On Trade and Immigration, the GOP Has It Backward

There are two debates in Washington right now about movement across borders. The first regards trade deals, the second the issue of undocumented immigrants. Based purely on economic evidence, you'd expect trade to be the more difficult issue to agree on. Despite its overall benefit, trade creates domestic losers as well as winners. Immigration, on the other hand, is at worse a wash and at best a huge net positive for groups across the economic spectrum.

Yet the political winds blow in precisely the opposite direction. President Obama's efforts to secure new free-trade deals have bipartisan support, while his calls for immigration reform are bitterly opposed by Republicans. That raises the question: Why is moving stuff so much less contentious in Washington than moving people?