The border crisis and illegal immigration were one of the primary political issues which brought victory to the Republicans in the 2024 elections. While many opponents of immigration control are ideological and think having a border is somehow “fascist,” other objections are made on more practical grounds, reflecting a belief that modern America cannot achieve basic tasks of governance. Perhaps this is accurate due to partisanship and political dysfunction, but such worries seem to have become a pathology which leads to the feeling that it is pointless to try and implement good public policies.

One place where this is clear is the claim that the economy couldn’t function without illegal labor, but it’s also not possible to allow enough temporary foreign workers for the economy to function. In reality, enforcing immigration laws while having a sufficient temporary worker system should not be a major challenge for our sprawling federal government. But perhaps they are too busy doing everything else to properly perform the most rudimentary functions of a state.

Our country’s reliance on immigrant labor is not an “all or nothing” matter. For example, it is fair to say that we should be training our own engineers—or Panda Express managers—instead of relying on Asians with H1B visas. However, regarding the claim, “There are certain jobs Americans won’t do,” it isn’t so much whether or not that is true as the fact that there is no social or economic good in encouraging more Americans to specialize in seasonal work commonly done by migrant labor, such as harvesting produce or cleaning rooms at resorts. It also needs to be noted that it is specifically Mexicans who are good at many of these jobs, because Mexico is a nearby country where the upper classes have lifestyles almost indistinguishable from our own. It is not the case that people from poor countries are inherently good at jobs our economy needs or that you can put twenty migrants from random countries together and they will successfully build a house.