Wacky emails? I get some beauts. This one, though, may I think be the most ill-timed email I ever had. It’s in response to a post of mine yesterday responding to Mallory Factor’s immigration piece.

Mr. Derbyshire — Your reader is right that unskilled immigrant laborers are a benefit to the economy, and they would be a benefit here in Mexico if they stayed. However, unlike Cuba, East Germany, the Soviet Union, etc., Mexico does not prevent its citizens from leaving if they choose. Would you suggest that they followed those models?
In years past, Mexico did not care about people leaving because the government was more concerned with maintaining its single-party control than in helping the economy. However, this is changing. Mexico is waking up to the fact that losing its human capital is a negative. President Felipe Calderon has recently said the following: “I don’t want to be a president watching, everyday, Mexican people trying to cross the border. I don’t want to see in the future my country losing, everyday, the best of our people. And I say the best of our people, because migrants to the U.S. are the youngest people, the bravest people, the hardest workers, and we need all of them here.”
As conservatives, we believe in the free movement of goods and the free movement of capital. Why are you opposed to the free movement of labor? For the first half of America’s history, there were no restrictions on immigration. Putting laborers in a guest worker program can separate the economy of labor from questions such as citizenship, etc. Open up the economy to guest workers and let the market work itself out. You believe in markets, right? The U.S. economy would get a boost and Mexico would accelerate reforms to keep them here.
As a U.S. citizen working in Mexico and pursuing a great opportunity, I’m grateful for some mobility of labor. In fact, Mexico should also make things easier for immigrant labor. How about a North American Free Labor Agreement? Economists predict that Mexico will be a net importer of jobs in the not-too-distant future (as soon as the swine flu abates!) The way things are going with Obama and the Democrats, perhaps it won’t be too long before people are sneaking across the border in the other direction. The weather is much better here!
See you in sunny Mexico!

Anyone who’s been round the track even just once with the open-borders ideologues can swat down the guy’s arguments while simultaneously playing three games of chess. It’s that valediction that made me smile.