Gordon Hanson/UCSD/CFR: "The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration"

Gordon H. Hanson, Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego, offers a Council on Foreign Relations paper called "The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration" (PDF download at cfr.org/publication/12969).

"Economics" is from the Greek for "house", and he's the type of economist who'd recommend saving money by not building a fourth wall for a house. In other words, his "analysis" only looks at the dollars and cents of the issue and not at all costs associated with illegal immigration, such as the devastating political costs of giving Mexico and Mexican partisans even more political power inside the U.S., the costs of the massive political corruption that massive illegal immigration indicates, and so forth.

...By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, Professor Hanson concludes that stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economy - a finding that calls into question many of the proposals to increase funding for border protection. Moreover, Hanson argues that guest worker programs now being considered by Congress fail to account for the economic incentives that drive illegal immigration, which benefits both the undocumented workers who desire to work and live in the United States and employers who want flexible, low-cost labor. Hanson makes the case that unless policymakers design a system of legal immigration that reflects the economic advantages of illegal labor, such programs will not significantly reduce illegal immigration...

As stated above, he's not concentrating on all the costs, only the first level economic impacts. With that taken into account, the equation will swing sharply in favor of border control. And, what's he's proposing is - in the idealistic sense - completely un-American. Of course, in the historical context the U.S. has had waves of cheap or forced labor, including slavery, coolies, child labor, and so on. In the idealistic case we don't want to return to that past or anything similar, noting of course that it's only a benefit to the "undocumented workers" because they're desperate due to their corrupt governments.

I only scanned the PDF, but there is not a single instance of "corrupt", and only a few instances of "politic". From a purely financial standpoint his logic is faulty as well:

it is critical not to lose sight of the fact that illegal immigration has a clear economic logic: It provides U.S. businesses with the types of workers they want, when they want them, and where they want them. If policy reform succeeds in making U.S. illegal immigrants more like legal immigrants, in terms of their skills, timing of arrival, and occupational mobility, it is likely to lower rather than raise national welfare. In their efforts to gain control over illegal immigration, Congress and the administration need to be cautious that the economic costs do not outstrip the putative benefits.

What he fails to note is that illegal labor is massively subsidized, and without those subsidies many industries would have different demands. In a more free market, stoop labor "industries" like strawberries may be forced out of business or off shore.

He even engages in the standard false choice between mass deportations and amnesty:

The most divisive issue surrounding immigration reform is whether to offer illegal immigrants an opportunity to legalize their status. One view is that there is no other means, save politically unacceptable mass deportations, to reduce the number of illegal aliens in the country. Another view is that legalizing unauthorized entrants rewards individuals who have broken the law and creates an incentive for continued illegal immigration in the future.

Immigration2007a · Mon, 04/09/2007 - 11:17 · · Importance: 1