In my Spanish Class, we have started to talk about illegal immigration, so I decided to write about my views now.
I believe that preventing the movement of people across borders is wrong. What are borders, but lines on a map? What right do we have to prevent people from coming to America, other than being born here?
My plan would be to stop policing the borders of the U.S., and allow anyone to enter. Not only would this save money on guards, but it could allow us to tax the illegal workers already in the U.S.
An obvious criticism of allowing immigration would be the increased likelihood of terrorism. People would fear that terrorists might infiltrate our country and attack. That may once have been the case, but terrorists now are more and more normal citizens of the countries in which they attack. As The Economist put it, between 2004 and 2008 "fully 84% of culprits had a western upbringing but only 28% had links to foreign militants".
This policy could be complemented with a removal of the minimum wage. The influx of workers would increase competition for work, and lower the cost of labor within the United States, allowing us to be more competitive with emerging economies, such as China. As a resident of Wichita, I've seen companies threated to export jobs to other countries, for their lower wages, and this would prevent that from happening. It could even spur new job creation, because companies' profits would be higher.
Minimum wage is bad because it artificially inflates the price of labor. It makes it so that people who are not worth paying it are unemployed, people like teenagers. The real minimum wage is 0, because that is what you are paid if you're not working.
I'm sure I missed some obvious problems with this, so comment on what you think.
