Posts Tagged ‘ immigration ’

"Remember the story about the drunk who loses his car keys in the forest but looks for them under a lamp post because that's where the light is? Conservative calls to fight terrorism in the wake of the Boston attack by ditching immigration reform make just as much sense." (04/30/13)

"Since the Gang of 8 released their proposal, the desperation from those who want to see this bill die -- and any hope of immigration reform die with it -- can be heard throughout DC. Its opponents are spreading everything from the inaccurate to the absurd about the bill and its probable consequences." (04/18/13)

"The key lesson of the Bubble is that psychological separation from unpleasant experiences is a low-cost substitute for physical separation from unpleasant experiences. You don't have to choose between (a) suffering at the hands of the people around you, or (b) moving to a mountaintop." (04/15/13)

"The position taken by Hoppe is that nobody should be able to make a claim on the state without 100% consent from those paying for it, including for goods such as roads. The issue is that the state does exist, so long as there is government we should seek to ensure a policy of least damage done. By having high costs or even bans to hire migrants, the state would be taking away people's right to freely associate and make contracts. Further, by increasing the cost of labour, and doing other such damage to the economy as described in Bowman's article, restrictions on immigration do damage to the taxpayer. Hoppe's 'second best' position simply doesn't hold true." (04/02/13)

"Lately it seems whether I am with relatives, good friends, on line or doing a radio interview the majority of people who disagree vehemently with me on immigration are Conservatives. I actually have pretty harsh words for Democrats too, as I think both groups are only concerned with the Latino vote and care nothing about the principles they should be upholding. So much for civil liberties for all people, free markets and allowing peaceful exercise of meaningful choice." (03/28/13)

"Immigration is good for us. With every major party now promising to 'get tough'’ on immigration, it’s easy to forget that immigrants bring new skills to the country, allow for more specialization, tend to be more entrepreneurial than average, pay more in to the welfare state than they take out, and make things cheaper by doing the jobs that Britons won't. No political figure of any stature will say any of these things." (03/25/13)

Video featuring Ben Powell. [Flash video] (03/13/13)

"In which President Obama’s I.C.E. plan some new tactics for escalating their deportations of undocumented immigrants -- destroying lives and separating families -- for the sake of keeping up their stats. To keep up their stats, they implement a combination of the worst sorts of profiling and police-state dragnets." (03/07/13)

"How politicians, the police and the EU have ganged up against the non-problem of illegal immigrants." (03/05/13)

"Immigration restrictions are more than just violations of the liberties of foreigners. Truly a society that restricts the freedom of certain groups restricts the freedom of all. Apologists for state action will reassure voters that each new intrusion into society will only impact the 'one-percent' -- that is to say that restrictions on the liberty of marginal groups will leave yours unaffected. The message underlying each government intervention is that your freedom is safe, or even enhanced by another’s loss in liberty." (02/26/13)

"Most opponents of illegal immigration say that before any reforms to immigration policy are made, the border needs to be secured (the points mentioned above notwithstanding). I happen to think they have it backwards. If anything, immigration policy should be focused on those who are here already. The idea that every single illegal immigrant can be rounded up and sent back to their country of origin is absurd. There are simply too many of them." (01/30/13)

"Immigration reform is tricky. To be politically acceptable it must balance increased immigration enforcement, legalization of current unauthorized immigrants, and a guest worker program to channel future immigrants into the legal market. The present plan is to create a commission with representation from the government, business and unions. This effectively means handing over control to unions -- and is therefore doomed to fail." (01/28/13)

"A commenter on my previous post wrote that 'Having open borders renders the entire concept of a country meaningless.' ... My conclusion is that if the concept of a country is meaningless without at least nominal restrictions on immigration, the U.S. only came into existence about 1875. If the restrictions have to be real -- i.e. effectively enforced -- the U.S., if it exists at all, has been a country for only a few decades, making it younger than I am." (11/15/12)

"First, let’s dispense with the notion agreed upon by many on the Right: seal the border first, so that whatever follows is more controlled and orderly. This is an expensive fantasy. Conservatives need to apply their skepticism of huge, complex, market-distorting government plans to every issue surrounding immigration, starting with any plan to spend tens of billions of dollars on thousands of miles of fence, surveillance, unionized government employees, and a verification system forced on every employer in the country." (11/07/12)

"Undocumented students who now have conditional, permanent residency thanks to the DREAM Act have been protesting Mitt Romney and his stance on immigration, or lack thereof, across the country. ... ReasonTV caught up with some of the protesters in downtown Los Angeles, and questioned them on their views of Romney, Obama, and a realistic future for immigration policy." [Flash video] (09/26/12)

"I had a weird dream the other day. Immigration, which is in a downward spiral in the U.S., continues to fall dramatically. At a certain point the debate shifts to the desperate need to attract foreigners. Eventually, headlines such as 'a million immigrant visas to be granted on a first come, first serve basis everywhere' or 'immigrants to be exempted from income taxes for ten years' pop up in the papers. But the immigrants shun the appeals." (07/02/12)

"It should come as no shock to readers of this blog to discover that a preponderance of US voters favor rather strict immigration restrictions. I also expect that many readers are passably familiar with some of the excuses forwarded by those in the closed-borders camp and are eminently capable of judging the relative merits of each. Almost alone among these reasons, political externalities stand as the one objection that at least partially withstands careful scrutiny using ordinary economic analysis." (06/29/12)

"The constant references in polemic and news stories alike to "illegal immigration" [sic], that is. By way of public service, I'm occasionally moved to reiterate the simple fact that per the US Constitution there is no such thing as illegal immigration, at least at the federal level." (06/26/12)

"During the Republican primaries, the exit polls showed little interest in illegal [sic] immigration. ... A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center suggests that net migration from Mexico has fallen to zero -- and perhaps less. Yet in a fairly transparent attempt to jumpstart Hispanic voter turnout in the November election, President Barack Obama has brought illegal [sic] immigration back to the forefront." (06/25/12)