Auction Citizenships Worldwide to Fund Federal Government; Lessons of the 1924 Immigration Act: America Welcomes Newcomers, But There Are Always Limits

Wall Street Journal: Auction Citizenships Worldwide to Fund Federal Government:

The federal government should pay off its self-inflicted debt by selling Americans’ valuable citizenship to wealthy foreigners, a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Thursday states.

Instead of being a nation of citizens with reciprocal duties and rights, the government should “Consider America like a club, with initiation fees required for admission,” the May 23 op-ed said.

The government could start by printing and selling two million shares of citizenship per year, or roughly one extra share for every two Americans born each year, according to the op-ed:

One way to modernize our immigration laws would be to allow market forces to decide who should become new citizens.

…

An example: Sell 8,000 visas to the highest bidders for 250 days a year. Suppose the average price is $30,000. Of the $60 billion in annual visa revenue, devote one-third to more-intense border enforcement, one-third to income-tax reduction (an “immigration bonus” to taxpayers), and one-third to increasing the anemic defense budget. Or apply the money to debt reduction, helping delay the fiscal armageddon threatening the pensions and healthcare of elderly Americans.

The United States “is not a shopping mall,” Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told Breitbart News in response. “This proposal assumes that citizenship is merely a business arrangement when it is, in fact, more like joining a family, he said. “Citizenship is not an economic issue. It is a political and social and moral and, even arguably, spiritual issue. It’s not just about money. By reducing the citizenship to dollars and cents, you’re eliminating any rationale for the duties and responsibilities of citizenship that aren’t remunerative. In other words, if it’s just a matter of money, then why would you, why would anybody, volunteer to defend your country?”

“Almost certainly, this kind of proposal would devalue the citizenships they’re selling by making America less American,” Krikorian said, adding, “Maybe if they were selling ten citizenships a year, then it wouldn’t make a difference. But if they’re talking about two million a year, that would inevitably have a significant effect on the underlying social arrangements that make America successful in the first place.” —>READ MORE HERE

Lessons of the 1924 Immigration Act

America welcomes newcomers, but there are always limits.

A century ago Sunday, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which set strict limits on admitting newcomers to the U.S. As a consequence, between the 1920s and 1970, the share of foreign-born persons fell from about 13% of the population to 5%. Since then immigration has rebounded as a consequence of post-1965 liberalizing legislation and increased illegal immigration arising from falling transportation and information costs and increasingly lax border enforcement.

Throughout history, whenever newcomers exceeded 10% of the population, political agitation has arisen to constrain immigrant inflows. In 1924 people were worried about the threats of communism after the Russian Revolution and crime as a result of an immigrant-led Boston police strike, including highly publicized murders committed by Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Congress passed the Immigration Act in a relatively noncontroversial bipartisan effort. Coolidge signed it despite reservations about the law’s restriction of Japanese migrants. The new law reduced total inflows and curtailed immigration viewed particularly undesirable from Southern and Eastern Europe and Asia.

Two lessons come from the 1924 legislation. First, while America is a nation of immigrants that generally welcomes newcomers, there are limits to the number of migrants Americans will tolerate. Second, how immigration is limited matters: Whom do you choose to admit—or exclude?

Newcomers tend to be prodigious savers and highly entrepreneurial. With U.S. population growth stagnating and the ratio of workers to dependents (increasingly retired Americans) expected to shrink, immigration is a welcome way to counter the birth dearth. —>READ MORE HERE (or HERE)

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