But I wonder if/how it accounts for the downstream impacts of stopping "chain migration", i.e. the economically desirable immigrants who will either leave or not come at all if they can't bring their families. This is surely a second-order effect, but I also doubt it's totally insignificant at the level of precision they claim.
I just don't think people are against immigration for economic reasons. It's cultural. And people get really pissed at high earning immigrants earning more than them, so being "more selective" may actually make this worse I think.
What about increasing the age for social security to 68 or 70 for certain new immigrants. That would be a way to kick the can even further down the road and start to normalize a change that’s ultimately going to have to happen for everybody someday. Or maybe that’s unjust… I haven’t really thought it through completely.
This post feels a bit icky. I know Matt is trying to harmonize with what Joe Median Voter wants and thinks, but I think this is a bit wrongheaded.
My view is that a chaotic border is very very unpopular, as are extending government benefits to illegal immigrants, but going after things like chain migration is solving for a problem that doesn't exist. Who is being harmed by chain migration and how? If anything, you're selecting for people that have familial ties and financial fallback, not random individuals with no ties to a community.
Close the border, stop benefits for illegal immigrants, and let's go back to the good ol days when immigration was barely on the radar.
You have to have a pretty low opinion of American Capitalism to think that a voluntary transaction between two persons does not produce mutual benefit for both. This applies whether the other person was foreign born (an immigrant) or still outside the US (importer/exporter). Of course, there are tons of exceptions that economists have come up with, but they remain exceptions.
It seems to me like we need both high-skill and low-skill immigration. Who's going to replace your roof, butcher your meat, take care of your old folks?
Maybe the only voters that should determine our immigration policies are those in Springfield, OH and MidWest towns where the meat packers are.
It really does seem like the cultural backlash to immigration is a function of only total numbers, though.
Higher immigration in the national interest is a good idea but I don’t think going to be significantly more popular than any other kind of higher immigration
While 2021-24 showed that immigration must still be regarded as a divisive issue that is subject to aggressive demagoguery, it also showed that all the Yglesian assertions about the economic benefits of immigration were, like, completely right. It bothers me that Democrats are too busy apologizing for immigration to point out the massive benefits it had. Maybe that's the right tack, since yeah, it is divisive, but sometimes there seems to be zero attempt to separate "immigration is good" out from "we mishandled immigration."
The party overestimates nativism in the population SO DRASTICALLY, because they underestimated it once, and even a decade later they cannot rein in their overcorrection.
It's maddening that the 2021-24 immigration policies were a massive, unqualified, world-historic success and the voters absolutely hated them. They'd rather have slow-to-no growth, endless cost disease, and people who don't talk funny.
You can lead a horse to water, but if the horse is a suicidal idiot...
During the 2016 campaign Scott Adams tried to argue that because Trump is such a business genius, he could charge a $2,000 fine/fee to undocumented immigrants. At 10 million immigrants, it would yield $20 billion to pay for his wall. Of course, Trump did no such thing and Adams never spoke of it again.
My proposal is to charge (say) $100,000 for undocumented to buy citizenship, paid in monthly installments over 20 years. If they get more than two months behind, or are convicted of a felony, the deal is off and they are deported.
Denmark and the Netherlands produce statistics on which kinds of immigrants contribute and which are a net fiscal cost.
Dutch figures
Average net contribution of immigrants to public finances, by migration motive and region, including the cost for the second generation (rounded to multiples of €10.000).
Labour migration +€ 125.000
Study migration +€ 75.000
Family migration -€ 275.000
Asylum migration -€ 475.000
Japan, North America, Oceania, Uk Scandinavia + € 200.000
Surprised that the conservative Manhattan Institute is behind these economic studies! That’s another unfortunate change Trump has brought to the republicans: being rabidly anti immigrant instead of pro immigration! The MI was the think tank for the Reagan administration, I guess all the pro immigration republicans became democrats or at least independents! I think the democrats need to really listen to these selective immigration ideas because Bidens ad hoc open borders policy was a disaster for the democrats, especially in winnable border states like Arizona! And I think we need to make housing affordable again and reform zoning laws, building codes and other things making housing too expensive and making it tough for young people to get ahead by having affordable places to live and own! But a lot of great ideas about how to reform immigration and tackle our budget problems without having to raise taxes or cut spending significantly. Great and timely ideas 🙂
Has anyone mentioned that recent article in The Atlantic about Spain and immigration? They let a lot of people in, but most from Latin America. They keep out the North Africans. Their economy is doing surprisingly well.
