Thoughts on Freedom ~ Absorbing Immigrants
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America should re-open its borders to immigrants.
Not until 1924 did the government generally limit the number of people who could come to America and make it their home. If America’s borders had been closed, say, a century earlier, the civilization that we now call “American” would not exist. The Irish, Germans, Italians, Scandinavians, central and eastern Europeans, and many Asians arrived here in bulk during the nineteenth century. Most would have been turned away under the restrictive regime followed since 1924.
When I talk with people about immigration, everyone agrees that the open-borders policy of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries was a great boon to America. Without it, we would today be unimaginably poorer and less vibrant. So I then ask: If open borders in the past generated enormous benefits, why not open our borders today? I always get the same answer: “Times change. America had more room and resources then. We could then absorb immigrants better than we can today.”
I disagree.
Room for Immigrants
Since 1820 the years that witnessed the greatest influx of immigrants as a proportion of America’s population were the early and mid-1850s, when annual immigration was about 1.6 percent of the resident population. This figure was approached again in the 1880s and during the first decade of the twentieth century. Today, annual immigration is about 0.25 percent of the resident population—less than one-sixth its level during the first half of the 1850s, and about one-sixth its level during much of the 1880s and the first decade of the twentieth century. (Some people argue that illegal immigrants are undercounted today. Taking the largest estimate I’ve seen of uncounted illegal immigrants, total annual immigrants as a proportion of the U.S. population today would be 1.25 percent of the resident population. While likely overblown, accepting this figure as accurate means that, as a percent of the resident population, immigration today remains well below that of any of the peak years of the past.)
What about our ability to “absorb” these—and even more—immigrants?
An important element of the ability to absorb is living space. Americans today enjoy record levels of residential living space. For example, in 1915, the typical dwelling in America housed 5.63 people; today it houses fewer than half of that number—2.37 people. Combined with the fact that the square-footage of today’s typical dwelling is, on the most conservative estimate, 20 percent greater than it was a century ago, our ability to “absorb” immigrants into our residential living spaces is today more than twice what it was during the era of open borders.
What about land? Contrary to a widely mistaken belief, the amount of land devoted to urban and suburban uses is a tiny percentage of America’s land (even excluding largely unsettled Alaska). While such land use has grown significantly during the past century, today it is at most about 3 percent of the land area of the lower 48 states. (The 3 percent figure is an overestimate because, since about 1960, cities have increasingly incorporated lands that remain largely rural in character but that are classified as “urban.”)
And since at least 1950, the amount of land devoted to public recreation uses and to wildlife refuges has increased faster than has the amount of land devoted to urban and suburban uses. Today, the land area devoted to national and state parks, and to wildlife refuges, is more than seven times greater than it was in 1900. America is nowhere close to being crowded.
Also, we’re much better able to feed ourselves today, even though the amount of land used to grow crops and to pasture animals is no larger now than in 1900. Extraordinary increases in agricultural productivity enable American farmers and ranchers to produce vastly more output on the same amount of land. For example, each acre planted with wheat today produces three times more output than it did a century ago. Similar, and even greater, productivity increases have occurred for nearly all other agricultural products. This productivity explosion is reflected in a much more abundant food supply and lower food prices.
Absorbing Workers
Immigrants, of course, come to America not only to consume but also to work. A measure of our ability to “absorb” workers is capital invested per worker—the amount of machinery and other tools in place for workers to use. Today, the amount of capital invested per worker is more than nine times greater than in 1880 and about 8.5 times greater than in 1924. Because a worker’s productivity rises when he has more capital to work with and his pay is tied closely to his productivity, workers entering the American economy today produce and earn more than workers entering during the open-borders era.
Don’t lose sight of our labor market’s great flexibility. It easily absorbed the massive increase of women workers during the second half of the twentieth century. Over this time, 46 million jobs were created for women, which is more than half of the 80 million jobs created during that same time.
In many other ways, America today is far better able than in the past to absorb more immigrants. For example, compared to 1920, per person today we:
- have greater than ten times more miles of paved roads;
- have more than twice as many physicians;
- have 50 percent more dentists;
- have almost three times as many teachers;
- have 540 percent more police officers;
- have twice as many firefighters;
- produce 2.4 times more oil—as known reserves of oil grow;
- produce 2.67 times more cubic feet of lumber—as America’s supply of lumber stands grows;
- have conquered most of the infectious diseases that were major killers in the past.*
The fact is America today is much wealthier, healthier, spacious, and resource-rich than it was a century ago. And we owe many of these advances to the creativity and effort of immigrants. If open immigration worked until 1924 to enrich America, it can do so now with even greater certainty. Let’s welcome more immigrants so that they can help themselves, and us, build even better lives.
*My principal data sources for this article are Julian L. Simon, ed., The State of Humanity (Blackwell, 1995), and Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2 (Princeton University Press, 1996), as well as various U.S. Census Bureau reports
Donald Boudreaux is chairman of the economics department of George Mason University and former president of FEE.
