[lutorm]

I agree it seems heartless to not grant kids like this guy residency. The problem I have with this is that that would just make the moral hazard stronger. Parents already smuggle their kids into the US to give them a better life. If they knew that these kids would then be eligible for legalization, it's hard to see how even more people wouldn't try.

I'm not a Minuteman and I'm not going to argue for any border fences, but it seems like the root cause of the problem is that the risk of getting caught is so low that many people try it. The real solution would be to make people not want to immigrate illegally in the first place.

[kelnos]

Or do the opposite: make it so easy to immigrate legally that few want or need to do it illegally.

[lutorm]

Well, that's true. But it's hard to see how that would not be very disruptive.

[kelnos]

A lot of things are disruptive. Doesn't make them bad or undesirable. We talk about "disruptive" new technologies here on HN all the time and how the best progress is made by disrupting the status quo. I won't claim that all disruption is good, but who's to say a little disruption in the immigration world wouldn't be?

[lutorm]

All the unemployed people, that's who...

[kelnos]

If an unemployed person loses out to an immigrant (legal or illegal), clearly there's a reason. I'd rather have jobs filled with better people than pander to people who are currently more eligible solely because they had the luck to be born in a certain place at a certain time.

[lutorm]

Sure, all else being constant, you want jobs to be filled by the best people available. More likely, the market will see to it that the best people per funds spent are employed, resulting in a race to the bottom. And there are downsides and costs to having millions of unemployed, too. You'll end up paying for them one way or another, through unemployment benefits or prisons.

[rubashov]

Are you cool paying healthcare and education costs for the immigrant's four kids? His low hourly wage does not come close to representing his costs given a social welfare state. This is essentially what is happening as criminal employers hire criminal aliens: they externalize massive costs to the larger population.

[dennisgorelik]

Immigrants are more likely to create businesses and therefore they tend to lower unemployment.