Many conservatives oppose open borders, with arguments based on politics, economics, cultural consideration and security.
Conservatives have tied immigration deals in Congress to border security policy,
The Washington Post noted.
Some conservatives expressed concerns that an increase in Latino voters, many of whom have come to the country illegally across borders, are a boon to Democratic candidates in future elections.
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"Without a friendly posture towards [Hispanics], we still face a massive demographic problem,” noted former Mitt Romney campaign organizer Charles Spies, to the Post.
Some conservatives also have argued that open borders encourage immigrants to come to the U.S. and take jobs that U.S. citizens might otherwise have, penalizing those who are here legally.
Among those are Donald Trump, who is seeking the GOP nomination for president.
He has taken a tough line, proposing tightened border security that he says has taxed U.S. resources and brought criminals
inside the nation, CNN noted.
Writing for The American Conservative, Gene Callahan, an economist and writer, broke the immigration debate into three considerations: economic effects, cultural effects and morality.
He said an influx in immigrants likely would lead to decreased wages.
“Should the United States completely open its borders, the equilibrium position we would expect is that immigration would continue until the wage differential between American workers and developing world workers disappeared,” Callahan wrote.
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He also argued that increasing immigration would alter the culture of America.
“European emigration to the New World is an instructive case in point: if Native Americans had been able to limit the flow of European immigrants, they might have been able to preserve their land and cultures,” he wrote.
Callahan said arguments favoring open borders for moral reasons have limitations.
“While the rich have an obligation to help the poor, that obligation does not extend to the degree that they must become poor themselves,” Callahan wrote.
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