Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions is a book co-authored by Alex Nowrasteh and Benjamin Powell. Bob Zadek described it as “data-rich” and as taking its title from the phrase “wretched refuse.” On The Bob Zadek Show the book served as the occasion for three episodes: a 2021 hour with Nowrasteh, a 2022 hour with Powell, and a 2023 hour with Nowrasteh again. The excerpts show the book’s argument being made by both of its authors, and show the two of them disagreeing about the vocabulary libertarians should use to make it.
The book and its authors
Zadek introduced the 2021 episode by telling listeners that Nowrasteh had “recently written an important book entitled” Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions, co-written with Ben Powell “over in Texas.” In the same hour he identified Nowrasteh as “the Director of Immigration Studies at Cato” The Immigration Crisis in Context (2021).
The 2022 episode introduced Powell as “the Executive Director of the Free Market Institute and a professor of economics at Texas Tech University,” a senior fellow with the Independent Institute, and holder of a PhD in economics from George Mason University. Zadek noted that Powell had previously written Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World, and that the book under discussion that morning was one Powell “has edited,” entitled Wretched Refuse: Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society The Economics of Immigration (2022).
In the 2023 episode Zadek again described Nowrasteh as having “most recently co-authored the data-rich book, Wretched Refuse: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions” American anxiety about immigration is unwarranted. Here’s why. (2023).
The “new economic case” for restriction
Powell framed the book’s purpose as taking seriously “the most serious objection to greater immigration or free or open immigration that’s out there,” which he said is called the “new economic case for immigration restrictions” and is made by Harvard economist George Borjas, Paul Collier, and others. Powell said the objection is not really new, going back to the founding fathers, who worried about immigrants “coming in here and destroying our liberties.” The case, as he stated it, asks whether immigrants bring with them the beliefs and formal or informal institutions of their origin countries — the institutions responsible for those countries being poor — and whether that could change the rules governing a destination country “in a way that would make us less productive.” He offered an intuitive version: Cuban immigrants fleeing socialist Cuba to Florida bringing pro-socialist ideas with them, so that Floridians “would all become poorer as a result.” Powell said the book investigates the question empirically across stocks and flows of immigrants, case studies, corruption and freedoms, and that the results show little evidence for the fear — “and in fact, quite often the opposite” The Economics of Immigration (2022).
Nowrasteh, in 2021, described the same research program as the topic of the book: he and Powell looked at the relationship between more immigration and more socialist or big-government policies “in the United States and around the world,” and found either no relationship at all or, in some cases, that more immigration leads to more economic freedom, more representative government, and more prosperity. He called the idea that immigrants vote for socialists a “pernicious stereotype,” pointing to a swing of Hispanic voters and naturalized immigrant voters toward President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, and to evidence from Israel, Jordan, and Europe. Historically, he said, American government grew fastest when immigration was most closed, roughly 1930 to 1970, and more slowly before 1930 and since 1970 when immigration was more open; he added that states with more immigration do not show faster-growing government The Immigration Crisis in Context (2021).
Market prices versus bureaucrats
In the 2021 episode Zadek put the hard question to Nowrasteh directly: whether open immigration could be practiced to such an extreme that there is a net detriment, “some theoretical or actual or calculable number of people beyond which if they come in, our country is worse off than before.” Nowrasteh answered that the market regulates that: if there are no more jobs, if the economy is doing poorly, if land prices are so high that it no longer makes sense to come, people will not come. He compared it to asking whether there is a theoretical amount of steel production that becomes bad for the economy — yes, in theory, but the point is determined by prices and supply and demand, not by bureaucrats or politicians. He called this “one of the most powerful arguments in favor of having a laissez-faire immigration system”: that it takes the numbers out of the hands of government The Immigration Crisis in Context (2021).
Zadek agreed and offered an illustration from memory: during a recession a few years earlier, when there were not so many jobs, immigration “naturally just stopped,” which he called the invisible hand operating even cross-border. In the same hour Zadek argued that immigrant competition benefits the consumer, since an immigrant determined to be hired must offer what the consumer wants at a lower price; Nowrasteh agreed that while most people are workers, all are consumers, and that competition among people around the world selling goods and services “is how capitalism flourishes” The Immigration Crisis in Context (2021).
