The trouble with immigration with a lifetime benefits ban is that sooner or later the Democrats will be in power and the lifetime ban will be abolished, without expelling the migrants admitted under it. And everybody knows it now, so a lifetime benefits ban is off the table.
In the same way, there is no defense treaty Republicans can make (not that they make treaties anymore) that subsequent Democrats will feel bound by (as we know from the fate of South Vietnam).
And there is no substituting capital punishment with life in prison without parole because (in the immortal words of Sideshow Bob) "Sooner or later the Democrats will get in and I'm out of here."
Sooner or later, every disempowered group living in the US eventually become citizens. I think partly it traces to our founding belief that all men are created equal. I don't think Americans would be at all comfortable with the idea of a permanently disenfranchised population, even if consoled by the thought that they are strictly economically better off than in their home countries.
They might not be comfortable with it, but it's important to get the thought right. They wouldn't be permanently disenfranchised. They would be permanently prevented from getting welfare.
They'll be able to vote for their own welfare. As I understand it, though, Bryan was not advocating taking away their vote. But it's possible that I misunderstood.
A permanent lifetime ban (of anything) would have to be put beyond politics. In the constitution, say, which is effectively beyond politics. That would be hard to do and hard to justify, but it would allow them to be enfranchised but still banned from benefits.
Don't get me wrong. I am arguing *against* permanent lifetime ban immigration.
I don't have a strong opinion about how those types of offenders should be punished, but there is a clear reason why a sex offender or felon would be disenfranchised. I don't think Americans would consider Caplan's proposed "second-class citizens" in the same manner, since they haven't committed a crime.
100% of Americans have committed a crime as have all immigrants. But also irrelevant, the point was if we demonize a group hard enough, Americans are perfectly fine with second-class citizens, the justness is completely irrelevant. Their disenfranchisement has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of what they did, it's pure punitive spite to make ourselves feel better because we like our whipping boys.
Still I find it odd you think there is a clear case for a five year old who played "I show you mine, you show me yours" with the neighbor girl and caught a lifetime sex offender registration AT FIVE YEARS OLD to have life time disenfranchisement. True story btw, went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and they upheld it when the guy challenged his adult disenfranchisement thirteen years later. Likewise people having sex with their spouses across state lines.
Some felons can’t vote. What about the others, Peter?
Now for myself, I’m fine with them voting, but I’m uncomfortable with dishonorable dischargees who can still walk and with sex offenders who can still breathe.
If we want to make adult prostitution a capital offense than we can do so, most people don't support that. Likewise public urination behind a bush at 2 am on the way home from the bar or because they are homeless. You strike me as the type that has no idea what the overwhelming majority of sex offenders are.
"Seriously, if Trump’s central immigration policy had been “Amnesty with a lifetime welfare ban,” it plausibly could have won the support of enough Democrats to break the filibuster. Assuming, of course, that Republicans went along with it."
You should be embarrassed to write something you absolutely know isn't remotely reasonable and retract it.
Birthright citizenship is in the constitution - not easy to change. My understanding is that Prop 187 failed because it was at the state level - courts ruled only the Feds could do that. But it got 59% of the vote. California is left of the country as a whole - it could work at the federal level. Plus, Bryan's proposal is limited to "as a condition of amnesty" for illegal entry. Makes it easier I think.
1) Abortion wasn't in the constitution and they discovered it for half a century. Affirmative action was against the constitution and they did it anyway. The constitution is thin gruel, not that Bryan has any reasonable plan to amend the constitution to his liking.
2) California wasn't left of the country when Prop 187 passed. But it kept flooding with immigrants until it was.
“Seriously, if Trump’s central immigration policy had been ‘Amnesty with a lifetime welfare ban,’ it plausibly could have won the support of enough Democrats to break the filibuster.
As usual, I’m with Bryan on most things immigration, until he goes too far on a couple (especially fully open borders).
The above claim is false.
