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closed borders.
Open borders would allow anybody who was not specifically restricted to cross the borders with full documentation. Meaning, the very few who are criminals would not get work visas while the majority can get the work they find. Since they will no longer be 'undocumented' they will not subvert the prevailing wages because they will be able to not be threated with deportation if they don't accept sub-standard wages. In fact, they'd be able to strengthen the unions and, with international cooperation between unions, would strengthen the power of workers who remain south of the border, providing further disincentive for immigration.
Truly open borders will, in itself, reduce immigration because if workers can come and go at will they will not 'go underground', nor will they import their families if they know they can leave to visit them and return again. Additionally, the border patrols will KNOW that anyone trying to cross illegally is up to no good - that they are, indeed, criminals rather than desperately poor people looking for work. As it is, with one drug smuggler for every 1000 job hunters our resources are being terribly diluted.
If you think this won't work, look at Florida. It has, effectively, an open border policy for Cubans. Any Cuban refugee who gets to shore is automatically granted assylum, IOW, documented. The Cuban refugee population has created a vibrant society of taxpaying citizens in S Florida. At the same time, the Haitian refugees remain undocumented and are pushed into a criminal underworld because of it.
It is not a matter of drawing 'skilled workers'. Skills are easy to learn, if the worker is given the opportunity to learn them. Besides, drawing off skilled workers from other countries does us no good because it undermines the strength of the other nations' economy, reducing it, as in the case of Mexico, to a two-tiered society of the wealthy and the hopeless. When that happens, the hopeless look for somewhere better - like here.
Lady Liberty doesn't say "send us your comfortable, your middle-class - your lucky few who win the immigration lottery". She says "send us your tired, your poor, your teeming masses, yearning to breathe free..." Those who we would exclude are exactly the people we once were, when WE immigrated.
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