In a recent post, Cafe Hayek’s Don Boudreaux points out the contradiction in opposing immigrants because they work and opposing them because they go on welfare—that is, don’t work.

Jon Murphy, a Ph.D. student at George Mason University, where Don teaches, and a frequent commenter on this site (as well as an Econlib Feature Article author) sums it up beautifully:

Schrodinger’s Immigrant: simultaneously stealing jobs and too lazy to work.

Of course, Jon’s reference is to Schrodinger’s cat . By the way, I wouldn’t have known about Schrodinger’s cat if not for my faithfully watching The Big Bang Theory. (Here’s the link : start at 2:40.) While I was a physics minor at the University of Winnipeg in the late 1960s, I don’t recall the issue coming up, although it might have.