Much of what follows is based on a column written by Lydia Polgreen in The New York Times:

Throughout history, migration has produced greater abundance and prosperity.  Whatever presses people to leave home, their arrival in new places — new countries — unleashes torrents of human dynamism.  The movement of people is inextricably tied to human progress.

Economic growth is downstream from the human desire for flourishing and to set one’s own path in life.  Throughout the tens of thousands of years of human history, people have moved for many reasons, but always because they sought something they wanted that they could not get at home.  It’s an act of faith, fundamentally, kindled by the fire of human aspiration.  It can never be fully snuffed out.

Every country should welcome and embrace the migrant.  We are all descended from migrants.  And we should welcome other migrants who have the strength and courage to move, and who bring with them that human dynamism and desire for flourishing.

The entire story of human civilization, of the peopling of the entire planet, is one of migration — migration from the birthplace of humankind in east Africa to the farthest corners of the world today.  To hinder or deny migration is to halt the evolution of mankind.