Decline in Immigration Shows Economic Downturn

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair once stated the sign of a strong country is when immigrants, both legal and undocumented are trying to enter. "Cuba, North Korea and Zimbabwe do not have immigration 'problems.' Blair in Forbes:

During the darkest days of the war in Iraq, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked whether the United States' best days were behind it. Instead of piling on with the popular suggestion that the U.S. was a nation in decline, Blair calmly replied that failing countries usually repel rather than attract immigrants.

Far from indicating a country on the ropes, the foreigners seeking both legal and illegal entry into the U.S. in the last decade are a market signal pointing to a nation doing far better than elite thinking around the world has suggested. Simply put, countries that attract the washed and unwashed the world over are pictures of success; the countries that lose their limited human capital are failures. Cuba, North Korea and Zimbabwe do not have immigration "problems."

All of this speaks to a broader truth about immigration itself. High immigration doesn't indicate a nation besieged, but rather the fact that jobs exist. When jobs do not exist, basic market forces cause migrants to seek economic opportunity elsewhere.

Thanks to a weakened economic outlook stateside, the number of people "caught trying to sneak into the USA from Mexico is at its lowest level since the mid-1970s.