Immigration restrictions have always been a right-wing boogyman in the USA, often just a dog-whistle for "we don't want any more brown people." Open borders should be the default, not the pipe...
Immigration restrictions have always been a right-wing boogyman in the USA, often just a dog-whistle for "we don't want any more brown people."
Open borders should be the default, not the pipe dream. I'm a strong proponent of the anarchist stance on the right to migrate. I think it's the only way that we'll ever be able to properly eliminate the global wage gap (and hence why it will be so strongly opposed by capitalists).
I do find this conservative take quite interesting. In short, they posit immigration restrictions are just affirmative action for citizens over immigrants. And I don't think that's an incorrect take...conservatives (and liberals) championing one while despising the other often ignore how they are similar. On the whole, eventually an egalitarian society would be in need of neither. And that's why, when push comes to shove, I'll support affirmative action while opposing immigration restrictions.
I’ve commented on this topic before, and I’m going to just say the same thing I did last time around as I don’t think anything has changed in the situation. The issue as I see it is there are...
I’ve commented on this topic before, and I’m going to just say the same thing I did last time around as I don’t think anything has changed in the situation.
The issue as I see it is there are pretty widely varying ideas of how a society should operate, and my ideas are not necessarily dominant in the rest of the world.
Even military rule had its supporters. A median of 24% said “a system in which the military rules the country” would be a very or somewhat good system. In five countries – Vietnam, Indonesia, India, South Africa and Nigeria – roughly half or more expressed this opinion, as did at least 40% in another six nations.
I would be comfortable living in any of some 50-60 countries in the world. I would not even entertain the idea of living in most of the others, where the prevailing ideas about at least one of gender equality, tolerance of religion, democracy, and LGBT-acceptance are intolerably poor.
Correspondingly, I would not like my home to dramatically shift to become more similar to any of those regions where I would not choose to live.
Despite what we perceive as differences between the cultures of Kansas and California, ultimately they are almost indistinguishable compared to, for instance, the Middle East or most of Asia.
I’m skeptical that our current immigration levels constitute a threat to democracy here in Canada, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think there isn’t some upper bound where our small population of 37 million people couldn’t be completely subsumed by the global average, and currently I see the global average as being fairly bad judging by the world value survey.
However, would you not want someone in your shoes, but born in any one of those other ones that you wouldn't want to live in, to have free reign to move out of one of those countries? Borders trap...
However, would you not want someone in your shoes, but born in any one of those other ones that you wouldn't want to live in, to have free reign to move out of one of those countries?
Borders trap people in as much as they keep them out.
That said, I do understand how if open borders were magic-ed into the law of the world, from the current status quo to full open borders immediately, would potentially pose a problem in the short term. But the needle should always moving toward enabling more migration, not less.
A reasonable compromise would be to allow unlimited migration, but to rate-limit citizenship. Anyone can move in or out freely, but attaining voting rights is rate-limited via some random distribution over time.
I don’t see how this works in practise. What happens when citizens are outnumbered by non-citizens 2:1? Which would happen in like, a week (maybe slightly longer ;) if Canada had a completely open...
A reasonable compromise would be to allow unlimited migration, but to rate-limit citizenship. Anyone can move in or out freely, but attaining voting rights is rate-limited via some random distribution over time. The only limiting factor would be seats on boats and planes.
I don’t see how this works in practise. What happens when citizens are outnumbered by non-citizens 2:1? Which would happen in like, a week (maybe slightly longer ;) if Canada had a completely open border.
Besides, this seems basically unfair. If someone lives on the land, works and pays taxes, they should have rights. For instance, I am against the TFW program insofar as I think it should be replaced 1:1 with increased immigration acceptance.
Not to say they shouldn't have rights....just not voting rights. The fact countries presume only citizens have rights is another problem that needs rectifying. It permits free flows of populations...
Not to say they shouldn't have rights....just not voting rights. The fact countries presume only citizens have rights is another problem that needs rectifying.
It permits free flows of populations while mitigating the fear of political override. In some sense, that's what Tildes is: The entire internet can view, but only the in-group can modify.
Ideally this would be a relatively fast transition, like 5 years maximum.
That sounds rather unfair to the people who would basically serve as workers for the entrenched elite. And like I said, what happens when this sub-class of people outnumber the voters? I don't...
That sounds rather unfair to the people who would basically serve as workers for the entrenched elite. And like I said, what happens when this sub-class of people outnumber the voters?
I don't follow what you mean by 5 years. Like after 5 years, full open borders with full political rights for everyone?
Hypothetical Example: Say Canada has a cap of 100,000 new immigrant citizenships per month (about 2% of population annually), but open borders. Let's say half of those citizenships are reserved...
Hypothetical Example:
Say Canada has a cap of 100,000 new immigrant citizenships per month (about 2% of population annually), but open borders.
Let's say half of those citizenships are reserved for anybody on a waitlist, and any unused are banked.
So you migrate in January with 50,000 others. You all get citizenship. 50k go in the 'bank'. In February, 2 million disgruntled US citizens migrate to Canada. 150k get citizenship, the remainder are on a waitlist. In March, 50k get citizenship, up to 50k of new migrants get citizenship. Say only 1,000 new migrants, so 99k in April get citizenship, while 50k are reserved for new migrants.
And then there's an upper bound: If you haven't been granted after 5 years, you get it regardless of rate limiter.
And keep in mind, this would only apply for migrants whom apply for permanent residence/citizenship. There would undoubtably be people whom would just want to visit, live, or work briefly. There would almost certainly be 'stateless' people whom choose not to pledge allegance to any given country...and this would not be a bad thing.
And since this open border scenario is worldwide, Canada is not the only destination. If people feel like an underclass...the world is their oyster and they'd be free to move elsewhere if the wait for citizenship is oppressively long. I'd personally steer far away, I hate the cold...I'd probably bounce to the UK, Germany, or Australia first.
And not every disgruntled person is going to up and leave their homeland, friends, and family... thats an activity usually taken by people whom feel have few better options.
So it moves the problem down the road 5 years, but that’s all? I don’t really see how it changes things. That just sounds like it’s a problem for all western democracies and not just Canada.
So it moves the problem down the road 5 years, but that’s all? I don’t really see how it changes things.
And since this open border scenario is worldwide, Canada is not the only destination.
That just sounds like it’s a problem for all western democracies and not just Canada.
For starters, it gives people whose views are based on bad circumstances that they grew up in to learn and change their minds. If they think gay people are demons but have never knowingly met one,...
For starters, it gives people whose views are based on bad circumstances that they grew up in to learn and change their minds. If they think gay people are demons but have never knowingly met one, it gives them 5 years to meet one and realize that they're human.
This applies much more strongly to young immigrants. If you're 15, 5 years is going to include most of the leaning that you do about your own values anyway.
It's not a perfect guarantee that nothing will ever change, but it's better than, for example, leaving LGBT+ people to die in countries that outlaw their existence.
That sounds like an argument for allowing limited immigration of refugees based on persecution, and emphatically not an argument for allowing open immigration that includes their persecutors....
It's not a perfect guarantee that nothing will ever change, but it's better than, for example, leaving LGBT+ people to die in countries that outlaw their existence.
That sounds like an argument for allowing limited immigration of refugees based on persecution, and emphatically not an argument for allowing open immigration that includes their persecutors.
Recall that my original objection was that allowing unlimited immigration from intolerant regions (which is most places that aren’t in the democratic west) has the potential to lead to their values taking hold here.
Surely the last thing we want is to enable new persecution for the LGBT+ people currently living within our borders?
Placing the burden of proof of prosecution on the people escaping said persecution frequently leads to deportation and ultimately death. It's not the sort of thing that comes with a strong paper...
Placing the burden of proof of prosecution on the people escaping said persecution frequently leads to deportation and ultimately death. It's not the sort of thing that comes with a strong paper trail. Attempting to exclude perpetrators means likely excluding legitimate asylum seekers as well. Refusing to accept people who are not actively fleeing also removes the opportunities to learn and grow that I mentioned before.
Depending on how much else we want to change, there are ways to enshrine protections in law that are too difficult for a simple majority to change. In the United States, for example, the constitution could be amended to include such protections. (A pipe dream, for certain, but similarly unrealistic to the US completely opening their borders). A place where minorities are strongly protected is unlikely to be an attractive destination for someone that does not want to live among them.
It’s worth nothing that immigrants are usually not typical of their compatriots. This can have distorting effects on politics, but more often in origin countries. It’s theorised, for example, that...
It’s worth nothing that immigrants are usually not typical of their compatriots. This can have distorting effects on politics, but more often in origin countries.
It’s theorised, for example, that the mass exodus of (mostly liberal) Germans to the US after the 1848 revolution failed helped Germany down a conservative, militaristic path. (German immigrants also formed a pillar of abolitionist support in the US in the run-up to the civil war.)
Likewise (though this is much less established, I think) the substantial migration of Poles after the country’s accession to the EU may have helped Law and Justice hold on to power there for so long.
There are obviously exceptions to this (Cuban immigrants, for example), but in general I wouldn’t expect immigrants to massively distort their adopted country’s politics: they have likely chosen to live there because they find the place attractive.
Do you think that these views are perhaps also determined by context and not just fixed opinions that people hold – for a US example if someone moves from a small conservative town in South...
I would not even entertain the idea of living in most of the others, where the prevailing ideas about at least one of gender equality, tolerance of religion, democracy, and LGBT-acceptance are intolerably poor.