Since lifetime welfare ban would include Medicaid (including emergency services) and illegal immigrant children going to public schools.
No way you are getting 7 Democrats to go along with that.
I don’t think you’d have even a 50% chance of getting a single one to go along with that.
[Separately, I’m not sure you could get more than about 20 Republicans to go along with it, but that’s a different point.]
Since illegals don't get welfare under the proposal, they're forced to earn money (and therefore pay taxes) [yes, or crime and get deported] So why not let their kids go to public schools - they're paying for it. Or, if you want to be stingier, say their kids can't go to public schools, yet they MUST send their kids to some (presumably private or religious) school at their own expense. There's a lot of flexibility here since the whole thing is predicated on "on condition of amnesty for illegal entry....".
“So why not let their kids go to public schools - they're paying for it.”
No actually, all taxpayers pay for public schools. The average lower income adult/family is getting a subsidy from other taxpayers for that schooling, which in some locales now costs taxpayers over $32K per year (in NY state, still more in NYC) and even in low cost states is over $11K per year.
idk where the breakeven point is where a taxpayer’s taxes cover the cost of a year’s schooling for a single child (even assuming paying taxes for 40 years, but only sending the kid to school for 13 years), but I would be willing to Bet On It that it is somewhere north of the median family income (which nationwide is currently about $87K).
So no, *very* few illegal immigrants are *actually* paying taxes that equal or exceed the costs of the K-12 education that their children receive at state and federal U.S. taxpayer expense.
Even if you also add in the share of the property tax burden that their rental costs cover.
I'm sympathetic to the "we have laws and we should enforce them" argument. However, the current administration spends many tens of billions of dollars on deportation related activities, yet chooses not to fully fund the immigration court system, which could be done for less than say $5 billion. It makes me think this administration doesn't want the immigration court system to function. Perhaps the Democrats don't want the immigration system to function either for different reasons.
I'd be interested to hear your take and Simon's take on this question.
Most people who use economics to justify immigration of whatever description are fine with it as long as it doesn't directly affect them. This list includes professions (academic, legal, medical), as well as executive business positions and government bureaucracies. The licensure that protects them remains in effect regardless of immigration policy. Pro-immigrationists, without challenge, use history and statistics much as the drunk does with the lamppost, more for support than illumination. They could learn from many people other than Mr. Hankinson. Maybe they should read Ann Coulter on the subject?
What you say may be true, or not. But that does not affect the truth, or otherwise, of what they say; the validity, or otherwise, of their arguments; or the persuasiveness, or otherwise, of their evidence.
Directing your argument to what their incentives or motives are, or who they are, is precisely the fallacy of *argumentum ad hominem.* Stop now, before it becomes a habit.
Also, as Bryan has pointed out many times, one of the markets with the least restricted immigration is the academic market. So right now, he does compete with immigrants.
Yes, some countries are better than others. And every immigrant makes their new country a little bit more like their old country. We therefore shouldn't accept many immigrants from any country that many people want to leave. Clearly, that principle will result in low immigration.
"Normally, asserting 'The rules are the rules' in an immigration argument is mere pretense. But Hankinson seems like he’d be perfectly fine with more immigration as long as we did it by the book."
I don't know anything about this guy, but just from your description this seems not to be true? He basically accepts the nativist economic and crime arguments, indicating that he's passionate about rules that restrict immigration rather than rules as a general matter.
Most anti-immigration people feel strongly that it's the duty of every government to prioritize the welfare of their own citizens over the welfare of non-citizens, even if doing that is negative-sum.
I don't agree, but that's how they feel. By that light, immigration that is bad for native workers who directly compete against immigrants is bad. Even if the world as a whole benefits.
But this ignores the possibility of compensating the native losers - yes, there are always losers from progress (or any change), but per Richard Epstein, if the change is net positive there should be value available somewhere with which to compensate the losers.
Unfortunately the keyhole solution, altho economically defensible, doesn't address the cultural issues anti-immigration people worry about more. (I suspect a program of intentional assimilation might make them a little happier.)
