While I agree with probably 95%+ of BC’s positions, I do not on unlimited immigraton.
What BC fails to indicate about his claims about U.S. immigrants being net positive in his linked piece is that most of the people studied wanted to come here when coming here was *hard*.
There is little reason to believe that when you combine LITERALLY o…
While I agree with probably 95%+ of BC’s positions, I do not on unlimited immigraton.
What BC fails to indicate about his claims about U.S. immigrants being net positive in his linked piece is that most of the people studied wanted to come here when coming here was *hard*.
There is little reason to believe that when you combine LITERALLY open borders with a welfare state that there would remain net positive fiscal effects by large majorities of those who come here.
To say nothing of the difficulty in the modern age of integrating the huge numbers of people who would arrive once this policy was official.
And to be clear, once we shut down illegal immigration, I am very open to fairly high levels of legal immigration, including nearly unlimited high-skill immigration and a decent number of lower-skill immigrants as well. Despite our generous welfare state. But this is very different from literally unlimited immigration.
It's still hard to come here. Indeed, it's probably harder than at any point in the past because it's not the transport which makes it hard but adopting to the new country and for most of our history we had areas you could just go and live with people who had the same language, behaviors etc etc of your homeland. Sure, there is a large Spanish speaking population in the us but we don't really have the isolated communities to the same degree where you could exist as if you hadn't moved.
Most of what makes it difficult is adapting to a different language, customs, giving up your friends, social network etc.. Sure, those costs are much smaller if you come from Canada but so are the net benefits. If you are leaving the global south most of the skills you've learned for managing your life don't apply anymore and you have to master a whole new system of doing things.
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But ultimately, I think it's a mistake to focus on where the ultimate line gets drawn. Just make immigration easier until you actually reach the point where immigrants are net drains on the economy.
It IS still not easy to come here, I agree, since we have so little LEGAL immigration few can enter that way (and there is ZERO political will to increase legal immigration mostly given the enormous amount of illegal immigration), and since most of the ILLEGAL immigration is through drug cartels where the illegals are in debt to them.
Are any of your arguments meant to endorse today’s ILLEGAL immigration?
If so, we have nothing to discuss, as your position is much more indefensible than BC’s.
If not, then despite all your words, it sounds like we are pretty much agreeing on policy: allow a lot more legal immigration, just don’t make it unlimited where there is a very strong incentive for people to come and be a drain not on the *economy*, but on the taxpayers paying for the generous welfare benefits and education benefits.
Though I still disagree strongly with the “it’d still be hard” case you are trying to make above if we had open borders. People could come and not speak the language as there would be many of their cohort in the same boat with whom they would have common ground, culture, language, etc.
In particular, if you are coming from a very poor place, even if their lives here would be hard relative to what you and I are used to, there is no reason at all to think that they would be hard relative to what those poorest billions are used to in their own countries, again given the extremely generous safety net here for health and education in particular.
And even if they were never made citizens, if their children born here automatically were, very soon we would almost certainly have a borderline-socialist country to the left of all of those in Europe today. You - and Bernie Sanders and AOC - might wish that, but I do not.
Imagine the big cities struggling to deal with the crush of immigrants that would arrive once this policy started, considering how bitterly Democrat mayors of sanctuary cities complain about the relatively tiny number of the illegal immigrants who have arrived in their cities under border czar Kamala’s last 3.5 years worth of illegal policy.
While I agree with probably 95%+ of BC’s positions, I do not on unlimited immigraton.
What BC fails to indicate about his claims about U.S. immigrants being net positive in his linked piece is that most of the people studied wanted to come here when coming here was *hard*.
There is little reason to believe that when you combine LITERALLY open borders with a welfare state that there would remain net positive fiscal effects by large majorities of those who come here.
To say nothing of the difficulty in the modern age of integrating the huge numbers of people who would arrive once this policy was official.
And to be clear, once we shut down illegal immigration, I am very open to fairly high levels of legal immigration, including nearly unlimited high-skill immigration and a decent number of lower-skill immigrants as well. Despite our generous welfare state. But this is very different from literally unlimited immigration.
Milton Friedman had this correct.
It's still hard to come here. Indeed, it's probably harder than at any point in the past because it's not the transport which makes it hard but adopting to the new country and for most of our history we had areas you could just go and live with people who had the same language, behaviors etc etc of your homeland. Sure, there is a large Spanish speaking population in the us but we don't really have the isolated communities to the same degree where you could exist as if you hadn't moved.
Most of what makes it difficult is adapting to a different language, customs, giving up your friends, social network etc.. Sure, those costs are much smaller if you come from Canada but so are the net benefits. If you are leaving the global south most of the skills you've learned for managing your life don't apply anymore and you have to master a whole new system of doing things.
--
But ultimately, I think it's a mistake to focus on where the ultimate line gets drawn. Just make immigration easier until you actually reach the point where immigrants are net drains on the economy.
It IS still not easy to come here, I agree, since we have so little LEGAL immigration few can enter that way (and there is ZERO political will to increase legal immigration mostly given the enormous amount of illegal immigration), and since most of the ILLEGAL immigration is through drug cartels where the illegals are in debt to them.
Are any of your arguments meant to endorse today’s ILLEGAL immigration?
If so, we have nothing to discuss, as your position is much more indefensible than BC’s.
If not, then despite all your words, it sounds like we are pretty much agreeing on policy: allow a lot more legal immigration, just don’t make it unlimited where there is a very strong incentive for people to come and be a drain not on the *economy*, but on the taxpayers paying for the generous welfare benefits and education benefits.
Though I still disagree strongly with the “it’d still be hard” case you are trying to make above if we had open borders. People could come and not speak the language as there would be many of their cohort in the same boat with whom they would have common ground, culture, language, etc.
In particular, if you are coming from a very poor place, even if their lives here would be hard relative to what you and I are used to, there is no reason at all to think that they would be hard relative to what those poorest billions are used to in their own countries, again given the extremely generous safety net here for health and education in particular.
And even if they were never made citizens, if their children born here automatically were, very soon we would almost certainly have a borderline-socialist country to the left of all of those in Europe today. You - and Bernie Sanders and AOC - might wish that, but I do not.
Imagine the big cities struggling to deal with the crush of immigrants that would arrive once this policy started, considering how bitterly Democrat mayors of sanctuary cities complain about the relatively tiny number of the illegal immigrants who have arrived in their cities under border czar Kamala’s last 3.5 years worth of illegal policy.