Do you think that these views are perhaps also determined by context and not just fixed opinions that people hold – for a US example if someone moves from a small conservative town in South Carolina to LA their views might end up changing? For a non-US example look at Ireland, it used to be very poor and extremely Catholic and conservative, but now following dramatic economic growth (plus becoming a tax haven) it has legalised abortion, has a gay Taoiseach and is generally pretty liberal and progressive.
Yes, and over time those beliefs probably will change but not if they instantly overwhelm the local population. If that happens, the local population will probably shift more towards the new...
Yes, and over time those beliefs probably will change but not if they instantly overwhelm the local population. If that happens, the local population will probably shift more towards the new majority population than vice-versa. Which is why I think we should have a lot of immigration, but not unlimited immigration.
Vord, if I may - if I'm not mistaken, you've posted elsewhere on this site about the need for government regulation in many systems in order to avoid the tragedy of the commons. You are not an...
Vord, if I may - if I'm not mistaken, you've posted elsewhere on this site about the need for government regulation in many systems in order to avoid the tragedy of the commons. You are not an unfettered free-market advocate, for instance.
You've also suggested that open borders would be self-balancing - that if too many people come to the US, for instance, some will then leave, finding homeostasis.
What leads you to assess that unlimited mass migration is a self-regulating system when you also assess that other systems - greenhouse gas emissions, the market - are not?
A good question, because of the following factors: The tragedy of the commons is a false and dangerous myth Because people whom are satisfied with their lives are not going to constantly be...
A good question, because of the following factors:
Because people whom are satisfied with their lives are not going to constantly be migrating. I'd wager the majority would only want to switch countries between 0 and 3 times.
Because people won't just consume goods, as in a competitive market dynamic, but because they'll also create goods. People don't take away from a given area, they add to it.
The problem isn't that markets won't self-regulate, it's just that they self-regulate to maximize profit. Markets tend to need heavy regulation to insure other outcomes occur, as well as a periodic banhammer to insure competition continues to actually exist.
Mass migration would self-regulate in a way markets would not, because the goal isn't profit, it's finding a place to live. There's a fixed demand for places to live, equal to the population. The population trends upward, for assorted reasons, but that's a somewhat seperate discussion that tends to solve itself with easy access to contraceptives.
I started writing up a massive diversion on why the free market is incapable of solving climate change, regardless of things like carbon taxes, but stopped when I realized how off-topic it got. There will be a place for that some other time.
Thank you for engaging. I think it's just as self-evident to say "the problem with open borders is that everyone will go to the same place; immigration tends to need heavy regulation to insure...
Thank you for engaging.
The problem isn't that markets won't self-regulate, it's just that they self-regulate to maximize profit. Markets tend to need heavy regulation to insure other outcomes occur, as well as a periodic banhammer to insure competition continues to actually exist.
I think it's just as self-evident to say "the problem with open borders is that everyone will go to the same place; immigration tends to need heavy regulation to insure other outcomes occur," but I think at the end of the day we will never agree on this as our viewpoints are too far apart.
One thing I would add is that while things might normalize eventually if we just threw the gates open everywhere, the process would be decades of friction and suffering.
One thing I would add is that while things might normalize eventually if we just threw the gates open everywhere, the process would be decades of friction and suffering.
I hate to "last word" you, but I feel that this point you brought up in particular really needs addressed. I won't try to further convince you though. You're right, open borders is considered a...
I hate to "last word" you, but I feel that this point you brought up in particular really needs addressed. I won't try to further convince you though. You're right, open borders is considered a radical stance by most.
the problem with open borders is that everyone will go to the same place
I think that this is a fallacy that invalidates your self-evident claim. Not everyone is going to go to the same place. People whom think they will have a solid dose of national-superiority-complex. I'm betting the majority of people with the will to migrate would prefer to migrate somewhere where there is at least a sizeable population where people speak the same first-language as them. Opening borders is not going to result to the whole world moving to where you live. Not every American will flee to Canada, not every Mexican to the USA. People will almost certainly try to congregate around other family and friends rather than plop down in whichever country will hand them the most benefits.
I think you're trying to say that my self-evident claim is equally fallacious, but given that the #1 goal of a capitalist enterprise is to be profitable, I don't think it's possible for the market to self-regulate for any other outcome.
Well, just to be clear, I don't mean literally, like, "Ontario" but rather "the West" in general. No, the opposite! I think you're correct that capitalism drives towards profit and that it needs...
Well, just to be clear, I don't mean literally, like, "Ontario" but rather "the West" in general.
I think you're trying to say that my self-evident claim is equally fallacious
No, the opposite! I think you're correct that capitalism drives towards profit and that it needs regulation to keep it from that outcome. What I'm trying to convey is that in the same way, open borders drives towards Africa, most of the Middle East, and much of Asia depopulating as literally billions of people move to the west.
I live in a developing country. People in the Philippines (for example) don't dream of migrating to, say, South Africa. They dream of moving to the US and Canada. People in Chad don't dream of migrating to Lebanon. They dream of moving to France.
Gotcha. We're definitely more on the same page then, broadly. Sometimes the various replies are definitely blurring together. If everyone seeks to move to the West, the big question is: Why? I'd...
Gotcha. We're definitely more on the same page then, broadly. Sometimes the various replies are definitely blurring together. If everyone seeks to move to the West, the big question is: Why?
I'd wager that most people/countries that are vehemently opposed to open borders are largely in the West or extremely authoritarian ala China/Russia/North Korea. I presume most people denouncing mass migration elsewhere in the thread are in one of those countries, while most outside of The West would not be. And that is quite telling.
That "Why" usually boils down to (possibly misplaced) notions of better opportunity in the West, mostly because the benefits do not "trickle down" from the West as promised, although the labor demands certainly do. Something, something, the rising tide does not actually lift all boats. Sadly, I'd bet the majority of the Philippians dreaming of migrating to the USA do not understand the reality of the bottom-class America where they'd probably exist, and would probably rethink their dreams if they did. They dream of the fairy-tale America exported in our media narratives.
This is why I see open borders as a moral imperative. "Tear down The Wall" if you will. In practical terms, it means supporting all policy that opens borders, and opposing all policy that tightens them.
If 90% of the population moves from elsewhere in the world to The West, that's almost Mission Accomplished for achieving more population density. The rest of the planet will have time to heal as its abandoned by the rest of humanity.
(And yes, all the terrible growing pains of that happening quickly are fully acknowledged)
I can guarantee that support for strong border control is not limited to authoritarian states plus developed country. A prime example would be South Africa, which is really neither of those, yet...
I can guarantee that support for strong border control is not limited to authoritarian states plus developed country. A prime example would be South Africa, which is really neither of those, yet experiences a huge aversion to migrants and a high amount of xenophobia in general. I think that border controls are by and large necessary, even if they might be undesirable. Countries can, economically speaking, be viewed as clubs, with borders acting as a test for new members. To argue that these clubs should simply be unable to limit their members is to essentially abolish the club (and therefore the state). While that might be an attractive anarchist position it is one I certainly do not support (I would generally identify as a statist in that particular dichotomy).
thanks for sharing that article. Another one was also posted on Tildes not too long ago, The “Tragedy of the Commons” Is a Dubious, Right-Wing Concept I was recently involved in a first year...
The tragedy of the commons is a false and dangerous myth
If academic citation indexes are any guide, the tragedy of the commons remains far better known to scholars than any of Ostrom’s findings. It continues to be taught, uncritically, to high-school students in environmental science courses.
I was recently involved in a first year psychology course and it STILL taught Milgram and Stanford, uncritically, when it has become quite clear that they are flawed, if not downright fradulent.
These kinds of things bear repeating time and again until they finally go away, I hope.
Hence why I've started putting "10k rule" on stuff that I think everyone should know, but am worried that its preaching to the choir. Because oftentimes old information persists, not maliciously,...
Hence why I've started putting "10k rule" on stuff that I think everyone should know, but am worried that its preaching to the choir.
Because oftentimes old information persists, not maliciously, but because of inertia and lack of exposure.
In the long term, with appropriate normalizing of laws, I don't necessarily disagree. However, in most countries the laws and other structures aren't in place to facilitate massive influx of...
In the long term, with appropriate normalizing of laws, I don't necessarily disagree. However, in most countries the laws and other structures aren't in place to facilitate massive influx of persons. You speak of self regulating dynamic systems, but the process of arriving at equilibrium can be painful, messy, and cruel if not managed well.
Some examples include NYC where there are laws preventing asylum seeker's from working while mandating that services be provided to them. This creates tremendous strain on local budgets, and is starting to reduce NYCs famous support of immigration due to friction between peoples and the systems in place.
I would argue that mass migration isn't really self regulating because it requires reciprocity and harmonizing of many laws at many levels to be a success. A lack of caps does not mean a lack of all oversight.
Additionally, bad actors on the international stage, brain drain in developing countries, and resource allocation issues with countries that share borders but have disparate resources all can lead to conflict and destabilization.
So while I'm not against the idea of open immigration, I don't think it is a simple matter of opening the gates, unless you are also willing to create tremendous friction and suffering during decades of normalization.
Edit: one quick note about markets. The issue with markets isn't that they maximize profits, it's that lack of regulation allows negative externalities. With appropriate regulation, putting all actors on the same footing that prevents negative externalities, markets can be quite good, as in the case of social democracies that work to have the markets serve the public good.
Well said. I am kind of talking in the long term, yes. Much of our existing processes are already painful, messy, and cruel though (as you point out WRT NYC)...so I consider it a bit of a wash,...
the process of arriving at equilibrium can be painful, messy, and cruel if not managed well.
