Comment by llamaimperative

What

Let me echo back what I understand to be your argument: “If there were accelerating returns to capital moving the equilibrium of labor/capital-intensiveness mix, then there would be no demand to further reduce the cost of labor”

My argument is: regardless of where that equilibrium is at any given point in time, it will almost never be 0% labor-intensive, and anyone engaged in labor-intensive production would always have a preference for even lower-cost labor.

So the answer to the question of, “why do businesses want immigration despite a more capital-intensive mix of production” is “because cheaper labor is better regardless of how much labor you need.”