Bush and Rodrik: Immigration Bedfellows

Kim Strassel has a long interview with George W Bush on his immigration bill in the WSJ today, as Dani Rodrik takes over the equivalent NYT real-estate with his own argument in favor of it. The two men are strange bedfellows indeed, but ultimately it's not that surprising that they come down on the same side of this issue. What's more interesting is that their arguments barely overlap.

Bush is clearly aiming his arguments at anti-immigration Republicans. A quick run-down of what he says: there won't be two Americas, since the country can and will assimilate Mexican immigrants -- many of whom, in Texas, have become prominent and valuable members of society. Supporters of free markets should support free labor markets, because immigrants add to economic output, and we need immigrants to do the jobs American's can't or won't do. At the same time, we should not encourage a system which exploits them, under which good people suffer.

These are good reasons to support the immigration bill. But they neglect to mention the centerpiece of Rodrik's argument: that the $35 billion or so per year which would be earned by legal immigrants from poor nations would exceed the amount that the US spends on foreign aid, and even the amount that those nations stand to benefit from the current round of multilateral trade talks. And rather than the benefits accruing mainly for those countries' elites, the money would go directly into workers' pockets.

A system carefully designed with incentives for guest workers to return to their countries would also help allay fears that this scheme will poach the most economically productive citizens from nations who can ill afford to lose them.

In other words, Bush looks at the good this bill will do for the US, while Rodrik concentrates on the good it will do for the world's poor workers and countries. The difference is understandable. Much of the US population does not have a sophisticated understanding of positive-sum games, which means that if they're told that other countries will benefit, they'll worry that the US must be losing out in the bargain. What's more, it is indeed true that US low-skilled workers do get paid less as a result of low-skill immigration. So Rodrik's argument is unlikely to garner many votes, even though on a moral and intellectual basis it's probably the stronger one.