"Most anti-immigration people feel strongly that it's the duty of every government to prioritize the welfare of their own citizens Over the welfare of non-citizens, even if doing that is negative-sum."
Even in that case, they should explain why the benefit to everyone enjoying cheaper goods and services produced by lower-earning foreigners is smaller than the loss to the workers who were outcompeted by those foreigners.
It might be, and that's a reasonable question to ask. But my point is that the world as a whole (including the benefit to the immigrants) is better off.
What you're asking is a higher bar and fits with what I said - people care about the ingroup and not the outgroup. So you're asking that the ingroup - as a whole - benefit. I'd argue they do in fact benefit most of the time - the higher bar is met. But that's a numbers question you'd have to research to show it.
Well, the other issue is that “out-group” won’t be “out-group” forever. That’s the argument for selective immigration: we are choosing people who will eventually become “in-group” and have all the rights and privileges accorded to “in-group”.
Right. Which is why I'm fine with immigration of people who come to earn an honest living doing useful things that people will voluntarily pay for. The better they are at doing that, the more I'm in favor.
What is a government's duty in general if not to prioritize the citizen's welfare? Have you read the preamble to American constitution where it is spelled out clearly.
The job of government is to keep the peace. To prevent people from attacking each other and stealing one another's stuff. To prevent attack from outside. To provide courts to resolve disputes peacefully. And to otherwise stay out of the way so free people can live their lives and solve their own problems (mostly by cooperating with each other) in peace.
Outside? What is "outside"? Who lives in this "outside" that may attack the people?
The American govt is established on the Constitution that itself declares, in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, that the goal is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.
Bryan Caplan published a piece last week arguing that former libertarians who say they left the movement because they realized culture matters aren’t reporting a real discovery. They’re confessing a blind spot to something every serious libertarian already granted. He’s right about that.... This is where the parallel to culture breaks, in the opposite direction. Culture-matters failed Caplan’s banality test because everyone already granted it. Scale-matters would pass the same test for the reverse reason: almost nobody has actually been forced to answer it. Ask a room of libertarians whether there’s a population size, or a level of internal disagreement, at which their preferred bundle of rights-based conclusions stops being correct. The honest response from most is silence, not a citation.
How many (hundreds of) millions of immigrants does Caplan want? India alone has a billion plus willing and ready to move in. Plus there are Bangladesh and Pakistan ready and willing to make up any deficiency of immigration.
Arguments can only proceed to conclusion if sufficient premises are shared. Here, one party has premise that political authority is illegitimate per se, following Huemer "The Philosopher". Hence, any act by a political authority is illegitimate. So, how can this argument conclude?
The thing that always puzzles me is the idea that US workers have to compete against immigrants for the same number of jobs.
The thing is, nobody actually believes "If I wanted a job, I would look for it in a place with fewer people who might compete with me."
If they did, people who were looking for work would leave cities and move to the country.
But they don't: they leave the country and move to the city - where they face a lot more competition.
Why?
Because other people aren't just competition for jobs.
Other people are customers.
That's why there are so many more jobs in cities than in the country.
And immigrants are people: if they have sufficient wealth (in practice, mostly human capital) they are customers.
What's strange is that, in the last 10-20 years, "pro-immigration" seems to have meant "admit large numbers of people who have minimal human capital" and "anti-immigration" seems to translate into "admit no one, regardless of how valuable they could be to the rest of us."
There is a very big difference between someone who is outright anti immigration regardless of whether immigration takes place legally or illegally vs someone who is pro immigration but only if it is legal immigration. As to abiding bye and enforcing unpleasant laws i refer you Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum speech. In short, not like a law then get it changed. Congress has been unwilling to change U.S. immigration policy for too long a time period.
