A Reconfigured Immigration Debate

The so-called immigration debate is really a debate about Latin Americans streaming into the United States illegally. It is not about forging a more intelligent and rational policy for handling global flows of human capital — which is what it should be.

As this makes abundantly clear, the United States need not only address the negative of unwanted, illegal aliens; it must also address the potential positive of wanted, legal aliens from the BRICs and elsewhere, i.e., places with deep wells of highly educated, underpaid people with a great deal of capital-creating capacity. The isolationists, nativists, unionists and their fellow Luddites will protest that the last thing America needs is foreigners taking jobs. Please. Foreigners who are educated and determined to make money are exactly what America needs. What’s more, expanding the immigration debate in this way would strip it of its unseemly racial undertone. And it would force countries like Russia and China to compete for native talent, encouraging democratization. 

Question: The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration, has proven utterly feckless when it comes to immigration policy. Will any of the Republicans vying for the Oval Office be so bold as to defy their base and propose a a course that might very well create jobs and expedite liberalization around the globe?