Immigrants Pose No Threat to Free Markets or Small Government: New at Reason

Anti-immigration conservatives have long worried about the impact that immigrants have on native culture and institutions. They are particularly concerned about immigrants who come from non-Western, un-free, big-government countries. Letting too many of them in, they claim, would make the task of maintaining America’s commitment to freedom, especially economic, much harder.

Immigration restrictions are of course themselves a form of economic control. But are such fears based on real world evidence. Texas Tech University Professor Benjamin Powell, a senior fellow with the Independent Institute, examines the literature and finds: not really. His own research, especially looking at “mass immigration” to Israel, on the other hand, shows that, if anything, immigrants increase—not decrease—economic freedom.

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