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Thursday, January 12, 2006
Immigration follies
I think T-Paw is off-base in his pandering attempts at immigration reform. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are hard-working, law-abiding people. The objections to immigration don't make a lot of sense. Sadly, approaches to curbing illegal immigration make even less sense.
If you want to keep workers out, police and penalize the businesses that hire them. If the demand for the labor is reduced, the supply will naturally fall. T-Paw just ain't gonna go on walk about in the Red River Valley arguing for tougher punishments for farmers who hire illegal aliens. So he focuses on tightening our borders. Reducing the supply of illegal labor doesn't affect the demand (example here) -- but will affect the price of illegal labor. This means that with greater border enforcement comes greater incentive to evade enforcement. It's a self-defeating system.
I don't normally comment on immigration, but today I was motivated. I had to get a random series of numbers and letters from a man in California who clearly grew up speaking a language other than English. It was, to be sure, an adventure. As it turns out, "'F' as in what now?" is a fun thing to say. And if a crankety-ass phone-hater like me can get a chuckle out of that experience, there's plenty of room to compromise on immigration.
