North of the Border - New York Times
The New York Times

March 27, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

North of the Border
By
PAUL KRUGMAN

"
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free," wrote Emma Lazarus, in a poem that still puts a lump in my throat.
I'm proud
of America's immigrant history, and grateful that the door was open when my
grandparents fled Russia.

In other words, I'm instinctively, emotionally pro-immigration. But a review
of serious, nonpartisan research reveals some uncomfortable facts about the
economics of modern immigration, and immigration from Mexico in particular.
If people like me are going to respond effectively to anti-immigrant
demagogues,
we have to acknowledge those facts.

First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the
large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates
suggest
that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born
Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of
the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration - especially
immigration
from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the
average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving
down the wages of the worst-paid Americans. The most authoritative recent
study of this effect, by George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of Harvard,
estimates
that U.S. high school dropouts would earn as much as 8 percent more if it
weren't for Mexican immigration.

That's why it's intellectually dishonest to say, as President Bush does,
that immigrants do "jobs that Americans will not do." The willingness of
Americans
to do a job depends on how much that job pays - and the reason some jobs pay
too little to attract native-born Americans is competition from poorly paid
immigrants.

Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net
has more holes in it than it should - and low-skill immigrants threaten to
unravel
that safety net.

Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with
essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss
writer
Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We
wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skill
immigrants
don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.

Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants
are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which
treats
the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.

We shouldn't exaggerate these problems. Mexican immigration, says the
Borjas-Katz study, has played only a "modest role" in growing U.S.
inequality. And
the political threat that low-skill immigration poses to the welfare state
is more serious than the fiscal threat: the disastrous Medicare drug bill
alone
does far more to undermine the finances of our social insurance system than
the whole burden of dealing with illegal immigrants.

But modest problems are still real problems, and immigration is becoming a
major political issue. What are we going to do about it?

Realistically, we'll need to reduce the inflow of low-skill immigrants.
Mainly that means better controls on illegal immigration. But the harsh
anti-immigration
legislation passed by the House, which has led to huge protests -
legislation that would, among other things, make it a criminal act to
provide an illegal
immigrant with medical care - is simply immoral.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush's plan for a "guest worker" program is clearly designed
by and for corporate interests, who'd love to have a low-wage work force
that
couldn't vote. Not only is it deeply un-American; it does nothing to reduce
the adverse effect of immigration on wages. And because guest workers would
face the prospect of deportation after a few years, they would have no
incentive to become integrated into our society.

What about a guest-worker program that includes a clearer route to
citizenship? I'd still be careful. Whatever the bill's intentions, it could
all too easily
end up having the same effect as the Bush plan in practice - that is, it
could create a permanent underclass of disenfranchised workers.

We need to do something about immigration, and soon. But I'd rather see
Congress fail to agree on anything this year than have it rush into
ill-considered
legislation that betrays our moral and democratic principles.

Posted by Miriam V