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Free Markets Require Increased Legal Immigration
Written by Alex Nowrasteh
Alex Nowrasteh is the immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.
This article appeared in The Washington Times on May 22, 2012.
This morning I found the article from Cato Institute, which has various great economic resources. When I was an undergraduate economics major, I often used and cited reliable sources from Cato Institute in my academic papers. Although the article was written in May 22, 2012, I still thought it had the most updated analysis on the U.S. immigration policies. Due to word limit in the thread, I did not provide the whole article in the thread. If you want to read the whole article, please see the full article link below.
The full article link: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/free-markets-require-increased-legal-immigration
My Original Comments:
It took me two hours to read and analyze the article today, and then write these comments below. I will revise my comments a few times as I proofread them. Please cherish my original work and post your constructive comments under my thread after you carefully read the original article on Cato Institute website. Now I would like to discuss three main things that I concerned with you in the following:
1. The author Nowrasteh (2012) mentioned that the current U.S. immigration system is not efficient because of its high restriction for selecting legalized immigrants. The U.S. government is trying to protect the national workers’ benefits and select high skillful immigrant workers to work in the U.S., so the U.S. government cannot legalize most of immigrants who live in the U.S. In addition, the U.S. government needs to legalize a number of immigrants from some diplomatic partners because of politics. Thus, the standards for selecting a skillful immigrant worker are pretty high. In addition, Nowrasteh (2012) also explained that “Our immigration regulations are not just arbitrary, complex and expensive, but are based on an entirely false premise that there is a fixed pool of jobs over which people must compete.” Of course, there are more job seekers than available jobs in the market. If one wanted to get a good job, then he had to improve his skills regardless of his citizenship and race. However, current expensive regulation and complex immigration system could reduce incentives for being a legalized immigrant in the U.S.
2. Moreover, too much government intervention made on the immigration system lowered the efficiency of the U.S. job market. Nowrasteh (2012) also said that “immigrants are at least 25 percent more likely to start a business than native-born Americans.” In other words, if less immigrants were legalized to work in the U.S., the number of business created in the U.S. would be reduced. Meanwhile, even though many immigrants were not qualified to be legalized workers, they still tried to seek job opportunities. These illegal immigrant workers could compete with legal immigrant workers for low-skill jobs, such as dining services. Therefore, the number of available jobs for legal immigrants could be decreased becasue of illegal competition. Of course, the U.S. government can punish illegal immigrant workers by deportation. However, that is not an efficient way reviving the shrinking job market.
Instead, I agreed with the author that the U.S. government should legalize some “peaceful unauthorized immigrants will give them an incentive to learn English more quickly, increase their incomes and become Americans” (Nowrasteh 2012). The U.S. government provides free ESL classes for non-native English speakers who are legalized immigrants. As more immigrants become legalized, they could learn English more quickly, and therefore improve their technical skills by attending colleges than before. Another incentive that inspires unauthorized immigrants to be legalized is welfare, because welfare is only provided to U.S. citizens and legalized immigrants in the U.S. If more immigrants become legalized, they will receive better welfare, such as health care than before. Better health care means decreased number of possible diseases and illnesses. In the U.S., hospitals have to treat patients regardless of patients’ affordability. If the number of illegal immigrants could be lowered, the cost of treating illegal immigrant patients could be reduced as well.
3. Free market is the key to maximize profits and efficiency. Legalized immigrants had made great contributions to the U.S. economic growth. Nowrasteh (2012) reported that “At the high end of the skills spectrum, more than half of all Silicon Valley startups in recent years have been founded by immigrants.” The companies that immigrants created could generate lots of jobs in the market and lower the unemployment rate. Again, as more immigrants become legalized, these immigrants could have more educational opportunities, such as going to college, to enhance various skills that needed to be productive workers. Consequently, not only immigrants but also U.S. citizens are stimulated to improve their skills to produce higher quality goods and offer better services in the free market than in a market with too much government intervention. Employers also would be able to find more talented and higher-skill job candidates than before.
On the other hand, some low-skill workers may lose their jobs due to a new technical revolution. However the advantage of free market is that “jobs are constantly being created and destroyed in a healthy economy” (Nowrasteh 2012). Therefore low-skill workers must educate and promote themselves to enhance their technical skills and adjust to the competitive job market. [Note: Job candiates cannot find a job purely based on any relationships with past or current employees and employers in a company in the U.S. Instead, job seekers can use their network to get a job interview, but eventually they have to show their greatest skill potential and match all of job qualifications to obatin a job offer.]
Additionally, there is a comparative advantage playing an important role in the job market. Regardless of the skills of an employee, the employee cannot do everything on his own, so he must make a choice to do the job that maximizes his productivity. Then relatively lower-skill jobs can be offered to lower-skill workers. If all employees work on their jobs with maximum productivity, companies’ production and profits should be maximized that encourages entrepreneur to invest more and create more jobs in the future.
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