Open Borders: The Case
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Moral case
Libertarian
Right to migrate
Self-ownership versus state ownership
Obligations to strangers
Utilitarian
Double world GDP
End of poverty
Egalitarian
End of poverty
Rawlsian
Equal opportunity
Global apartheid
Human capabilities
Bleeding-heart libertarian
Conservative and small-government
Practical case
Benefits to migrants
Stated and revealed preferences of migrants and potential migrants
Concrete benefits to migrants
Benefits to immigrant-sending countries
Ghosts versus zombies
Incentives for human capital development
Remittances
Exit and competitive government
Benefits to immigrant-receiving countries
Global benefits
Double world GDP
End of poverty
One world
Innovation case
Peace case
Second-order case
Keyhole solutions
Immigration tariffs
Guest worker programs
Linguistic and cultural fluency requirements
DRITI
Arguments from authority
Economist consensus
Legal and political scholarly consensus
Smart and more informed opinion
Country-specific
US-specific
Harms to immigrant-receiving countries
Suppression of wages of natives
Welfare state/fiscal burden objection
Means-tested welfare benefits for poor immigrants
Emergency medical care for immigrants
Public schools for immigrant children
Assimilation
Crime and related physical harms
Crime
Terrorism
Disease
Overpopulation and environment
More harms
Second-order harms
Second-order crime
Second-order welfare objection
Contraction of welfare state
Political externalities
Citizen preference for reduced immigration
Foreign control and loss of sovereignty
Immigrant suffrage
Harms (theoretical bases)
Immigrant characteristics
Dysfunctional immigrant culture
IQ deficit
Skills mismatch
Heterogeneity
Social capital decline
Nativist backlash
Culture clash
Other practical objections
Harms to immigrant-sending countries
Brain drain
Delay political reform
Global harms
Killing the goose that lays the golden eggs
Cheap labor leading to a technological slowdown
Increased footprint
Animal welfare
Precautionary principle
Swamped
Twofers
Theoretical objections
Philosophical bases
Citizenism
Territorialism
Local inequality aversion
Nation as family
State responsibility thesis
Moral counter-case
Killing vs letting die (act/omission distinction)
Citizenism
Collective property rights
Anarcho-capitalist counterfactual
Restrictionist metaphors
Alien invasion metaphor
Electing a new people
Attacks on advocates
Ideological blindness and stupidity
Elite conscience salve
Leftist agenda
Libertarian pipedream
Economist blind spot
Sentimentalism
Asperger’s syndrome
Self-interest accusations
Corporatist agenda
Herd-building
Potential immigrant
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Proper treatment of objections
"The Efficient, Egalitarian, Libertarian, Utilitarian Way to Double World GDP" — Bryan Caplan
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Reading
Pro-open borders reading list
Anti-open borders reading list
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Video and Audio
Short video
Long individual video
Bryan Caplan: Immigration restrictions: a solution in search of a problem
Michael Clemens: The Biggest Idea in Development that No One Really Tried
Lant Pritchett: Education, Migration and Development
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People
Pro-open borders people
Bryan Caplan
Michael Clemens
Benjamin Powell
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Anti-open borders people
Steve Sailer
Peter Brimelow
Mark Krikorian
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Migration information web resources
Pro-immigration web resources
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Center for Immigration Studies
VDARE
Federation for American Immigration Reform
NumbersUSA
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