zlacker

> Consider also that free migration is allowed within the US borders. Everyone in South Carolina is currently leagally allowed to migrate to California. Is California loosing money to South Carolina because of this?

Again... completely apples-to-oranges comparison. Migrants between South Carolina and California share enough in common that it hardly classifies as migration other than due to the internal political divisions of the United States.

Legal immigration to the US is a zero-sum game, by law, and this is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

>>tathou+(OP)
Tell me, what precisely is the economic mechanism that makes California loose money from Sonorense migrants, but not from South Carolinian migrants. What is it that migrants from Baja California, Liberia, or Ireland lack in commonalty with native Californians but migrants from Louisiana have?

I’m also a little confused as to what you mean by zero-sum by law. Is there a law that states that the federal government has to pay with each immigrant? If a Jamaican immigrant produces growth for the US (say by doing labor and contributing to the economy), then the US has to, by law, pay that growth back to Jamaica? Are we not talking about economic zero-sum?

>>runarb+xl
Every legal immigrant entering the United States is one less immigrant that can enter due to immigration quotas established by congress