Also received from Bryan Pick was a link to an interview where Campbell discusses immigration. Again his position is slightly to the right of center but pretty much embodies the conventional wisdom:

First we shut the borders. After that we start to think about what to do with the people that are already here but we should not give them to easy of a time since that would be unfair to people who came here legally.

Meanwhile we should recognize employers needs for immigrant labor by expanding guest worker and other temporary visa programs.

In the course of his argument Campbell makes the completely unfounded statement that immigrants cost us more than they bring in This is not so excusable since he runs a business school and should be familiar with the literature on the topic. Immigrants all pay sales taxes, they pay rent to landlords who pay property taxes and quite a few of them pay income and payroll taxes. Immigrants also tend to avoid social services since they don't want to risk detection and deportation.

So we have a nuanced policy designed to cater to various constituencies. You have your image of parasitic immigrants who cross the border and go on welfare for the brown shirts. You have your quixotic quest to close the borders for all the defense buffs and the military-industrial lobby. You have your appeal to morality and "fairness."

Most important you have a major, concealed, opening of the borders through expanded visas for tech workers and low skilled labor. Domestic wages still go down from immigrant competition. We can continue to ignore our educational system and low paid guest workers still get to live in poverty in the Central Valley.

Even better, guest workers stay in the country only as long as they please their employers. No pesky union organizers here.

Wonks Anonymous has outlined a position on immigration reform. He is still waiting for someone in either party to come somewhere close to it.