On the first day of his presidency, President Biden signed executive orders reversing many of former President Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions and announced plans to introduce major immigration reform legislation. Immigration reform is long overdue, and free-market conservatives should support much of what Biden proposes.

One of Biden’s first executive orders reversed Trump’s restriction on immigration from predominantly Muslim and African countries. Those concerned with national security need not worry. In prior academic research, published in October 2019 in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, three co-authors and I examined migration data from 170 countries over 25 years (1990-2015) and found no relationship between immigration from Muslim majority or conflict-torn countries and terrorism in the destination countries.