Milton Friedman - Illegal Immigration only helps when its Illegal

[Music] i have always been amused by kind of a paradox suppose you go around and ask people the united states as you know before 1914 had completely free immigration anybody could get on a boat and come to these shores and if he landed on ellis island he was an immigrant was that a good thing or a bad thing you will find hardly a soul who will say it was a bad thing almost everybody will say it was a good thing but then i suppose i say to the same people but now what about today do you think we should have free immigration oh no they'll say we couldn't possibly have free immigration today why that would that would flood us with immigrants from india and god knows where we'd be driven down to a a bear subsistence level what's the difference how can people be so inconsistent why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today well there's a sense in which that answer is right there's a sense in which free immigration in the same sense as we had it before 1914 is not possible today why not because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs it is another thing to have free immigration to welfare and you cannot have both if you have a welfare state if you have a state in which every every resident is is promised certain minimum level of income or a minimum level of subsistence regardless of whether he works or not produces it or not well then it really is an impossible thing if you have free immigration in the way in which we had it before 1914 everybody benefited the people who were here benefited the people who came benefited because nobody would come unless he or his family thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere and the new immigrants provided additional resources provided additional possibilities for the people already here so everybody can mutually benefit but on the other hand if you come under circumstances where each person is entitled to a pro rate a share of a pot to take the extreme example or even to a low level of the pot then the effect of that situation is that free immigration would mean a reduction of everybody to the same uniform level of course i'm exaggerating it wouldn't go quite that far but it would go in that direction and it is that perception that leads people to adopt what at first seem like inconsistent values look for example at the obvious immediate practical case of illegal mexican immigration now that mexican immigration over the border is a good thing it's a good thing for the illegal immigrants it's a good thing for the united states it's a good thing for the citizens of the country but it's only good so long as it's illegal that's an interesting paradox to think about make it legal and it's no good why because as long as it's illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare they don't qualify for social security they don't qualify for all the other myriads of benefits that we pour out from what from our left pocket into our right pocket and so as long as they don't qualify they migrate to jobs they take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take they provide employers with workers of a kind they cannot get they're hard workers they're good workers and they are clearly better off if you ever want to know how people are what people prefer the surest sign is how they vote with their feet and there is no doubt how the braceros vote they vote to cross the border with their feet on their feet or in any other way they can by the media by the thousands and perhaps millions for all i know it's illegal immigration is fascinating because it shows not only the main point i'm trying to bring out now how interconnected are the various aspects of freedom how interconnected is the problem of governmental arrangements for welfare and governmental arrangements for immigration and other things but it shows a very different point it's kind of a digression and that is how bad laws make socially advantageous acts illegal and therefore leads to an undermining of morality in [Music] general in relation to your statements as far as mexican immigration go i'd like to make the following comment and that is that it seems to me that mexican immigrants have a choice between on one hand staying in mexico and getting what life they can which to me seems like trying to evade starvation as long as possible or crossing the river and then taking the job that they have available and what i'm wondering is is this choice a choice at all and is it not equivalent to the gun against the head that you were talking about as absent from the free holding the gun the capitalists in southern california who own on the contrary it's a ma in your image it would be the mexicans who were holding the gun well because what denies them the opportunity in mexico there are enough capitalists in mexico i suppose [Applause] not enough jobs available obviously they have two bad choices that doesn't mean that one isn't better than the other well you must distinguish sharply between the somebody giving you a choice which is not a very satisfactory one and somebody imposing something on you nobody is holding a gun to the head of these people and saying they should come to california they are coming there because they believe they can have a better life for themselves and their children they can't have a better one yes but is it a life all right as you said yourself no american would would like to do these jobs not that no american would like to many americans it would be perfectly willing to if that were their only alternatives but the americans have better opportunities fine how did the americans get to have those opportunities by being american citizens that was the point no no by initially going through stages similar to that which the mexicans are going through they didn't they you know people don't come full blown into the world the nations don't come full-blown into the world with skills and capital and so on that all has to be derived through a long historical process and what's the alternative if you say well we're willing to have the mexicans in only if they can be supported at the level at which the americans are supported then you're condemning them to stay in mexico but so don't don't hurt them in order to help them isn't it true that the the wine growers in southern california would prefer to have these mexicans working at this at the rate they are working at then they would to have americans come in and demand higher wages because because of the other they would prefer to pay lower wages rather than higher wages you'd like to pay lower prices for the things you buy rather than higher prices of course that's the whole system that's exactly the system and you say if you say to the if you say to the mexicans you may not offer to work for lower wages then you're denying them the only weapon they have

Channel: TheAsianRepublican

Views: 406,248

Keywords: Milton, Friedman, Illegal, Immigration, Undocumented, Workers

Id: C52TlPCVDio

Length: 8min 8sec (488 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Make all immigrants legal

[u/GodEmperorBiden]

Props to the young socialist gentleman who formulated his thoughts intelligently, debated respectfully, and even skewered his own point with a chuckle when Milton countered, displaying his good sense of humor.

Twitter took these types of leftists from you.

[u/i_just_want_money]

All immigrants are good*

[u/The_Northern_Light]

I understand why you can't be the most prosperous country in the world and let anyone come and get on welfare. Checks out. And I of course agree that someone coming to this country and working is a win-win situation for everyone involved.

But it is a terrible leap to say illegal immigration is only good when it's illegal, and then bemoan the erosion of morality in general. Why not instead advocate for cutting the knot by making a distinction between residents and citizens, and simply not provide welfare for residents?

Why not make it so that most anyone intending to work can come to America, and after they have worked here long enough, contributed enough to America, you offer them full citizenship?

Currently, these people are especially vulnerable to criminal exploitation. If you steal from, assault, or rape an illegal immigrant, what are they going to do? Go to the police? Surely allowing them to rely on our legal system would be a win for liberal values, and decrease crime in aggregate.

I know the distinction between different types of citizenship is super dystopian, but fuck, isn't it so much better than the current system, where we not only have the same racial-economic underclass but then also made them all criminals? And at that, made them especially vulnerable to real criminals!

[u/FearThyMoose]

3 billion IQ

[u/ThodasTheMage]

I do no think that this checks out in reallity. Especially because so many immigration rules say that migrants need to get a job to stay in the country.

[u/SassyMoron]

I think there's a serious flaw in this argument though: the assumption that workers who receive benefits will work less than workers with no benefits. I think the evidence actually points in the opposite direction, from the UBI experiments that have been done: if you give random people money, they appear to work more, not less.

An example would be public schools. By his logic, illegal immigrants who are not allowed to go to public school would contribute more to society than illegal immigrants who ARE allowed in public school. Clearly that's not true. So suppose we voucherized the school system - should we give vouchers to the illegal immigrants (for their children) or not? Why would we assume that the benefit (school) stops working when you voucherize it?

[u/karth]

What a bunch of bullshit.

Immigration is good. Helping immigrants put down roots is good. We have become a richer and stronger country that is better able to weather adversity because of immigration.

No, its not good to have illegal immigration. DACA has helped make these kids that are Americans into legal Americans. But it is already being challenged and destroyed, such that, future legible applicants can not rely on this.

We are weaker country if we were to propagate illegal immigration.

[u/trollly]

Why not just have legal immigrants but don't give them benefits?