Resolved: The United States Should Adopt an Open Border Policy

Dropped arguments 1) Roy drops the long-term policy implications and the effects on structural GDP growth, including mitigating the risk of future financial crises. The effect is huge and outweighs almost everything presented in the debate. 2) Roy drops the argument that immigrants would benefit under an open border policy. Just because you live in a foreign country does not mean you are worth less than American citizens. This point is extremely important from a utilitarian standpoint. 3) Roy drops the argument on economic freedom and growth. Because we won’t have a chance to respond, do not allow Roy to respond to these arguments in the last round. Swamping a) We would not receive 60 million immigrants overnight. The costs of emigrating from one’s home country is very high, so the majority of those who wish to come to the US can’t. The market would self-regulate the number of immigrants that enter this country. There would be a large influx of workers, but we have already shown that his estimates are too high. b) The assumption that every worker who wishes to move to another country will move to the US is questionable. Saudi Arabia is one of the top immigrant destinations, with Egypt, South Africa, and Spain also worth mentioning [1. http://tinyurl.com...]. These countries are radically different from our own, both socially and economically. I doubt that immigrants yearning for a home in Saudi Arabia would ever move to the US. The assumption that every person who wants to move will move, and that they will all flock to the US if we have an open border policy, is questionable. c) The resolution does not require us to open the borders immediately. Doing it in a slow, circumscribed manner, with the end results being open borders, is still considered an open border policy. This is considered a moderate open borders policy [2. http://tinyurl.com...]. d) Roy claims that the market wouldn’t adjust for immigrants because their lives--even unemployed--are better in the US than in third world countries. If this were true, then immigrants would never self deport, but they already have. The number of illegal immigrants in the US has fallen in recent years due to poor economic performance [3. http://tinyurl.com...]. They are doing it already. Another way to test whether or not immigrants will self-deport is to analyze the efficacy of laws that reduce immigrant employment. Mark Krikoran, who vehemently opposes immigration, has argued that laws reducing immigrant employment would “cause a 40 percent drop in the existing illegal population over a period of 5 years.” [4. Mark Krikorian. The New Case Against Immigration: Both Legal and Illegal, 218]. When the market is unable to house immigrants by giving them work, they will self deport. It should also be noted that these migrants may self-deport to Canada instead of staying here, where the borders are still fairly porous with the US and the immigrants would still receive a significant pay-raise. e) Immigrants may not be able to afford housing. This is an integral part of how the market would restrict the level of immigration under open borders. Roy drops the benefits that higher housing prices would have on the economy at large. This would increase taxable income and mitigate the budgetary problems that Roy has presented. Legal Immigration and Open Borders a) Roy responds only to the arguments relating to legal immigration, but ignores the evidence we present on other topics. b) Roy claims that our research builds upon the model of legal immigration. This is untrue. We directly cited research demonstrating how open borders would double GDP, without using data from legal immigration [5.http://tinyurl.com...]. c) The CATO studies argue that both skilled and unskilled immigrants benefit economic growth. It is logical that a combination leads to growth. But as both skilled and unskilled migration leads to a net benefit, undoing the screening process and allowing an unlimited amount of all types of immigrants would only serve to increase the benefits of migration. Using similar data that we have cited, Jason Riley argues that “restricting the movement of labor and goods can only retard economic growth.” [6. Jason L. Riley. Let Them in: The Case for Open Borders, 71]. e) Roy focuses on our employment graph, ignoring the other evidence of mass migration which is comparable to the situation at hand. Roy does not contest the results of the graph, only the context. But the evidence we provided shows that immigration--no matter the context--has negligible negative effects. The research cited in R2 by David Card on the mass migration to Miami in the 1980s and the influx of Russian jews into Israel in the 1990s both prove our point: mass migration has no negative effects on employment. And the impact of our graph--that immigration does not reduce employment--applies in both a controlled and unrestricted setting. f) Roy argues that legal