" The government provided fast-track work authorization for immigrants in sectors with labor shortages, streamlined the process for employers to apply for foreign work visas, and made it easier for immigrants to settle in so-called Empty Spain, where the working-age population has dried up."
i haven't read the article but i've spent some time in spain and my observations agree with this description. la immigrants seem easily assimilated and well accepted and the situation appears much more congenial for all involved than what you see with african and middle eastern immigrants in other euro countries.
I do think that the best way to increase immigration is through some fairly explicit higher taxes on new migrants.
By making it very explicitly unfair we might be able to appeal to people's selfishness and make it more explicitly clear that immigration benefits them. But you'd need a lot of messaging about how they're paying higher taxes to fund social security and reducing the deficit. I don't think this kind of program should be limited to low income temporary workers, if anything it makes more sense targeted at higher income migrants.
I think there is a prior step here where people don't understand that immigrants benefit the economy.
What I like about this approach is that it foregrounds that and helps people understand that benefit.
But I worry this will just sound absurd to the general public "defund the police and everything will be fine? Yeah right", "Fix the debt by letting loads of immigrants in? Seriously get some common sense".
I think the only way to do this is will appropriately stern language "we're going to make immigrants pay for the privilege of being in the US, and then we are going to role it out for every visa category (while dramatically expanding it)"
It's complicated. If the latter it makes it sound like Matt is saying "Democrats shouldn't run on unpopular ideas unless I think they're good" and if it's the former one has to wonder what the purpose is if you're not trying to shape the agenda of the next Democratic administration and Congress.
I guess the weaselly way out is "I'm trying to shape the debate behind the scenes so we can eventually make these ideas more popular."
> Taking various critiques... seriously and then actually trying to fix them rather than just complaining...
Son, let me tell you something about politics...
The existence of this kind of tool is great.
But I wonder if/how it accounts for the downstream impacts of stopping "chain migration", i.e. the economically desirable immigrants who will either leave or not come at all if they can't bring their families. This is surely a second-order effect, but I also doubt it's totally insignificant at the level of precision they claim.
I just don't think people are against immigration for economic reasons. It's cultural. And people get really pissed at high earning immigrants earning more than them, so being "more selective" may actually make this worse I think.
What about increasing the age for social security to 68 or 70 for certain new immigrants. That would be a way to kick the can even further down the road and start to normalize a change that’s ultimately going to have to happen for everybody someday. Or maybe that’s unjust… I haven’t really thought it through completely.
This post feels a bit icky. I know Matt is trying to harmonize with what Joe Median Voter wants and thinks, but I think this is a bit wrongheaded.
My view is that a chaotic border is very very unpopular, as are extending government benefits to illegal immigrants, but going after things like chain migration is solving for a problem that doesn't exist. Who is being harmed by chain migration and how? If anything, you're selecting for people that have familial ties and financial fallback, not random individuals with no ties to a community.
Close the border, stop benefits for illegal immigrants, and let's go back to the good ol days when immigration was barely on the radar.
You have to have a pretty low opinion of American Capitalism to think that a voluntary transaction between two persons does not produce mutual benefit for both. This applies whether the other person was foreign born (an immigrant) or still outside the US (importer/exporter). Of course, there are tons of exceptions that economists have come up with, but they remain exceptions.
It seems to me like we need both high-skill and low-skill immigration. Who's going to replace your roof, butcher your meat, take care of your old folks?
Maybe the only voters that should determine our immigration policies are those in Springfield, OH and MidWest towns where the meat packers are.
It really does seem like the cultural backlash to immigration is a function of only total numbers, though.
Higher immigration in the national interest is a good idea but I don’t think going to be significantly more popular than any other kind of higher immigration
While 2021-24 showed that immigration must still be regarded as a divisive issue that is subject to aggressive demagoguery, it also showed that all the Yglesian assertions about the economic benefits of immigration were, like, completely right. It bothers me that Democrats are too busy apologizing for immigration to point out the massive benefits it had. Maybe that's the right tack, since yeah, it is divisive, but sometimes there seems to be zero attempt to separate "immigration is good" out from "we mishandled immigration."
The party overestimates nativism in the population SO DRASTICALLY, because they underestimated it once, and even a decade later they cannot rein in their overcorrection.
It's maddening that the 2021-24 immigration policies were a massive, unqualified, world-historic success and the voters absolutely hated them. They'd rather have slow-to-no growth, endless cost disease, and people who don't talk funny.
You can lead a horse to water, but if the horse is a suicidal idiot...
