In today’s Wall Street Journal, Gordon Crovitz calls for an immigrant stimulus. He wants to see a comprehensive immigration bill, with legalization and guest worker as well as enforcement provisions. This is in line with the Journal’s longstanding position and with Barack Obama’s call on Congress to pass such an immigration bill.

Crovitz makes strong arguments for increasing the number of skilled immigrants. Currently thousands of high-skill would-be immigrants are prevented from coming to the United States by our immigration laws. In contrast, Canada and Australia have immigration laws that give a preferred place to high-skill immigrants; our laws, since the 1965 act sponsored by Edward Kennedy, let in many more people through their extended-family-reunification provisions.

   

But Crovitz makes no real argument for legalizing unskilled immigrants or maintaining the flow of unskilled immigrants. On the contrary, he concedes that in a recession the economic incentives for low-skill immigrants are reduced and if, as generally conceded, the presence of large numbers of low-skill immigrants marginally reduces the wages of low-skill Americans, the argument for maintaining low-skill immigration is at its weakest at this point in the business cycle.