The comments on this article are almost uniformly anti-immigrant and uniformly uninformed. Reading articles (and the ensuing comments) like this steel my resolve to proceed ever more boldly in the name of the economic way of thinking. I'm sympathetic to a lot that the Tea Party has to say, but this is an issue on which most tea partiers are flat wrong. Indeed, "illegal" immigrants who pay into the social safety net and don't collect may be footing the bill for the Medicare you're so anxious for the government to leave alone. Here's my argument for open immigration. The "it's the law and they broke it" argument holds no water; indeed, it wasn't all that long ago that there were strong restrictions on African-Americans who wanted to move to Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and other Northern territories and the Fugitive Slave Law was the "law of the land." Just because the government says something doesn't make it right.

But don't take my word for it. Here's some recommended reading:

1. Here's an old Freeman article entitled "Immigration: An Abolitionist Cause" that I really enjoyed (link is to PDF).

2. Economics: for the umpteenth time, Lant Pritchett's Let Their People Come.

3. Moral philosophy: Michael Huemer's excellent paper "Is There a Right to Immigrate?" (link to PDF)

4. Here's the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed on May 6, 1882.