THE RIGHT VS FREE MARKETS:

Tear Down This Wall (Art Carden, Mar. 31 2011, Forbes)

If I could change just one policy that would make the world’s poor much better off, I would eliminate immigration restrictions in wealthy countries. Here’s the kicker: it wouldn’t just improve the lives of the poor. It would make the natives of already-wealthy countries even wealthier. US Citizenship and Immigration Services begin accepting petitions for H-1B Visas for fiscal year 2012 on April 1. It’s a good time to reflect on exactly how government immigration policy is shooting us all in the foot.

According to the USCIS website, potential immigrants can compete for 65,000 slots with the provision that there are exceptions for “[t]he first 20,000 petitions filed on behalf of individuals with U.S. master’s degrees or higher” and exemptions for people who will work at higher education institutions, “nonprofit research organizations,” or “governmental research organizations.”

This is tragic for a couple of reasons. First, it means that some of the world’s greatest minds (and those who would employ them) have to turn their time and attention away from innovation and toward jumping through legal hoops in an attempt to get one of a small number of admissions to the United States. They’re worse off. Second, Americans are denied the benefit of having the world’s best and brightest working for our businesses and living in our neighborhoods. We’re worse off. Finally, artificial restrictions on immigration reduce competitive pressure on some of the world’s worst governments. We’re all worse off.

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