Immigration: Our Prejudices

In the past few months I've heard a few friends and family complain about immigration. There is this overwhelming prejudice in America (and elsewhere) that immigration is a bad thing. I've never bought into that.

But instead of me ranting again, I just want to point out a book I read about (and will be reading soon). It's Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them. The book has had some excellent reviews. It's a tome - nearly 400 pages.

Today one friend was going on about how immigration costs the US $800 billion a year. I have no idea where he got that number, and suspect he doesn't know either. It's baloney. But don't take my word for it. Read the book. Philippe Legrain explains and probably does it way better than I could.

One other thing - I always challenge people on the fact that our parents or grandparents immigrated. A very common response: "When my parents came it was legal." That is not an argument for why it should be illegal now. Also, your parents probably didn't read the US statutes before coming. Today's immigrants aren't reading them either.

Immigration, the Republican Candidates for President, and Ron Paul

I watched the Republican presidential debate on ABC, and was struck by how most of the candidates lack any grip on reality with regard to immigration (except, of course, for Ron Paul).

A substantial dispute was what to do about the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. The extreme view is that all 12 million should be deported immediately. Anyone who thinks that has absolutely no clue what's going on. I had a client who was caught bringing an illegal into the country. After serving his time, my client wanted to be deported back to Canada. The frontline immigration people wanted him sent back. I'm pretty sure the judge who sentenced him to time-served wanted him sent back.

It took about two months to get him sent back, and the cost of keeping him in jail was around $10K. I'd estimate the total cost of this process at around $20K. Imagine how long it would take and how much it would cost if he had actually fought deportation. Now imagine that 12 million people fight deportation. That's assuming there's only 12 million. I've seen estimates as high as 30 million illegals living in the US.

So we're really talking about $1 trillion to do this, and it would take years. During the decade or two that it takes, other illegals will surely sneak into the country.

One of the sillier things I heard was a few of the candidates saying that we should only deport the estimated 2 million who have been convicted of crimes. First of all, anyone who is convicted in federal court is already deported, through the process I mentioned above.

Those convicted in state courts are generally not deported. State courts are not in the business of determining whether someone is an illegal immigrant, or what to do about it. I'm pretty sure it does happen with most felony convictions, because that kind of review would take place before sentencing. Most crimes are not felonies, and most criminal courts that I've seen would not bother going through the review necessary to even find out if someone is an illegal immigrant. The courts are just too busy with all these speeding tickets, DWIs, drug cases, and also the real crimes that they should be handling.

Ron Paul was the only dose of reality on the stage, mentioning something about the bureaucracy that the others would have to create in order to carry out their idiotic plans (he didn't use the word idiotic though - he's got more class than me).

For those who want to read more about immigration on this blog, check out my previous posts about wasting money on immigration and immigration and homeland security.

More on Immigration and Wasting Money

I was thinking about my post about immigration on Thursday and wanted to follow up.

After a little research I estimate that the lower 48 states have about 11,000 miles of border, including both coastline and the lines between the US and Canada/Mexico.

To keep illegals out, figure you would need at least 10 border agents per mile (each agent covering about 528 feet). So that means you need 110,000 border agents. And that's at any given moment. Remember these are federal employees who work 40 hours per week if you're lucky, and they get vacation and all that. You need three shifts at eight hours each, and then you need weekend and vacation coverage.

So when all is said and done, we need about 500,000 border agents. If the average cost of maintaining these employees is only $100K/year (salary, benefits, and the cost of training, supervising and equipping them), I think we're talking about $50 billion a year. Then you add in the cost of processing all those that are caught and deporting them. So maybe $100 billion is a reasonable estimate.

Also keep in mind that we've left out the Alaskan coastline and its border with Canada, as well as the Hawaiian coastline.

Hmm. Maybe $100 billion isn't that bad. It's a lot less than the Iraq war. :-)