Well said. I am kind of talking in the long term, yes. Much of our existing processes are already painful, messy, and cruel though (as you point out WRT NYC)...so I consider it a bit of a wash, and "opening the floodgates" would, for better and worse, put more pressure on reforming said systems.
Great discussion! I think this is a difference of approach. I believe that the friction created by opening the flood gates would reverse the trend of migration, and that the better path is steady...
Great discussion!
I think this is a difference of approach. I believe that the friction created by opening the flood gates would reverse the trend of migration, and that the better path is steady improvement. When you have big social shocks you often get disproportionate reactions. However, this is all speculation, and no one can predict the future. Differences in approaches, I think, can be argued to the betterment of policy over time.
This doesn’t disprove the tragedy of the commons at all though. What it shows is that regulation is necessary to prevent it. That’s regulation.
This doesn’t disprove the tragedy of the commons at all though. What it shows is that regulation is necessary to prevent it.
The features of successful systems, Ostrom and her colleagues found, include clear boundaries (the ‘community’ doing the managing must be well-defined); reliable monitoring of the shared resource; a reasonable balance of costs and benefits for participants; a predictable process for the fast and fair resolution of conflicts; an escalating series of punishments for cheaters; and good relationships between the community and other layers of authority, from household heads to international institutions.
You kind of skipped over the intro, which is where some of the key points are...bolding is mine. And the part I bolded is the takeaway that most every society has done, stripping the commons...
You kind of skipped over the intro, which is where some of the key points are...bolding is mine.
‘The Tragedy of the Commons’. His proposition was simple and unsparing: humans, when left to their own devices, compete with one another for resources until the resources run out. ‘Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest,’ he wrote. ‘Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.’ [...] While Hardin speculated that the tragedy of the commons could be avoided only through total privatisation or total government control, Ostrom had witnessed groundwater users near her native Los Angeles hammer out a system for sharing their coveted resource
And the part I bolded is the takeaway that most every society has done, stripping the commons rather than empowering the users of the commons to regulate against bad actors.
You don't tear down the playground because one kid shoved another kid off a slide. You ban the asshole kid that shoved from using the playground.
But Hardin's essay has been used as a trump card since it was published to silence any advocates for a commons.
I didn’t skip over that, and my response agrees with some of the bolded part, specifically that dealing with the tragedy of the commons in most cases beyond the trivial requires significant, if...
I didn’t skip over that, and my response agrees with some of the bolded part, specifically that dealing with the tragedy of the commons in most cases beyond the trivial requires significant, if not total, government control. I don’t generally accept that privatization is helpful.
You don't tear down the playground because one kid shoved another kid off a slide. You ban the asshole kid that shoved from using the playground.
Yes, that’s regulation. Because in our system, where the government has a monopoly on force, who else has the authority to kick that asshole out of the playground?
Hence why I said that users of the commons should be empowered to self-regulate. I don't think the government should have a monopoly on force. At least, not in the precise way they currently do....
Hence why I said that users of the commons should be empowered to self-regulate.
I don't think the government should have a monopoly on force. At least, not in the precise way they currently do.
And yes, I understand that my ideals do fall apart in practice if just magically dropped in place of the existing systems. Any system relying on cooperation is going to fall apart if individuality is perpetually rewarded over cooperation. The point is that short of revolution, the way to move people to these ideals is getting them to understand their morality, and then working to figure out how to move society towards those moral conclusions.
I'll drop my Moon is a Harsh Mistress quote: Having the state have the monopoly on force means that others using force is only permitted at the behest of the state. Wheras I hold that the...
I'll drop my Moon is a Harsh Mistress quote:
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Having the state have the monopoly on force means that others using force is only permitted at the behest of the state.
Wheras I hold that the individual intrinsically holds the monopoly on force, and chooses whom may have authority to act on their behalf.
It is a subtle but important distinction. Revolution is immoral if the state holds the monopoly on violence intrinsivly.
That feels like a semantic shell game with governance and social contracts. So individuals have a monopoly on violence, and delegate that through representative government to the state to enforce...
That feels like a semantic shell game with governance and social contracts. So individuals have a monopoly on violence, and delegate that through representative government to the state to enforce the social contract. If enough individuals feel strongly, that delegation can be revoked and you get revolt. But until that point, individuals who engage in violence are generally subject to punitive action by the state, e.g., the state enforces it's exclusive license to violence from the will of the voters.
The tragedy of the commons has been so over argued that using it one way or another has lost all meaning. However, even in the precursor to Hardin's essay, the 1833 pamphlet by Lloyd, he...
The tragedy of the commons has been so over argued that using it one way or another has lost all meaning. However, even in the precursor to Hardin's essay, the 1833 pamphlet by Lloyd, he misconstrued what commons were. Even in the historical usage common land was not open to all the public, not all members of the public were commoners, and manorial courts existed to enforce grazing or other usage rights. E.g., regulation by an authority.
Additionally, most people who object to the tragedy of the commons do so in reaction to Hardin's crazy proposals to deal with it and his genocidal views on population.
However, what I don't see debated as much is the essence of the point: when individuals or corporations aren't held responsible for the full cost of their actions or operations, then they profit at the expense of the public. If companies can emit greenhouse gasses without paying for the cost to remediate or offset, they profit at the expense of the global community.
In my mind, the core idea of the tragedy of the commons really doesn't have anything to do with privatization, etc, and everything to do with regulation to prevent negative externalities. It's just a simplistic way to explain it to students without the need for an introductory economics class.
In the American (and I suppose also Canadian) context, the right to migrate has a unique aspect. It's fashionable in many circles right now to have a stolen land declaration at the start of talks....
In the American (and I suppose also Canadian) context, the right to migrate has a unique aspect.
It's fashionable in many circles right now to have a stolen land declaration at the start of talks. They'll proudly acknowledge that the talk is being given that was taken from one indigenous group or another. These are very common, but they always leave you feeling incredibly pointless. It's like, yes, that is nice, but what am I supposed to do with this information?
There is a central conundrum that haunts this issue. It's the contrast between the moral and the practical. Morally, the answer to "what do we do now" should be "give the land back." But practically, that would be impossible. You're not going to make 300 million people homeless. You're not going to wipe out the largest assets of the nation's middle class. Doing that is about as likely as us having a Leninist revolution.
So instead, if we are bound by practical realities, where does it leave us? For me, even though practically speaking, the land cannot be given back (at least on a mass scale), the fact we live on stolen land should have some powerful policy implications. Namely, it requires humility. It requires saying, "I have no particular moral right to this land. Morally, the only thing keeping me from being thrown out is that there would be nowhere else for me to go. My claim to this land is that the cost of giving it up would be destitution. I have a right to stay because I need this land. And in that light, who am I to say someone else in need can't come here as well? What moral right does a colonizer have to say that other colonizers must stay away?"
My ancestors came to the US in a period where it was very easy for them to do so. If you were from the countries my ancestors were from, you just needed to show up at the US border. You had to pay for the boat fare here, but the door was wide open. My ancestors came here, walked through that open door, and found a vast land of opportunity, a land created in the wake of a mass genocide. My ancestors had access to the bounty of this place, simply by their ethnicity. And I see no moral reason that people from any ethnicity shouldn't have access to this same opportunity.
In fact, in an ideal world, that would be an international law. Commit genocide? Did you invade an area and destroy the populace? Well tough luck, that land is now an international free zone. Anyone can move there. Steal land through genocide? That land now becomes a form of international territory. Anyone can live or work there and must be eligible for a practical path to citizenship. Wipe out a people, and an international free zone will be imposed on your territory. Oh well, that's not practical for a thousand reasons, but one can dream.
I think this is probably true, though it's the sort of thing that no politician could ever say, at least not in the near future. The major problem I see is that there's a sort of prisoner's...
Open borders should be the default, not the pipe dream. I'm a strong proponent of the anarchist stance on the right to migrate. I think it's the only way that we'll ever be able to properly eliminate the global wage gap (and hence why it will be so strongly opposed by capitalists).
I think this is probably true, though it's the sort of thing that no politician could ever say, at least not in the near future.
The major problem I see is that there's a sort of prisoner's dilemma: a state that imposes some kind of migration control, or reserves the right to impose migration controls, at least theoretically receives an advantage over a state that imposes none.
This is maybe similar to a problem we see right now with homeless policies. I'm in favor of humane homeless policies, but the current state of things is that a state that enacts such policies will be forced to shoulder a disproportionate burden as homeless people migrate to them from states that have less-humane policies.
"Capitalists are opposed to open borders" is not equal to "capitalists are always opposed to greater immigration." Capitalists want total freedom of movement of capital, but just enough free...
"Capitalists are opposed to open borders" is not equal to "capitalists are always opposed to greater immigration."
Capitalists want total freedom of movement of capital, but just enough free movement of people that they can use it to maximize their profits. They definitely want some immigration; they need people to serve as the low-wage underclass in developed economies. Moreover, they need people who won't fight too hard against such living conditions. Someone who grew up middle class in the US but now finds themselves working class will resent and fight against that. Someone who grew up in a poor country, moves to the US, and becomes US working class? For them that's an upgrade. Capitalists like a certain amount of immigration, as it serves as a good source of reliable low-cost labor.
But they also don't want too much immigration. A few people coming from central America to the US and working low-wage jobs is fine for certain industries like agriculture work. But if too many of them come, then they'll form thriving immigrant communities of their own, start their own businesses, etc.
