I have been thinking a bunch about immigration and the more I think about it and read the less I understand. I have personal connections to people who are in or were in the shadow workforce. It is dehumanizing and opens them up to exploitation. But I don’t think anybody on the left is seriously talking about open borders. Where would it stop? Maybe we could create a single zone with Mexico and Central America. But that would open up flood gates from elsewhere in the world. More problems.

I do want to think outside of the zero sum game of immigrants taking jobs. They also create jobs. In places like Japan where they have a negative birth rate, they are urging people to have more children. In the USA our economy thrives partly because of the influx of new workers from around the world. So yes, immigration can fill a need, but unlimited immigration would be too much.

My thinking is that having a functional and fair system for legal immigration would drive down illegal immigration. Sort of like how legal Marijuana makes shadow market marijuana less of a thing.