Regulating Low-Skilled Immigration in the United States by Hanson Gordon H.;Hanson Gordon H;

Author:Hanson, Gordon H.;Hanson, Gordon H;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AEI Press

Summary

The emergence of large-scale illegal immigration in the United States can be understood as the result of a conflict between two conflicting desires: to allow immigration of low-skilled individuals while maintaining a welfare state. The mechanisms that govern illegal immigration select individuals with a strong motivation to work while restricting their access to government benefits. The advantage of such a system is that it subjects immigration to market forces, producing a level of foreign labor inflows and a composition of immigrants that reflect relative economic opportunities in sending and receiving countries. In practice, illegal immigration appears to be more flexible and more responsive to economic conditions than legal immigration (Hanson 2007).

Yet, clear disadvantages to illegal immigration exist. Illegal immigration creates a class of individuals with poorly defined residency rights, who, in the absence of occasional amnesties, lack a defined path to citizenship. The presence of a large population of individuals without official resident status implicitly undermines civil society in the United States by weakening democratic norms and reducing the incentive of politicians to respond to the needs of their constituents (Huntington 2004). The challenge for policymakers is to design an immigration regime that has the appealing efficiency properties of illegal immigration—in terms of its flexibility, screening mechanisms, and relatively low fiscal cost—but lacks its negative consequences—the undermining of U.S. law and civil society and the lack of many protections for immigrants.

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