Pingback by Some Want “Illegals” Covered under Healthcare Plan | Foundation for Economic Education on 28 September 2009:
[...] Timely Classic “Absorbing Immigrants” by Donald J. Boudreaux Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman and "In brief." He is a [...]
Comment by Donald Coder on 29 September 2009:
America is a land of immigrants and I am thankful that my immigrant grandparents were accepted. They brought very little with them other than enthusiasm and a desire to prosper. So why is there such an outcry today about the sudden influx of new immigrants? My complaint is that today immigrants are entitled to benefits that cost tax payers money that they never chose to give to new immigrants. Forced charity is tyranny. This is the complaint. Marxism brings a new issue to the concept of open immigration.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 29 September 2009:
Yet another disingenuous article by Mr. Boudreaux where he fails to differentiate between Immigrants and Illegal Aliens. It would be nice if he would educate himself as to the difference rather than constantly setting up the same tire old Straw Man time and time again.
An Immigrant is someone that enters this country legally. This means he follows the laws The People have authored as a sovereign nation that control who can and cannot enter.
Yet again I would remind Mr. Boudreaux that people that oppose – illegal – immigration are not “Anti-Immigrant” we are Anti-Illegal-Immigrant. I am hoping that if I repeat this often enough that he will eventually grasp the difference. I am not certain if he is unable to see the difference or if he is simply unwilling because it is lethal to his side of the debate. I am hoping for the former but expect the later is more likely.
Last I checked property rights are a core issue for Libertarians. Has this changed? If not then we should not want someone entering our nation without our permission any more than we would want someone entering our homes without our knowledge and consent.
I bought my home and We, The People, built this county. We built the economy. We built the infrastructure. We built the culture that allowed the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Millions of men from the Revolution to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fought and died to protect the – sovereignty – of this nation and Mr. Boudreaux wants to give it away on a whim.
Mr. Boudreaux offers that we did not restrict immigration until 1924 ergo we should not restrict it now. Using this same “logic” I could argue that since we did not have speeding laws until the 1890’s we do not need them now. This is called a “Wisdom of the Ancients” fallacy. We can add this to his repeated Straw Man fallacy I pointed out earlier. Just because something worked in the past does not mean we should revisit it today. The 13th Amendment outlawing slavery did not exist until 1865 does that mean we should return to Triangle Trade?
In addition to this Mr. Boudreaux assertion is simply wrong. My Great-Grandfather came here long before 1924 and he had to be sponsored before he was allowed to become a citizen. My Great-Aunts had come to the US as indentured servants several years before and one of the sisters married a wealthy business man that was able to purchase their freedom. They did the proper paperwork, swore that “Pop” was a person of good character (i.e., not a criminal) and they had to set up a job for him before he arrived (he went from working in the coal mines in Scotland to working in the coal mines in Chicago).
As is typical Mr. Boudreaux mentions Irish immigration in the 1850’s without examining the differences between the influx of Irish and the current situation.
In 1850 most of the Irish came to the US via ship so entry was regulated so most entered the country legally.
In 2009 there are as many or more illegal immigrants per annum than legal ones (a half-million legal versus a half-million to one-million illegal).
In the 1850’s the Irish came here as a result of poverty and famine caused by England failing to properly deal with a national tragedy resulting in the total population of Ireland dropping by approximately 20% to 25% due to death, disease, and emigration. Once the famine ended the numbers dropped so it was a transient event.
In 2009 we can look back to 1986 when we gave amnesty to 8 million illegal immigrants and this increased the number of people crossing our boarder hoping to capitalize on the next amnesty (McCain-Kennedy). This has been going on since the 1960’s if not longer and rather than decreasing, the numbers keep increasing as the population of Latin America continues to explode. Rather than decreasing by 20% to 25% due to some sort of unforeseen disaster, the total population of Latin America has swelled from approximately 60 million in 1900 to more than 600 million in 2000. This is not a transient event and it will keep getting worse until Latin America deals with a population explosion which is currently on course to meet or exceed China and India in a few decades.
Let me be clear: We cannot absorb and unending floor of poor and uneducated over the next century without turning the US into a clone of the nations these people are fleeing in the first place. Our goal should be to help Latin America become a clone of the US – not – the reverse.
In the 1850’s the US had a total population of approximately 50 million people and we had recently acquired the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the Mexican Cession (1848) representing more than a million square miles of land. Much of this was unexplored and hostile. The US government was giving away property in gigantic lots in an effort to occupy this area so could claim and maintain sovereignty over the territory.
In 2009 the last time the US added a state was back in 1959 when Hawaii became the 50th star on “Old Glory.” The global population has risen from 2 billion to 6 billion and is expected to continue to expand at an unsustainable rate. Just about every square inch of land on the plant is claimed by one country or another and God is not making more except for a few small volcanic islands that are just as likely to blow up or sink into the sea.
In the 1850’s you could get on a wagon and wander from Chicago all the way to the Pacific without seeing another human.
