Milton Friedman on Illegal Immigration

Here:



Instead of the lame question at the end, somebody should have challenged this charlatan and fraud to answer the following questions:

(1) So, Mr Friedman, I cannot help but notice how you utterly botched the history of US immigration in the first few minutes. Don’t you know that before 1914 there were plenty of legislative acts that severely restricted immigration into America, as we can see here. So were you just ignorant of this, or lying?

(2) Your contention that free and unrestricted immigration into America before 1914 was nothing but a “good thing” is wrong.
Plenty of people in America before 1914 – especially working class people – thought unrestricted mass immigration caused serious social and economic problems and they were correct. If unrestricted immigration into America before 1914 was such a great thing, why did so many oppose it?

(3) Your assertion that open borders and a strong welfare state are incompatible today is not, however, wrong. (As an aside, we’re seeing what a disaster this is Europe right now.)

But your claim that illegal Mexican immigration is positive for everyone involved as long as it stays illegal is pure nonsense. Even illegals increase competition for scarce jobs, and tend to lower wages. And this is before we factor in the cost of increased crime, law enforcement, deportation, pressure on rents, housing, school places, and so on. Care to comment on this?

Unfortunately, Friedman is dead so he gets to evade these questions.

But free market fanatics like Milton Friedman probably still supported open borders because they hate the welfare state and see mass immigration as a way of shattering modern Social Democratic or interventionist states.

And the crowning outrage is that much of the Left is now infected with a love of open borders along with the libertarians.