Brad Templeton has an excellent immigration rant. Following an anecdote about immigrant entrepreneurialism:
Being anti-immigrant reminds me of racism, to use an inflamatory term. Racism is the belief that the broad circumstances of a person’s ancestry affect their worth as a person, and should affect their rights in society. Anti-immigrant nationalism is actually stronger. I was born 20 miles from the U.S. border, to parents also born there (though they were born to immigrant parents from Europe.) What moral code says that those like me deserve less of such fundamental rights as the ability to work, freedom to travel, freedom to live on my land, or to vote for those that will govern us? How can a few miles difference in birthplace morally command such a difference?
Bryan Caplan has some interesting evidence that “[d]irect observation of immigrants leads to more reasonable beliefs about the effects of immigration” — people in states with more immigrants view immigration more positively, even under the assumption that all immigrants view immigration positively.