When it comes to outsourcing or moving manufacturing overseas, there is no difference between robots and foreigners. Some economists who study international tr

When it comes to outsourcing or moving manufacturing overseas, there is no difference between robots and foreigners. Some economists who study international trade like to emphasize this point, that there is no fundamental difference between trade and technology. On the other hand, immigrants interact with the country they migrate to in a whole bunch of ways. E.g. someone who earns below minimum wage is very unlikely to pay taxes that account for their increased burden on the government. This issue is often ignored by pro-immigration economists who only consider some narrowly defined set of govt services like welfare. Furthermore (and I acknowledge that here I am going against mainstream economic opinion) economists often justify immigration using ponzi-scheme like logic [1]: even if the immigrant is a net economic negative, they are younger and therefore are a net positive while they are working, and presumably even more immigration in the future will pay for this generation's retirement. [1] Technically this is referred to as "overlapping generation" models. While these models are not all ponzi-like, a lot of the popular models assume that the net production of humankind for all time has infinite present value, so we can borrow a (finite) amount from the infinite future and make everyone better off.