By Art Carden



Alabama is having trouble getting its controversial immigration law through the courts, and a recent decision in a Federal court denied the state's request for a rehearing on parts of the law. Details of the legislation aside, here's the bigger picture issue: Alabama officials should be working to make the state more attractive to immigrants, not less.

Immigration restrictions are largely founded on myths and exaggerations, and when some of them were adopted in the early twentieth century, they were based on eugenic arguments and explicit racism. Immigrants don't slow economic growth, they don't lower our wages, and for the most part they aren't net tax consumers (even if they are, that's an argument against creating incentives to consume taxes, not an argument against immigration).

Proponents of the law say it's about creating jobs for Alabamians, but immigrants don't "steal jobs." Immigrants are usually near the top or the bottom of the global skill distribution, while most Americans are in the middle. This means they bring skills that are complements to rather than substitutes for Americans' skills. The chance to trade with anyone--immigrants included--makes us more productive. The time and money you save because you can trade with immigrants is time and money you can spend starting a business, getting additional training and getting better at your job, or just enjoying time with your loved ones.

The burden of the law doesn't just fall on immigrants and their employers. Compliance, even for firms that don't usually hire immigrants, is expensive. Making something harder means people will do less of it. By making it harder to start and operate businesses, state leaders have guaranteed that over the long run, Alabamians will start and operate fewer businesses than they otherwise would. Even for firms that survive, some the higher costs get passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Even if today's immigrants were net tax consumers, their children will be net tax producers as long as we leave them alone and let them flourish. As the philosopher Mark LeBar has pointed out, even if immigrants are net welfare consumers over the long run, this is an argument against the welfare state. It isn't an argument against immigration.

I also find this curious: Alabama is a state teeming with churches, and those churches are filled with people who are going to spend enormous amounts of money on short- and long-term mission trips. And yet many of the very people Alabamians are going abroad to reach would love to move here if we weren't hanging signs saying "KEEP OUT!"

The human cost is considerable. Lots of people will go abroad for humanitarian purposes, but as the economist Lant Pritchett has documented in his excellent book Let Their People Come, the best thing we can do to improve the lives of the world's poor would be to let them move to rich countries.

Given that immigrants are such a great deal, Alabamians should work harder to make it easier. It's true that many immigrants are here illegally, but that's not a conversation stopper: it was also illegal for African-Americans to refuse to yield seats in the front of the bus not that long ago. Just as something isn't right just because it's legal, something isn't wrong just because it's illegal. We can go beyond this, and we should. People say they don't mind immigration "as long as it's legal." Mark Lebar (again) notes that this is one of the very few problems with a magic wand solution: legalize it.

If Alabama leaders are interested in long-run economic growth, their enthusiasm for increasingly-burdensome immigration restrictions is the exact opposite of wise policy. Alabama officials have welcomed investment from companies like Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, and Airbus that want to locate operations in Alabama. We should welcome investment from people from overseas who want to locate their operations in Alabama, as well. If we want a brighter future for our children, we should be working to make it easier, not harder, for immigrants to sing "My Home's in Alabama."

Art Carden is assistant professor of economics at Samford University's Brock School of Business, a senior research Fellow with the Institute for Faith, Work and Economics, and a research fellow with the Independent Institute. Email: wcarden@samford.edu.

Space does not allow for an exhaustive discussion of sources or a detailed response to every possible objection, but interested readers may wish to consult this essay by Benjamin Powell (along with the videos here), Lant Pritchett's Let Their People Come, this EconTalk podcast with Bryan Caplan, this lecture by Bryan Caplan sponsored by the Future of Freedom Foundation, and the essays in the Winter 2012 issue of the Cato Journal.