That's a lot of dollars in those economies. My first thought would be that maybe they should dollarize. However, it may also be to those countries advantage to NOT dollarize, because right now a dollar goes a long way in those countries, and that buying power might erode if they dollarize.

" I'd rather vastly expand the legal flows of immigrants who want U.S. citizenship, while simultaneously investing more in border security schemes -- though I'm pessimistic about the latter working terrbly well."

Serious question on the border security schemes: Why would you invest more in a policy that you don't think will be effective? Other than the obvious politics, why would a conservative want to do this? (Why would liberal, or anyone else, for that matter?)

I'm genuinely curious why someone who can look at policy without the attendant political distractions (in theory, at least) would recommend spending on something that isn't likely to work. As a matter of course, what odds for success do you require to make committing to a certain policy a responsible decision? Again, I'm not trying to be snarky, that statement just doesn't make sense to me nor sound much like a conservative position.

The link to the IADB paper in question seems to be inaccurate.

Whoops!! Fixed now.

So let me get this straight: Mexicans can become American citizens, but Americans cannot become Mexican citizens. Mexicans can buy property in the United States, but Americans cannot buy property in Mexico. Mexicans can openly influence political debate in the United States, but Americans are prohibited from doing the same in Mexico. Mexico can strictly enforce its southern border, but the United States cannot do the same.

I think the discussion needs to be shifted. The real problem is the endemic corruption of Mexican political institutions that impoverishes an entire country to keep a few fat cats in the good life. We are doing a great disservice to the Mexican people by allowing them to come across in such numbers (nearly 10 percent of their population). Doing so skirts the issue of the root case of Mexican poverty - endemic corruption of its institutions.

How many illegal immigrants are too many? If 10 million is acceptable, what about 50 million?

BTW - Anybody know where to find a reliable study of the cost of illegal immigration? (benefit to economy minus services)

Wouldn't the best approach be to combine all three, um, approaches? Expanded legal immigration to accommodate those people who want to come here and assimilate. A guest worker program for those people who want jobs but have no interest in becoming Americans instead of Mexicans. And tighter border security to keep out the minority of people who don't fit into either of those categories.

The remittance phenomenon is by no means new. Robert E. Kennedy estimated that in 1847, at the peak of Ireland's famine migration, the amount of remittances sent back to Ireland from America was sufficient to have paid the passage of all the refugees. Tim Guinnane up at Yale has written extensively and brilliantly about the social and economic significance of Irish remittances in the nineteenth century. Kerby Miller sees remittances as a key element in the "embourgeoisment" of rural Ireland in the late nineteenth century. In my own work I see remittances as essential to the formation and maintenance of "geographically unbounded communities" linking emigrants with kin and townsmen in their homeland. Recent studies by migration economists have found that there is a multiplier effect in remittances to Mexico and Central America. Recipients frequently use the money as investment capital to increase their own and their family's productivity. At the village level the results can be quite dramatic. As Miller suggests, a similar process was going on in nineteenth century Ireland. It would be disastrous to Mexico's rural economy to have this source of income cut off.

Leo Szilard proposed a solution in the early 1950's, in his book The Voice of the Dolphin.

He suggested that -- what with national pride and all -- we offer mexicans a gradually increasing vote in the USA, and the mexicans in return offer americans a gradually increasing vote in their government.

The first round it's just observers. After 2 years or so, they get one vote in our House and we get one vote in their equivalent assembly. And then each representation increases little by little until they have voting districts the size of ours and full representation, and we get the same percentage of representation on their side.

At each step we could possibly slow down the process or slowly reverse it if it appears to be going badly.

Somewhere along the line we'd get an agreement that mexicans would pay US taxes and the mexican government would get a slice of that, kind of like a US state. We'd gradually get the legal systems to be compatible. And in less than 50 years Mexico and the USA would be the same country.

Mexico does better with votes in the US congress than they do as an outside nation. And we do better with an integrated mexico than we do with a foreign mexico next door.

It was a good idea. By now it might be too late, mexicans might see it as swimming out to board a sinking ship.

A guest worker program might not make as much sense as pure economic policy as unlimited immigration, but we have to live in the real world where there is a controlling political dimention. We are simply not going to get the US electorate to go for unlimited immigration - they are much more likely to go for a punitive scheme which would ruin relations with Mexico for a generation.

The guest worker scheme or something like it might have slipped by at one point - and likely would have improved Mexican-American relations because it was theoretically politically palatable.

A guest worker program might not make as much sense as pure economic policy as unlimited immigration, but we have to live in the real world where there is a controlling political dimention. We are simply not going to get the US electorate to go for unliminted immigration - they are much more likely to go for a punitive scheme which would ruin relations with Mexico for a generation.

The guest worker scheme or something like it might have slipped by at one point - and likely would have improved Mexican-American relations because it was theoretically politically palatable.

A guest worker program might not make as much sense as pure economic policy as unlimited immigration, but we have to live in the real world where there is a controlling political dimention. We are simply not going to get the US electorate to go for unliminted immigration - they are much more likely to go for a punitive scheme which would ruin relations with Mexico for a generation.

The guest worker scheme or something like it might have slipped by at one point - and likely would have improved Mexican-American relations because it was theoretically politically palatable.

This debate is not about economics or international relations. I seriously doubt that anybody's reading Rybczynski or studying the implications on remittances to latin america (although they are neat numbers to pull out at parties). This issue is likely about reshaping the make-up of the Republican party which is as good a reason as any for a political debate (which in America's current polarized environment is always funny to watch as long as nobody gets hurt).