We Can't Afford Illegal Immigrants.

Janet Daley, in the Telegraph:

If working people are to fend for themselves and support their own families without help, they cannot be under-bid for employment by migrants who, as often as not, have no dependants and no permanent obligations in the host country. The uncontrolled movement of peoples around the globe is problematic for welfare states – which can end up supporting them – but it may present even more dramatic difficulties for a country with a contracting state. The combination of reduced welfare and unlimited migration could produce ugly consequences which no responsible person wants to see.

The premise that immigration should never be limited is relatively modern and backed up by little besides an altruistic frisson. The libertarian responds that labor has the right to move where it wills. And it may indeed. But in a world where the supply of capital outweighs the supply of labor, the free movement of the latter penalizes the workers of nations that develop the former.

Too many promises have been made by altruists, promises based on faith that any good that could be imagined could be done without cost to other goods. Like an overextended credit card, we'll be paying for it for a long time.