This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, October 19th, 2007. I'm Caleb Brown.

What's the State of Immigration policy in the United States?

Author Philippe Legrain argues that Americans fundamentally misunderstand the issue.

I spoke with him following a Cato book for him for his new book immigrants your country needs them

immigration is in fact international migration the very use of the word immigration reflects people's distorted perspective

which is that the United States is being invaded by a vast group of foreigners.

And what's actually happening is that through a process of globalization,

as economic opportunities open up that happen to lie on the other side of national borders that are people

who are increasingly moving to take advantage of those opportunities.

In the case of the US and Mexico, the US government is doing everything possible to prevent those people from doing so,

but the underlying processes underlying it is one of international migration.

The migration of the highly skilled

is it seems a great deal less regulated than the migrations of low skilled or at least the barriers

are, seem to be lower.

Can you talk about why that is?

In the case in the United States actually, it's amazing how even highly skilled immigrants

immigration is highly regulated. I mean you know the H1B visas are hardly any of them

given out. But in general people have a perception that high-skilled immigrants are more valuable.

They earn more money, they pay higher taxes, they are perceived to contribute more to economic

growth. And I'm not saying that high school immigrants aren't important,

but I do think it's false to think that countries only need a high school immigrants

and that low school immigrants don't contribute at all.

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