Your analysis of Hankinson’s position seems right: instead of relying exclusively on the usual “immigration is harmful” claims, his stance isn’t so much anti-immigration as it is pro-enforcement of whatever rules government agents happen to administer, regardless of their merits. If the operative principle is “follow the rules,” then the policy question becomes: What rules should we have? On that question, the economic and pragmatic case for far more immigration remains overwhelming, because his objections collapse when you shift from anecdotes to aggregate effects.
There is also a deeper issue: whether those rules are morally justified. By restricting immigration, government agents presuppose they have a right to decide who may enter any land within the territory over which they claim authority, even though they did not acquire that land by homesteading or any other non-coercive means. That effectively treats peaceful entrants as trespassers on land the agents do not justly own. It is far more plausible that private landowners, who did acquire their property by just means, are entitled to decide for themselves whom to admit.
On a rights-based view, peaceful movement is permissible by default, and restrictions require strong justification. The economic case you outline shows that such justification is almost never available. So the moral and economic arguments converge: immigration should be far more open, not because the rules say so, but because both rights and consequences point in the same direction.
There is the grisly reality immigration has become the last federal election issue, beyond the usual opaque promises of prosperity. With one exception my entire family line is traced to open port America, and as unrealistic as a return to that is, it’s what i would prefer a return to. Get here openly, register, obey the law, break the law prison and lifetime deportation (maybe to Canada)
The trouble with immigration with a lifetime benefits ban is that sooner or later the Democrats will be in power and the lifetime ban will be abolished, without expelling the migrants admitted under it. And everybody knows it now, so a lifetime benefits ban is off the table.
In the same way, there is no defense treaty Republicans can make (not that they make treaties anymore) that subsequent Democrats will feel bound by (as we know from the fate of South Vietnam).
And there is no substituting capital punishment with life in prison without parole because (in the immortal words of Sideshow Bob) "Sooner or later the Democrats will get in and I'm out of here."
Sooner or later, every disempowered group living in the US eventually become citizens. I think partly it traces to our founding belief that all men are created equal. I don't think Americans would be at all comfortable with the idea of a permanently disenfranchised population, even if consoled by the thought that they are strictly economically better off than in their home countries.
They might not be comfortable with it, but it's important to get the thought right. They wouldn't be permanently disenfranchised. They would be permanently prevented from getting welfare.
"wouldn't be permanently disenfranchised"
So they will be able to vote, but they won't vote for their own welfare?
They'll be able to vote for their own welfare. As I understand it, though, Bryan was not advocating taking away their vote. But it's possible that I misunderstood.
A permanent lifetime ban (of anything) would have to be put beyond politics. In the constitution, say, which is effectively beyond politics. That would be hard to do and hard to justify, but it would allow them to be enfranchised but still banned from benefits.
Don't get me wrong. I am arguing *against* permanent lifetime ban immigration.
"I don't think Americans would be at all comfortable with the idea of a permanently disenfranchised population"
Sure they are, cue sex offenders, dishonorable dischargees, and some felons.
I don't have a strong opinion about how those types of offenders should be punished, but there is a clear reason why a sex offender or felon would be disenfranchised. I don't think Americans would consider Caplan's proposed "second-class citizens" in the same manner, since they haven't committed a crime.
He hasn't proposed to disenfranchise anybody.
100% of Americans have committed a crime as have all immigrants. But also irrelevant, the point was if we demonize a group hard enough, Americans are perfectly fine with second-class citizens, the justness is completely irrelevant. Their disenfranchisement has absolutely nothing to do with the reality of what they did, it's pure punitive spite to make ourselves feel better because we like our whipping boys.
Still I find it odd you think there is a clear case for a five year old who played "I show you mine, you show me yours" with the neighbor girl and caught a lifetime sex offender registration AT FIVE YEARS OLD to have life time disenfranchisement. True story btw, went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and they upheld it when the guy challenged his adult disenfranchisement thirteen years later. Likewise people having sex with their spouses across state lines.
Some felons can’t vote. What about the others, Peter?
Now for myself, I’m fine with them voting, but I’m uncomfortable with dishonorable dischargees who can still walk and with sex offenders who can still breathe.
