Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Standard economic theory tells us that when markets are open and the constituents of markets can move about freely (labor and capital) it generally produces socially optimal results.  This basic logic applies to immigration.  Immigrants, despite the dangers and expense of traveling to the United States, travel to the United States mainly because of the amazing economic opportunities.  And when the gains to the immigrants start to get smaller when the economy contracts, it’s no longer rational to immigrate, and so immigration slows.  And restrictive immigration reform, while not able to totally stop immigration, actually can slow it down, as it already is in Arizona:

While it is too early to know for certain, a consensus is developing among economists, business people and immigration groups that the weakening economy coupled with recent curbs on illegal immigration are steering Hispanic immigrants out of the state.

The Arizona economy, heavily dependent on growth and a Latino work force, has been slowing for months. Meanwhile, the state has enacted one of the country’s toughest laws to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants, and the county sheriff here in Phoenix has been enforcing federal immigration laws by rounding up people living here illegally.

It’s hard to disentangle the correlation.  Is the economy slowing because there are fewer immigrants to make up a large labor pool, or is the slowing economy (in combination with the restrictions) causing the immigrants to leave or not come over the in the first place?   Another thing this article shows is that, contrary to claims that immigrants because of their low education and itinerant nature are a negative influence on their communities, any type of mass migration out due to economic slowdown is then exasperated:

out, but they are not all illegal,” said Terry Feinberg, president of the Arizona Multihousing Alliance, a trade group for the apartment and rental housing industry. “A lot of people moving are citizens, or legal, but because someone in their family or social network is not, and they are having a hard time keeping or finding a job, they all move.”

Elizabeth Leon, a legal immigrant and day care worker, said the families of two of her charges abruptly left, forcing the state to take custody of the children. Ms. Leon’s brother, a construction worker who is not authorized to be in the country, plans to leave, unable to find steady work; families at the neighborhood school have pulled children out, Ms. Leon said, fearful of sheriff’s deputies.

“It is like a panic here,” she said. “This is all having an effect on the community, mostly emotional.”

Juan Jose Araujo, 44, is here legally. His wife, however, is not and is pressing for the family to return to Mexico because of the difficulty in finding a job and what the family considers a growing anti-immigrant climate.

So here’s the world of attrition.  Empty houses, families abandoned to the state, increased itinerancy, communities ripped apart and splintered.  And for what, so we don’t let Mexicans increase their incomes by eight times so that we can attempt to alleviate people’s cultural and social anxieties?  Doesn’t sound worth it to me.