that expanding state power to preserve' 'tradition" is a sure path to statism.

There is another flaw lurking in the argu ment that open immigration leads to the decline of a nation's cultural and institu tional framework. Contrary to the anti immigration position, the American tradi tions of limited government and free market economies are not based upon ethnic or 780 THE FREEMAN • DECEMBER 1995 racial origins. They are based upon ideas. Western cultures cannot suppose them< selves to have a monopoly on the philoso phy of liberty , nor can Americans argue that the political values of the limited state can not be inculcated in non-American immi grants. The ideas of freedom that have created the American tradition can apply to any ethnic or racial make-up. But what happens if, over time, America absorbs so many immigrants that, through their influence, the ideas of limited gov ernment and the free market economy be come diluted? What happens when our po litical system falls victim to immigrant forces that seek to expand government power? These are good questions. The fact remains, however, that these fears are now being realized, and the foes of liberty in America are largely homegrown. Twenti eth-century Americans have turned their backs on the philosophy of the limited state. 6 They have generally refused to ac knowledge the advantages of a laissez-faire market economy. It is not the foreign ele ment, but rather the domestic element that we should fear. Before we begin to castigate potential immigrants for the damage they may do to our freedoms, we need to ac knowledge the damage we have already done on our own.

The answer is to return once again to a government "of laws and not of men." In other words, the state must be radically limited in power and scope, with only min imal duties which are explicitly defined. This will put state power beyond the reach of those individuals or voting blocs that would seek to exploit it for personal gain. We then would have no reason to fear immigrants, regardless of their ideological or political persuasion. Their ability to "sab otage" our freedoms would be removed not because we expand state power to keep them out, but because we diminish state power in all areas and allow them in. Immigration and Freedom Immigration policy should not be viewed differently than trade policy: free, unregu lated, unpoliced, open borders, devoid of taxes, tariffs, or any other barrier to entry. This is the policy of freedom to which America owes her heritage. Unilateral free trade, free immigration, and free emigra tion, where individuals possess unob structed and unregulated mobility and trade, is a cornerstone of a free society. In fact, the free movement of peoples is no less impor tant than the freedoms of speech, expres sion, and association. Liberty is indivisible; the laws of economics apply equally to all peoples.

Americans must begin to accept the fact that free trade and open borders are to their utmost benefit. By embracing the philoso phy of free immigration and free labor mo bility, we benefit from the productivity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship not only of those within are borders, but also of those from without. Expanding the division of labor into the international marketplace makes available a vastly enlarged array of resources, thus enhancing the living stan dards of everyone. D 1. John S. DeMott, "Immigration Policy's Double Im pact," Nation's Business, December 1994, p. 28. 2. See the compelling example offered by Jacob G. Horn berger in ''The Case for Unilateral Free Trade and Open Immigration," Freedom Daily, November 1994, p. 6. 3. Julian L. Simon, Population Matters: People, Re sources, Environment, & Immigration (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990), p. 265.

4. Perhaps the most developed argument from this position can be found in Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster (New York: Random House, 1995). 5. SamuelL. Blumenfeld,N.E.A.: TrojanHorse inAmerican Education (Phoenix,Ariz.: The ParadigmCompany, 1984),p. 27. 6. For those who would argue that the decline in American liberty during the twentieth century is related somehow to immigration and open borders, the reality is otherwise. Twen tieth-century America has never practiced open immigration to the extent I am suggesting. Further, twentieth-century Americans have become more nationalistic than their eigh teenth-and nineteenth-century ancestors, thus reflecting, at times, an extreme degree of suspicion or even hatred toward foreign peoples.