The humane logic of immigration cuts

In 2013, Congress debated a so-called immigration reform bill that would have doubled legal immigration, to 2 million from 1 million a year, roughly. Despite support from virtually all Democrats and many Republicans, it died in the House.

Instead, voters gave us President Trump, who’s now endorsed a plan that cuts legal immigration in half. This bill — the RAISE Act, from Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue — isn’t likely to get through Congress either. But the goal posts have moved. Yesterday’s “restrictionist” position — “stick with 1 million” — is now a centrist compromise.

The bill has been feverishly condemned; it’s time for some calm context. RAISE cuts back socalled “chain migration,” in which legal immigrants bring in their brothers and adult children, who bring in their brothers and in-laws, who bring in their brothers, until entire villages seem to have transferred to the U.S.

Under RAISE, you could only bring in your spouse and minor children. (Parents would get special renewable visas.) Oddly, the inclusion of siblings, etc., enacted in 1965, was a sop to conservatives, who foolishly thought the result would be more relatives of European ethnics already here.

Two-thirds of legal immigration is now “family based.” The other main kind of legal immigration — “employment based” — only accounts for 140,000 of the current million. RAISE would switch these 140,000 to a pointsbased “merit” system, where younger immigrants with firm job offers, tech degrees and English proficiency get preference. Nobel Prize? 25 points!

When considering these reforms, there are actually two main questions.

One: Should we sharply cut back low-skilled immigration to protect low-skilled workers who are already here?

Answer: Yes. Economists will tell you immigration raises the income of most of the population — except Americans working in basic, low-skilled jobs who have to compete directly with newcomers.

The negative impact doesn’t look huge — probably a percentage loss in the single digits — but the Americans stung are at the bottom, where any loss hurts. Male black unskilled workers are hit hardest. These are the citizens who’ve been most clearly screwed by the free trade-and-tech economy of recent decades. We’d basically be throwing them into the spam folder of history: “If we can’t ship your job abroad, or replace it with a robot, we’ll bring in a foreigner to do it for less.”

Question Two: If we let in mostly immigrants with skills, how many should it be?

This one’s harder. Skilled immigrants are more likely to help the economy, the argument goes — think computer techies. They also pay more taxes. But they still bid down wages of American techies. And there’s evidence that positive effects of skilled immigration only really happen with near-Einstein-level geniuses. Since I started writing about these issues, I’ve been hearing from well-qualified American tech workers now used to being laid off every few months and replaced by foreigners.

There’s no small amount of 1965-style hubris behind the idea that we can devise a points system that will perfectly capture the immigrants we want. Do we want to make sure they don’t find so many of their countrymen already here that they don’t assimilate? Are some cultures viciously sexist? No problem — just tweak the algorithm!

But even tweaking takes time. And isn’t resentment of dominance by “merit” — where anyone without high SATs or nice degrees is a loser — how we got Trump?

These factors suggest that RAISE is right to go slow and keep the “skills” number where it is (140,000). If the new “merit” test works, we can always increase the number later. If it doesn’t work, we’re permanently stuck with people we don’t want.

It’s all a wasted effort, of course, if we don’t control our borders — most controversially by building a wall, less controversially by mandating the “E-Verify” system to check employees. Fail to do that, and it doesn’t matter what legal limits we set; people will come in anyway.

But if we have control, we can enlarge and shrink categories as necessary, in accord with voters’ desires. For myself, I’m uncomfortable with abandoning the corny Emma Lazarus idea that America welcomes at least some unskilled (non-“family”) foreigners to work their way up from the bottom, even if they pay less taxes.

Add 50,000 of them? You could do it and still easily lower total immigration. All things are possible when we get control. Let’s do that first.