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Notes -
I tend to agree as my personal journey on the issue was pro-open borders. If we let the migrants in today then tomorrow they are more wealthy American citizens.
One thing to not is there is I believe a Milton Friedman type school of thought that illegal immigration is better than legal migration. Illegal provides a selection effect for the hungriest immigrants willing to do the work Americans don’t want to do. And from a selection effect the illegal immigrant today has more selection effect for the American characteristics (prior immigrant waves having a much harder journey so selects for entrepreneurship etc).
My journey on immigration likely went from a “Why Nation’s Fail” type mindset where the primary reasons some nations fail are bad institutions, lack of property rights, corruption etc. My guess is this is still the dominant elite view and therefore more immigration into a society with good institutions translates into a huge net positive for humanity. You then summarize into some sort of Yglesias thesis of “One Billion Americans” who I believe is considered slightly a center right writer.
The work of Garret Jones on national average IQ being the driving force of a national wealth drives my thinking much more, but George Masons Econ department sits outside elite consensus. Even at that school he can’t specifically make hbd arguments. If you want to explain why some countries always have poor institutions then you end up using Jones arguments.
In summary I completely agree it’s very tough in America to make strong anti-immigration arguments especially in elite circles. The very best you can do is find agreement that the border needs to be secure enough to limit the pace of illegal migration to allow our economy to have enough low-end work and public resources to turn migrants into American citizens.
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