[tokenadult]

I have been thinking about this a lot since living in what was then still the Third World (Taiwan, with visits to Hong Kong and to China when China was still very poor) in the 1980s. Today, Taiwan is wealthy, and is on track to be one of the richest countries in the world by 2050.[1] Taiwan is far from having open immigration so far, but it has taken in tens of thousands of guest workers from other, poorer countries in Asia, and is a bit unusual in having a big phenomenon of "foreign brides."[2] Free movement of people into Taiwan doesn't yet match the former rather vigorous movement of people out of Taiwan into the United States, but it is increasing, and all around the world the countries that are especially welcoming to immigrants are largely also countries that gain in prosperity over time.

As the article correctly points out, just more than a century ago in the United States, many people worried that HUGE rates of immigration from non-English-speaking countries would be dangerous to this country. They were wrong. Both my maternal grandparents were born in the United States, but their schooling was conducted entirely in the German language. My paternal grandmother was also born in the United States, and attended school only in English, but she attended church services in the Norwegian language and spoke Norwegian at home. Even the descendants of languages less closely cognate to English than those have grown up to be English-speakers just like me. This is not a problem. The strength of the United States (as the article points out) was established in the era when the United States had essentially no restrictions on immigration. I wouldn't mind bringing back those days. If other countries didn't try the same policy, the United States would just grow faster at their expense.

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/id/48686889

[2] http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/15/news/adfg-brides15

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023041980045751712...

[notworthmyjob]

It's worth remembering that the USA had heavily regulated borders between 1921 and 1965 and it's impossible to know how things would have turned out if they had stayed open. More incidentally, starting during WWI, speaking German in the USA was not encouraged, to say the least.

Furthermore, I would argue that the modern US government was _invented_ during the era of closed borders. Consider the New Deal's various incarnations, Social Security, robust regulation of business, the Wagner Act, etc. Continuing on to post war managerialism. Libertarians may want Guilded Age business policy and immigration policy, but a lot of people just want to cherry pick the immigration policy.