Some of those people risk their lives trying to get here because it's such a huge improvement for them.
The reality is that by letting people in, you are vastly improving their lot in life, and all the economic research show it doesn't really hurt anyone here:
It may be a good deal for the individual confronted with the binary choice, however, that does not change this phenomenon's essential reliance on the exploitation of the poverty of the developing world. The same dynamic is what enables sex tourism and exploitative natural resource extraction, and these are understood to be wrong for the aforementioned reason. Economic incentives cause the owning classes to overlook this in the case of the labor market, however. If there is a shortage of job applicants, raise the offered pay. This is the supposed way that 'free markets' are intended to function, but their putative proponents fight tooth and nail to prevent this from being necessary.
I'm okay with this as long as I NEVER hear about wage gap, wealth gap, or growing poverty in the US political discussion again. I never want to hear about increasing entitlements, food stamps, none of it. If we continue this policy, those outcomes are by design. This policy is a charity work for the poor of other countries, paid for by the suppressed wages of the American poor. As long as we can all agree that's the goal, or at least an accepted side effect, I'm willing to go along.
The reality is that by letting people in, you are vastly improving their lot in life, and all the economic research show it doesn't really hurt anyone here:
https://www.cato.org/blog/14-most-common-arguments-against-i...