Oddbean

I do think more of an open border policy could possibly cause the bottom to drop out of the current human-smuggling market. The current system probably works like Prohibition, and artificially drives up the costs to enter the U.S., while the "free stuff"/welfare that people are given drives up the demand to come here.

I just read this, an it makes my point in more detail: > "If the EB-3 quota cap for unskilled workers were raised from 10,000 to say 500,000 per year, the armies of work seekers at the border or waiting in the asylum cues would not be there at all. They would go to one of the scores of US embassies and consulates in Mexico and Latin America and apply for a visa, and upon being vetted, approved and recruited by a US employer would likely buy a Delta airline ticket with the money that would otherwise go to the criminal coyotes and cartels, and head north to a city where their job was waiting. > At the same time, the drastically thinned-out crowds at the border would mainly consist of drug dealers, criminals, undesirables and persons who failed the background checks when applying for a EB-3 visa. And the Border Patrol would know exactly what to do with any and all of the residual 5% of today’s border hordes. To wit, arrest them, rough them up and send them home upon penalty of a long-prison sentence in the US for a second or third try at illegal entry." https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/11/david-stockman/orange-man-still-mostly-bad/#:~:text=If%20the%20EB,at%20illegal%20entry.

If you really want to get into the details, I recommend the book “The Economics of Immigration” by Ben Powell. It talks about the distribution of the kinds of people who seek to immigrate and how they tend to compliment the local population. For example, immigrants tend to be either high skilled (college grad from Mumbai) or low skilled (border crosser looking for work). Those sub-populations are both lacking in the mainly middle-of-the-distribution American populace. In addition, people tend to immigrate when they’re in the prime of life. Young ambitions adults who want to work and improve their lot. They’re already through childhood and not yet near old age—the two times of life when people tend to consume more resources than they contribute. Everyone tends to be better off with more immigration.

I was speaking case specific to the reality of the country in question. I don't believe in free anything from the state. There is always a cost to state welfare. And it is primarily used as a hook for control and exploitation disguised by philatrophic virtue signalling. What I was implying is that welfare policy affects immigration value. The less welfare the more beneficial the immigration. The more welfare the more parasitic the immigration.

If a hardworker makes a good salary and spends it all to support lazybones family members who hang around at the park whistling at girls all day. Did you have net positive or negative immigration value? Thats the question in more words.