From my POV as an immigrant there was never a real bipartisan consensus - thats why the bills did not pass! - and there was always an enormous amount of racism that prevents anything from getting done. The United States is deeply racist. Its not just white people (though it is mostly white people!) there is ALSO plenty of racism from non-whites against other non-whites-from-a-different-ethnic-group and so the decreasing white majority isn't solving this problem. The woke young white guys coming up with dumb shit like 'Latinx', throwing money at BLM and making big companies waste money and DEI are accomplishing nothing useful. You need to actually persuade voters to not be racist and that is really really really hard.
Just heard a story on CNN about human smugglers charging $10K per head to bring migrants on a dangerous journey across the border.
How about the government collecting that money? Charge admission to anyone who wants to immigrate and use that money to defray public costs associated with immigration.
Anyone else had fun with USCIS in the last decade? Getting my wife her green card while we lived in Asia was a real adventure in 2017. Talk about inscrutable backlogged bureaucracy.
The problem with the old immigration consensus is the Republicans at current have no interest in it. Trump completely changed the dynamics for them on immigration as a party and you don't have 10 Republicans who are willing to make any sort of deal at current. There are plenty of Republican Senators who may personally think it's a good idea, but none of them want to touch it at current.
My impression of AMLO is that he's kind of a megalomaniac and despite his "socialist" persona, he saw in Trump sort of a kindred spirit.
Basically he just "liked the cut of Trump's jib", saw his anti-Mexican racist ravings as irrelevant at worst, clever at best, and felt he was a man he could do business with. (Not unlike Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman, who clearly is waiting with baited breath for Trump to replace Biden and come riding to his metaphorical rescue.)
True Mexico experts will correct me if I'm wrong here. These are mostly suppositions and guesses.
I think James M probably got it right below, you can read his post that begins "Isn't the key difference..."
I'd be pretty surprised if that kind of buddy buddy thing you're describing was the true reason, partially because Mexico's presidency isn't a dictatorship, and changes in policy require a lot of cooperation at various levels of government.
Fair. The comparison to bin Salman was a little inapt--bin Salman is genuinely a dictator, whereas AMLO operates in a country historically leery of any one man amassing power, and famously punishing of any who try.
But he does seem to have a few unhealthy tendencies that make him, shall we say, more on Trump's wavelength than the guy who preceded him. I have noticed his habit of declaring elections he doesn't win "rigged" and dismantling social programs created by politicians he doesn't like. That, and the whole religious/evangelical thing.
Perhaps this is all just normal in context. Likely he doesn't care too much who is US president. But I imagine Trump and him understood each other better than we know. :/
Thanks for this helpful overview. I agree with your positions and hope DC and state-level politicians finally get to work on real solutions. Apart from the short-term political benefits of all the obvious stunts and jackass partisan bullshit you mention, why haven't some decent Senators and Governors stepped up on this issue? I don't believe that every single Senator and Governor is a short-sided partisan hack. What's keeping the good guys from doing anything on this issue? Surely there are giant business special interest groups across most sectors of the economy who want sensible reform. Why have they been so ineffectual in pushing for it?
Excellent article again, Matt. In addition to your fine suggestions, we believe accelerating Climate Change is a factor for the increase. In addition, I personally know of another issue that is troublesome. A relative of ours was an Immigration judge, appointed by Trump, who was particularly tough & focused on getting rid of gang members. When Biden was elected, a softer stance was brought in by the state Attorney General, our relative was fired. This problem of not recognizing and deporting the criminal applicants because they are technically children ought, in my mind, be addressed. [Yes. I am a registered Democrat but also want immigration to work.] My final concern is the extremely high expense of actually becoming a citizen. Paying back taxes after working off the grid would be very difficult. When an immigrant is not fluent in English, answering the questions can also need several tries and several pays of the fees.
The reason we are inundated with asylum seekers is that several Central American countries are basically failed states, where drug gangs get to murder and extort with impunity (my apologies and meaning no personal insult to anyone from Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras reading these words.) Plus, climate change means terrible droughts and loss of farming. How can we/should we help Central America develop to the point where people *want* to stay there?
We talk about immigration like it's an unalloyed good, but for plenty of people, it's the least bad option - they don't want to leave, but feel forced to do so. Homesickness is a thing; nostalgia is a thing. Many people would be happier if they could stay in a peaceful and prosperous Guatemala rather than abandoning everything they know and moving to a new country where they don't know anyone and may not feel like they fit in.
