Posted by Ilya Somin:
The Case Against the Libertarian Case Against Hispanic Immigration:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_17-2009_05_23.shtml#1242767056
Economist Bryan Caplan, my George Mason colleague, has [1]an excellent
post taking apart the most important argument offered by those
libertarians who oppose Hispanic immigration to the United States: the
claim that it will result in an expanded welfare state because
Hispanics tend to vote Democratic. Bryan rightly points out that the
voting tendencies of Hispanics are not cast in stone, that any
statism-promoting effects of Hispanic migration are likely to be
offset by increased opposition to the welfare state by native-born
citizens (because social science data show that people are less
supportive of the welfare state if they think the benefits are going
to members of a different ethnic group), and that any libertarian harm
resulting from Hispanic immigration is vastly outweighed by the much
greater injustices resulting from immigration restriction. Bryan
rightly chides anti-immigration libertarians for ignoring the enormous
harm restrictionist policies inflict on current and would-be migrants.
As libertarians, we have no justification for excluding these from
consideration merely because they happen not to be US citizens.
Libertarians are not nationalists or ethnic chauvinists, and must
weight the freedom of all equally:
[2]Almost 70% of American voters under the age of 30 voted for
Obama. Why isn't anyone calling for the deportation of America's
youth, or limits on fertility to raise our average age? The reason,
presumably, is that people realize that this would be a grotesque
over-reaction. Even if young voters are making America a little
more socialist, the "cure" of mass exile is far worse than the
disease. Libertarians should view arguments against Hispanic
immigration in exactly the same way. Even if Steve Sailer were
completely correct about the political consequences of Hispanic
immigration, they're a small evil compared to the [3]massive
injustice of immigration restrictions.
In fact, the moral imbalance is shocking. On the one hand, we have
some libertarians fretting about the vague possibility that
Hispanics might moderately increase the size of the welfare state.
On the other hand, we have millions of Hispanics worrying that they
might get deported back to the Third World, and tens of millions
more languishing in dire poverty in their home countries when
American employers would be happy to hire them. If anyone is "more
sinned against than sinning," it is the maligned Hispanic
immigrant. Shouldn't libertarians be standing up for him, instead
of respectfully weighing flimsy excuses for his continued
persecution?
I would add two points to Bryan's analysis. First, even if potential
Hispanic support for the Democrats were a more serious danger than he
allows, the better libertarian solution is not to restrict Hispanic
migration, but to accept more immigrants that are likely to vote
Republican and oppose welfare statism: people from countries like
Cuba, Georgia, Poland, [4]Russia, and [5]Vietnam.
Second, Bryan's co-blogger Arnold Kling[6] worries that Hispanic
migration might create a "one-party state" in the US because "ethnic
bloc voting" will make it impossible for the Republicans to woo this
group successfully. There are [7]many problems with this argument. But
one big one is that the Hispanic vote is not and has never been
monolithic. George W. Bush [8]won about 35% of the Hispanic vote in
2000, and 40% in 2004, during two very close elections. Even in 2008,
a terrible year for the party that got saddled with the blame for the
economic crisis, [9]John McCain managed to get 31%. These figures
represent a big edge for the Democrats, but they certainly fall well
short of monolithic bloc voting. In the 1970s and 80s, the Republicans
learned to successfully compete for the votes of Catholics and "white
ethnics," groups that were once overwhelmingly Democratic. There is no
reason why the Republicans can't be equally effective in wooing
Hispanics.
References
1. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/05/the_case_agains_2.html
2. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/exit.polls/
3. http://econlog.econlib.org//archives/2009/04/is_there_a_righ.html
4. http://volokh.com/posts/1157775302.shtml
5. http://volokh.com/posts/1228716660.shtml
6. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/05/why_i_fear_a_on.html
7. http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/05/one-party_democ.html
8. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26119-2004Dec25.html
9. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1024/exit-poll-analysis-hispanics
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