Customer Reviews

Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy

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A very sound piece of economic work. Regardless of what you feel about Borjas's conclusions, you must acknowledge the value of his economic analysis. To truly have an understanding of the immigration debate, you must have read Borjas's work. His contributions to the field are immeasurable. While I do not always agree with him on the place of "ethnicity" in the realm of immigration policy making, I am more educated for even considering his proposal. In sum, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in immigration issues--especially those interested in its economic impact.

this is an interesting look at immigration and immigration policy in the United States. rather than accuse or scare people with facts that aren't always true, Borjas chooses to present straight facts that relate to employment, educational, and economic data. it makes you look at what is going on in our country from a different perspective. the chapters do tend to get redundant after a while though.

This book has the pros and cons of immigration. In addition to a background history of the issue. I used as a reference.

One of the most comprehensive books on the economic effects of immigration on the native population is "Heaven's Door" by Dr. George Borjas. Dr. Borjas has for decades been trying to prove the adverse effects of immigration on natives. Although his research has continued since 1999, "Heaven's Door" is his most recent major work.

Despite the author's obvious bias, the book should not be totally written off by either the pro-immigration or anti-immigration people. The book is filled with references to studies conducted on the subject. The author's reporting on the actual factual data is fantastic. Dr. Borjas claims that his intention is to present the facts and not make policy recommendations.

Both sides can and have spun the facts contained in this book to support their pre-drawn conclusions on the effects of immigration. And Dr. Borjas himself is included in this group. One study done of the Mariel boat lift failed to find any adverse effects on the wages of lower skilled workers in Miami. This was a surprise to most economists. Dr. Borjas wrote it off. His reason is that the wages of lower skilled workers in Miami fluctuated unexplainably at another time, and for some reason he feels this is sufficient to ignore the Mariel boat lift study. But nevertheless, the book does describe the study briefly. Despite his bias, the book contains relevant information.

But the book does NOT consider all the facts. First, the book fails to consider the effects of immigration on the immigrants themselves and on their countries. Second, in his policy recommendations, Dr. Borjas leaves out very relevant policies that could be implemented to alleviate the adverse effects of immigration [for example: policies to improve the productivity of the adversely affected native unskilled workers (merely graduating from high school can increase their earnings potential by 30%). Borjas ignores this in his policy recommendation].

At the end of the book, Dr. Borjas offers his recommendations for U.S. immigration policy. He recommends that the U.S. seek only its own interests and the interests of U.S. citizens. Thus, in his policy recommendations, Borjas ignores any effects, good or bad, that his policy recommendations have on the rest of the world. Borjas, who at the beginning of the book explains how important it is to be aware of all the facts, ignores this. Even then, his policy recommendations are pitiful.

He recommends that the U.S. limit immigration to only skilled persons and that no unskilled or lower skilled persons should be admitted. He proposes that 500,000 skilled immigrants be admitted annually. The ramifications would be that the wages of skilled workers would be reduced thereby reducing the disparity between the wages of the skilled and unskilled. He also openly admits that because of the reduced rate of return on education, that U.S. college enrollment would be expected to reduce by 15% and that those 15% would most likely be those that can least afford college. As mentioned before, he ignores the effects on the rest of the world: that third world countries would lose their most valuable citizens (i.e. brain drain).

So under Borjas's plan, we would import skilled workers and permit our own citizens to do the chump labor. This to me is pitiful. A better policy would be to permit unskilled labor to come here meanwhile allocating resources towards improving the productivity of our own citizens. Low skilled immigrants wash dishes, cut grass and hammer nails (and they're happy to do it; it's an improvement for them), meanwhile, U.S. citizens prepare tax returns, teach college courses, provide medical care and manage Fortune 500 companies. It's a win-win situation.

Mr. Borjas is well known for several things:
1. His relationship with the Center for Immigration Studies, an admittedly right wing policy institute whose goal is to markedly decrease immigration and support the Republican Party. This organization consistently sends to the media negative sound bites, which are unsubstantiated, clearly biased, and in many cases false.
2. Fabrication of unproven doctrine, such as migrant labor decreases both the income and jobs of poor Americans. He has stated that this was conjecture when he originally wrote this and uses this in many of his subsequent writings without objectively proving this.

With this background, it is very difficult to accept any "objective" statements from this "scholar."

what else is new? This book is like most academic work these days: start with a conclusion, then find supporting arguments.

Borjas's $8-10 billion estimate does not take into account the present value of a higher expected GDP growth rate due to faster capital accumulation. Elementary college economics.

Welfare and assistance costs apply more to legal immigrants or 2nd generation immigrants (including cubans) than illegal ones. Last I heard you need a Social Security number to apply for govmnt assistance.

In any case I am a strong believer in free markets and I think the market should decide who comes here who doesn't.
Ethnicity, education etc are arbitrary criteria and they just reflect Borjas's psychology and prejudices.

What people really want is $$$ and jobs, we want here whomever is going to make everybody rich, create wealth, create jobs, pay taxes, help us kick China's arse and fight terrorists. We don't necessarily need more Harvard economic professors.

And we shouldn't care if those people come from Mexico or from Mars, I personally don't ...