Here Comes Everybody

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh wonders what would happen if the U.S. adopted an “open borders” policy. The consensus view seems to be “way too many” though exact figures tend to vary greatly, as one would imagine. I don’t necessarily disagree with that assessment, but I do wonder whether people may be overestimating the number of people who would actually come to the U.S. and/or overestimate the negative impact that such unlimited immigration would have.

The first thing a lot of people seem to fail to factor in is that just because the U.S. has decided to fling open its borders doesn’t mean that other countries are going to follow suit. Getting into the U.S. is one thing, getting out of your home country can be quite another. For the most part, the sort of countries one would most want to get away from are precisely the ones that limit your ability to leave, and I suspect that such limits would only grow more strict if the government knew it could lose the bulk of its population to the U.S. in short order.