”Open borders” versus Ellis Island
The 2022 episode contains the sharpest disagreement in the excerpts, and it is a disagreement about words rather than substance. Zadek opened the segment by describing Ellis Island as the first stop for immigrants arriving by boat, where officials looked for disease and criminality — “a pretty low bar to get in” — and asked whether any reference to Ellis Island is “pretty much a reference to open borders.”
Powell answered that he finds “open borders” a loaded term that packages many things together, including the chaos on the southern border along Texas-Mexico, which he said is not an open border when people pay $5,000 to $10,000 to coyotes to smuggle them across — a good indication that crossing is not open, “otherwise you wouldn’t be paying those fees.” He distinguished an “open border” meaning no checks at all from what he called Ellis Island migration policy, or free migration like free trade: no blanket quantitative restrictions on immigrants from any particular origin country, while retaining basic qualitative checks at legal checkpoints for contagious disease, known criminals, and terrorists. Under that policy, he said, any number from any origin would be welcome, and the “wretched refuse” of the book’s title would be welcome to American shores. He said the phrase “open borders” alienates people unnecessarily while attracting supporters who do not understand what is being proposed The Economics of Immigration (2022).
Zadek conceded the point at length, saying that “open borders” makes people clench their fists and see doomsday, and that advocating it does not engender support for a more liberal immigration policy. He joked that he would take an oath never to say “open borders” again, at least until 9:00 AM Pacific that morning. Powell added a further argument for the Ellis Island framing: people who say they object only to illegal immigration and not legal immigration can be told that Ellis Island policy allowed most of the world to come legally, whereas now almost everybody in the world is legally prohibited from migrating to the United States — a return to law-and-order immigration without numerical restriction The Economics of Immigration (2022).
The legalism fallacy
The 2023 episode, with Nowrasteh, is described in the excerpt’s own summary as a discussion of the “legalism fallacy” and the historical roots of American immigration law, exploring how current regulations evolved from racial animosity into a complex, restrictive system that differs fundamentally from other areas of American law. The listed topics include the U.S. Constitution, naturalization, and the Chinese Exclusion Act American anxiety about immigration is unwarranted. Here’s why. (2023).
Zadek framed the hour by saying that irrespective of one’s position on immigration, everyone seems opposed to illegal immigration, and that when the topic comes up he asks his interlocutor which they are more opposed to, “the ‘illegal’ or the ‘immigration’” — that is, whether they would be content if all immigration were legal. He said that is where the real conversation starts, and where his conversation with Nowrasteh begins. The excerpt records the two men exchanging greetings and Zadek’s recollection that Nowrasteh was his first Cato friend, seated next to him by chance at a Thursday night opening dinner at his first Cato retreat American anxiety about immigration is unwarranted. Here’s why. (2023).
Across episodes: the same question, and a change of vocabulary
The same question runs through all three episodes — whether immigration makes the destination country poorer or more socialistic — and the excerpts show no change in the answer: Nowrasteh in 2021 and Powell in 2022 both report that the evidence does not support the restrictionist case, and Powell states that the results are often the opposite. What changes between the earlier and later treatment is the vocabulary. In 2021 Zadek and Nowrasteh both used “open borders” freely, with Zadek saying the two of them “warmly embrace as a general principle: let them all in.” In 2022 Powell, the book’s co-author, argued against the phrase and proposed Ellis Island as the framing, and Zadek accepted the correction on air. By 2023 the discussion had moved from the economics of immigration to the legalism fallacy and the historical roots of the law itself, with Nowrasteh as the guest again.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state what the Chinese Exclusion Act provided, when it was passed, or which constitutional provisions the 2023 discussion of naturalization turned on; the summary lists those topics without recording the argument. Nor do the excerpts give the publication date or publisher of Wretched Refuse beyond Zadek’s reference to Cambridge University Press in the 2021 episode, or any chapter-level findings beyond those Powell and Nowrasteh state on air. The 2022 episode’s excerpt is largely a summary and a single segment, so much of that hour’s argument is not available here.