The Becker-Posner Blog

Reforming Immigration Policy-Becker

American immigration policy is simply a mess! Skills of potential immigrants receive a lower weight in determining priority for legal immigration than in any other developed country. This year, the 65,000 places under the H-1B program that gives firms the opportunity to get temporary visas for skilled immigrants (up to two terms of 3 years each) were fully subscribed five days after the program opened. Approximately 11 million illegal immigrants are in the country. They are highly unlikely ever to be deported, yet have an insecure and restless future. And these are just some of the highlights of the U.S.’ immigration problems.

Any sensible immigration reform would greatly increase the opportunities for skilled immigrants to come to this country on a permanent basis. Once that were accomplished, there would be no need for an H-1B program, or any other program of temporary visas for skilled workers. The millions of illegal immigrants in the United States will not disappear, so like it or not, ultimately most of them will have to be offered a pathway to citizenship. The years of waiting in one’s home country before receiving a green card should end, and be replaced by a process where legal entry into this country is quick and efficient.

A group of senators from both political parties has introduced a bill for major immigration reform. This bill includes a substantial expansion in the H-1B temporary visa program from 65,000 to 110,000, expanded opportunities for skilled immigrants, a pathway to citizenship for many illegal immigrants, and further tightening of the border with Mexico. The bill also proposes a “merit-based” point system, already used by some other countries, that would award points to immigrants based on their education, employment prospects, and family ties. For example, young skilled immigrants would get many points, whereas older individuals not closely related to residents here would get very few points. Potential immigrants with greater number of points would have higher priority in the immigration queue.

This bill is a clear improvement in most respects over the current immigration system. Yet this is an easy criterion, given how bad current policies, and the bill has several major drawbacks. The pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants would be contingent on first creating a more effective border fence and greater border policing activity. One major problem with that approach is that the pressure to enter from Mexico may be greatly declining. Net illegal immigration from Mexico during the past half dozen years has been minor, and possibly even negative. Of course, this is partly the result of the weak American labor market for low skilled workers due to the recession and its aftermath.

I believe, however, that the recession is not the only reason for the drying up of illegal immigration from Mexico. Since Mexican birth rates have plummeted during the past couple of decades, the number of young Mexicans looking for work in Mexico or the US has declined considerably. In addition, the Mexican economy has done well during the past decade, despite the American recession, so that many more jobs are available in the Mexican labor market. It is likely that even when the American labor market fully recovers, many fewer illegal immigrants will want to come from Mexico than had been the case in earlier decades. The sections of the Senators’ bill designed to limit entry of illegal immigrants may be in effect fighting an old battle that is no longer so relevant.

The second big problem with the Senators’ immigration bill is that it contains many arbitrary rules and quotas for different groups. It would allow so many to be admitted under temporary skill visas, another batch would be admitted under the merit-based point system, a certain number would be accepted because they have advanced degrees in math, engineering, and the sciences, a sizable number of lesser skilled workers can come in as guest workers under a new “W” visa, and so on. These are arbitrary limits due to political compromises between different factions and the different political parties.

I understand that politics will be important, but it is essential to recognize that a much better approach is possible. This approach sets a price for legal immigration, and allows everyone to enter, or legalize their status if they are here illegally, who can meet that price. Elsewhere (see my monograph, “The Challenge of Immigration: A Radical Solution”, 2011) I use as an illustration a price of $50,000. I show that such a price would attract young, skilled, and ambitious men and women since they would gain the most from coming here. Many illegal residents would be willing to pay that price too in order to legalize their status since there are huge economic and other advantages of becoming a legal resident. A loan program analogous to the student loan program would lend money to poorer but ambitious immigrants, so that they are not kept out by the cost of entry.

Many details to the selling approach have to be worked out (some can be found in the monograph, and also in the Wall Street Journal article by Edward Lazear and me called “ A Market Solution to Immigration”, March 1, 2013). Although the Senators’ bill is a major improvement over the present immigration system, it involves many arbitrary quotas and limitations. Selling the right to immigrate removes essentially all these restrictions, and requires only a single decision about what to charge immigrants for the right to enter the United States legally.