The thing about immigrants is they tend to be upwardly mobile. The people who move countries are more ambitious than the average person. The rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants is way higher than the native population. Immigrants don't tend to be content working low-wage shit jobs forever. Eventually they'll seek other opportunities, start their own businesses, etc.
And this is bad for the capitalists. Imagine if tomorrow, everyone around the world who had any desire to move to the US could just come here instantly (let's waive a magic wand and assume we can house them all somehow.) Yes, in the short term, US businesses would do fantastically. They would have a glut of cheap labor that would last for years. No fast food place in the country would have to offer more than minimum wage. It would be a few fantastic years for industries that rely on low-wage labor.
But that bonanza would pass. After a few years, all those immigrants would get established, many would start their own businesses in their own communities, and they wouldn't need to accept shit wages anymore. The businesses would then look around and see that there simply aren't very many people left who still want to move to the US; the supply would be exhausted.
Capitalists thus want neither no immigration or unlimited immigration. Capitalists want immigration to be a dial that they control. They want to be able to control the level of immigration and keep it just at the right level to maximize their profits. They want to bring in enough people to provide an evergreen supply of cheap labor, but they don't want to bring in so many that the global supply of desperate people is ever exhausted.
And finally, immigration controls also are designed to help capitalists at the demand level. The thing about immigration is it's a too way street. We tend to frame immigration as people moving to wealthy countries. But in a world with easy immigration, it also become possible for people in wealthy countries to move to poorer countries. In an ideal world, workers can come from Central America to the US for better wages. But in turn, Americans could move down to Central America for a cheaper cost of living. In an economically ideal world, developing countries would have large numbers of remote workers and retirees from developed countries living there and enjoying a lower cost of living.
Capitalists really, really do not want this. If individual average middle class citizens from wealthy countries can easily with low friction move to developing countries, this eliminates the monopolized captive markets many capitalists base their businesses on. They want workers in wealthy countries confined to those wealthy countries, where they will be forced to pay expensive first-world prices.
What capitalists really seek is complete freedom of movement for capital and complete control of movement over workers. They want to easily be able to move capital between countries. If they want to move a factory overseas, that should be their right. If they want to avoid taxes by elaborate international IP games, that should also be their right. Capitalists want money to be as free as the birds. But people? People need to be confined. They want some immigration, but they want to precisely control the amount and kind of immigration in order to produce their ideal labor supply. And they also want to make sure their wealthy first-world customers aren't taking their money and moving to somewhere where the prices are lower. All that high-value real estate in developed countries the capitalist class owns will take quite a hit if most office workers packed up and moved to lower-price countries to work as remote workers.
For what it's worth, I would have a much easier time agreeing with your points if they were structured as something akin to "an unfettered capitalist System supports..." instead of "capitalists...
For what it's worth, I would have a much easier time agreeing with your points if they were structured as something akin to "an unfettered capitalist System supports..." instead of "capitalists want..."
I know it seems like an inconsequential change, but I think it makes a pretty big difference. When I read "[c]apitalists want immigration to be a dial that they control. They want to be able to control the level of immigration and keep it just at the right level to maximize their profits," I can't help but wonder: who is being referred to, here? Like, what business owners control or aspire to control immigration levels? That's decided by the state, not Jeff Bezos, and thus it's really more of a system than some random "capitalists."
A system does not want things. The economy doesn't want things. People want things. It's important not to get too lost in vague language. Here, "capitalists" refers to the ownership class, the...
A system does not want things. The economy doesn't want things. People want things. It's important not to get too lost in vague language. Here, "capitalists" refers to the ownership class, the handful of ultra-wealthy people who have personal influence on the actions of the state. The kind of person that US House and Senate members spend most of their time on the phone with fishing for donations.
Very few people have real direct input or access to leaders, and they tend to be very wealthy. You need to have enough wealth that you can serve as a political patron powerful enough that your individual contribution is noticeable. I, for example, do own some stocks. I save for my retirement. However, I do so through index funds. I don't get forms in the mail every year asking me to vote for leadership elections for the thousands of companies I own minuscule stakes in. The brokerage is the one who has the voting rights, not me. I have zero input into the operation of the companies I invest in through the mutual funds I buy. To do that, I would have to invest in individual companies. And to have meaningful influence on a company, you need to hold many shares.
Someone with hundreds of millions to invest can put a million into a hundred different companies. They can be diversified while still owning large enough stakes to have the ear of corporate leaders.
This is the difference between merely being an owner and being in the ownership class. The middle class invests in many companies to fund their retirements. But if they're diversified, they never have a stake in any company large enough to be relevant to the corporate leaders. If you owe 5% of a company, you can arrange a one-on-one meeting with that company's CEO. If you own just 5 shares, you won't even be allowed to use the employee toilet. The middle class often owns shares of companies, but they're not in the ownership class. They can't leverage that ownership to meaningfully affect the direction and choices of companies; they're silent partners. The ownership class are those that have enough wealth that they can be significant enough shareholders that they have social influence over the executives and other leaders. And it's a big club, a big revolving door. It is a distinct class of people clustering around certain education pathways, hiring from certain families, friend networks, etc.
Lobbying is that method of control, and we can see how that plays out. Ever hear of the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity? Here's some other well-funded groups founded by rich capitalists:...
Like, what business owners control or aspire to control immigration levels?
Lobbying is that method of control, and we can see how that plays out. Ever hear of the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity?
Here's some other well-funded groups founded by rich capitalists:
To me, the need for lobbyists is evidence that we should be talking about systems, not evidence that we shouldn't. And just for what it's worth... I have never heard of numbers USA before. But a...
To me, the need for lobbyists is evidence that we should be talking about systems, not evidence that we shouldn't.
And just for what it's worth... I have never heard of numbers USA before. But a quick glance at the linked Wikipedia page turns up no evidence that they're classified as a hate group - and DOES show that "...the SPLC also stated that there is no evidence of explicit racism on behalf of Roy Beck or his organization [numbers USA]."
I know you're an open borders advocate; if your argument is that any anti-immigration group is a hate group then fair enough, but it'd be helpful to specify that.
Source. Not directly a hate group, but they support FAIR. It'd be as if I was saying "I'm not anti-gay" while funnelling millions to support "don't say gay" legislation.
I'm only commenting in passing: while closing the global wage gap is an objective good, there are many downsides to illegal immigration. One is that it and outsourcing are two sides of the...
I'm only commenting in passing: while closing the global wage gap is an objective good, there are many downsides to illegal immigration.
One is that it and outsourcing are two sides of the globalization coin — both weaken the power of labor. Labor's power comes from scarcity. Illegal immigration and outsourcing are unpopular with labor, and there are severe political ramifications in democracies.
Looking back at a historical phenomenon: the Black Death disproportionately killed off swaths of labor in Europe — the peasants. The resulting labor scarcity empowered peasants and enabled them to negotiate better wages and rights, and the plague arguably accelerated the end of feudalism.
Mass illegal immigration is effectively this labor supply phenomenon in reverse: an oversupply of labor will weaken the power of labor.
Maybe in the long run, the labor pool will redistribute more evenly. But the political backlash in the short to medium run can create dangerous conditions and threaten the long run.
Personally, I'm conflicted. Globalization has improved the lives of billions of lives. But it was definitely done at the expense of the working class. It's simply not worth paying, for example, American textile workers $20 an hour if you can just hire 12 Bangladeshi textile workers or maybe 1.2~1.5 undocumented migrant workers for the same wage.
And any business that decides to be moral and attempt to pay anyone a good wage will just be outcompeted in the market. Hiring legal labor at the wages that Americans expect to not only survive but thrive on is only possible for high-end industries and sectors that have the margins for that.
To be honest, even as someone supportive of immigration (I am a second generation immigrant, after all), the article didn't do a great job at making its case. One elephant in the room not...
To be honest, even as someone supportive of immigration (I am a second generation immigrant, after all), the article didn't do a great job at making its case.
One elephant in the room not addressed is the difference between legal immigration and refugees. One thing that the US, and especially Canada, has different to it than Europe is that due to geography, much of their immigration has been skilled and officially sought after by the government. The US has its own, although more limited, issues with this on the southern border, but Canada is an interesting case study of broadly available skilled immigration.
Obviously the AfD, as loons, went further than this, but generally much of the anti-immigration sentiment growing in Europe is from refugees from the middle east and africa. I'm not going to opine on it here, but it's clearly a bit absurd to write an opinion piece on reactions to immigration in Europe and not address this at all.
And while I also personally agree with him on racial homogeniety and low crime rates in East Asia, he doesn't actually like provide any justification it. He just says, "that's not true", and points to two instances of violence in Japan and South Korea. But like, two is not a sample size that indicates anything.
True. In Europe, the sentiment is not "they're taking our jobs", it's "they're not working and we have to pay for it". I'm generally positive to immigration, but coming from a small nation of some...
True. In Europe, the sentiment is not "they're taking our jobs", it's "they're not working and we have to pay for it". I'm generally positive to immigration, but coming from a small nation of some 5 and a half million people, I think there's a limit to how many we can support and properly integrate at a time.
The sentiment is very clearly different for highly skilled working immigrants who quickly integrate into society and immediately start providing tax revenue, versus refugees who have to live on government benefits for extended periods of time and whose cultural background makes it harder for them to quickly become fully integrated. As I said, I'm generally leaning towards the positive side when it comes to immigration, but even I can't support the idea of unrestricted immigration.
