Tuesday, February 16th

The Economics of Immigration

On Tuesday, we began with the question of what exactly economists do. Professor Hagstrom gave us an overview of the responsibilities of an economist, what he/she studies, and how, generally speaking, he/she does so. In thinking about immigration as an economics question, professor Hagstrom told us that we should think in terms of Immigration versus Immigration policy. Whereas immigration deals with who can come to the U.S. and under what conditions he/she can come, immigration policy concerns rules that apply specifically to immigrants once they have entered the U.S. legally of illegally (do you pay taxes? receive welfare? etc.).

Before moving on to the evolution of policy in the U.S., we became acquainted with the many different kinds of immigrants that are present in the U.S., as well as the language we use to talk about them (citizens, noncitizens, naturalized citizens...). We also looked at numbers for the first time, and we were able to begin conceptualizing what percentage of the U.S. population is composed of immigrants, how many are legal, how many are illegal, etc. We learned that 53 % of U.S. immigrants come from Latin America.

Professor Hagstrom then discussed the evolution of immigration policy. This was helpful in respect to the last unit, which professor Lopez taught on history. We were able to think about the major historical moments she pointed out and thus try to understand what was going on when different laws were being enacted or changed. We began in the early 1800s, a time when virtually all immigrants were welcome, as America was a growing nation in need of a populus. We moved from there throughout the next two centuries, marking major dates such as:

1864 -- contract labor was allowed

1882 -- contract labor outlawed

1906 -- English speaking requirement for laborers begins

1920 -- per country annual limits begin

1942 -- allowed guest workers to fill labor shortages

1965 -- switched from a European based program to a family/work based program, green cards

1990 -- added a diversity lottery

I have selected the most significant dates from the list. This time line gave us a sense not only of the progression of U.S. immigration policy throughout the past two centuries, it also gave us insight into the thought processes behind these changes and their correspondence to the movements we know were going on at these different times.

We then discussed the readings (Papendemetrious and Martin) and looked at the different kinds of visas that are currently available in an attempt to better understand the process and condition of immigration today. There are two different routes to a visa: permanent and temporary. There are a number of problems with this system, about which we learned that many people across the political spectrum agree is broken. Because of the manner in which temporary visas function and are assigned, illegal immigration is, more often than not, encouraged as it is the easier, more efficient route. We talked about the possibility of provisional visas, and how they could potentially solve many of the loopholes in the current system.

We ended the class with a more general question, one that Professor Hagstrom asked us to look at from a number of different perspectives: What is the U.S. immigration system doing to protect jobs? We have to remember that the purpose of immigration policy in our country is not to help people from other countries, and we need to keep in mind who exactly is threatened or directly effected by immigration, both legal and illegal.