If we want to make adult prostitution a capital offense than we can do so, most people don't support that. Likewise public urination behind a bush at 2 am on the way home from the bar or because they are homeless. You strike me as the type that has no idea what the overwhelming majority of sex offenders are.
"Seriously, if Trump’s central immigration policy had been “Amnesty with a lifetime welfare ban,” it plausibly could have won the support of enough Democrats to break the filibuster. Assuming, of course, that Republicans went along with it."
You should be embarrassed to write something you absolutely know isn't remotely reasonable and retract it.
What he wrote is not only reasonable but correct - if, hypothetically. Maybe you mean that the hypothetical is unlikely (Trump wouldn't support that).
Perhaps; I'm far from convinced. I don't see why it's not "remotely reasonable".
See my separate answer re: Medicaid and free public schools for illegals immigrant children and you can easily see why.
We literally already tried Prop 187 and it failed.
We also tried to get rid of birthright citizenship and it failed.
Life in reality.
Birthright citizenship is in the constitution - not easy to change. My understanding is that Prop 187 failed because it was at the state level - courts ruled only the Feds could do that. But it got 59% of the vote. California is left of the country as a whole - it could work at the federal level. Plus, Bryan's proposal is limited to "as a condition of amnesty" for illegal entry. Makes it easier I think.
1) Abortion wasn't in the constitution and they discovered it for half a century. Affirmative action was against the constitution and they did it anyway. The constitution is thin gruel, not that Bryan has any reasonable plan to amend the constitution to his liking.
2) California wasn't left of the country when Prop 187 passed. But it kept flooding with immigrants until it was.
“Seriously, if Trump’s central immigration policy had been ‘Amnesty with a lifetime welfare ban,’ it plausibly could have won the support of enough Democrats to break the filibuster.
As usual, I’m with Bryan on most things immigration, until he goes too far on a couple (especially fully open borders).
The above claim is false.
Since lifetime welfare ban would include Medicaid (including emergency services) and illegal immigrant children going to public schools.
No way you are getting 7 Democrats to go along with that.
I don’t think you’d have even a 50% chance of getting a single one to go along with that.
[Separately, I’m not sure you could get more than about 20 Republicans to go along with it, but that’s a different point.]
Since illegals don't get welfare under the proposal, they're forced to earn money (and therefore pay taxes) [yes, or crime and get deported] So why not let their kids go to public schools - they're paying for it. Or, if you want to be stingier, say their kids can't go to public schools, yet they MUST send their kids to some (presumably private or religious) school at their own expense. There's a lot of flexibility here since the whole thing is predicated on "on condition of amnesty for illegal entry....".
“So why not let their kids go to public schools - they're paying for it.”
No actually, all taxpayers pay for public schools. The average lower income adult/family is getting a subsidy from other taxpayers for that schooling, which in some locales now costs taxpayers over $32K per year (in NY state, still more in NYC) and even in low cost states is over $11K per year.
idk where the breakeven point is where a taxpayer’s taxes cover the cost of a year’s schooling for a single child (even assuming paying taxes for 40 years, but only sending the kid to school for 13 years), but I would be willing to Bet On It that it is somewhere north of the median family income (which nationwide is currently about $87K).
So no, *very* few illegal immigrants are *actually* paying taxes that equal or exceed the costs of the K-12 education that their children receive at state and federal U.S. taxpayer expense.
Even if you also add in the share of the property tax burden that their rental costs cover.
You might be surprised how many illegal immigrants have 6 figure incomes.
I know quite a few. (Most of them work a lot of overtime.)
Seems to me you are conflating absolute numbers - where I don’t doubt you at all - with percentages.
I would also be willing to Bet On It that the percentage of same are even lower for the illegals that came in under AutoPen Biden.
Dude, my point wasn’t whether or not that would be “reasonable” to actually implement.
Words mean things - “no welfare” is no welfare.
The point was there is zero chance you will get Democrat politicians to go along with it.