The fact that immigrant communities from places that have very different cultural norms are over-represented in crime statistics and government subsidies isn't proof people from those places are lesser human beings. It is, however, evidence that our approach to handling immigrants is very very far from perfect, and in lieu of a perfect immediate solution being handed down from above, one of the things we can do to lessen the impact is limit the number of immigrants. Because we clearly aren't properly dealing with X amount of immigrants, so there is every reason to believe 2X or 5X would be even more problematic.
As many as wish to immigrate. Because anybody should be able to live anywhere they want, provided they're not taking from others in the process. @TanyaJLaird did an excellent expansion of my...
How many immigrants should we let in, and why? There's being pro-immigrant, but how many immigrants and why?
As many as wish to immigrate. Because anybody should be able to live anywhere they want, provided they're not taking from others in the process. @TanyaJLaird did an excellent expansion of my reasoning.
All working climate-change in is saying that poor countries must remain poor while rich countries may remain rich. It does not solve the fundamental problem other than entrenching the haves and have-nots. If 9 billion people move to the USA it's not going to be a very rich country much longer, and most would probably move back out.
Wouldn't more immigration mean more votes for progressive climate policies that would offset the damage caused otherwise? Isn't it irresponsible to try and mitigate their corruption to a high...
Wouldn't more immigration mean more votes for progressive climate policies that would offset the damage caused otherwise? Isn't it irresponsible to try and mitigate their corruption to a high carbon lifestyle when we ourselves already live in it and do nothing to improve it? Do we somehow trust migrants with our lifestyle less than we do ourselves? Or is it an issue of population increasing in unsustainable capitalistic consumption in which sexual education and contraceptive measures would have equal or greater impact?
This argument of "climate change as a function of open borders" seems weirdly disparate and something I would imagine headlining on Fox as an additional fearmongering vector.
It’s fallacious to think that immigrants would inherently lean to one political side or another, or towards a particular issue or not. Sometimes it can be highly unintuitive - Trump had...
Wouldn't more immigration mean more votes for progressive climate policies that would offset the damage caused otherwise?
It’s fallacious to think that immigrants would inherently lean to one political side or another, or towards a particular issue or not. Sometimes it can be highly unintuitive - Trump had substantial Hispanic immigrant support, even after “build the wall” and many racist implications towards Hispanics.
It is fallacious, but at least in the USA, the odds of any given immigrant being as right-wing as the Republican party is low. At the very least, immigrants would be a moderating force on the...
It is fallacious, but at least in the USA, the odds of any given immigrant being as right-wing as the Republican party is low.
At the very least, immigrants would be a moderating force on the Republican party, and a neutral or leftward force on the Democratic party. Provided that democracy is actually a factor, and not a grift.
As many as want to, from any nation that is willing to give our citizens the same in return. I would let as many Costa Ricans move to the US, provided they provided the same right to US citizens...
How many immigrants should we let in, and why? There's being pro-immigrant, but how many immigrants and why?
As many as want to, from any nation that is willing to give our citizens the same in return. I would let as many Costa Ricans move to the US, provided they provided the same right to US citizens in return. We'll let in as many Costa Rican laborers as who want to move here, but in turn, they have to let as many US remote workers and retirees move down there as want to.
It's a two way street, and both sides have to pay something for the right. The wealthier country has to deal with downward pressure on wages. But in turn, the poorer country has to deal with upward pressure on land prices. A small central American country, if it becomes a big magnet for US expats, could find itself with expats making up the majority of its population. Yes, the US has to pay the costs of unlimited immigration, but so do the poorer countries workers are coming to the US from. Both sides are being asked to make some very hard sacrifices for this.
This is an honorable sentiment, but I think things become harder to justify when we pick a country other than Costa Rica. Take Sudan, for example. Incredibly impoverished, currently in the throes...
This is an honorable sentiment, but I think things become harder to justify when we pick a country other than Costa Rica.
Take Sudan, for example. Incredibly impoverished, currently in the throes of a civil war, and with a population of about 45 million.
I think it's fairly indisputable that Sudan would not find itself a magnet for US expats and retirees, no matter how easy it was to immigrate there. Should the US still be required to accept as many Sudanese as would like to come?
The only problem with expecting reperocity is that you're punishing people for the actions of their state. In order for open borders to be a thing, somebody is going to need to take the plunge...
The only problem with expecting reperocity is that you're punishing people for the actions of their state.
In order for open borders to be a thing, somebody is going to need to take the plunge first. And that's going to require shedding a lot of the anti-immigrantion cultural baggage that is deeply engrained in much of the world.
As the child of an immigrant (a refugee immigrant), I am sympathetic to those that wish to flee their country for a better life. Unfettered and open borders, however, is not the answer. I'd love a...
As the child of an immigrant (a refugee immigrant), I am sympathetic to those that wish to flee their country for a better life. Unfettered and open borders, however, is not the answer. I'd love a solution where immigrants required a sponsor (as my mother and grandmother had). A sponsor is someone who is assuming the financial responsibilities of the immigrant and helps them integrate into the country.
Rightwingers often say that politicians should dare to tell the truth about immigration. I agree. The truth is that high levels of immigration are a sign of a dynamic and healthy society — not a harbinger of doom or “rivers of blood”.
I agree in general that immigrants are good for the US, but using them as a barometer for the health/appeal of the US obviously isn't the whole story - domestic problems in Central/South American...
I agree in general that immigrants are good for the US, but using them as a barometer for the health/appeal of the US obviously isn't the whole story - domestic problems in Central/South American countries are the other side of the coin that absolutely should be addressed in some way.
Immigration restrictions have always been a right-wing boogyman in the USA, often just a dog-whistle for "we don't want any more brown people."
Open borders should be the default, not the pipe dream. I'm a strong proponent of the anarchist stance on the right to migrate. I think it's the only way that we'll ever be able to properly eliminate the global wage gap (and hence why it will be so strongly opposed by capitalists).
I do find this conservative take quite interesting. In short, they posit immigration restrictions are just affirmative action for citizens over immigrants. And I don't think that's an incorrect take...conservatives (and liberals) championing one while despising the other often ignore how they are similar. On the whole, eventually an egalitarian society would be in need of neither. And that's why, when push comes to shove, I'll support affirmative action while opposing immigration restrictions.
I’ve commented on this topic before, and I’m going to just say the same thing I did last time around as I don’t think anything has changed in the situation.
The issue as I see it is there are pretty widely varying ideas of how a society should operate, and my ideas are not necessarily dominant in the rest of the world.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/12/07/global-public-opinion-in-an-era-of-democratic-anxiety/
For instance,
I would be comfortable living in any of some 50-60 countries in the world. I would not even entertain the idea of living in most of the others, where the prevailing ideas about at least one of gender equality, tolerance of religion, democracy, and LGBT-acceptance are intolerably poor.
Correspondingly, I would not like my home to dramatically shift to become more similar to any of those regions where I would not choose to live.
Despite what we perceive as differences between the cultures of Kansas and California, ultimately they are almost indistinguishable compared to, for instance, the Middle East or most of Asia.
I’m skeptical that our current immigration levels constitute a threat to democracy here in Canada, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think there isn’t some upper bound where our small population of 37 million people couldn’t be completely subsumed by the global average, and currently I see the global average as being fairly bad judging by the world value survey.
https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp
However, would you not want someone in your shoes, but born in any one of those other ones that you wouldn't want to live in, to have free reign to move out of one of those countries?
Borders trap people in as much as they keep them out.
That said, I do understand how if open borders were magic-ed into the law of the world, from the current status quo to full open borders immediately, would potentially pose a problem in the short term. But the needle should always moving toward enabling more migration, not less.
A reasonable compromise would be to allow unlimited migration, but to rate-limit citizenship. Anyone can move in or out freely, but attaining voting rights is rate-limited via some random distribution over time.
I don’t see how this works in practise. What happens when citizens are outnumbered by non-citizens 2:1? Which would happen in like, a week (maybe slightly longer ;) if Canada had a completely open border.
Besides, this seems basically unfair. If someone lives on the land, works and pays taxes, they should have rights. For instance, I am against the TFW program insofar as I think it should be replaced 1:1 with increased immigration acceptance.
Not to say they shouldn't have rights....just not voting rights. The fact countries presume only citizens have rights is another problem that needs rectifying.
It permits free flows of populations while mitigating the fear of political override. In some sense, that's what Tildes is: The entire internet can view, but only the in-group can modify.
Ideally this would be a relatively fast transition, like 5 years maximum.
That sounds rather unfair to the people who would basically serve as workers for the entrenched elite. And like I said, what happens when this sub-class of people outnumber the voters?
I don't follow what you mean by 5 years. Like after 5 years, full open borders with full political rights for everyone?
Hypothetical Example:
Say Canada has a cap of 100,000 new immigrant citizenships per month (about 2% of population annually), but open borders.
Let's say half of those citizenships are reserved for anybody on a waitlist, and any unused are banked.
So you migrate in January with 50,000 others. You all get citizenship. 50k go in the 'bank'. In February, 2 million disgruntled US citizens migrate to Canada. 150k get citizenship, the remainder are on a waitlist. In March, 50k get citizenship, up to 50k of new migrants get citizenship. Say only 1,000 new migrants, so 99k in April get citizenship, while 50k are reserved for new migrants.
And then there's an upper bound: If you haven't been granted after 5 years, you get it regardless of rate limiter.
And keep in mind, this would only apply for migrants whom apply for permanent residence/citizenship. There would undoubtably be people whom would just want to visit, live, or work briefly. There would almost certainly be 'stateless' people whom choose not to pledge allegance to any given country...and this would not be a bad thing.
