“Apple would not exist without immigration,” warns Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. His colleagues in the board rooms of Silicon Valley agree, and tremble at the rumored issuance of a Trump executive order that might reduce the number of H-1B visas issued to skilled foreign workers. These titans of the Valley rely heavily on such visas to allow them to import software engineers and other highly skilled foreigners. They fear that the president’s recent efforts to limit immigration, and a forthcoming order designed to end abuses that allow seemingly unqualified immigrants to benefit from the visa program, might deny them access to these workers, who they say they must have if their innovation machine is to continue rolling in high gear. Indeed, they want the number of such visas increased so they can overcome the shortage of trained American workers. Otherwise, they threaten to take their operations overseas to gain access to skilled workers.

My lawyer friends would remark that these free-market enthusiasts do not come to this issue with clean hands. The market has not produced American laborers with appropriate skills in sufficient quantity in part because the Valley’s firms got together to reduce the market’s ability to perform the function of any free market—increase supply in response to increased demand by raising prices, in this case wages paid to skilled workers.