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February 18, 2008

Amy Chua on immigration 

Here is a mostly reasonable piece on the immigration issue by Amy Chua. In case you’re not familiar with her, Amy Chua has written a number of books about globalization, including World on Fire. 

I do have one objection to the piece. On the subject of immigration and labor, Chua assers: 

The immigration system should reward ability and be keyed to the country’s labor needs, skilled or unskilled, technological or agricultural. In particular, we should significantly increase the number of visas for highly skilled workers, putting them on a fast track for citizenship…Make the United States an equal-opportunity immigration magnet. 

This sounds like a straightforward argument for economic efficiency. In reality, this means allowing corporations like Microsoft to import cheap technical and administrative workers from Poland and India for a fraction of the wages that their American counterparts earn. In other words: engineers, computer technicians, and even accountants. This is the domestic version of offshoring. 

Ms. Chua, a law professor at Yale, doesn’t have to worry about competing against the global bottom line for a mid-level job earning $50,000 – $70,000. But millions of Americans support their families with these jobs. 

Numerous studies have demonstrated that large-scale immigration lowers wages. This is a factor which much be considered as we debate issues like the H1-B.