I thought you liked Mark Krikorian on a personal level?
I'm sympathetic to the "we have laws and we should enforce them" argument. However, the current administration spends many tens of billions of dollars on deportation related activities, yet chooses not to fully fund the immigration court system, which could be done for less than say $5 billion. It makes me think this administration doesn't want the immigration court system to function. Perhaps the Democrats don't want the immigration system to function either for different reasons.
I'd be interested to hear your take and Simon's take on this question.
Most people who use economics to justify immigration of whatever description are fine with it as long as it doesn't directly affect them. This list includes professions (academic, legal, medical), as well as executive business positions and government bureaucracies. The licensure that protects them remains in effect regardless of immigration policy. Pro-immigrationists, without challenge, use history and statistics much as the drunk does with the lamppost, more for support than illumination. They could learn from many people other than Mr. Hankinson. Maybe they should read Ann Coulter on the subject?
What you say may be true, or not. But that does not affect the truth, or otherwise, of what they say; the validity, or otherwise, of their arguments; or the persuasiveness, or otherwise, of their evidence.
Directing your argument to what their incentives or motives are, or who they are, is precisely the fallacy of *argumentum ad hominem.* Stop now, before it becomes a habit.
Also, as Bryan has pointed out many times, one of the markets with the least restricted immigration is the academic market. So right now, he does compete with immigrants.
Interesting, and I dare say correct, but for the same reason irrelevant.
Yes, some countries are better than others. And every immigrant makes their new country a little bit more like their old country. We therefore shouldn't accept many immigrants from any country that many people want to leave. Clearly, that principle will result in low immigration.
"Normally, asserting 'The rules are the rules' in an immigration argument is mere pretense. But Hankinson seems like he’d be perfectly fine with more immigration as long as we did it by the book."
I don't know anything about this guy, but just from your description this seems not to be true? He basically accepts the nativist economic and crime arguments, indicating that he's passionate about rules that restrict immigration rather than rules as a general matter.
Most anti-immigration people feel strongly that it's the duty of every government to prioritize the welfare of their own citizens over the welfare of non-citizens, even if doing that is negative-sum.
I don't agree, but that's how they feel. By that light, immigration that is bad for native workers who directly compete against immigrants is bad. Even if the world as a whole benefits.
But this ignores the possibility of compensating the native losers - yes, there are always losers from progress (or any change), but per Richard Epstein, if the change is net positive there should be value available somewhere with which to compensate the losers.
Unfortunately the keyhole solution, altho economically defensible, doesn't address the cultural issues anti-immigration people worry about more. (I suspect a program of intentional assimilation might make them a little happier.)
"Most anti-immigration people feel strongly that it's the duty of every government to prioritize the welfare of their own citizens Over the welfare of non-citizens, even if doing that is negative-sum."
Even in that case, they should explain why the benefit to everyone enjoying cheaper goods and services produced by lower-earning foreigners is smaller than the loss to the workers who were outcompeted by those foreigners.
It might be, and that's a reasonable question to ask. But my point is that the world as a whole (including the benefit to the immigrants) is better off.
What you're asking is a higher bar and fits with what I said - people care about the ingroup and not the outgroup. So you're asking that the ingroup - as a whole - benefit. I'd argue they do in fact benefit most of the time - the higher bar is met. But that's a numbers question you'd have to research to show it.
Well, the other issue is that “out-group” won’t be “out-group” forever. That’s the argument for selective immigration: we are choosing people who will eventually become “in-group” and have all the rights and privileges accorded to “in-group”.
Right. Which is why I'm fine with immigration of people who come to earn an honest living doing useful things that people will voluntarily pay for. The better they are at doing that, the more I'm in favor.
What is a government's duty in general if not to prioritize the citizen's welfare? Have you read the preamble to American constitution where it is spelled out clearly.
