I am in favor of open immigration. I believe an open immigration policy is consistent with free markets and the Christian worldview. I also believe the policy is consistent the political philosophy which gave birth to the United States of America. Over the past several years, I have posted my rationale for my support of open immigration. Two of my earlier posts are: Open Immigration and Immigration Law.

On October 21 Marc Clauson provided a synopsis on this blog of recent empirical work studying the longer run impact of immigrants on the societies to which they emigrated. Thomas Sowell recently published a a column making arguments consistent with the arguments summarized by Marc. While this literature stream is not demonstrably anti-immigration, it could be interpreted as such in today’s political climate. I like the arguments made in this literature and find them to be perfectly consistent with other studies examining the impact of culture on economic development. This literature is not necessarily inconsistent with open immigration – although Marc’s application certainly hints in that direction.

When discussing open immigration I often feel like a “lone reed” on a barrier island during a hurricane. Open immigration is currently an unpopular position and one which I must initially defend in a negative way. Open immigration does not mean one favors no restraints at all on immigration. There are two areas where most proponents of open immigration realize there must be some screening. First, no one with a criminal record of a felony, or in any way related to terrorist activity, should be allowed to emigrate to the United States of America. Secondly, there needs to be some health screening for individuals attempting to enter our nation. I am not positive of the exact detail on these two restrictions, but these restrictions are consistent with open immigration. Other than these restrictions, if people from another nation want to immigrate to the United States, we should not make it inordinately difficult for them to do so.

I am a proponent of open immigration because open immigration elevates the importance of the individual. The literature, summarized by Marc in his post, shows that individual people affect and influence the nations where they settle. Should we be surprised? The image bearers of God are creative! Certainly we will influence the cultures in which we live. Marc thinks we should limit (or at least discuss limiting) immigrants based on their culture of origin and how that culture might affect our culture. I do not believe we should categorize individual people based on their point of origin when they emigrate. Individuals deserve to be treated like – well – individual people, not as part of a class or type. As individual citizens of the United States we should treat immigrants with respect deserving of an image bearer of God. We should not fail to respect their humanity because they come from a culture that does not respect the “… rule of law rooted in common law and Judeo-Christian elements, rights-respecting, limited government oriented …”* type of society. We need to have enough confidence in the correctness of our ideas and our political system to help people see its benefits when they are immersed in US society. It sometimes takes generations, but immigrants do become part of US culture. The culture after the inclusion of the emigrants may not be identical to the culture before their immigration, but it will be US culture.

One of the great joys of teaching Comparative Economics Systems is that I annually read Friedrich A. Hayek’s classic work: The Road to Serfdom.

How sharp a break not only with the recent past but with the whole evolution of Western civilization the modern trend towards socialism means becomes clear if we consider it not merely against the background of the nineteenth century but in a longer historical perspective. We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth– and eighteenth– century liberalism, but the basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.**

Hayek thought Western civilization was breaking from its roots. I see less than open immigration as part of the movement away from a correctly understood individualism. We do not respect the individual person in his or her capacity as a person when we refuse him or her the opportunity to immigrate to the United States.

All value radiates from people created in God’s image. The amount of wealth we have created because of an ever widening radius of trust expanding the market and including more and more image bearers of God must not be truncated because of a fear of change. In the short run we are strong enough culturally and wealthy enough materially to absorb more immigrants and refugees. In the longer run these immigrants and refugees will help form the foundation of our culture.

* Final paragraph from Clauson’s post.

**The Road to Serfdom 1976 ed., p. 13.