Is there any realistic way to help Central America without being neo-imperialist or having a bunch of really bad unintended consequences?
This year's surge is largely fueled by Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti. People are flying to Mexico and then heading north. And, in the case of Venezuela, they can't be deported.
Fair point, but my question remains. How can/should we help these countries? Especially Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Millions upon millions of foreign aid $$ poured into Haiti don't seem to have helped at all.
The root cause seems to be the legal and political systems being incompetent and corrupt.
Most countries, our own included, can barely figure out how to fix problems like that within themselves. So fixing it somewhere else is a very tall order.
The alternative is we stop "helping" Central America at all. That is, we stop supporting right-wing governments aligned with the US who have a habit of immiserating and killing their own population, causing them to want to flee to the US.
Has this been true since like, the 80s? We've sanctioned the Ortega regime in Nicaragua. Venezuela and Cuba have hard-left regimes that aren't recognized by the US and they're the two main countries driving asylum claims.
Our actions in Venezuela and Cuba absolutely drive refugee flows to the US. There are persistent questions about our involvement in the coup in Honduras in 2009. Take a look at the "Aftermath" section of the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
On another point, that map of Venezuelan sanctions is amazing. Basically, North and South America, and the EU/UK, and that's it. Sort of amazing how even Japan and South Korea and Australia haven't gone along with them.
I'm not saying Venezuelan sanctions were the cause of their economic collapse. Misuse of oil funds by a kleptocracy (like in many other oil-based economies) was the cause. My point (supported in the article) is that "the new sanctions could worsen the situation.[5][6] In April 2019, Human Rights Watch and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a joint report noting that most early sanctions did not target the Venezuelan economy in any way,[7] adding that sanctions imposed in 2019 could worsen the situation, but that "the crisis precedes them"."
If you really want to reduce refugee and immigration to the US, one way is to reduce the poverty and desperation of the feeder countries. The US government is not doing that in Venezuela, because other foreign policy goals are considered to more important than reducing Venezuelan immigration to the US. That's my point about "helping" Latin America.
Our sanctions on Venezuela and our wet-foot, dry-foot policy on Cuba absolutely factor into people's considerations on whether to emigrate. Those governments have the primary responsibility, but there are policy changes we could make tomorrow that would reduce the flow of migrants to the US if we wanted to.
Of course! Right-wingers believe in pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Left-wingers believe the US government should do more to take care of the less fortunate. We should listen to their wishes!
Final thought: I'm skeptical a compromise is available. I think the Venn diagram of American immigration positions looks like a series of barely overlapping circles; some circles don't even touch any other circles.
Hi Matt Y., this is a fascinating column and I agree with a lot of it! However, this sticks out like a sore thumb:
"Immigration is a big part of the historical reason that the United States became the world’s hegemonic superpower rather than a somewhat warmer version of Canada..."
Say what? You do know that Canada is a nation of immigrants just as much as the U.S. is, right? I did a quick Google search just now, and as of 2018, 14% of Americans were foreign born, whereas as of 2019, 21% of Canadians were foreign born. On a per capita basis, Canada has a lot more immigrants than the U.S. does! The dynamics are completely different, true, because Canada accepts a lot more skilled immigrants using the point system, and Canada does not get huge numbers of Central Americans fleeing their countries via a land border.
If having a high proportion of immigrants were the major key to being a superpower, then Canada would be totally kicking America's butt. The major reason why the U.S. is a hegemonic superpower and Canada is not is that much of Canada is freaking cold and unsuitable to sustaining large human populations or agriculture. Same with Australia, only substitute "dry" for "cold."
Canada does now, but historically, a huge number of people migrated from Canada to the US, and Canada was much less welcoming of non-white immigrants than the US for much of its history. It changed, and that's been good for Canada, but the change is recent. Read "Maximum Canada"on this point.
I don't know what MY means exactly, because that stat is correct.
But 10 years ago we probably had similar numbers of foreign born, and the farther back you go the higher our numbers look relative to Canada. So historically could easily refer to previous periods of American history when we developed into a superpower, and not the present where we take that status for granted.
Pre 2000, Canada had fewer immigrants than the US because it was poorer and therefore less attractive than the US. As late as the 60s, median incomes in Canada were 80% of US levels. Also, Canada’s membership in the Commonwealth sucked it into the world wars deeper than the US, it had the same number of combat deaths as the US in world war one, but had only 1/10 the population.
