Title: Coming to America: The Benefits of Open Immigration - Foundation for Economic Education
Headings: Coming to America: The Benefits of Open Immigration
Coming to America: The Benefits of Open Immigration
Immigration and Labor
Immigration and Welfare
Immigration and Culture
Immigration and Freedom
Thomas E. Lehman

Content: Why do they wish so desperately to deny late twentieth-century immigrants the benefits to which their own eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ancestors were privileged? What do Americans have against open borders? American immigration policy is a labyrinth of regulations and barriers to free travel and migration. One wishing to enter this country must possess all the legal and “proper” documentation in order to be permitted entry. The poverty-stricken and homeless foreigners who expect to benefit most from immigrating into the American economy rarely possess resources adequate for legal entry. Hence, they are denied. Such immigration policy is based upon a xenophobic confusion regarding economics, the mobility of labor, the American welfare state, and cultural diversity. Immigration and Labor
Many Americans argue that free immigration would destroy “working class” Americans’ ability to earn a living. They claim that allowing free and open borders to any and all immigrants would put decent, hard-working Americans out of work. Perhaps what these Americans really fear, however, is that someone will emerge from the “immigrant class” who would be willing to work for less than they while producing equal or greater output.