People who oppose immigration often argue that immigrants will
- “steal our jobs”
- lower wages
- burden the government
- increase the crime rate
- “destroy our culture”
- introduce disease
The same arguments used to justify restricting international migration can also be used to justify restricting migration between the states or provinces of a single country.
For example, in the US case, one could imagine hearing the argument that Texas should restrict immigration from New York because New Yorkers emigrating to Texas will steal jobs away from Texans, or because an influx of New Yorkers will cause wages in Texas to drop, or because there is a high unemployment rate in Texas and the Texan economy couldn’t absorb an additional inflow of people. Etcetera. Perhaps Kansas should impose immigration controls on California, because California has a much higher rate of HIV infection, and if Kansas were to allow free immigration from California it might be inundated by AIDS patients. (These examples are from an article by Jacob Hornberger.) Luckily for the people of the United States, the US Constitution prohibits immigration restrictions between states!
In a blog post, Ilya Somin writes about migration to his home state of Virginia from the neighboring state of West Virginia, which is much poorer.
West Virginia migrants could take way jobs from Virginians, and put pressure on Virginia’s welfare system and other public services. They might increase our crime rate (West Virginia has a higher crime rate than Virginia). And they […] could potentially change the local culture in ways that long-established residents might not like. Yet no one seriously argues that Virginia should have the right to restrict migration from West Virginia….
Somin concludes that the support for international immigration restrictions, but not within-country migration restrictions, is the result of anti-foreign prejudice.
Questions
- Would the people of your country be better off if there were migration restrictions between individual states or provinces?
- Why do people use the arguments listed at the beginning of this chapter to justify restrictions on international migration, but do not use the same arguments to argue for restrictions on within-country migration?