And since this open border scenario is worldwide, Canada is not the only destination. If people feel like an underclass...the world is their oyster and they'd be free to move elsewhere if the wait for citizenship is oppressively long. I'd personally steer far away, I hate the cold...I'd probably bounce to the UK, Germany, or Australia first.
And not every disgruntled person is going to up and leave their homeland, friends, and family... thats an activity usually taken by people whom feel have few better options.
So it moves the problem down the road 5 years, but that’s all? I don’t really see how it changes things.
That just sounds like it’s a problem for all western democracies and not just Canada.
For starters, it gives people whose views are based on bad circumstances that they grew up in to learn and change their minds. If they think gay people are demons but have never knowingly met one, it gives them 5 years to meet one and realize that they're human.
This applies much more strongly to young immigrants. If you're 15, 5 years is going to include most of the leaning that you do about your own values anyway.
It's not a perfect guarantee that nothing will ever change, but it's better than, for example, leaving LGBT+ people to die in countries that outlaw their existence.
That sounds like an argument for allowing limited immigration of refugees based on persecution, and emphatically not an argument for allowing open immigration that includes their persecutors.
Recall that my original objection was that allowing unlimited immigration from intolerant regions (which is most places that aren’t in the democratic west) has the potential to lead to their values taking hold here.
Surely the last thing we want is to enable new persecution for the LGBT+ people currently living within our borders?
Placing the burden of proof of prosecution on the people escaping said persecution frequently leads to deportation and ultimately death. It's not the sort of thing that comes with a strong paper trail. Attempting to exclude perpetrators means likely excluding legitimate asylum seekers as well. Refusing to accept people who are not actively fleeing also removes the opportunities to learn and grow that I mentioned before.
Depending on how much else we want to change, there are ways to enshrine protections in law that are too difficult for a simple majority to change. In the United States, for example, the constitution could be amended to include such protections. (A pipe dream, for certain, but similarly unrealistic to the US completely opening their borders). A place where minorities are strongly protected is unlikely to be an attractive destination for someone that does not want to live among them.
It’s worth nothing that immigrants are usually not typical of their compatriots. This can have distorting effects on politics, but more often in origin countries.
It’s theorised, for example, that the mass exodus of (mostly liberal) Germans to the US after the 1848 revolution failed helped Germany down a conservative, militaristic path. (German immigrants also formed a pillar of abolitionist support in the US in the run-up to the civil war.)
Likewise (though this is much less established, I think) the substantial migration of Poles after the country’s accession to the EU may have helped Law and Justice hold on to power there for so long.
There are obviously exceptions to this (Cuban immigrants, for example), but in general I wouldn’t expect immigrants to massively distort their adopted country’s politics: they have likely chosen to live there because they find the place attractive.
Do you think that these views are perhaps also determined by context and not just fixed opinions that people hold – for a US example if someone moves from a small conservative town in South Carolina to LA their views might end up changing? For a non-US example look at Ireland, it used to be very poor and extremely Catholic and conservative, but now following dramatic economic growth (plus becoming a tax haven) it has legalised abortion, has a gay Taoiseach and is generally pretty liberal and progressive.
Yes, and over time those beliefs probably will change but not if they instantly overwhelm the local population. If that happens, the local population will probably shift more towards the new majority population than vice-versa. Which is why I think we should have a lot of immigration, but not unlimited immigration.
Vord, if I may - if I'm not mistaken, you've posted elsewhere on this site about the need for government regulation in many systems in order to avoid the tragedy of the commons. You are not an unfettered free-market advocate, for instance.
You've also suggested that open borders would be self-balancing - that if too many people come to the US, for instance, some will then leave, finding homeostasis.
What leads you to assess that unlimited mass migration is a self-regulating system when you also assess that other systems - greenhouse gas emissions, the market - are not?
A good question, because of the following factors:
I started writing up a massive diversion on why the free market is incapable of solving climate change, regardless of things like carbon taxes, but stopped when I realized how off-topic it got. There will be a place for that some other time.
Thank you for engaging.
I think it's just as self-evident to say "the problem with open borders is that everyone will go to the same place; immigration tends to need heavy regulation to insure other outcomes occur," but I think at the end of the day we will never agree on this as our viewpoints are too far apart.
Thanks for the discussion.
One thing I would add is that while things might normalize eventually if we just threw the gates open everywhere, the process would be decades of friction and suffering.
I hate to "last word" you, but I feel that this point you brought up in particular really needs addressed. I won't try to further convince you though. You're right, open borders is considered a radical stance by most.
I think that this is a fallacy that invalidates your self-evident claim. Not everyone is going to go to the same place. People whom think they will have a solid dose of national-superiority-complex. I'm betting the majority of people with the will to migrate would prefer to migrate somewhere where there is at least a sizeable population where people speak the same first-language as them. Opening borders is not going to result to the whole world moving to where you live. Not every American will flee to Canada, not every Mexican to the USA. People will almost certainly try to congregate around other family and friends rather than plop down in whichever country will hand them the most benefits.
I think you're trying to say that my self-evident claim is equally fallacious, but given that the #1 goal of a capitalist enterprise is to be profitable, I don't think it's possible for the market to self-regulate for any other outcome.
Well, just to be clear, I don't mean literally, like, "Ontario" but rather "the West" in general.
No, the opposite! I think you're correct that capitalism drives towards profit and that it needs regulation to keep it from that outcome. What I'm trying to convey is that in the same way, open borders drives towards Africa, most of the Middle East, and much of Asia depopulating as literally billions of people move to the west.
I live in a developing country. People in the Philippines (for example) don't dream of migrating to, say, South Africa. They dream of moving to the US and Canada. People in Chad don't dream of migrating to Lebanon. They dream of moving to France.
Gotcha. We're definitely more on the same page then, broadly. Sometimes the various replies are definitely blurring together. If everyone seeks to move to the West, the big question is: Why?
I'd wager that most people/countries that are vehemently opposed to open borders are largely in the West or extremely authoritarian ala China/Russia/North Korea. I presume most people denouncing mass migration elsewhere in the thread are in one of those countries, while most outside of The West would not be. And that is quite telling.
That "Why" usually boils down to (possibly misplaced) notions of better opportunity in the West, mostly because the benefits do not "trickle down" from the West as promised, although the labor demands certainly do. Something, something, the rising tide does not actually lift all boats. Sadly, I'd bet the majority of the Philippians dreaming of migrating to the USA do not understand the reality of the bottom-class America where they'd probably exist, and would probably rethink their dreams if they did. They dream of the fairy-tale America exported in our media narratives.
This is why I see open borders as a moral imperative. "Tear down The Wall" if you will. In practical terms, it means supporting all policy that opens borders, and opposing all policy that tightens them.
If 90% of the population moves from elsewhere in the world to The West, that's almost Mission Accomplished for achieving more population density. The rest of the planet will have time to heal as its abandoned by the rest of humanity.
(And yes, all the terrible growing pains of that happening quickly are fully acknowledged)
I can guarantee that support for strong border control is not limited to authoritarian states plus developed country. A prime example would be South Africa, which is really neither of those, yet experiences a huge aversion to migrants and a high amount of xenophobia in general. I think that border controls are by and large necessary, even if they might be undesirable. Countries can, economically speaking, be viewed as clubs, with borders acting as a test for new members. To argue that these clubs should simply be unable to limit their members is to essentially abolish the club (and therefore the state). While that might be an attractive anarchist position it is one I certainly do not support (I would generally identify as a statist in that particular dichotomy).
thanks for sharing that article. Another one was also posted on Tildes not too long ago, The “Tragedy of the Commons” Is a Dubious, Right-Wing Concept
I was recently involved in a first year psychology course and it STILL taught Milgram and Stanford, uncritically, when it has become quite clear that they are flawed, if not downright fradulent.
These kinds of things bear repeating time and again until they finally go away, I hope.
Hence why I've started putting "10k rule" on stuff that I think everyone should know, but am worried that its preaching to the choir.
Because oftentimes old information persists, not maliciously, but because of inertia and lack of exposure.
In the long term, with appropriate normalizing of laws, I don't necessarily disagree. However, in most countries the laws and other structures aren't in place to facilitate massive influx of persons. You speak of self regulating dynamic systems, but the process of arriving at equilibrium can be painful, messy, and cruel if not managed well.
Some examples include NYC where there are laws preventing asylum seeker's from working while mandating that services be provided to them. This creates tremendous strain on local budgets, and is starting to reduce NYCs famous support of immigration due to friction between peoples and the systems in place.
I would argue that mass migration isn't really self regulating because it requires reciprocity and harmonizing of many laws at many levels to be a success. A lack of caps does not mean a lack of all oversight.
Additionally, bad actors on the international stage, brain drain in developing countries, and resource allocation issues with countries that share borders but have disparate resources all can lead to conflict and destabilization.
So while I'm not against the idea of open immigration, I don't think it is a simple matter of opening the gates, unless you are also willing to create tremendous friction and suffering during decades of normalization.
Edit: one quick note about markets. The issue with markets isn't that they maximize profits, it's that lack of regulation allows negative externalities. With appropriate regulation, putting all actors on the same footing that prevents negative externalities, markets can be quite good, as in the case of social democracies that work to have the markets serve the public good.
Well said. I am kind of talking in the long term, yes. Much of our existing processes are already painful, messy, and cruel though (as you point out WRT NYC)...so I consider it a bit of a wash, and "opening the floodgates" would, for better and worse, put more pressure on reforming said systems.
Great discussion!
