Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Give me your tired, your poor

And if they're very, very lucky, they can come to America. This is from Forbes Magazine.

Some argue that they are only opposed to illegal immigration and that those who wish to move to the U.S. should go through the legal channels. I'm afraid this is a dodge: American immigration law is cumbersome and wasteful; further, most of the people who wish to move here stand no chance of being allowed to (Reason offers these handy directions to legality). Perhaps you're proud that your ancestors "came here legally." I'm pretty sure they would be denied entry today.

Without just advocating open borders, it seems to me that we can ask whether they should be more open than they in fact are, and whether our immigration policy is rational.


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

most of the people who wish to move here stand no chance of being allowed to

Good.

Do you know how many people in the world "wish to move" to the US? Is "wishing to live and work in the US" our only standard for citizenship now?

It's not a dodge to say that those who wish to come to the US should go through proper legal channels, while knowing that said legal channels will tightly restrict immigration. No more than telling pot smokers that if they wish to smoke pot, they should write to their elected representatives to push for legalization even while realizing that this may not result in their getting what they wish.

How about Americans only pay taxes on the government services they wish to support, and withhold taxes otherwise? Oh, this is illegal. But wait! Apparently that's not a problem, since it seems illegal immigrants aren't doing anything wrong.

Gordon Knight said...

So we should not make immigration easier because....? I don't see the argument.

I think the claim is that we have a broken immigration system, one that is not serving prospective immigrants well and do not take into account basic economic facts.

The whole notion of "illegality" is also one that needs to be parsed.

As a simple fact, people who come here illegally are "illegal" Likewise, when I drive over the speed limit I am acting illegally.. and the aforementioned pot smokers are also acting illegally.

But the way the word "illegal" is used in the rhetoric of immigration has a moral connotation, in old fashioned emotivist fashion "Illegal" is used to associate "bad" in people's minds. This is not something we ordinarily do--When i speed on the interstate I doubt the officer who gives me a ticket thinks me evil.

Of course the same thing is going on with all the emphasis on "violence on border" Of course here are criminals trying to get in-- sell their drugs to the lucrative market in the US. but that hardly has anything to do with the huge majority of "illegals' who just want to get a job.

(1) There is a demand for immigrant labor
(2) There are immigrants who want to work
Economics alone dictate that the policy needs to take this fact into account. I would think so called conservatives would cheer a respect for market forces.

This does not mean "open borders" but it means a sane policy that is not dicated by Xenophobia.

Of course a more realistic immigration policy would also make it easier for border patrols etc to take care of the serious criminal element.

Anonymous said...

Basic economic facts like the fact that there are far more people that want to immigrate to the US than the country could ever possibly support? Or how about the economic fact that if (e.g.) Mexico is ever going to improve, it won't do it by sending their most able-bodied and able-brained citizens to the US?

(1) There is a demand for immigrant labor

No, there's a demand for cheap labor. It's amazing to hear liberals cheering on the gutting of working class wages.

The vast majority of immigrants just want jobs? Great, they can get them in their home countries then. No need to come here. It's obvious that there are more concerns when it comes to immigration, like the ethnic balance of the nation, demographic patterns including voting, and social services and welfare state concerns. I don't want America to look like Bangladesh, so it stands to reason that we should not import Bangladeshis en masse. And then there's the racial aspect...cry racism all you want, but if you want to see what it's like to be a white minority, take a look at South Africa or Rhodesia sometime.

Gordon Knight said...

"It's obvious that there are more concerns when it comes to immigration, like the ethnic balance of the nation, demographic patterns including voting, and social services and welfare state concerns"

Hoisted by his/her own pettard, dear anonymy. Hope you like hanging there

With respect to "cheap labor" ILLEGAL immigrants are often pain very low wages, have no realistic recourse to legal remedies, and are likely to be exploited. LEGAL immigrants have all the benefits of the US labor laws (and yes, lets make them better!)

Victor Reppert said...

Anonymous: How would you distinguish your comment from a comment that said "This is America, and we've got to maintain a white majority. Otherwise, we'll go the way of South Africa and Rhodesia."

