Yet Another Approach to Curbing Illegal Immigration

As my previous blog posts and articles on illegal immigration indicate, I am never in favor of reactionary and short-sighted “solutions” to the country’s current illegal immigration problem. For an example of a short-sighted “solution”, please see visit BorderFenceProject.com. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal offered a perspective on the illegal immigration problem that I had not considered: Replacing immigrant labor with machines. In Immigrant Labor or Machines?, June Krunholz explains that attempts to automate the processes involved in many of the low-skilled agricultural and manual labor positions filled by illegal immigrants have been largely unsuccessful. This stands to reason given the fragile nature of agricultural products and the subtleties involved in most tedious manual labor tasks.

I find it interesting that a motivating factor for technological innovation would be to help stop the flow of illegal immigrant labor into the country. There is something almost counter-intuitive about that concept, but I am unable to put my finger on it. Take a look at this chart from the article and let me know if you can envision major technological innovations occurring in these industries that will result in fewer illegal immigrants entering the country.

Tags: illegal immigrants, illegal immigration, immigrant labor, immigration problem, manual labor jobs, manual labor positions, wall street journal

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