Immigration

We will be discussing immigration policy using four general possible points of view. Each of us will pick one point of view and argue both for and against that policy.

I will be looking at the "open-borders" view, which essentially argues that human beings should be allowed to move freely between countries without restrictions. In my analysis I will also be looking at the effect of social welfare programs on this sort of policy, as well as the different motivations that drive people to immigrate (to work vs. to collect welfare).

The second type of policy would be one where the government delineates a set of standard minimum requirements and anyone who meets those requirements would be allowed to immigrate. Requirements may include things like a minimum education level, clean criminal background, etc.

The third type of policy would be one where the government actually selects those who it wants to immigrate. For example the government may decide that it only wants to let in people with graduate degrees, or perhaps only those from a particular field, such as medicine.

The fourth type of policy is one that allows no immigration whatsoever. A current example of a country with this type of policy is North Korea. The analysis of this view will probably include a discussion of the type of government that prefers this sort of immigration policy.

That's what we have so far, but we will update with our four analyses shortly!