Of course, South Africa was such a bastion of justice when it was ruled by the whites.

Anonymous said...

With respect to "cheap labor" ILLEGAL immigrants are often pain very low wages, have no realistic recourse to legal remedies, and are likely to be exploited. LEGAL immigrants have all the benefits of the US labor laws (and yes, lets make them better!)

Okay, so... illegal immigrants are hired because they're cheap labor. But if we legalize them they'll have to be paid legal wages! But are the people who are willing to pay illegal wages willing to pay legal wages?

Clearly freaking not, what with the "that's why they're hiring illegal immigrants" thing. (And it's not one-way exploitative. Illegals also don't have to pay various taxes, and still receive various benefits.)

My God, the understanding of economics on display here is abysmal. Good luck turning this country into a place where people will want to emigrate from due to economic and social conditions. Let's see if the next place of choice is so cavalier about who becomes a citizen.

Victor Reppert said...

If the job market dries up, they won't want to come across the border, regardless of their citizenship status. The rate of illegal immigration has dropped because of the recession. It is surprising the people who believe in "free market" solutions to every other problem in America can't see a free market solution to this problem. Why do we need so much government interference?

Victor Reppert said...

Lack of jobs in America will stop immigration, legal or illegal, in a way that ICE, the "danged fence," SB 1070, Russell Pearce, and Joe Arpaio all combined, could never do.

Anonymous said...

Hoisted by his/her own pettard, dear anonymy. Hope you like hanging there

Uh oh, someone suggested that things like ethnicity and race matter! Heads in the sand, quick!

Anonymous: How would you distinguish your comment from a comment that said "This is America, and we've got to maintain a white majority. Otherwise, we'll go the way of South Africa and Rhodesia."

If maintaining a white majority is the only way to avoid an SA or Rhodesia, then we should absolutely maintain one. That anyone would dispute such a thing is a testament to how insane and suicidal white liberals have become. You could also end up with an informal caste system ala Latin America, roughly divided along the racial continuum with the whitest on top. This wouldn't be as bad as Rhodesia, but why bring about such a thing if it can be avoided?

But maintaining an ethnic balance doesn't have anything to do with a white majority except in the cases where there is a white majority. In all the furor over Arizona's immigration laws, very little attention has been paid to, say, Mexico's immigration laws, which are openly aimed at--you guessed it!--maintaining the ethnic balance of Mexico. Israel's laws are the same way. Japan's laws are the same way. In fact, we can save ourselves some time and just note that practically all nations outside of white Western ones have similar policies. Are they all evil racists, as Gordon Knight so charitably implies?

Of course, you are right that SA was not a 'bastion of justice' when Apartheid was in effect. But this is hardly germane, as SA isn't a bastion of justice now that Apartheid is dead. So clearly we aren't choosing between a bastion of justice on one hand and a horrible dystopia on the other. Rather, for a South African white, the choice is between a frighteningly high chance to be murdered or raped and a much lower chance to be murdered or raped. Given this, it's not hard to see how the Boers might take a different view than American liberals of the end of white rule in SA.

If the job market dries up, they won't want to come across the border, regardless of their citizenship status. The rate of illegal immigration has dropped because of the recession.

Alright, so we put America in a state of permanent recession and the immigration problem solves itself! Awesome, let's get started right away. Really Victor, you're not even trying here. Consider also that the draw of immigration won't go away even with the jobs, since the welfare state means that immigrants who don't work will possibly have a better life than if they stayed in their own countries and worked.

The facts are clear. Mass immigration isn't good for the US, or for the third world (due to the brain drain factor that went unaddressed). The drive for it seems to be ideological rather than reasonable.

Victor Reppert said...

You said there weren't enough jobs for these people. So recession or not, after too many immigrants, the jobs run out. Of course, we should calibrate the people we admit to the country to the available jobs. And we should, of course, admit them first as resident aliens, and allow them to apply for citizenship after they have been gainfully employed for a period of time.