During the 2016 campaign Scott Adams tried to argue that because Trump is such a business genius, he could charge a $2,000 fine/fee to undocumented immigrants. At 10 million immigrants, it would yield $20 billion to pay for his wall. Of course, Trump did no such thing and Adams never spoke of it again.
My proposal is to charge (say) $100,000 for undocumented to buy citizenship, paid in monthly installments over 20 years. If they get more than two months behind, or are convicted of a felony, the deal is off and they are deported.
Denmark and the Netherlands produce statistics on which kinds of immigrants contribute and which are a net fiscal cost.
Dutch figures
Average net contribution of immigrants to public finances, by migration motive and region, including the cost for the second generation (rounded to multiples of €10.000).
Labour migration +€ 125.000
Study migration +€ 75.000
Family migration -€ 275.000
Asylum migration -€ 475.000
Japan, North America, Oceania, Uk Scandinavia + € 200.000
Central and Eastern European EU + € 50.000
Other EU countries + € 50.000
Former Yugoslavia and USSR -€ 150.000
South Africa + € 150.000
Israel + € 50.000
Morocco -€ 550.000
Horn of Africa and Sudan -€ 600.000
Danish government report
https://fm.dk/udgivelser/2021/oktober/oekonomisk-analyse-indvandreres-nettobidrag-til-de-offentlige-finanser-i-2018/?fbclid=IwdGRjcASeVfljbGNrBJ5V9WV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHhEg7eh-WiQ7THPv4LhCRX3dcSHEiTOw1xHOJnCsXN9hlma267rvreeknaPc_aem_7rx99tTL7EsRXKKCH6Lp1A
Surprised that the conservative Manhattan Institute is behind these economic studies! That’s another unfortunate change Trump has brought to the republicans: being rabidly anti immigrant instead of pro immigration! The MI was the think tank for the Reagan administration, I guess all the pro immigration republicans became democrats or at least independents! I think the democrats need to really listen to these selective immigration ideas because Bidens ad hoc open borders policy was a disaster for the democrats, especially in winnable border states like Arizona! And I think we need to make housing affordable again and reform zoning laws, building codes and other things making housing too expensive and making it tough for young people to get ahead by having affordable places to live and own! But a lot of great ideas about how to reform immigration and tackle our budget problems without having to raise taxes or cut spending significantly. Great and timely ideas 🙂
Has anyone mentioned that recent article in The Atlantic about Spain and immigration? They let a lot of people in, but most from Latin America. They keep out the North Africans. Their economy is doing surprisingly well.
" The government provided fast-track work authorization for immigrants in sectors with labor shortages, streamlined the process for employers to apply for foreign work visas, and made it easier for immigrants to settle in so-called Empty Spain, where the working-age population has dried up."
And that doesn't just mean immigrants with PhDs.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/spain-economy-immigration-backlash/687371/
i haven't read the article but i've spent some time in spain and my observations agree with this description. la immigrants seem easily assimilated and well accepted and the situation appears much more congenial for all involved than what you see with african and middle eastern immigrants in other euro countries.
I do think that the best way to increase immigration is through some fairly explicit higher taxes on new migrants.
By making it very explicitly unfair we might be able to appeal to people's selfishness and make it more explicitly clear that immigration benefits them. But you'd need a lot of messaging about how they're paying higher taxes to fund social security and reducing the deficit. I don't think this kind of program should be limited to low income temporary workers, if anything it makes more sense targeted at higher income migrants.
I think there is a prior step here where people don't understand that immigrants benefit the economy.
What I like about this approach is that it foregrounds that and helps people understand that benefit.
But I worry this will just sound absurd to the general public "defund the police and everything will be fine? Yeah right", "Fix the debt by letting loads of immigrants in? Seriously get some common sense".
I think the only way to do this is will appropriately stern language "we're going to make immigrants pay for the privilege of being in the US, and then we are going to role it out for every visa category (while dramatically expanding it)"
It would be useful if Matt could put a sticker at the top of each policy-related post with either of these two messages as appropriate:
"This is a really good idea but politicians would be crazy to run on it and try to turn it into law."
"This is a really good idea and I encourage politicians to campaign on it and try to turn it into law."
I'm not sure which label Matt would choose for this post.
Not sure but I infer the lack of a paywall as putting this one in the latter category.
It's complicated. If the latter it makes it sound like Matt is saying "Democrats shouldn't run on unpopular ideas unless I think they're good" and if it's the former one has to wonder what the purpose is if you're not trying to shape the agenda of the next Democratic administration and Congress.
I guess the weaselly way out is "I'm trying to shape the debate behind the scenes so we can eventually make these ideas more popular."
I buy that!