The State of U.S. Immigration Policy: The Quandary of Economic Methodology and the Relevance of Economic Research to Know
By Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., Cornell University
Immigration Policy in Free Societies: Are There Principles Involved or Is It All Politics?
By Vernon M. Briggs, Jr., Cornell University
Liberals Beware: There is a High Cost to “Cheap” Labor
There is a liberal case for controlling illegal immigration that is seldom articulated. As the issue heats up and sides are drawn, both objectivity and civility seem to be in short supply. Armed citizen groups travel to the Border as self-appointed border guards, setting the stage for worrisome and perhaps violent conflict. Defenders of illegal immigrants call any and all concern about this issue “racist,” and attempt to take the issue completely off the table. The wise words directed at another subject by the late John Gardner seem to apply; the issue is “caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers.”
What Needs to be Done
The monumental task before us is to solve the human predicament – the combined crises of overpopulation, wasteful consumption, deteriorating life-support systems, growing inequity, increasing hunger, toxification of the planet, declining resources, increasing resource wars (especially over oil and gas reserves and water), and a worsening epidemiological environment that increases the probability of unprecedented pandemics.
On American Sustainability — Anatomy of a Societal Collapse
…our American way of life -300+ million people enjoying historically unprecedented material living standards – is unsustainable; it must and will come to an end, soon. The inescapable conclusion is that we are about to experience the inevitable consequence associated with our predicament – societal collapse.
The Environmental Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States
A serious commitment to environmentalism entails ending America’s population growth and hence a more restrictive immigration policy. The need to limit immigration necessaryily follows when we combine a clear statement of our main environmental goals – living sustainably and sharing the landscape generously with nonhuman beings – with uncontroversial accounts of our current demographic trajectory and of the negative environmental effects of U.S. population growth, nationally and globally.
