Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“Donald Trump recently endorsed a glorious-on-net immigration proposal: giving a green card to every foreigner who graduates from a U.S. university. … Imagine, then, that you’re a farmhand in the Third World. At home, you earn $3000 per year. In the U.S, you’d earn $33,000. Under current U.S. immigration rules, legal immigration is practically impossible for you. So you either have to stay put or migrate illegally, with all of the associated smuggling fees, risks and horrors. Since smuggling is illegal by definition, borrowing against your massive earnings gain is hard. Once you cross the border, how can lenders know you’ll repay, instead if just disappearing into the underground economy of the world’s largest economy? Under Trump’s proposal, in contrast, the would-be migrant merely has to get accepted by the cheapest community college in America.” (06/28/24)