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Open Borders Solve Border Crises, Says Author

By Pete Micek, New America Media

OAKLAND, Calif. --“People want to come north,” said Peter Laufer, author of Wetback Nation, “and we want them to be here.” With that, the former NBC News correspondent, Latin American war reporter and radio host opened his remarks at “Immigration Wars: Open or Closed Borders?”, a forum with economist Benjamin Powell in Oakland, Calif., Sept. 21.

Laufer sees the border region as a chaotic mix of border-crossers, lost wanderers, armed vigilantes and the Border Patrol. But immigration unlocks the economy, he and Powell agree.

Like bickering passengers in the back seat of a car, Laufer said, the United States and Mexico sit close and refuse to get along on the border issue.

“There is no other issue in the United States where so many people disagree with the status quo,” he said.

Some of the migrants have jobs and lives waiting for them in the United States, Laufer says. He argues that the threat to property and the culture of lawlessness that illegal immigration brings can only be eliminated by an open border, keeping the Border Patrol -- the largest uniformed police force in the country -- in place to deter unwanted immigrants. Who are the unwanted ones? “Let’s start with known criminals,” he says.

Economist Benjamin Powell, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, which hosted the event, said immigrants benefit the United States economy but their potential remains hindered by current laws.

Powell said immigrants do not deplete government resources, as is widely believed. Citing a 1997 study by the National Academy of the Sciences, he said they benefit the economy more than they take away in social services. They add at least $22 billion each year, he said, and legalizing their status would increase that amount.

Powell used Arizona and the labor shortages the state faced last year as an example of how legalizing workers would alleviate those shortages. Last November, huge quantities of lettuce there went unpicked because growers lacked pickers. California’s Central Valley lacks 70,000 to 80,000 workers this year, he said. Laufer sees the cleanup and rebuilding of areas crushed by Katrina as a chance to provide jobs to immigrants.

Remittances sent by migrants float the Mexican economy, but Mexico still has much corruption and inflation, Powell says. If Mexico solves its economic problems, he said, immigrants will return. He mentioned several European countries, including his ancestral homeland of Ireland, which spent decades exporting people but recently reversed the trend. Powell credits its fiscal policy of cutting government spending before cutting taxes as the cure, with the country’s free trade and strong rule of law providing a foundation for the turnaround.

If the United States economy undergoes a downturn, according to Powell, that too will send workers back south. “Why be unemployed here when I can be unemployed in [my home country]?” Powell asked.

Working with Mexico holds the key to the United States’ future on the border, according to Laufer. Developing a relationship with Mexico, he said, to isolate criminals, publicize the rules, and identify forms of Mexican identification yields an open border that works for everyone.