In today’s world it’s much harder to legally immigrate to the US than to most countries, not just other colonialism-based countries like Canada or Australia but even the “old countries” of Western Europe. The gap is especially stark for young professionals whom the us appear to really not want here whereas the rest of the developed world welcomes with open arms (more or less). However this has not at all been the case historically. The us used to be kind of unique as a country open to multi-national immigration (as opposed to a colony serving as destination for population surplus of a single mother country). That’s what made it historically unique and gave it idiosyncratic characteristics. That’s what MY is referring to, I think.
"The gap is especially stark for young professionals whom the us appear to really not want here whereas the rest of the developed world welcomes with open arms (more or less)."
This is so true. I am an American professor in experimental biological sciences. I mentor people who come here for a PhD and all things equal would like to stay. The channels for skilled immigration are so narrow to navigate relative to most anywhere else in the developed world. The students who happen to meet an American partner and get green card sponsorship that way have a relatively easy time finding employment. Otherwise the channels for visa sponsorship through H1B or E1B are a nightmare to navigate. Many leave for Canada, the EU, or the UK eventually. Canada is particularly attractive due to Express Entry. Some leave for their home countries. Others leave for places like China or Saudi Arabia/Dubai. It's gotten so tough that only the wealthiest of US companies or tenure track academic positions really sponsor visas for PhD level scientists--definitely not an early stage biotech.
Conversely, I myself have considered leaving the US on a few occasions for professional opportunities that have come up both in biotech and universities in other countries. Visa sponsorship for someone with my educational/professional background (PhD in the hard sciences) is a total non-issue. It wasn't even a consideration when evaluating hiring me, even at startups. The process was much more streamlined and the amount of time from visa to permanent resident was much shorter/more straightforward than navigating it in the US.
It’s become a sad joke and I don’t think most Americans, even the educated classes, truly grasp how much the rest of the world caught up and indeed left the us far behind on this, just like with infrastructure and many other things that are getting worse in the us even as peer countries made colossal strides.
It's absolutely true that it is very hard for skilled immigrants to come to the US. Unfortunately, the Republicans have decided to be terrible on this issue, so there is little chance for reform here.
Imo the Democrats mirror the problem by likewise now refusing to distinguish between legal and illegal (and unskilled/skilled) immigration. There are two to this mess of a tango, even if one is a more atrocious dancer.
I'm pretty sure Biden read some of those Human Rights Watch papers you were talking about and asked AMLO to tone down the human rights abuses, and they refused. That's why the arrangement isn't working anymore. Furthermore, this European style "first safe harbor" policy, which I agree seems sensible, only works when dealing with governments. The problem in Mexico is we aren't dealing with just a government; the cartels control more of Mexico's borders than the state does.
You're making a good case for military action. It seems the choice of outcome goes something like this:
1. Keep the 3rd safe country agreement and require asylum seekers to behave as though they are actually seeking asylum away from their home countries and not just ostensibly doing so under the painfully obvious guise of immigrating to a richer country for economic reasons. Ignore the fact that the cartels are making billions off of these people and generally treating them the way uncivilized people do. This was what happened toward the end of the Trump administration.
2. Eliminate the 3rd safe country agreement in the name of being nice or "not MAGA." Wait for the impossible, multi-year backlog of fallacious asylum claims to work its way out. Under an administration that obeys the law and deports those who fail to meet valid asylum standards under the law, the majority of those not from Venezuela or Cuba will be ordered to leave the country but many likely will not. This is our current status quo.
3. Do something about the cartels. Sanctions won't make a dent in them, and no amount of outside political pressure against AMLO will strike fear for his life more than the cartels will. The US military could raise our beautiful flag over Mexico City in no time given the fact that we can do that half a globe away against much more powerful countries. It's kind of a self-own on Mexico's part that the criminals have all the power and the citizens so few. This is what late-stage gun control looks like in a low-trust culture with weak national leadership.
I have a cheaper, easier, and much more fun way to deal with the cartels: legalize cocaine and opium. Bonus: when we can all legally buy cocaine at the local mini mart, the meth market will collapse.
What about the effect of immigration on culture? As an immigrant myself, I don’t think it’s entirely positive. We bring our different ways of thinking and I don’t think it’s always a good thing. I think Americans seriously underestimate how long that socialization endures. I grew up in the US since age 5, and I’m still quite different in my thinking than other Americans.
Matt mentions historical immigration, but was that positive? I can’t help but notice that e.g. Italian immigration made New York City more like Italy (chaotic and disorganized). Wouldn’t it be better, or at least more orderly, if it was still New Amsterdam and populated by Dutch people?