immigration is superior to low-skilled immigration, but this isn’t necessarily true. Indeed, as a shrinking portion of our population are considered ‘low-skilled,’ there is a shortage of labor in low-skilled industries. If we don’t allow low-skilled labor to come into this country, we will end up with high-skilled workers doing low-skilled jobs. The issue with this is that is misallocates resources; educated people shouldn’t do menial work. That reduces the productivity of the economy. As we noted in R2, low-skilled immigrants--just like their selected counterparts--grease the wheel of the labor market and make everyone better off. g) We never argued that immigration reduces border-security costs, but Roy’s claim that his plan would somehow reduce our fiscal burden is utopian. His plan would eliminate the low-skilled immigrant population in this country, or at least stem the flow of immigrants. The issue with this is that it would shrink economy. Roy continues to view this issue through a static lense, when you must remember that fiscal impacts are dynamic; you have to take into account the macroeconomic benefits of migrants in our economy, as we have clearly proven. Even assuming that our plan would increase control costs and that his would reduce them, our plan allows for more people to enter the economy. This means more consumers, more income, and a growing economy. Roy’s economy would shrink dramatically. Removing all 11 million unauthorized workers would shrink our GDP by $1.6 trillion [7. http://tinyurl.com...]. Roy’s plan, even if it does lower costs, would be detrimental to society as a whole, and with the economy shrinking, any savings would be offset by a reduction in revenue. h) Roy claims that immigrants only create jobs if they don’t have access to welfare. But they don’t want welfare. Last round we showed that immigrants leave states with high welfare benefits if the employment environment is favorable elsewhere. Roy’s welfare magnet hypothesis is utterly untrue. And, using Roy’s argument, we might as well prevent blacks from having children because they are a fiscal burden. That is not reasonable at all. i) Roy’s claim on progressive taxes does not affect our argument. Using his logic, we should remove all of those in the lower income quintiles simply because they are a fiscal drain. But that does not mean that society would be better off if we did. In fact, our economy would be much smaller and worse. Even assuming immigrants are a fiscal drain, that doesn’t mean they harm our society as a whole. A UNC study found that, even though immigrants were a (very small) fiscal drain on the state, society as a whole was better off because of their economic contributions [6]. Any argument that does not take into account the impact of immigration on the economy is incomplete, rendering Roy’s case inadequate. Europe a) Letting Syrians in is the right thing to do. Just because someone is born in Syria does not make their life worth less than any of our’s. If open borders help millions of refugees--at the cost of a few bucks--from a utilitarian perspective, we must open our borders. In fact, letting refugees into the US would “carry little in the way of short-term financial costs, and that would likely provide a powerful boost to the US economy.” [8. http://tinyurl.com...] The long-term effect of immigration is always positive because even if their parents are a net drain, their children and grandchildren become more assimilated and positivley affect their communities [6]. Roy focuses on the short term detriment but ignores the massive long-term benefits. b) Roy’s argument about Africans flooding to the EU has no impact on the US. Africans can flee into the EU because they are close to it. Very few Africans would have the resources required to move to the US. Even with open borders, it would be easier to go to Europe than to cross the Atlantic ocean. Also, the number Roy cited--250,000 immigrants--is extremely low. The US has averages 4.2 million Mexican newcomers each year since 1990 [6]. 250,000 immigrants is nothing compared to the number of people flooding here each year. And, as we have noted, the effect is predominantly positive. c) Roy claims that Muslim immigrants are causing crime in Europe. This is a weak argument, as he only uses anecdotal evidence. Actual evidence from Europe suggests that the influx of muslim immigrants since 2000 has had no effect on crime rates [9. http://tinyurl.com...]. d) Roy claims that immigration increases fiscal costs in Europe. Even if this is true, the economic benefits far outweigh any fiscal costs--especially the long-term benefits that Roy dropped. The example should also be ignored because the EU has a much more generous welfare system than we do; the US spends 30% of its budget on welfare, whereas the UK that Roy cites spends closer to 40% [10. http://tinyurl.com...]. You cannot extrapolate fiscal costs from the EU when their welfare systems are vastly different than ours.