Reforming Immigration Policy—Posner

I completely agree with Becker that the bill introduced last week in the Senate—the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013”—would if enacted as written be a big step in the direction of reforming our immigration policy, a policy that Becker rightly calls “simply a mess!” However, the bill is unlikely to be enacted as written. To be passed by Congress in this era of ferocious partisanship will doubtless require numerous compromises that may frustrate many of the sponsors’ aspirations for reform. 

Even if enacted without change, the proposed law would leave much to be desired. It is an unreadable 880 pages in length (legislation has become obese in tandem with the increasing obesity of the population). There is fortunately a very helpful 17-page summary, see http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?bc=25667|44052 (visited Apr. 21, 2013)—yet, helpful as it is, were it the proposed law rather than the 880-page monstrosity, it would still be too complicated—a bureaucratic nightmare. At a time of legitimate or at least widespread concern with the growth of government bureaucracy, the proposed law if enacted as written would substantially expand the bureaucracy (or rather bureaucracies) involved in the enforcement of the immigration laws. Doubtless the changes made to the bill as it runs the congressional gauntlet will increase its bureaucratic complexity and opacity. 

One respect in which the bill would expand bureaucracy is its ambitious, expensive effort to make our long border with Mexico impermeable to illegal immigration. The effort probably is Quixotic, like all previous efforts to seal the border, and so will fail. And Becker points out that given the decline in recent years in illegal immigration from Mexico, the effort to “secure the border” may also be superfluous—a waste of money designed to assuage, though admittedly for what may be imperative political reasons (democratic politics is an art of compromise), the paranoia of citizens of the states that abut the border. 

It’s difficult to understand why illegal immigration from Mexico is considered by so many Americans a very serious problem. The idea that illegal Mexican immigrants take jobs away from Americans appears to be largely false, as it seems that most of the jobs they get in the United States, notably in
agriculture, are not attractive to Americans. And the idea that they are moochers, who have crossed the border to take advantage of our social welfare policies, seems wrong because they have far fewer entitlements to social welfare than lawful residents of the United States have. The estimated 11 million illegal immigrants (mostly from Mexico and other Central American countries) are a large and productive component of the supply of labor in the United States (Mexicans are famously hard workers—“to work like a Mexican” is a California expression for working too hard), usually earn only modest wages, and do not partake largely of social welfare largesse. 

It is desirable that they be allowed to become citizens, and the proposed law provides a “path to citizenship” for them, provided they are not criminals or otherwise undesirable. The path is expensive for low-wage workers, however, and also long—10 years or more: thus steep and long. And actually longer than it seems, because the “path” is not to open until the burder with Mexico is “secured,” which it may never be. Many illegal immigrants may therefore prefer to remain in their illegal status, since few illegal immigrants are actually deported, provided they are law abiding and keep a low profile. The length and gradient of the path to citizenship are designed to rebut charges that the new law will proide “amnesty” for illegal immigrants; the fear is that amnestry operates to increase illegal immigration by implying that future illegal immigrants will be the beneficiaries of a future amnesty. Some current or future illegal immigrants may be motivated by hope of a future amnesty; but for many, and I would guess for most, such a hope would not be decisive in persuading a person considering immigrating illegally to take the plunge. However, although I don’t expect the enhanced border security to have much of an effect on illegal immigration, it should at least offset the lure that hopes of a future amnesty would create for some foreigners contemplating immigrating to the United States illegally. 

The proposed law contains, as Becker points out, a confusing medley of provisions designed to ease barriers to the immigration of highly educated foreigners—multiple paths, in short, to citizenship. The actual easing of barriers by virtue of these provisions is likely to be offset by the amount of red tape required to wade though in order to take advantage of the provisions; just choosing which provision to invoke in aid of being permitted to immigrate is likely to baffle many potential immigrants. Still, though needlessly complex, these provisions would not be seriously objectionable if, as Becker sensibly proposes, we offer would-be immigrants the option of simply buying the right to immigrate to the United States. Depending on the price, the option will more or less automatically open a quick path to citizenship for precisely those foreigners whose skills, matching U.S. business needs, will give them reasonable assurance of earning enough money in this country to make the exercise of the option cost-justified to them—and to us as beneficiaries of the labor of high-skilled workers. 

Of course “selling” U.S. citizenship, like selling kidneys and other organs, is just the kind of sensible economic proposal that shocks people who lack an understanding of economics—and that’s almost everybody.