Let's Talk About Immigration

[Kyle]

[Cross posted from my Facebook page, but I'll get better conversation here]

In my opinion, there's a lot of good reasons to encourage immigrants to come to the US-- moral reasons (providing protection to the persecuted, or refuge to those suffering from war or natural disaster) or diversity (our culture benefits from a wealth of influences- not homogenized group-think). But another reason is just the necessity of immigration for a strong economy. I was listening to a newscast this morning which reported that the birthrate in the US is only 1.7 children per woman. I found this number interesting for a number of reasons (some of which I'll discuss in a different post), but one of the reasons the newscast brought it up was to talk about how, without immigration, our population would actually start shrinking instead of growing.

Now I know the number is not as simple as "1.7" and that there are a lot of factors that go into population change and growth. But the indicators all point to a trend that could lead the US to start losing population like some other countries have. And without getting into all the details, modern societies and economies start having big problems when their populations start "graying" and they start having more older population (which typically need more societal services and assistance-- think Medicare and Social Security) than they do a younger population.
One of the curbs our society has against the deflation of the population is immigration- and it's pretty important, right? Without it, our population demographics will almost certainly turn upside down and create all sorts of labor and resource shortages. So even if you want to just look at it from a cold-hearted economic viewpoint- immigration is a key factor to maintaining our economy.

I don't understand what the argument is (in a non-Covid world) to reduce or eliminate legal immigration to our country. The research seems pretty clear that immigrants have a lower criminal incarceration rate than native-born Americans and there are lower crime rates in the neighborhoods where immigrants live.

With respect to undocumented immigrants, I haven't found any credible evidence that they commit crimes at much higher rates than native-born or legal immigrants. (I'm discounting the argument that "They're here illegally so 100% undocumented people are criminals.") I've also heard people argue that undocumented immigrants are a drain on our social services, but I'm not sure that's true either. The congressional budget office concluded that the opposite was true: "over the past two decades, most efforts to estimate the fiscal impact of immigration in the United States have concluded that, in aggregate and over the long term, tax revenues of all types generated by immigrants—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the cost of the services they use." And the argument that undocumented immigrants don't pay taxes simply isn't true- especially in a state like Texas (where there is an 8.5% sales tax) when you consider that almost 100% of wages earned by undocumented immigrants are spent immediately and almost all of it locally.

I think that for politicians it is easy to have a "them" to blame when you don't want to do the hard work of legislating real solutions to economic or societal problems. I think it's a lot easier for a government to villainize and dehumanize a group of people to distract from its policy failures and mistakes. But I also don't think such cheap political theater holds up under scrutiny.

And most importantly, I think when we give into feelings of tribalism and these baser instincts, we're forgetting that we should be treating all humans-- no matter where they come from-- with respect and decency. We need to stop forgetting our compassion for other people and start remembering that we all have an obligation to help each other out.

[Tahlvin]

What, you expect someone on this side to take the (R) point of view and argue that immigration is not good? Ain't gonna be me. I know through my genealogical research that parts of my family came to North America in the 1600's and early 1700's, on both my mom and dad's sides of the family, but they were still immigrants. I agree with most of what you say. But political disagreements on immigration have very little basis in reality.

[Kyle]

What, you expect someone on this side to take the (R) point of view and argue that immigration is not good? Ain't gonna be me. I know through my genealogical research that parts of my family came to North America in the 1600's and early 1700's, on both my mom and dad's sides of the family, but they were still immigrants. I agree with most of what you say. But political disagreements on immigration have very little basis in reality.

Yeah- I hear you. But I am wondering what the argument is.

Frankly, I'm just cross posting stuff here when I vomit it out on Facebook and see if it stirs up any interesting discussion.

But I do think something needs to be done to address the fear (even if it is unfounded) that SO MANY people have about immigrants.

[bralbovsky]

The fear, which is not new, is and always has been an invention to manipulate voters. It is security theater, but it makes us less safe.
So, short answer, there are no good arguments. They are all lies.

This country is unique in many ways, but in particular because (since we murdered the original inhabitants) there is no monoculture here. No Ur myth (except the pilgrims, and nobody wants to be like them) and as a result the pressure to go back to the "original" blueprint has never had a firm anchor. It's strengthened the marketplace of ideas (which is impressive given the huge pressure of monopolization to stifle it), and made innovation stronger than tradition. Immigration is THE key factor in this.

[Phoebe]

This is not my argument, obviously, but some people I know who intensely dislike illegal immigration are fine with increasing legal immigration from "good" countries or groups. Example: immigration of Muslims from Somalia might be considered bad by such people on the grounds that they don't assimilate well in ways citizens here would prefer, while Karen immigrants from Myanmar, who are Christian or Buddhist, tend to do much better and quickly take to US education. They see people arriving illegally from El Salvador as more likely to be connected to violent groups rather than simply fleeing them. These are not my views but at least they are empirical questions and I am not sure the associated claims about educational attainment and crime are false. Maybe they are false.

Anyway, immigration proceeds because businesses are having shortages of cheap labor and are under political pressure to pay more or improve benefits.

[Kyle]

The fear, which is not new, is and always has been an invention to manipulate voters. It is security theater, but it makes us less safe.
So, short answer, there are no good arguments. They are all lies.

I'm not sure I agree with this. I think there are legitimate concerns that arise from mass immigration. The "fear" (however that's defined) is usually unfounded. But there are actual problems that arise when there are large spikes in mass immigration- often from communities that are displaced by war or natural disaster. Due to our isolation, we don't normally encounter this on the scale that many European and Middle-Eastern countries do. But there are significant problems that arise (mostly economic) when these events occur. So I don't want to be completely dismissive of the idea that there can be legitimate concerns (I know that's not what you were saying).

[bralbovsky]

Yes, I'm talking about what we might consider 'idealized' or normal immigration, not necessarily a huge spike of refugees. Having said that, the worst of the problems arose not because of the immigrants, who were largely relieved, thankful, glad to have arrived, merely expecting life to be less embattled than what they fled. They arose from the negative reaction to them.It's like an allergy. The problem really isn't the pollen, it's our response.
It also subsumes a well managed country with sufficient population and resources to absorb the immigrants. Mostly, with some caveats attached to 'well-managed,' the US has been such a place. It's not like A wave of Syrian immigrants trying to get to Jordan, Iraq or Cyprus.

[Phoebe]

There are labor shortages now getting absolutely WILD where some businesses can no longer function very well.

[Phoebe]

I feel like a bad person because I'm trying to figure out where to buy some stocks and am looking into which things are least vulnerable to the problems of labor shortage. But here we are.

[Kyle]

I think that’s too shortsighted for stock investing, unless you’re doing day trading and numerous transactions. These shortages will be resolved in the upcoming months.