Immigration Reality vs. Politics: How to Be a Patriot: Hire an Illegal Immigrant

A+ Fantastic article on the economics of "illegal" immigration and the immorality of U.S. immigration law. And this is from Bloomberg's 'Business Week'.

How to Be a Patriot: Hire an Illegal Immigrant - BusinessWeek: "What makes the political impasse over immigration particularly frustrating is that hiring an illegal alien is good for the illegal alien, good for the U.S. economy, and good for the country he or she comes from. So what’s not to like? In cases like this, there is only one moral course available for true patriots: Go find an illegal to hire. Huge numbers of people in border states are doing precisely that. ...

... at this point it’s surely worth asking: How much do we value the negligible-to-nonexistent threat to the livelihoods of a few U.S. citizens against the immense, life-transforming benefits to people born on the wrong side of our borders, people who move here without waiting on an immigration process that pretty much won’t let them in legally unless they are already privileged by considerable education and experience? (Even for foreigners with a high school education and a skilled occupation, the chances of getting a visa through the lottery process are 1 in 242.)

The macroeconomic argument in favor of employing immigrants, even those without papers, is unassailable. But what about the problem that, absent reform, it’s breaking the law to do so? When a law itself prohibits doing the right thing, when it is immoral rather than just annoying or inconvenient, and when breaking that law does no great harm to any others, it is justifiable for people of conscience to choose to break that law. That is close to where we find ourselves with immigration legislation. It limits freedom of movement by immigrants and freedom of choice by employees. It does no good, but it causes considerable suffering. Current U.S. immigration laws have all the moral standing of pass laws in apartheid South Africa."