I think this is a difference of approach. I believe that the friction created by opening the flood gates would reverse the trend of migration, and that the better path is steady improvement. When you have big social shocks you often get disproportionate reactions. However, this is all speculation, and no one can predict the future. Differences in approaches, I think, can be argued to the betterment of policy over time.
Have a great day!
This doesn’t disprove the tragedy of the commons at all though. What it shows is that regulation is necessary to prevent it.
That’s regulation.
You kind of skipped over the intro, which is where some of the key points are...bolding is mine.
And the part I bolded is the takeaway that most every society has done, stripping the commons rather than empowering the users of the commons to regulate against bad actors.
You don't tear down the playground because one kid shoved another kid off a slide. You ban the asshole kid that shoved from using the playground.
But Hardin's essay has been used as a trump card since it was published to silence any advocates for a commons.
I didn’t skip over that, and my response agrees with some of the bolded part, specifically that dealing with the tragedy of the commons in most cases beyond the trivial requires significant, if not total, government control. I don’t generally accept that privatization is helpful.
Yes, that’s regulation. Because in our system, where the government has a monopoly on force, who else has the authority to kick that asshole out of the playground?
Hence why I said that users of the commons should be empowered to self-regulate.
I don't think the government should have a monopoly on force. At least, not in the precise way they currently do.
And yes, I understand that my ideals do fall apart in practice if just magically dropped in place of the existing systems. Any system relying on cooperation is going to fall apart if individuality is perpetually rewarded over cooperation. The point is that short of revolution, the way to move people to these ideals is getting them to understand their morality, and then working to figure out how to move society towards those moral conclusions.
That’s interesting, and unnerving. What do you mean?
I'll drop my Moon is a Harsh Mistress quote:
Having the state have the monopoly on force means that others using force is only permitted at the behest of the state.
Wheras I hold that the individual intrinsically holds the monopoly on force, and chooses whom may have authority to act on their behalf.
It is a subtle but important distinction. Revolution is immoral if the state holds the monopoly on violence intrinsivly.
That feels like a semantic shell game with governance and social contracts. So individuals have a monopoly on violence, and delegate that through representative government to the state to enforce the social contract. If enough individuals feel strongly, that delegation can be revoked and you get revolt. But until that point, individuals who engage in violence are generally subject to punitive action by the state, e.g., the state enforces it's exclusive license to violence from the will of the voters.
It is, but if there's one thing the left loves, it's semantic shell games about governance and ideology.
The tragedy of the commons has been so over argued that using it one way or another has lost all meaning. However, even in the precursor to Hardin's essay, the 1833 pamphlet by Lloyd, he misconstrued what commons were. Even in the historical usage common land was not open to all the public, not all members of the public were commoners, and manorial courts existed to enforce grazing or other usage rights. E.g., regulation by an authority.
Additionally, most people who object to the tragedy of the commons do so in reaction to Hardin's crazy proposals to deal with it and his genocidal views on population.
However, what I don't see debated as much is the essence of the point: when individuals or corporations aren't held responsible for the full cost of their actions or operations, then they profit at the expense of the public. If companies can emit greenhouse gasses without paying for the cost to remediate or offset, they profit at the expense of the global community.
In my mind, the core idea of the tragedy of the commons really doesn't have anything to do with privatization, etc, and everything to do with regulation to prevent negative externalities. It's just a simplistic way to explain it to students without the need for an introductory economics class.
In the American (and I suppose also Canadian) context, the right to migrate has a unique aspect.
It's fashionable in many circles right now to have a stolen land declaration at the start of talks. They'll proudly acknowledge that the talk is being given that was taken from one indigenous group or another. These are very common, but they always leave you feeling incredibly pointless. It's like, yes, that is nice, but what am I supposed to do with this information?
There is a central conundrum that haunts this issue. It's the contrast between the moral and the practical. Morally, the answer to "what do we do now" should be "give the land back." But practically, that would be impossible. You're not going to make 300 million people homeless. You're not going to wipe out the largest assets of the nation's middle class. Doing that is about as likely as us having a Leninist revolution.
So instead, if we are bound by practical realities, where does it leave us? For me, even though practically speaking, the land cannot be given back (at least on a mass scale), the fact we live on stolen land should have some powerful policy implications. Namely, it requires humility. It requires saying, "I have no particular moral right to this land. Morally, the only thing keeping me from being thrown out is that there would be nowhere else for me to go. My claim to this land is that the cost of giving it up would be destitution. I have a right to stay because I need this land. And in that light, who am I to say someone else in need can't come here as well? What moral right does a colonizer have to say that other colonizers must stay away?"
My ancestors came to the US in a period where it was very easy for them to do so. If you were from the countries my ancestors were from, you just needed to show up at the US border. You had to pay for the boat fare here, but the door was wide open. My ancestors came here, walked through that open door, and found a vast land of opportunity, a land created in the wake of a mass genocide. My ancestors had access to the bounty of this place, simply by their ethnicity. And I see no moral reason that people from any ethnicity shouldn't have access to this same opportunity.
In fact, in an ideal world, that would be an international law. Commit genocide? Did you invade an area and destroy the populace? Well tough luck, that land is now an international free zone. Anyone can move there. Steal land through genocide? That land now becomes a form of international territory. Anyone can live or work there and must be eligible for a practical path to citizenship. Wipe out a people, and an international free zone will be imposed on your territory. Oh well, that's not practical for a thousand reasons, but one can dream.
I think this is probably true, though it's the sort of thing that no politician could ever say, at least not in the near future.
The major problem I see is that there's a sort of prisoner's dilemma: a state that imposes some kind of migration control, or reserves the right to impose migration controls, at least theoretically receives an advantage over a state that imposes none.
This is maybe similar to a problem we see right now with homeless policies. I'm in favor of humane homeless policies, but the current state of things is that a state that enacts such policies will be forced to shoulder a disproportionate burden as homeless people migrate to them from states that have less-humane policies.
"Capitalists are opposed to open borders" is not equal to "capitalists are always opposed to greater immigration."
Capitalists want total freedom of movement of capital, but just enough free movement of people that they can use it to maximize their profits. They definitely want some immigration; they need people to serve as the low-wage underclass in developed economies. Moreover, they need people who won't fight too hard against such living conditions. Someone who grew up middle class in the US but now finds themselves working class will resent and fight against that. Someone who grew up in a poor country, moves to the US, and becomes US working class? For them that's an upgrade. Capitalists like a certain amount of immigration, as it serves as a good source of reliable low-cost labor.
But they also don't want too much immigration. A few people coming from central America to the US and working low-wage jobs is fine for certain industries like agriculture work. But if too many of them come, then they'll form thriving immigrant communities of their own, start their own businesses, etc.
The thing about immigrants is they tend to be upwardly mobile. The people who move countries are more ambitious than the average person. The rate of entrepreneurship among immigrants is way higher than the native population. Immigrants don't tend to be content working low-wage shit jobs forever. Eventually they'll seek other opportunities, start their own businesses, etc.
And this is bad for the capitalists. Imagine if tomorrow, everyone around the world who had any desire to move to the US could just come here instantly (let's waive a magic wand and assume we can house them all somehow.) Yes, in the short term, US businesses would do fantastically. They would have a glut of cheap labor that would last for years. No fast food place in the country would have to offer more than minimum wage. It would be a few fantastic years for industries that rely on low-wage labor.
But that bonanza would pass. After a few years, all those immigrants would get established, many would start their own businesses in their own communities, and they wouldn't need to accept shit wages anymore. The businesses would then look around and see that there simply aren't very many people left who still want to move to the US; the supply would be exhausted.
Capitalists thus want neither no immigration or unlimited immigration. Capitalists want immigration to be a dial that they control. They want to be able to control the level of immigration and keep it just at the right level to maximize their profits. They want to bring in enough people to provide an evergreen supply of cheap labor, but they don't want to bring in so many that the global supply of desperate people is ever exhausted.
And finally, immigration controls also are designed to help capitalists at the demand level. The thing about immigration is it's a too way street. We tend to frame immigration as people moving to wealthy countries. But in a world with easy immigration, it also become possible for people in wealthy countries to move to poorer countries. In an ideal world, workers can come from Central America to the US for better wages. But in turn, Americans could move down to Central America for a cheaper cost of living. In an economically ideal world, developing countries would have large numbers of remote workers and retirees from developed countries living there and enjoying a lower cost of living.
Capitalists really, really do not want this. If individual average middle class citizens from wealthy countries can easily with low friction move to developing countries, this eliminates the monopolized captive markets many capitalists base their businesses on. They want workers in wealthy countries confined to those wealthy countries, where they will be forced to pay expensive first-world prices.
What capitalists really seek is complete freedom of movement for capital and complete control of movement over workers. They want to easily be able to move capital between countries. If they want to move a factory overseas, that should be their right. If they want to avoid taxes by elaborate international IP games, that should also be their right. Capitalists want money to be as free as the birds. But people? People need to be confined. They want some immigration, but they want to precisely control the amount and kind of immigration in order to produce their ideal labor supply. And they also want to make sure their wealthy first-world customers aren't taking their money and moving to somewhere where the prices are lower. All that high-value real estate in developed countries the capitalist class owns will take quite a hit if most office workers packed up and moved to lower-price countries to work as remote workers.
For what it's worth, I would have a much easier time agreeing with your points if they were structured as something akin to "an unfettered capitalist System supports..." instead of "capitalists want..."
