Immigration

What Are We Talking About

My background is in lean process design, and I currently work in technology. These two perspectives are nearly always missing from this discussion. I would like to add those perspectives - but first we need to hit a few other points.

Highlight The Numbers

Let's add some context by giving a few number. In 2016 ~1.5 Million people immigrated to America via the establish legal process. In the same year, ~500 Thousand attempted to cross the American / Mexican boarder. Of those ~70% were either caught or turned back. Which means ~150 Thousand entries without inspection (EWI) made it through. This means 10X more people came to America legally than crossed the boarder illegally.

Note: The above leaves aside the ~40% of illegal immigrates who come to America via plane and overstay their visa.

So, why do conservatives care so much about illegals?

Labor

Conservatives believe it is a problem that immigrants are willing to work for low wages. Given conservatives have been trying to lower or eliminate the minimum wage for decades, this is cognitive dissonance. When discussing wage laws, they believe that low wages are good for business. When discussing illegal immigration, they believe low wages destroy businesses.

The depths of conservative misguidedness on the minimum wage and demand side economics as a whole is a topic for another day.

So, for arguments sake, let's say that conservatives are right about low wages. That would mean the real problem isn't the level of the wages, but who they're going to. They believe it is Americans who should be earning those low wages. The issue with that is Americans don't apply for types of jobs dominated by immigrants today. Our culture places an emphasis on merit, achievement, and comfort in the workplace. And rightly so. The result is that Americans don't find value in this type of work, so they leave it behind. If your goal is for Americans to find value in this type of work, then encouraging entrepreneurship is the way to do it. Small business ownership is what brings Americans to the table. To cultivate this, we must pivot our focus from immigration, to the harmful effects of large corporations which bend the law and markets. They encourages economic feudalism that consolidates and crowd out small business with high barriers to entry.

Welfare

In one breadth conservatives will say that immigrants are taking our jobs. In the next they will say they are lazy unemployed leaches sucking our welfare and healthcare system dry.

Sooo which is it? Are they creating an epidemic of job loss, or are they sitting around at home all day playing video games. It can't be both.

We know that illegal immigrants actually pay taxes, and take comparatively little out of social programs. From a labor market point of view, as well as a general point of view, they are a net benefit to our economy and federal budget.

Money

It is true that many illegal and legal immigrants alike send money back to their homes, reducing the money supply in America. Commentators omitted that Americans do the exact same thing in other countries. Our boarder is membranous when it comes to money, as it is with traded products. Money flows in and out all the time. This reciprocal nature means it is not harmful to our economy for people to send money to their native lands.

Libertarians

Why do libertarians value the unrestricted movement of everything accept people? They like an unregulated labor market within an country - but as soon as people move in or out they have a huge problem.

It is unexpected that groups like these would rail against illegal immigration, and shout that if you want to come here then you should do so legally. This leads to an obvious questions:
Why is the number of immigrants that go the legal route the right number to let in?
Why is the number of immigrants that come in illegally "more than we can handle"?
Remember that 10X more immigrants come in the legal way. So if following procedure is actually what you care about, then the solution is simple - let's change procedure.

Process

Current state is a labyrinth. Hard to navigate even for lawyers, let alone the average person. We can cut all this bureaucracy down to a lean and efficient process. We can set up intake buildings across the boarder, in our airports, and throughout the country for those already here in order to process and grant residency to immigrants on the spot. 15 minutes or less. No long drawn out filing process or meetings with case agents or any of that. So long as you don't have a criminal background, you're in.

The upside is that we can then subject these new residents to the same labor laws we all must follow; including minimum wage. If you want to level the low skill labor market playing field, this is the way to do it. This would balance out many of the economic grudges conservatives have with illegal immigrants.

This isn't to say that we can't also reform what it means to be a resident. This can be a probationary time in which you cannot break the law without deportation, you are not guaranteed the same social benefits of a citizen, and you still must pass an exam to become a citizen. This would be the best of both worlds.

How do we make the process so quick and guarantee no background of criminality in their hime country?

Technology

Working with other countries on establishing in international database were criminality records circulates to everyone would be far far cheaper than building a wall across the boarder. We know that legal immigrates are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to start businesses. Let's get as many of those people in the door as we can, as efficiently.

Boarder employees armed with iPads and biometric palm scanners can intake anyone, check their background, and set up their residency in moments.

The way to end illegal boarder crossings is to make it obsolete. If you do, then the only one's still trying to get over by other means would be nefarious. We know that this number is very small. Even a reduced boarder control outfit would have no problem handling those folks.

TL;DR

The ROI of a wall isn't there. A better process enabled by technology would make many woes obsolete.

Scources

Politifact bit.ly/2LSYvo5

Immigration Policy Institue bit.ly/2xKT27T

Forbes bit.ly/2LVj2s3