September 13, 2006
The Neglected Side of the Immigration Debate
The ongoing debate about immigration reform usually focuses on whether or not immigration is good for the United States Comparatively little ink has been spilled about the other side of the coin: how does U.S. immigration policy affect other countries? Do our largely open door policies benefit or harm the rest of the world?
Unquestionably, many individual immigrants benefit-- at least in the short run--by coming to the United States. Although the economic differentials between America and the rest of the world are often exaggerated to audiences abroad, there is still more opportunity here than just about anywhere else.
Open U.S. immigration policy also benefits foreign countries when its citizens funnel dollars to their home countries. Several Latin American nations are now heavily dependant on dollar transfers from expatriate workers in the United States. In 1999, the tiny South American nation of Ecuador dropped all pretenses and even made the U.S. dollar its national currency.
The Bigger Picture: The Brain Drain
But to end the discussion here would be to ignore the bigger picture: everyone in the world can’t simply immigrate to the United States. Advocates of open U.S. immigration apparently envision a world in which the planet’s 6.5 billion inhabitants stand elbow-to-elbow between the harbors of New York and Los Angeles--- and the rest of the world-- Asia, Latin America, etc.--- is depopulated. Does this sound like an exaggeration? It is only a slight one: recent polls in Mexico reveal that 40% of that country’s 107 million inhabitants would like to relocate to the United States.
Rather than quibbling about how many immigrants we allow in, we should instead focus on a larger goal: a world in which people fashion their own homelands into prosperous nations that can eventually equal the United States.
Postwar Japan: Success by Staying Home
Sound like a pipe dream? Consider the case of postwar Japan. At the end of World War II, Japan was an economic, political, and social basket case. In 1950, in fact, Japan was one of the seven poorest nations on earth. But as we all know, Japan is today a democratic country with the world’s second largest economy.
Why did this happen? The answer isn’t “American intervention.” The American government did provide Japan with a measure of security while it got on its feet, but the American government did not build the “Japanese Miracle” of the postwar era. The Japanese built the Japanese Miracle.
Japan succeeded because its best and brightest stayed home, rolled up their sleeves, and got to work on the national economy. During the American Occupation years (1945-1952), the American government did not allow Japanese citizens to leave the country without special permission; and there was never a mass exodus following World War II. The Japanese made Japan the nation that it is today because they effectively had no other choice.
The H1-B and the Brain Drain
By contrast, America’s current open-door immigration policy is robbing developing nations of their best and brightest. Consider, for example, the H1-B visa program. The H1-B is a visa that allows U.S. companies to hire technology workers from abroad. In many corporate IT departments today, over half of the programmers, developers, and analysts are foreigners. As a result, many nations in the developing world now suffer from a so-called “brain drain.”
In much of Eastern Europe, the brain drain has expanded to an overall population drain. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus now suffer from annual net population losses. Part of the problem can be blamed on declining birth rates; but immigration to America and Western Europe is also to blame. The flight of the entrepreneurial class to the West perpetuates the scarcity of economic opportunity, which in turn creates little incentive for the rest of the population to stay.
Mexico: The Distraction of El Norte
No discussion of U.S.-bound immigration is complete without mentioning Mexico. Because of our proximity to Mexico and our long shared border, Mexicans comprise about 30% of the United States’ foreign-born population.
I was a frequent traveler to Mexico during the 1990s. The border areas of Mexico are squalid and often dangerous, but the interior portion of Mexico is home to many towns and small cities that any American would be happy to live in. And while a population of 107 million is bound to contain a few bad apples, the national character of Mexico is friendly and open on the whole.
I also had many opportunities to observe Mexicans at work in the automotive factories I visited. If you cling to any stereotypes about a Mexican mañana attitude, you would do best to dispel such notions. The typical Mexican worker hustles as much as his or her counterparts anywhere--- including those in the United States.
However, Mexico is hampered by a legal system that discourages economic risk-taking and investment. It also suffers from an unacceptable level of official corruption. Mexico desperately needs to make bold changes to its legal and economic infrastructures. But the government is holding the nation back.
Nevertheless, Mexico is no North Korea. It is a democratic nation in which citizens are free to criticize the government or protest in the public square. It would therefore be possible for Mexico’s citizenry to set their country on a more prosperous path.
But this has not happened so far, largely because the nation’s most ambitious men and women can easily find ready opportunities in the United States. The distracting promise of a better life in El Norte also prevents the middle and lower classes from initiating change.
The Mexican government, for its part, uses immigration to the U.S. as a safety valve (which explains why Vicente Fox was always so concerned with keeping America’s southern border wide open). In this way, the United States has become what a therapist would call an “enabler” of Mexico’s internal problems.
Time for a Paradigm Shift
How many immigrants should the U.S. allow in each year? This is the wrong question. A fundamental paradigm shift is in order. We have created a world in which a disproportionate number of the planet’s best and brightest are focused on one goal: a career in America. Our policies should instead focus on encouraging them to stay put and build a dozen Japans in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere.
In the years immediately after World War II, the United States did Japan a tremendous favor by not passing laws that would have made it possible for Soichiro Honda (the founder of Honda Motor Company) to haul stakes for America. As a result, Honda’s company became an engine of growth for the Japanese economy, rather than one more competitor in an already crowded American market.
We need to start showing the rest of the world a similar degree of consideration.
Notes:
"Poll: 40% of Mexicans want to move to U.S"
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/news/national/081705b1_mexicanpoll