Immigration

Is it good when immigrants come into our country?

If they want to, I think it is.  Let's think about what might motivate them to come.

Probably they want to make more money than they are making in their current location.  Since wages usually represent what a person's work is worth to their employer, it must be that their work is worth more to employers here in the United States than in their original country.

Quick side note: It isn't minimum wage that causes them to make more here, if it was they would only be making minimum wage but almost all men, immigrant or not, make more than minimum wage in the U.S., because their work is worth more than minimum wage.

Think of it this way: if there are 2 snow cone machines in my front yard and 4 in my back yard and I have 12 people who love making snow cones, would it make sense to keep 11 people in my front yard?  We could produce more snow cones and better employ people if we let more people from the front yard go to the back yard to use the machines.  In economic language, there is capital (snow cone machines) in the U.S. that could use more labor, especially the manual labor that most wants to come to the U.S.

Some employees that have the jobs that entering immigrants are suited for may temporarily lose their jobs, but as new opportunities arise in the more efficient economy they will find suitable jobs.  Also, when things are produced more efficiently, costs/prices go down which is beneficial to everybody that buys things.

I would be fascinated to know from a historical perspective about when large immigration has worked well and when it hasn't.  I imagine that in part the American Dream and some of our ideals come from immigrants that wanted to have a new start and worked hard to have it.  Let me know what you think!