Mr. Fox's statements certainly earn him low marks for political sensitivity to American concerns. Mexican illegal immigrants comprise more than half of the estimated 5 million undocumented workers in the United States, and recent pleas for a blanket amnesty for illegals cast doubt on the credibility of U.S. immigration authorities. Even in a booming economy, many illegal workers are unemployed. The many who work are often subjected to shameful conditions with few legal protections. Yet critics of Mr. Fox's vision are missing the bigger point.
Immigrants deserve much credit for the spectacular U.S. economy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has argued that sustaining economic growth and low inflation may require actually loosening immigration restrictions. In that regard, the United States is in an enviable position with respect to some of its major trading partners in Europe, which will need to import hundreds of thousands of workers in coming decades to keep their economies from shrinking. Mr. Samuelson's criticism of high Mexican immigration also puts too much emphasis on the number of immigrants the United States should let in while leaving aside the more fundamental questions of what the country should do to incorporate immigrants into the mainstream and mitigate economic forces, such as globalization, that fuel migrant streams in the first place. Mr. Fox's vision for North America's future is not particularly outrageous in light of changes in thinking about national borders in recent decades. For example, his futurescape is already in Europe, where the European Union's elimination of barriers allows EU citizens freedom of movement among the member states.