I think our policy should be less restrictive, not completely nonrestrictive. So we will have a border to defend. I just think that our immigration policy is irrationally restrictive.

I have no interest in maintaining a certain racial mix to our country. If we were going operate that way, we should have started with the Irish, the Italians, and the Chinese. We should have closed down Ellis Island. And we should take that silly poem off the Statue of Liberty. We clearly don't believe that anymore. We're all descended from immigrants, except for those that came over the Bering Strait.

I we are really going to go nativist, we might consider getting rid of that holiday that celebrates illegal immigration every year. We celebrate it by stuffing ourselves with turkey, in late November.

The other anonymous said...

You said there weren't enough jobs for these people.

I said there's a demand for cheap labor, and economics tells us there will always be a demand for cheaper labor than currently exists. Businesses like unskilled immigration because it means they can pay less than the uppity natives want. That's why I find it odd that liberals, who used to oppose subsistence wages, are coming down on the side of wage depression. You've said before you think businesses that hire illegal immigrants should be targeted--I quite agree, along with the illegals themselves and the politicians that do nothing about the problem.

Of course, we should calibrate the people we admit to the country to the available jobs.

I'm assuming you're thinking of skilled immigrants here, but skilled immigrants often have the same effect as unskilled, because they too are willing to work for less, so they always find 'available' jobs. Lately, we've even seen companies not bothering to find immigrants and just outsource. Anyways, while having more high-IQ immigrants may be good for us, no one has yet addressed how the brain drain is bad for their country.

Say we had a choice between one million Mexican laborers with not even a high school education vs. one million Mexican geniuses with PHD's in a variety of fields. Let's assume also that there are potential jobs for all of these. Which group should we accept? Well, accepting the second group would be the obvious answer for the economic benefits, but consider that it would pretty much obliterate the educated class of Mexico. Immigration: not good for us or them.

I have no interest in maintaining a certain racial mix to our country.

You'll be glad to know that the entire political class, including both parties, agree entirely with you. I'm not interested though in maintaining a 'certain' racial mix in the sense of one we don't already have. The US is currently about 66% white, 12% black, 15??% Hispanic, some % Asian, and so forth. Given that changing racial mixes results in strife, oh pretty much 100% of the time, I think it wise not to. Granted, differences within the country can lead to changing racial composition over time (e.g. US is 66% white overall, but only 50% white at newborn level), but there's nothing an immigration policy can do about that other than update itself every 10 years to keep current with the census. This, btw, is exactly what we used to do between 1924 and 1965.

If we were going operate that way, we should have started with the Irish, the Italians, and the Chinese. We should have closed down Ellis Island.

Perhaps, if we could go back in time we may have found it desirable to listen to the restrictionists sooner than we did, but what's done is done. No one is really advocating purging the country of non-whites, or non-Anglos anyway, or turning back the clock in such a manner. Let's just stop trying to import the whole planet for a minute and figure out how to best accommodate the immigrants we have.

And we should take that silly poem off the Statue of Liberty. We clearly don't believe that anymore.

Agreed, the US is not a giant soup kitchen. Notably, the 1924 immigration act was passed despite the presence of this poem.

The other anonymous said...

We're all descended from immigrants, except for those that came over the Bering Strait.

An immigrant is someone who comes to a country, not someone who moves to another land (hence the exclusion of Bering Strait migrants). So the people who formed the US weren't immigrants to the US, any more than the people who formed Ireland were immigrants to it. So we're not exactly a 'nation of immigrants' as they say, although lots of us, including myself, are descended from immigrants to America. The original European settlement of America is more like a combination of migration and invasion. Not the most noble of events in many ways, but what's done is done and there's no sense in punishing us all now for something that happened centuries ago.

I we are really going to go nativist, we might consider getting rid of that holiday that celebrates illegal immigration every year.

Nativist? Come on now, I think you're more reasonable than to start throwing epithets around. Of course as noted above there can be no legal or illegal immigration if there are no laws or borders to begin with.

Victor Reppert said...

OK, a bit sarcastic.