The illegal immigration debate is one that I don’t claim any particular viewpoint on. I’m completely open-minded and am seeking the right solution. I am also not familiar with libertarian arguments on the matter, but would like to know what they are so please post content, links, etc. in the comments.

I, like many Republican-conservatives, once believe the issue to be fairly black and white. The law proscribes what is and isn’t legal immigration, and those who are in the US illegally are breaking a law and therefore should be punished, preferably by being sent back to wherever they came from. There was no racism on my part, I just felt like the law should be obeyed and enforced. I was one of the “build the wall!” type of people.

I was always in favor of increasing legal immigration and still am. I feel that too many good, hard-working people who would contribute to the economy are kept out.

But now I’m not so sure about building the wall, or sending everyone back. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Practical considerations. It’s simply impossible to round up 12-20 million people and send them anywhere. Ok, maybe not if you’re Hitler and you don’t care about people being killed along the way, but seriously. Even if it’s not quite impossible, it would be very, very expensive. If the US people feel like they are being hurt economically by illegal immigration, how would they feel about having their taxes raised to fund the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars it would cost to round up illegals and ship them back to their country of origin?

2. Human considerations. Two parents come to the US illegally with their young children. The children are raised as Americans and are now in their teens or twenties. Should the children, who are technically illegal immigrants, be forced to go back their country of origin? If you want to play hardball with the law, you say “yes”, and yet that seems a bit cruel somehow. It at least should make anyone with half a heart ask whether that is really the best thing to do.

3. The Constitution. Where in the US Constitution does it say that the federal government is in charge of immigration? You might argue that it should be, but then you should be arguing for a Constitutional amendment. As far as I can tell, immigration is a state issue, not a federal one, at least from a Constitutional law perspective. And before you advocate giving the federal government more power, you might want to think a bit.

4. How do illegals hurt us? Using public services to which they contribute little, such as hospitals, schools, food stamps, etc.? Sure. Drugs? Yep. Crime in general and gang violence? Ok. Disease? Perhaps. Taking our jobs? Debatable. But are these good arguments against illegal immigration? Or should we be looking at eliminating those social programs anyway? Maybe this is an argument for legalizing drugs? Perhaps the crime and gang problems are less related to illegal immigration, and more related to our laws preventing immigrants from assimilating into American culture. What if we privatized schools and eliminated federal and state subsidies? What if we unburdened hospitals and other medical treatment providers from regulation (and state and federal aid) and allowed to act as true private entities? What if we legalized drugs? What if we eliminated the minimum wage, social security, Medicare and Medicaid? Would the elimination of these programs not go a long way towards eliminating the vast majority of problems we ascribe to illegal immigration?

“What about disease and taking our jobs, you didn’t address that!” We’ll get to that below.

5. How could immigration help us? Suppose we had already eliminated all the social programs that illegal immigrants take advantage of. If they’re not siphoning off our tax dollars, then what else can they be taking from us? Jobs, you might say. So let’s look at that. Let’s say we abolish the minimum wage, opened the doors wide to immigration, and that we get a flood of Mexicans coming in. What are they going to do for work? Let’s say that GM looks at this and says “Hey, we can hire these guys for $10/hr instead of paying these white guys $80/hr!” Overnight all the white guys at GM are fired and a bunch of Mexicans are hired to replace them. There are some benefits to this:

1. GM becomes much more competitive domestically as well as in foreign markets.

2. The Mexican immigrants benefit.

3. Those who profit indirectly from the money the Mexican immigrants spend benefit.

4. Consumers benefit, in that now GM can sell the same cars for a much lower price.

5. GM shareholders benefit, because GM is now much mor…err, well, they’re simply profitable.

Who gets hurt?

1. The GM employee who got let go.

2. Those who profited indirectly from the money the GM employee made.

3. Those who were in line to get an $80/hr job at GM.

But in order to assume the GM employee is being hurt, we have to assume that his $80/hr job would have lasted forever–it wouldn’t have. Sooner or later GM would go out of business, because their business model was being propped up by government protection, regulation, etc. It was a false sense of security. The GM employee was bound to lose his job or work for less sooner or later. The same goes for those who benefited indirectly from the high pay of the GM employee.

In addition, what now happens to the GM employee? To assume that he is hurt is to assume he can’t find another job paying $80/hr. Now, maybe he can’t, but why is that? It’s because he doesn’t possess the skills necessary to provide value such that someone is willing to pay him $80/hr. But that doesn’t mean he can’t gain those skills. He can get more education, learn more skills, become an entrepreneur, etc. It doesn’t matter if he’s old–he can learn. But it’s his choice, and the power to become successful and truly productive, independent of false support, is within him. To say otherwise is to insult him and his dignity, just as it is an insult to his dignity to remain in a job that could be done by someone earning 1/8 as much.

To argue “But this guy worked here for 30 years! You can’t just throw him out on the street now that this is all he knows how to do!” Well, why is it that this is all he knows how to do and that now he’s being thrown into a difficult situation? Primarily that is his responsibility, but if anyone else is to blame, it is those who told him this was the type of job he could stay at forever and make a lot of money in. Namely the unions and those in government who created the false support for this job. Had these factors not existed, the job never would have paid over $10/hr in the first place, and this guy would have perhaps had this job during or right out of high school, but demands would have required him to find better work long before this moment.

As for those in line to work at GM, now they’ll have to get more education and get a job that provide more true value. How is this a bad thing?

Also, of course it’s not just GM that would be hiring cheap labor. Every company would be doing it, which means the cost of many goods and services would fall dramatically. This is the same as getting a raise, which means that while the guy who makes $80/hr might end up $40/hr, what he can buy with that $40/hr might be equivalent to what would have cost him $120 prior to all this. In other words, his 50% pay cut in the new scenario might end up being the same as a 50% raise under the old.

Plus, with this influx of cheap labor, there will need to be someone supplying goods and services to them. They will need housing, food, clothes, medical care, education, etc. There will be a boom of new business growth as entrepreneurs rush to meet these needs. Maybe some of those entrepreneurs will be the former $80/hr GM employee. But instead of working a job he knows can be done by a $10/hr guy, he is now involved in something exciting, something that requires all his creativity and wits, and which stands to make him not just $80/hr, but perhaps turn him into self-respecting millionaire.

Now, what about disease? This is a real and valid concern, but if we were to increase legal immigration such that there was no need for people to immigrate illegally, we could handle this much better with screening and treatment at the border. In fact, if states welcomed immigrants (as is their current right) they could turn this into a big money-maker for the state, by charging an immigration fee. The fee could cover screening, treatment, etc. and would be a vast improvement over the current situation, all while adding to the state coffers while not requiring any tax increases. It would be a net positive for everyone except those who currently profit from illegal human trafficking.

Alright, this is not meant to be a comprehensive or thoroughly scientific examination of the issue, merely a starting point for discussion, so bring it on.