I’ve taken a great interest in economics since the Freakonomics guys turned me on to thinking deeper and extracting the incentive that drives people to do the things they do.  My search for economics blogs a few weeks ago led me to Marginal Revolution, whose contributors are two economics professors at George Mason University.

With illegal immigration as a hot topic on our nations front burner these days, it’s interesting to hear economists thoughts on what effect illegal immigration has on our economy.

I read Alex Tabarrok’s open letter on immigration this morning, and while I was in agreement with his letter, I found myself wondering why he had put so much thought in to addressing an irrelevant issue.

The media has bombarded us with differing opinions on this issue, and it seems that somewhere in all the clamor, we’ve lost focus of the real problem.  The illegal immigration debate has been spun into a general immigration debate, and many people are losing focus of the real problem.

Very few people in this country can be critical about immigration as a whole.  If it weren’t for the immigration process, our country would not be as strong as it is today, and chances are, you and I may not even be part of the action.

The problem is that we’ve had an influx of people that have circumnavigated our established immigration process and entered our country without regard for that process.  These immigrants lack the ability to vote and they aren’t required to pay taxes. Our government doesn’t even know they’re here, yet they take advantage of government services, both federally and locally.  So if they have no say (through voting) in the direction of our government, and they don’t contribute financially to the system that provides such great services as healthcare and civil protection, how can they have a positive effect on our economy?

It struck me that an economist at a major American university could write an article on such a hot issue without addressing the issue at all.  Nowhere in Mr. Taborrok’s letter does the word “illegal” appear, which leads me to believe that Mr. Taborrok, like many people, has lost focus of the real issue at hand.

So with that, I am still in search of an economists’ opinion on the effects of illegal immigration.

What are your thoughts?

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