Sources of Inequality - Immigration

Today’s QuickThink: and the world will be as one -

A child born in the United States can travel to 170 countries without a visa. But a subsistence farmer in a sub-Saharan village, an orphan in the slums of Karachi, and a dissident in a North Korean labor camp are effectively deprived of the freedom to leave by their home-countries and their hope-countries. Immigration policies on both sides of the border restrict the free movement of people and perpetuate the appalling inequality forced on us by the birth lottery.

What would happen if all national borders vanished? Proponents of national segregation say that poor immigrants would flood the rich countries; that wages would collapse; that crime would spike; and that a parade of horrors would follow.

Consider two responses: one practical and one principled. On the practical side, notice that 321 million people enjoy free movement in the United States. But is Mississippi empty and is Massachusetts full of poverty and crime? Did everyone leave Bulgaria and Romania when they joined the European Union? And did the 2.7 billion people who can move freely through India and China flood the cities in search of opportunity?

Even if they did, the principled thing to say is ‘Let justice be done though the heavens fall.’ For this reason, we should liberalize our immigration policies. National borders must vanish so that all people can share the world.