In 2009 you can drive from San Diego to Los Angeles to Las Vegas and back to San Diego in bumper to bumper traffic. I spent 8 hours commuting from Vegas to Santa Ana this weekend watching essentially the same group of cars the entire time.
What Mr. Boudreaux fails to understand is that it does not matter how much raw land we have available when we do not have the infrastructure to support the number of people occupying the land we already inhabit. There is a reason no one lives in the frozen tundra of Alaska or the forests of Utah. Jobs are not plentiful in areas where the closest gas station is 300 miles away.
In 1850 infrastructure was less of a concern because horses do not need roads, highways, and freeway. We were still predominately a Pre-Industrial / Agrarian society rather than a Post-Industrial / Techno-Society.
In 2009 illegal aliens represent at least 6% of the population. This means they consume 6% of the infrastructure (schools, roads, water, sewage, etc.) while returning a fraction of this investment. In California alone it is estimated they cost the State at least 10 Billion dollars a year. Most Illegals do not have an education so they do not add to the tax base that builds the infrastructure they exploit and it takes at least two generations for this to change. By the time Gen III shows up a newer, larger Gen I has arrived and makes the situation even worse. Even if there were no other arguments for limiting immigration the practical limits of the expansion of infrastructure relative to population would be enough on its own.
These are s is only a fraction of what has changed in the past 150 years since the Irish came here. Someone needs to let Mr. Boudreaux know that things have changed. We do not own slaves. We do not commute to work on horses. We do not have a couple millions square miles of free territory to hand out to anyone that would like a few acres to farm on.
What we do have are massive social programs that are bankrupting us every time someone else comes here and ends up sucking money out of welfare, HUD, EMTALA, and dozens of “safety net” programs that were supposed to help citizens rather than foreign nationals.
The fact is you can be Pro-Immigration and Anti-Illegal-Immigration at the exact same time in much the same way you can be pro-car-ownership and anti-car-theft at the exact same time. One way is legal. The other isn’t. I hope Mr. Boudreaux eventually learns the difference.
Until then, I’ll keep trying to educate him.
Comment by John Anello on 30 September 2009:
Donald Boudreaux and other immigration enthusiast often look to American immigration’s glorious past to justify immigration today. The strongest argument of the pro-immigration crowd is that immigrants today are “just like grandma and grandpa.” However, history and reality demonstrate that this is not the case.
Before the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 most immigrants came from Europe. They had training and skills that they used to start businesses. They took pride in their new nation and strived to learn its language and its customs. They came here for opportunity, not entitlements. In many cases, the children of these immigrants were fully assimilated to US culture by the time they were grown, many of them had earned advanced degrees and had careers in professional fields.
The Hart-Cellar Act changed immigration forever. It allowed for more immigration from third world nations in Africa and Latin America and less from Europe. Unlike their counterparts of the 19th and early 20th century these immigrants have little or no skills. They have no desire to learn our language and our culture and feel entitled to healthcare and a minimum standard of living. As a result of the countries they come from, today’s immigrants have a difficult time assimilating to our way of life. They come here for entitlement not opportunity. I have already gone over statistics in excruciating detail in responding to Ms. Akers article and I do not wish to go through them again. The fact is that modern day immigration is a strain on our criminal justice and healthcare systems; it is a threat to our national security and can be a public health hazard.
Mr. Boudreaux also makes the case that we have room for these new immigrants! Really?! When was the last time you were walking down the street and said, “Gee, there are no people around.” When was the last time you were driving and said, “My God, there are hardly any cars on the road.” We are a nation of 300 million people and our population is increasing due to high birth rates and immigration. We will undoubtedly face many challenges in the coming decades, including the bankruptcy of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Do you think these challenges will be easier to meet by adding millions of (mostly indigent) people to our already overpopulated country? I do not.
I hate to disagree with Donald Boudreaux. I think he is a brilliant economist and a great friend of liberty. I always read his articles and I find them very insightful and informative. I agree with him on almost every issue, and I consider anyone who fights for limited government an ally. I only oppose him here because I believe immigration will be detrimental to liberty in years to come.
Comment by James Madison Fan on 30 September 2009:
John,
Nice to see you posting again.
The thing I would like someone to explain regardless of if it is Mr. Boudreaux, Ms. Akers, or a Randian Objectivists with the same opinion is why they can be staunch supporters of individual property rights without supporting national sovereignty? It seems contradictory to me.
A nation is essentially the same as a shared property. If you and I buy some land together we have to agree what we are going to do with it under the partnership. Decisions are not unilateral unless that stipulation is agreed to in the contract. Under a shared partnership if you rent the property to the “Reformed Church of Satan” and I find this offensive I can exert my rights as co-owner and visa-versa.
If these Objectivists / Libertarians would support my rights as a co-owner on a micro scale I am at a loss why they do not think this same logic is applicable on a macro scale?
Comment by John Anello on 30 September 2009:
Good Point. The Constitution can be viewed as a contract between the government and its citizens. Article IV Section 4 guarantees each state protection from invasion. The states along our southern border may have a legitimate claim against the Federal government for failure to uphold the Constitution.