I've been puzzling over this concept. There seems to be a significant number of people who believe that immigration is a right of some sorts. Why?
Immigration isn't a right. It's a political reality, and immigrants -- legal or illegal -- are entitled to certain rights when they cross the border. E.g. anyone suspected of illegally crossing a border still has the right to due process.
Refugees have the right to escape conflicts, and nations often honor that with an asylum system.
Why does a country even have to let a single immigrant in? As far as the U.S., we already have a ton of diversity so it's not like we are struggling on that end.
In case you missed it, everyone who isn't Native American is an immigrant. We are a nation of immigrants. We have made a choice to make our borders relatively (but not absolutely) open.
As such, it's more a
virtue than an
obligation.
From a
practical perspective, it's going to happen as long as our economy is better than other economies. It's also economically beneficial in all sorts of ways. As such, it's both virtuous and practically beneficial, but not an obligation.
We keep hearing about people complaining about stagnant wages but we grow our population via immigration when we could reduce it. If you want an easy way to increase wages, shrink the labor pool so employers have to fight over hiring people vice 50 people applying for the same job and the one who makes it is thankful to be getting a paycheck at all.
Incorrect.
Wages aren't stagnant in the US because immigrants are coming to the US. It's mostly because of automation and foreign competition. The types of jobs most immigrants take in the US are already very low pay -- low-level agriculture, restaurant work, domestic (i.e. maids/cleaners), garment manufacturing. Even among critics of immigration, they suggest all it does is reduce wages of some high school grads by 3-5%.
Plus: If the immigrants weren't coming to the US to work for those low wages, then those jobs would relocate to where labor is cheap.
Meanwhile, the influx of workers also means more
consumers. You have more people who are buying goods, renting apartments, buying and driving cars, eating food, paying taxes and so forth. Even with remittances, overall immigration is beneficial for the economy. This is especially useful when those immigrants are younger, which means they pay into Social Security at a time when we need more people paying in.
(Some more info on the economics:
Does Immigration Suppress Wages? It?s Not So Simple - Real Time Economics - WSJ)
Why is a country considered horrible if they just don't do immigration?
The "horror" isn't in restricting immigration. It is:
• Treating immigrants like they are subhuman
• Depriving immigrants of other rights, such as due process
• Racist and/or xenophobic objections by some to immigration
E.g. it's not horrifying to suggest that we should limit the US to 1 million or 2 million legal immigrants per year. It
is horrifying to vilify all Muslims, and insist that "no Muslims should be allowed to enter the US under any circumstances."