The Netherlands seems like a great place, but it was still New Yorkers who had to bail their asses out in WW2. I'm sure that our culture has changed significantly over the years as our immigration levels and directions have changed, but that change isn't necessarily bad or good. Italian culture is good at some things and bad at others. There is no one single culture that is the best at everything. And I don't think the dutch culture today is the same as it was in the 1800s, so how much does it really matter anyway? We are one of the strongest, most innovative nations on the planet so how can we now claim that the cultural diversity was a weak point? Is it the culture of England that made us strong? Then why are we now stronger than England? I don't think there is any evidence to say that maintaining one kind of culture leads to better outcomes.
It all depends on the culture. I don’t think that, for example, Korean immigrants bitterly clinging to their love of education and high social cohesion is making the US worse off.
This comment isn't even wrong. It's an unfalsifiable, ahistorical statement that doesn't even purport to explain how immigration affects local culture and government over long periods.
In an effort to try to stay very strictly on-topic with my top level comment, as I already shared my radical opinions on immigration on the merits last week, it seems to me that a major factor why the bipartisan immigration consensus is gone is due to the devastation of the labor left as a political force. That force, often skeptical of immigration out of concerns of job and wage competition, would counteract with the pro-business right who like it for that very reason--and the balance would be sealed with the inverted competition between the civil rights left and the racist/xenophobic right.
But without the labor left, the balance gets wrecked with the civil rights left becoming dominant on immigration in the Democratic Party, while the pro-business right in the Republican Party has a lot harder work to do in internally competing with a rise in the racist/xenophobic right that otherwise might have been contained more on the labor left side of things.
There's truth to this as political analysis, but the thing is that the labor left's skepticism about immigration was never actually based in economic reality. Increased immigration doesn't really hurt union members materially.
At a certain point, why not just charge a hefty fine, but allow people to pay it off over time? Coyotes are already $5k+ a person. Why not charge a "fine" of say, $40/50k, payable over 30+ years? The monthly payment comes out to like $300 a month at current mortgage rates, which is likely less than the wage premium of having a green card. Pretty much everyone wins. Treasury gets money, conservatives get to feel like they punished people, liberals get to avoid senseless deportations. Hell, would make legal immigration a hell of a lot easier too. For an extra year's worth of international student tuition, you get a green card. Companies would def offer it as a fringe benefit.
At some point this just becomes allowing people to pay for citizenship, which I believe many countries to actually do, but they charge a lot more for it than that. It sounds like an idea worth exploring.
We should do "comprehensive immigration reform" but we should stop tying high-skill visa-based immigration to it. A much easier bill to hanmer out is one that just increases visa and green cards caps and adds new categories as needed.
Unfortunately, there's a large anti-immigrant caucus that won't support anything that increases any category of legal immigration without decreasing some category of immigration.
I don't completely disagree with you about that, but I think there is still value in a push.
In public comments, there is a voting majority with enough GOP Senators and Representatives who have stated they have no problem with high-skill legal immigrants and that this is only about securing our borders. In practice I think you are right. I think these GOP representatives will expend zero political capital on behalf on immigrants and are all too inclined to instead hold them hostage to other political negotiations.
But if that's the case, I think we really should drive a wedge in the GOP coalition. And in the process, we'd be sucessfully anchoring public perceptions of immigrants to doctors, programmers, graduate students, etc.
From my POV as an immigrant there was never a real bipartisan consensus - thats why the bills did not pass! - and there was always an enormous amount of racism that prevents anything from getting done. The United States is deeply racist. Its not just white people (though it is mostly white people!) there is ALSO plenty of racism from non-whites against other non-whites-from-a-different-ethnic-group and so the decreasing white majority isn't solving this problem. The woke young white guys coming up with dumb shit like 'Latinx', throwing money at BLM and making big companies waste money and DEI are accomplishing nothing useful. You need to actually persuade voters to not be racist and that is really really really hard.
Just heard a story on CNN about human smugglers charging $10K per head to bring migrants on a dangerous journey across the border.
How about the government collecting that money? Charge admission to anyone who wants to immigrate and use that money to defray public costs associated with immigration.
Anyone else had fun with USCIS in the last decade? Getting my wife her green card while we lived in Asia was a real adventure in 2017. Talk about inscrutable backlogged bureaucracy.
The problem with the old immigration consensus is the Republicans at current have no interest in it. Trump completely changed the dynamics for them on immigration as a party and you don't have 10 Republicans who are willing to make any sort of deal at current. There are plenty of Republican Senators who may personally think it's a good idea, but none of them want to touch it at current.