I know it seems like an inconsequential change, but I think it makes a pretty big difference. When I read "[c]apitalists want immigration to be a dial that they control. They want to be able to control the level of immigration and keep it just at the right level to maximize their profits," I can't help but wonder: who is being referred to, here? Like, what business owners control or aspire to control immigration levels? That's decided by the state, not Jeff Bezos, and thus it's really more of a system than some random "capitalists."
A system does not want things. The economy doesn't want things. People want things. It's important not to get too lost in vague language. Here, "capitalists" refers to the ownership class, the handful of ultra-wealthy people who have personal influence on the actions of the state. The kind of person that US House and Senate members spend most of their time on the phone with fishing for donations.
Very few people have real direct input or access to leaders, and they tend to be very wealthy. You need to have enough wealth that you can serve as a political patron powerful enough that your individual contribution is noticeable. I, for example, do own some stocks. I save for my retirement. However, I do so through index funds. I don't get forms in the mail every year asking me to vote for leadership elections for the thousands of companies I own minuscule stakes in. The brokerage is the one who has the voting rights, not me. I have zero input into the operation of the companies I invest in through the mutual funds I buy. To do that, I would have to invest in individual companies. And to have meaningful influence on a company, you need to hold many shares.
Someone with hundreds of millions to invest can put a million into a hundred different companies. They can be diversified while still owning large enough stakes to have the ear of corporate leaders.
This is the difference between merely being an owner and being in the ownership class. The middle class invests in many companies to fund their retirements. But if they're diversified, they never have a stake in any company large enough to be relevant to the corporate leaders. If you owe 5% of a company, you can arrange a one-on-one meeting with that company's CEO. If you own just 5 shares, you won't even be allowed to use the employee toilet. The middle class often owns shares of companies, but they're not in the ownership class. They can't leverage that ownership to meaningfully affect the direction and choices of companies; they're silent partners. The ownership class are those that have enough wealth that they can be significant enough shareholders that they have social influence over the executives and other leaders. And it's a big club, a big revolving door. It is a distinct class of people clustering around certain education pathways, hiring from certain families, friend networks, etc.
Lobbying is that method of control, and we can see how that plays out. Ever hear of the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity?
Here's some other well-funded groups founded by rich capitalists:
Federation for American Immigration Reform - Anti-immigration hate group with ties to white nationalists. $11 million + in annual operating income
NumbersUSA - Anti-immigration hate group. About $8 million in annual operating income
To me, the need for lobbyists is evidence that we should be talking about systems, not evidence that we shouldn't.
And just for what it's worth... I have never heard of numbers USA before. But a quick glance at the linked Wikipedia page turns up no evidence that they're classified as a hate group - and DOES show that "...the SPLC also stated that there is no evidence of explicit racism on behalf of Roy Beck or his organization [numbers USA]."
I know you're an open borders advocate; if your argument is that any anti-immigration group is a hate group then fair enough, but it'd be helpful to specify that.
Source.
Not directly a hate group, but they support FAIR.
It'd be as if I was saying "I'm not anti-gay" while funnelling millions to support "don't say gay" legislation.
I'm only commenting in passing: while closing the global wage gap is an objective good, there are many downsides to illegal immigration.
One is that it and outsourcing are two sides of the globalization coin — both weaken the power of labor. Labor's power comes from scarcity. Illegal immigration and outsourcing are unpopular with labor, and there are severe political ramifications in democracies.
Looking back at a historical phenomenon: the Black Death disproportionately killed off swaths of labor in Europe — the peasants. The resulting labor scarcity empowered peasants and enabled them to negotiate better wages and rights, and the plague arguably accelerated the end of feudalism.
Mass illegal immigration is effectively this labor supply phenomenon in reverse: an oversupply of labor will weaken the power of labor.
Maybe in the long run, the labor pool will redistribute more evenly. But the political backlash in the short to medium run can create dangerous conditions and threaten the long run.
Personally, I'm conflicted. Globalization has improved the lives of billions of lives. But it was definitely done at the expense of the working class. It's simply not worth paying, for example, American textile workers $20 an hour if you can just hire 12 Bangladeshi textile workers or maybe 1.2~1.5 undocumented migrant workers for the same wage.
And any business that decides to be moral and attempt to pay anyone a good wage will just be outcompeted in the market. Hiring legal labor at the wages that Americans expect to not only survive but thrive on is only possible for high-end industries and sectors that have the margins for that.
To be honest, even as someone supportive of immigration (I am a second generation immigrant, after all), the article didn't do a great job at making its case.
One elephant in the room not addressed is the difference between legal immigration and refugees. One thing that the US, and especially Canada, has different to it than Europe is that due to geography, much of their immigration has been skilled and officially sought after by the government. The US has its own, although more limited, issues with this on the southern border, but Canada is an interesting case study of broadly available skilled immigration.
Obviously the AfD, as loons, went further than this, but generally much of the anti-immigration sentiment growing in Europe is from refugees from the middle east and africa. I'm not going to opine on it here, but it's clearly a bit absurd to write an opinion piece on reactions to immigration in Europe and not address this at all.
And while I also personally agree with him on racial homogeniety and low crime rates in East Asia, he doesn't actually like provide any justification it. He just says, "that's not true", and points to two instances of violence in Japan and South Korea. But like, two is not a sample size that indicates anything.
True. In Europe, the sentiment is not "they're taking our jobs", it's "they're not working and we have to pay for it". I'm generally positive to immigration, but coming from a small nation of some 5 and a half million people, I think there's a limit to how many we can support and properly integrate at a time.
The sentiment is very clearly different for highly skilled working immigrants who quickly integrate into society and immediately start providing tax revenue, versus refugees who have to live on government benefits for extended periods of time and whose cultural background makes it harder for them to quickly become fully integrated. As I said, I'm generally leaning towards the positive side when it comes to immigration, but even I can't support the idea of unrestricted immigration.
The fact that immigrant communities from places that have very different cultural norms are over-represented in crime statistics and government subsidies isn't proof people from those places are lesser human beings. It is, however, evidence that our approach to handling immigrants is very very far from perfect, and in lieu of a perfect immediate solution being handed down from above, one of the things we can do to lessen the impact is limit the number of immigrants. Because we clearly aren't properly dealing with X amount of immigrants, so there is every reason to believe 2X or 5X would be even more problematic.
As many as wish to immigrate. Because anybody should be able to live anywhere they want, provided they're not taking from others in the process. @TanyaJLaird did an excellent expansion of my reasoning.
All working climate-change in is saying that poor countries must remain poor while rich countries may remain rich. It does not solve the fundamental problem other than entrenching the haves and have-nots. If 9 billion people move to the USA it's not going to be a very rich country much longer, and most would probably move back out.
Wouldn't more immigration mean more votes for progressive climate policies that would offset the damage caused otherwise? Isn't it irresponsible to try and mitigate their corruption to a high carbon lifestyle when we ourselves already live in it and do nothing to improve it? Do we somehow trust migrants with our lifestyle less than we do ourselves? Or is it an issue of population increasing in unsustainable capitalistic consumption in which sexual education and contraceptive measures would have equal or greater impact?
This argument of "climate change as a function of open borders" seems weirdly disparate and something I would imagine headlining on Fox as an additional fearmongering vector.
It’s fallacious to think that immigrants would inherently lean to one political side or another, or towards a particular issue or not. Sometimes it can be highly unintuitive - Trump had substantial Hispanic immigrant support, even after “build the wall” and many racist implications towards Hispanics.
It is fallacious, but at least in the USA, the odds of any given immigrant being as right-wing as the Republican party is low.
At the very least, immigrants would be a moderating force on the Republican party, and a neutral or leftward force on the Democratic party. Provided that democracy is actually a factor, and not a grift.
As many as want to, from any nation that is willing to give our citizens the same in return. I would let as many Costa Ricans move to the US, provided they provided the same right to US citizens in return. We'll let in as many Costa Rican laborers as who want to move here, but in turn, they have to let as many US remote workers and retirees move down there as want to.
It's a two way street, and both sides have to pay something for the right. The wealthier country has to deal with downward pressure on wages. But in turn, the poorer country has to deal with upward pressure on land prices. A small central American country, if it becomes a big magnet for US expats, could find itself with expats making up the majority of its population. Yes, the US has to pay the costs of unlimited immigration, but so do the poorer countries workers are coming to the US from. Both sides are being asked to make some very hard sacrifices for this.
This is an honorable sentiment, but I think things become harder to justify when we pick a country other than Costa Rica.
Take Sudan, for example. Incredibly impoverished, currently in the throes of a civil war, and with a population of about 45 million.
I think it's fairly indisputable that Sudan would not find itself a magnet for US expats and retirees, no matter how easy it was to immigrate there. Should the US still be required to accept as many Sudanese as would like to come?
The only problem with expecting reperocity is that you're punishing people for the actions of their state.
In order for open borders to be a thing, somebody is going to need to take the plunge first. And that's going to require shedding a lot of the anti-immigrantion cultural baggage that is deeply engrained in much of the world.
As the child of an immigrant (a refugee immigrant), I am sympathetic to those that wish to flee their country for a better life. Unfettered and open borders, however, is not the answer. I'd love a solution where immigrants required a sponsor (as my mother and grandmother had). A sponsor is someone who is assuming the financial responsibilities of the immigrant and helps them integrate into the country.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/O7WpF
Archived.
TL;DR
I agree in general that immigrants are good for the US, but using them as a barometer for the health/appeal of the US obviously isn't the whole story - domestic problems in Central/South American countries are the other side of the coin that absolutely should be addressed in some way.