What would happen if Ian's position on unrestricted immigration came to fruition?
The Latino "Reconquista" will no longer be a major issue... I imagine the horizon of both our oceans, but especially the Pacific, filled with boats as far as the eye could see!
Sure, some people in the third world love their homeland and won't come to America even if they could, but most would. And they'll keep on coming as long as the wages and the quality of life in America are better than in the old country. The population of the United States is about 0.31 billion, current consumption levels average at over $100 a day. The people who'd want to come here, on the other hand... 1.1 billion people in the world presently have consumption levels below $1 a day, and 2.7 billion live on less than $2 a day. And yet even the poorest of those people would be able to make it to this country by signing a contract to work off their transportation.
The people that stay behind in the old countries, by the way, will become poorer as the result of their best and brightest leaving, and the hopes of those countries industrializing will be diminished. And the most afflicted, famine-ravaged persons won't be able to compete very well in a physically demanding factory environment, so it's up for debate whether the third world will be better off as the result. Many would come here and not be able to find a job, wasting whatever savings they had in the process.
Now, I do believe that any person, of any race and from any country in the world, is capable of attaining success in a free economy. Unfortunately for most this success doesn't come until 1-2 generations later, and that's with the help of the current welfare infrastructure. Most of the people coming off those boats will only be capable of physical labor at first. Being a Russian immigrant myself, I've seen a lot of Ph.D.'s from the old country babysitting and washing dishes in America because of the language barrier!
Other industrialized countries, the best example being Japan, will continue to limit immigration to what they perceive to be in their national interest, and invest in robotics and other technological innovations to compete with America. Cheap labor is the reason why China didn't have an industrial revolution a thousand years ago, and America might miss out on the next revolution for the same reason! Countries like Japan will also invest in overseas factories where the labor is cheapest, thus helping those countries industrialize and, in effect, buying their support on the geopolitical stage.
It's up for debate whether the total GDP of our nation will decline, but the per-capita GDP will definitely be in a free-fall! With a near-unlimited supply of cheap labor, wages will decline toward the world average. Or, if there are minimum wage laws, very few people would be making above minimum wage, and the unemployment would skyrocket even more.
(I will not speculate on what effect all this will have on the sanitation and health infrastructure of our country. For the sake of political correctness, I will pretend that hygiene and infectious disease management standards are the same in Ethiopia as they are in this country.)
Now, whatever magic wand Ian waved to open the borders ought to also work for getting rid of minimum wage laws, welfare, and other all government services and regulations as well; local, state, and federal? Unfortunately those things are more complicated.
If Michael Moore is willing to advocate government theft for the sake of some idiot who sawed off his fingers, what would he do if there were 40 Nigerian migrant workers sheltering in a basement next door, or politely picketing for work on street corners while their children fainted from hunger? He'd tell them that property is theft, and the rich American next door is stealing from them! Even if the majority of them had the moral sense not to turn to theft, enough would. Sure, you'd have your firearms, but they would have weapons as well, and pretty soon there would be more of them then there are of you. If they can't get the government to give them welfare, they'll take it by force themselves! Whether it takes a little violence or a lot of violence, sooner or later the majority of the wealth holders (at least those that haven't fled to some country with a more discriminating immigration policy) would agree to "fairly redistribute their wealth".
This is what happened in all countries filled with poor people competing for low-wage jobs, most notably in Russia in early 1900's. If America opens its borders and the ratio of "have"s to "have-not"s increases, then Socialism, maybe even Communism, would come back with a vengeance, and free market capitalism would be blamed for all society's ills!
Freedom is only possible in a wealthy and stable society, with a well-developed culture of education, hard work, self-reliance, and charity. Freedom is not for everybody, it must be earned. Just as entry to a free society should be earned, and we're talking about a lot more than just a boat fare or a walk from Mexico.
So, while I agree with Ian on most things, the position I hold on immigration is the minarchist / gradualist position, similar to that of Ron Paul. There are very few things that the federal government should be responsible for, but keeping our borders secure (and enforcing non-citizen visitation duration limits) is one of them. It will take decades do phase out welfare, and for those decades the illegal immigration must be halted, and those here illegally should be heartlessly deported, just as an American citizen would be deported if he overstays his visa in Japan or Switzerland.
If there is such a thing as the United States of America, be it a legal fiction or not, it is not a universal concept. There are stakeholders in this legal fiction, known as citizens - either you are one or you're not. And it's in the common interest of those existing stakeholders that the in-flow of new stakeholders be limited -- not unlimited and not closed off completely -- to prevent the scenario described above. Sure, I don't like the idea of a "common interest", people should be able to choose for themselves whenever possible, but unfortunately there are a handful of policy questions for which all American citizens are in the same boat, and immigration is one of them.
That doesn't mean we seal the borders completely, just control it for our national interest, like all industrialized nations currently do. It's definitely in our interest to let in a million or so immigrants per year, a pretty significant number. We might even be extremely generous and limit it at 3 million (that's 1% growth per year from immigration - 130,000,000 legal newcomers by 2050), but there must be a limit. And since there'll be many people competing for those limited spots, we can choose the applicants that would serve our national interest the most. Why should a high school drop-out from Mexico (no offense to both those groups) have an unfair advantage over the next Einstein from India or China just because of an accident of geography?
There will come a day, probably within our lifetimes, when the third world becomes more "industrialized" (and the first world less welfare-prone), and the need those barriers to immigration will gradually fade away, and all first-world countries, not just the U.S. will open their borders as Ian suggests. But not yet!