My impression of AMLO is that he's kind of a megalomaniac and despite his "socialist" persona, he saw in Trump sort of a kindred spirit.
Basically he just "liked the cut of Trump's jib", saw his anti-Mexican racist ravings as irrelevant at worst, clever at best, and felt he was a man he could do business with. (Not unlike Saudi Arabia and Mohammed bin Salman, who clearly is waiting with baited breath for Trump to replace Biden and come riding to his metaphorical rescue.)
True Mexico experts will correct me if I'm wrong here. These are mostly suppositions and guesses.
I think James M probably got it right below, you can read his post that begins "Isn't the key difference..."
I'd be pretty surprised if that kind of buddy buddy thing you're describing was the true reason, partially because Mexico's presidency isn't a dictatorship, and changes in policy require a lot of cooperation at various levels of government.
Fair. The comparison to bin Salman was a little inapt--bin Salman is genuinely a dictator, whereas AMLO operates in a country historically leery of any one man amassing power, and famously punishing of any who try.
But he does seem to have a few unhealthy tendencies that make him, shall we say, more on Trump's wavelength than the guy who preceded him. I have noticed his habit of declaring elections he doesn't win "rigged" and dismantling social programs created by politicians he doesn't like. That, and the whole religious/evangelical thing.
Perhaps this is all just normal in context. Likely he doesn't care too much who is US president. But I imagine Trump and him understood each other better than we know. :/
Thanks for this helpful overview. I agree with your positions and hope DC and state-level politicians finally get to work on real solutions. Apart from the short-term political benefits of all the obvious stunts and jackass partisan bullshit you mention, why haven't some decent Senators and Governors stepped up on this issue? I don't believe that every single Senator and Governor is a short-sided partisan hack. What's keeping the good guys from doing anything on this issue? Surely there are giant business special interest groups across most sectors of the economy who want sensible reform. Why have they been so ineffectual in pushing for it?
Mainstream media for the win. This is a very informative 6 minutes:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/annual-u-s-border-arrests-top-2-million-fueled-by-record-migration-from-venezuela-cuba-and-nicaragua/
Excellent article again, Matt. In addition to your fine suggestions, we believe accelerating Climate Change is a factor for the increase. In addition, I personally know of another issue that is troublesome. A relative of ours was an Immigration judge, appointed by Trump, who was particularly tough & focused on getting rid of gang members. When Biden was elected, a softer stance was brought in by the state Attorney General, our relative was fired. This problem of not recognizing and deporting the criminal applicants because they are technically children ought, in my mind, be addressed. [Yes. I am a registered Democrat but also want immigration to work.] My final concern is the extremely high expense of actually becoming a citizen. Paying back taxes after working off the grid would be very difficult. When an immigrant is not fluent in English, answering the questions can also need several tries and several pays of the fees.
SallyJones
I guess it’s my ignorance here, but are immigration judges not real judges ? How can he be “fired”?
Elephant in the room time!
The reason we are inundated with asylum seekers is that several Central American countries are basically failed states, where drug gangs get to murder and extort with impunity (my apologies and meaning no personal insult to anyone from Guatemala, El Salvador, or Honduras reading these words.) Plus, climate change means terrible droughts and loss of farming. How can we/should we help Central America develop to the point where people *want* to stay there?
We talk about immigration like it's an unalloyed good, but for plenty of people, it's the least bad option - they don't want to leave, but feel forced to do so. Homesickness is a thing; nostalgia is a thing. Many people would be happier if they could stay in a peaceful and prosperous Guatemala rather than abandoning everything they know and moving to a new country where they don't know anyone and may not feel like they fit in.
Is there any realistic way to help Central America without being neo-imperialist or having a bunch of really bad unintended consequences?
This year's surge is largely fueled by Venezuela, Cuba and Haiti. People are flying to Mexico and then heading north. And, in the case of Venezuela, they can't be deported.
Fair point, but my question remains. How can/should we help these countries? Especially Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Millions upon millions of foreign aid $$ poured into Haiti don't seem to have helped at all.
Find similar stories of countries that have ended in success.
The root cause seems to be the legal and political systems being incompetent and corrupt.
Most countries, our own included, can barely figure out how to fix problems like that within themselves. So fixing it somewhere else is a very tall order.
The alternative is we stop "helping" Central America at all. That is, we stop supporting right-wing governments aligned with the US who have a habit of immiserating and killing their own population, causing them to want to flee to the US.
