Let Them In

by Jason Riley

The subtitle of my book, "Let Them In," is the "The Case for Open Borders." And the case for open borders is the case for letting the free market decide how much foreign labor we need in this country. Right now that determination is made, by and large, by politicians and public policy makers setting arbitrary immigration quotas. And like most exercises in central planning, it's been a disaster. It's left us with thriving markets in human smuggling and document fraud. It's left us with dead bodies strewn across the Arizona desert. And, of course, it's left us with 12 million-plus illegal aliens in the U.S.

In the book, I argue that our public policy makers would do better to put in place free-market mechanisms--such as viable guest worker programs--that allow the law of supply and demand to determine the level of immigration. This will help reduce illegal immigration, just as it did when we tried it after WWII in the form of the Bracero program. The vast majority of people coming here from Latin America are economic migrants in search of work. They'd prefer to use the front door. Let’s expand the legal channels for entry and let them in. They need the work and we have the jobs.

But in addition to reducing illegal entries, a viable guest worker program would have the added benefit of making us safer from a homeland security standpoint. Instead of chasing down people who come here to burp our babies, mow our lawns, chop off chicken heads, and otherwise get a better return on their human capital--just as immigrants immemorial have done--our limited homeland security resources could be used to chase down real threats. Under the status quo, the economic migrants are running interference for the bad guys. I’d much rather our border patrol be focused on drug dealers, gang members, potential terrorists and others coming here to do us harm. Right now, they aren’t. Right now, they’re stretched thin pursuing people coming here to work. It’s an inefficient use of limited resources; and it makes this country less safe than we would be otherwise.

Jason Riley is a member of the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal. He will be participating in a conference call and panel discussion this Thursday (June 19th) on "Immigration Reform: Work to be Done".  As is the case with all of our outside contributors, his views are his own, and do not, necessarily, represent the position of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or its members.