The job of government is to keep the peace. To prevent people from attacking each other and stealing one another's stuff. To prevent attack from outside. To provide courts to resolve disputes peacefully. And to otherwise stay out of the way so free people can live their lives and solve their own problems (mostly by cooperating with each other) in peace.
Outside? What is "outside"? Who lives in this "outside" that may attack the people?
The American govt is established on the Constitution that itself declares, in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, that the goal is to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.
Outside of the country.
Bryan Caplan published a piece last week arguing that former libertarians who say they left the movement because they realized culture matters aren’t reporting a real discovery. They’re confessing a blind spot to something every serious libertarian already granted. He’s right about that.... This is where the parallel to culture breaks, in the opposite direction. Culture-matters failed Caplan’s banality test because everyone already granted it. Scale-matters would pass the same test for the reverse reason: almost nobody has actually been forced to answer it. Ask a room of libertarians whether there’s a population size, or a level of internal disagreement, at which their preferred bundle of rights-based conclusions stops being correct. The honest response from most is silence, not a citation.
Read more:
https://delphicmirror.substack.com/p/scale-is-why-politics-is-still-in?r=5d3u3o&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
How many (hundreds of) millions of immigrants does Caplan want? India alone has a billion plus willing and ready to move in. Plus there are Bangladesh and Pakistan ready and willing to make up any deficiency of immigration.
Arguments can only proceed to conclusion if sufficient premises are shared. Here, one party has premise that political authority is illegitimate per se, following Huemer "The Philosopher". Hence, any act by a political authority is illegitimate. So, how can this argument conclude?
The thing that always puzzles me is the idea that US workers have to compete against immigrants for the same number of jobs.
The thing is, nobody actually believes "If I wanted a job, I would look for it in a place with fewer people who might compete with me."
If they did, people who were looking for work would leave cities and move to the country.
But they don't: they leave the country and move to the city - where they face a lot more competition.
Why?
Because other people aren't just competition for jobs.
Other people are customers.
That's why there are so many more jobs in cities than in the country.
And immigrants are people: if they have sufficient wealth (in practice, mostly human capital) they are customers.
What's strange is that, in the last 10-20 years, "pro-immigration" seems to have meant "admit large numbers of people who have minimal human capital" and "anti-immigration" seems to translate into "admit no one, regardless of how valuable they could be to the rest of us."
There is a very big difference between someone who is outright anti immigration regardless of whether immigration takes place legally or illegally vs someone who is pro immigration but only if it is legal immigration. As to abiding bye and enforcing unpleasant laws i refer you Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum speech. In short, not like a law then get it changed. Congress has been unwilling to change U.S. immigration policy for too long a time period.
Your analysis of Hankinson’s position seems right: instead of relying exclusively on the usual “immigration is harmful” claims, his stance isn’t so much anti-immigration as it is pro-enforcement of whatever rules government agents happen to administer, regardless of their merits. If the operative principle is “follow the rules,” then the policy question becomes: What rules should we have? On that question, the economic and pragmatic case for far more immigration remains overwhelming, because his objections collapse when you shift from anecdotes to aggregate effects.
There is also a deeper issue: whether those rules are morally justified. By restricting immigration, government agents presuppose they have a right to decide who may enter any land within the territory over which they claim authority, even though they did not acquire that land by homesteading or any other non-coercive means. That effectively treats peaceful entrants as trespassers on land the agents do not justly own. It is far more plausible that private landowners, who did acquire their property by just means, are entitled to decide for themselves whom to admit.
On a rights-based view, peaceful movement is permissible by default, and restrictions require strong justification. The economic case you outline shows that such justification is almost never available. So the moral and economic arguments converge: immigration should be far more open, not because the rules say so, but because both rights and consequences point in the same direction.
There is the grisly reality immigration has become the last federal election issue, beyond the usual opaque promises of prosperity. With one exception my entire family line is traced to open port America, and as unrealistic as a return to that is, it’s what i would prefer a return to. Get here openly, register, obey the law, break the law prison and lifetime deportation (maybe to Canada)