*Open Borders* Back in Print!

So order (and re-order) today.

I am thrilled to announce that, by the power of libertarianism.org, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration is back in print!

Originally published in late 2019, just months before Covid hit, I still consider it my most persuasive and most entertaining book, in no small thanks to my star artist Zach Weinersmith. Open Borders isn’t just my personal best-selling book; it is a bona fide New York Times Best-seller.

The reissue has no new material. One day, I hope to add a new chapter on the environment and contagious disease, but not this day. How, though, has my thinking on open borders evolved over the last five years?

My kind of MAGA.

1. The short answer is: not much. I expected and expect — indeed, I specifically predicted and predict — an endless series of salacious immigration-related scandals. A world of 8 billion people is packed with enough grotesque anecdotes to support every flavor of misanthropy. This truism allows demagogues to tirelessly claim “vindication,” but that’s nonsense. Make your forecasts bettable or stay silent.

2. Since demagogues rule the world, I have been pleasantly surprised by how little success anti-immigration forces have found over the last decade. I was worried that they’d use Covid to strangle immigration indefinitely, but once the (perceived) emergency ended, immigration basically returned to normal — or even higher. Since support for Brexit was largely rooted in opposition to immigration, I expected Brexit to reduce immigration to the UK. But the opposite happened. Even in famously nativist Japan, the number of foreign-born workers has nearly tripled over the last decade.

3. I’ve long acknowledged that unexpected, large migration waves would have especially high short-run costs. After studying the Ukrainian refugee crisis — and witnesses first-hand — I decided that I’ve been overestimating these short-run costs. As I wrote in March of 2022:

   During earlier refugee crises, the go-to reason to exclude was, “We just can’t take any more.” The Ukrainian exodus exposes this rhetoric as nonsense. The real story is: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” If a middle-income country wants to increase its population by 6% in three weeks, it can. That’s hard fact; “We’re stretched to the breaking point” is just the diction of Social Desirability Bias. “We can’t take more refugees” is grammatically akin to “I can’t come to your birthday party.”

4. I’ve long thought that the Gulf monarchies had the world’s best (/least bad) immigration policies. Only in 2024, though, did I at last visit United Arab Emirates. I place low epistemic weight on first-hand experience, but the glory of UAE markedly exceeded even my high expectations:

   Abu Dhabi and Dubai are living proof that Michael Clemens’ “Trillion Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk” is literal truth. Both cities look like Coruscant from Star Wars. They are absolute marvels: Gleaming cities of the future where humanity gathers to produce massive wealth. And without mass immigration, almost none of this could have been built! They need foreigners to help them run the petroleum industry. They need foreigners to build their skyscrapers, malls, and mansions. And they need foreigners to run their hotels, restaurants, and stores.

5. Unbeatable, my book in progress, focuses heavily on what I call the “Biggest Losers” — popular economic policies that waste trillions of dollars. Immigration restrictions are biggest of the Biggest Losers. Why then are restrictions so popular? Why won’t any democracy copy UAE? Because, per Unbeatable’s central thesis, open borders is a fantastic policy that sounds terrible. UAE gives transformative opportunities to millions of desperate people, yet nativists have the Kafkaesque chutzpah to call these eager migrants “helots,” “serfs,” and “slaves.”

6. What will happen to U.S. immigration policy during the second Trump administration? Knock on wood, I’m pretty optimistic. Yes, total immigration will fall, border enforcement will rise, and many xenophobic words will be spoken. But the changes will be marginal, as they were during Trump’s first term. All of the policy changes will come from ephemeral executive orders rather than fundamental legislative change. And by the power of Elon, Vivek, and DOGE, high-skilled immigration may even rise. Overall, I’d say there’s a 15% chance that immigration policy gets much worse, 50% chance moderately worse, 20% chance is basically stays the same, 10% chance it moderately improves, and 5% chance it actually gets much better.

7. What drives my non-pessimism?

   1. First and foremost, base rates. Due to checks and balances, getting any major partisan policy change in the U.S. is very hard.

   2. Second, Trump has severe ADHD — and as I’ve said before, ADHD shall save us. If I were a full-time anti-immigration activist, I would be furious at Trump’s bizarre stream of consciousness on… buying Greenland. In Modern Times, Paul Johnson shares this memorable quote about Lenin: “He is the only one of us who lives revolution twenty-four hours a day.” I doubt Trump actually thinks about immigration restriction more than ten minutes a day. Bad if he’s right; good since he’s wrong.

   3. Third: DOGE. The tech right has much to learn about immigration in general, but they know from first-hand experience that high-skilled immigration is awesome.

P.S. Want me to do some more Open Borders publicity? Arrange a bulk order? Make it your campus-wide book? Speak to your team? Email me, because I’m eager to talk — especially if you’re DOGEd-up. Please help me help you turn my 5% probability of major immigration liberalization into 100%.