Welfare states are unstable, and tend either to give way to free market reforms and liberalization, to collapse under their own weight, or to fall down the slippery slope of interventionism and degenerate into authoritarian regimes. For as long as I can recall, and certainly for decades before I was born, the American left...
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A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco confirms research by Independent Institute scholars that immigrants improve the U.S. economy as a whole, including employment prospects and wages for native-born Americans: total immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real...
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Recent data suggest that there has been a decline in illegal immigration into the United States, according to the Dallas Morning News. At the same time, “the national debate over illegal immigration grows more vigorous and polarized.” This trend is not isolated to the issue of immigration. Often, just as a real or perceived...
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From Damon Root’s “Hit and Run” blog over at Reason, a splendid reminder of how open-minded (and open border) the United States was in the 19th century. Imagine Republicans standing up and arguing that the Chinese and all other immigrants have a “natural right” to migrate wherever they choose. And the Republicans preserved the...
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Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . . On second thought, to hell with them.     First they came for the lettuce pickers, and I did not speak out because I was not a lettuce picker. Then they came for the maids and the dishwashers, and I did not speak out...
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As with everything else about the U.S. police state that is often associated with Republicans and the right, the Obama administration has pushed the envelope and showed itself to be as draconian as Bush. Deportations of illegal aliens—as in, people without the federal government’s permission to be here—have increased under Obama, including deportations of...
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This recent article on Tennessee Republican gubernatorial candidates’ battle to see who can be toughest on undocumented immigrants shows politics at its ugliest: there’s a clearly-defined set of enemies (immigrants!), a clearly-defined and unpopular set of scapegoats (employers!), and a clearly-defined and resonant morality tale (they took our jobs!). It’s a classic example of...
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My Division of Labour co-blogger Noel Campbell hits a home run with today’s post on immigration. Two key quotes: Arizona doesn’t have an illegal immigration problem; Arizona has an organized crime violence problem. What created the incentives for organized crime (and its penchant for violence) to develop? Well, the War on Drugs, of course....
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If the Tea Parties and conservative activists want to be serious about opposing big government, they need to abandon their love of border police, immigration controls and statist nationalism. The hysterical response to those on the left comparing the Arizona law to Nazism reminds me of the equally hysterical response to those on the...
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At least since 9/11, the Democrats have, if anything, been even worse than the Republicans in their push for a national ID. I recall the Bush administration, very early on, dismissing this totalitarian idea, although Bush soon enough signed the Real ID Act into law, with the support of hawkish and anti-immigration conservatives. But...
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