Call it the nobility summit: The noble charity evaluator GiveWell brainstorms with the noble immigration researcher Michael Clemens.  The highlight for me (Clemens speaking):

CITA
is a non-profit organization in Yuma, AZ founded by Janine Duron, which aims to
match Mexican farm workers with farms in the United States that need labor. CITA’s
mission is driven in large part by a desire to offer Mexican migrant workers a safer
passageway to the United States
than they would have if they were to be illegally smuggled into the United States. The
smugglers (also known as “coyotes”) smuggle workers in unsafe ways that can result
in the workers’ deaths.

While
CITA has not been focused on the economic benefits of the program, those benefits
have been very substantial. Each migrant makes roughly $10k for his or her work.
CITA is bringing 1,000 migrants to the United States per year, so their total
earnings are $10m. This is a very good return on the annual investment of $200k–‐
$300k that CITA spends.

My immediate thought: CITA could be the answer to my immigration charity question.  I want GiveWell to evaluate this organization, pronto.  Please, GiveWell?

HT: Open Borders