Has this been true since like, the 80s? We've sanctioned the Ortega regime in Nicaragua. Venezuela and Cuba have hard-left regimes that aren't recognized by the US and they're the two main countries driving asylum claims.
Our actions in Venezuela and Cuba absolutely drive refugee flows to the US. There are persistent questions about our involvement in the coup in Honduras in 2009. Take a look at the "Aftermath" section of the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_coup_d'%C3%A9tat
Venezuela was very far into literally collapsing years before the US imposed economic sanctions. This is a common far left talking point, but it's just wrong. You can read the actual history of them here! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Venezuelan_crisis
On another point, that map of Venezuelan sanctions is amazing. Basically, North and South America, and the EU/UK, and that's it. Sort of amazing how even Japan and South Korea and Australia haven't gone along with them.
I'm not saying Venezuelan sanctions were the cause of their economic collapse. Misuse of oil funds by a kleptocracy (like in many other oil-based economies) was the cause. My point (supported in the article) is that "the new sanctions could worsen the situation.[5][6] In April 2019, Human Rights Watch and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published a joint report noting that most early sanctions did not target the Venezuelan economy in any way,[7] adding that sanctions imposed in 2019 could worsen the situation, but that "the crisis precedes them"."
If you really want to reduce refugee and immigration to the US, one way is to reduce the poverty and desperation of the feeder countries. The US government is not doing that in Venezuela, because other foreign policy goals are considered to more important than reducing Venezuelan immigration to the US. That's my point about "helping" Latin America.
“Our actions in Venezuela and Cuba absolutely drive refugee flows to the US”
Naw, it’s the actions of the murderous, leftist governments in those countries that people are fleeing.
Our sanctions on Venezuela and our wet-foot, dry-foot policy on Cuba absolutely factor into people's considerations on whether to emigrate. Those governments have the primary responsibility, but there are policy changes we could make tomorrow that would reduce the flow of migrants to the US if we wanted to.
It's only bad to send aid if it's a right-wing dictatorship. If it's a left-wing dictatorship, then the problem is not sending aid.
Of course! Right-wingers believe in pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Left-wingers believe the US government should do more to take care of the less fortunate. We should listen to their wishes!
Final thought: I'm skeptical a compromise is available. I think the Venn diagram of American immigration positions looks like a series of barely overlapping circles; some circles don't even touch any other circles.
Hi Matt Y., this is a fascinating column and I agree with a lot of it! However, this sticks out like a sore thumb:
"Immigration is a big part of the historical reason that the United States became the world’s hegemonic superpower rather than a somewhat warmer version of Canada..."
Say what? You do know that Canada is a nation of immigrants just as much as the U.S. is, right? I did a quick Google search just now, and as of 2018, 14% of Americans were foreign born, whereas as of 2019, 21% of Canadians were foreign born. On a per capita basis, Canada has a lot more immigrants than the U.S. does! The dynamics are completely different, true, because Canada accepts a lot more skilled immigrants using the point system, and Canada does not get huge numbers of Central Americans fleeing their countries via a land border.
If having a high proportion of immigrants were the major key to being a superpower, then Canada would be totally kicking America's butt. The major reason why the U.S. is a hegemonic superpower and Canada is not is that much of Canada is freaking cold and unsuitable to sustaining large human populations or agriculture. Same with Australia, only substitute "dry" for "cold."
Canada does now, but historically, a huge number of people migrated from Canada to the US, and Canada was much less welcoming of non-white immigrants than the US for much of its history. It changed, and that's been good for Canada, but the change is recent. Read "Maximum Canada"on this point.
I don't know what MY means exactly, because that stat is correct.
But 10 years ago we probably had similar numbers of foreign born, and the farther back you go the higher our numbers look relative to Canada. So historically could easily refer to previous periods of American history when we developed into a superpower, and not the present where we take that status for granted.
Pre 2000, Canada had fewer immigrants than the US because it was poorer and therefore less attractive than the US. As late as the 60s, median incomes in Canada were 80% of US levels. Also, Canada’s membership in the Commonwealth sucked it into the world wars deeper than the US, it had the same number of combat deaths as the US in world war one, but had only 1/10 the population.
In today’s world it’s much harder to legally immigrate to the US than to most countries, not just other colonialism-based countries like Canada or Australia but even the “old countries” of Western Europe. The gap is especially stark for young professionals whom the us appear to really not want here whereas the rest of the developed world welcomes with open arms (more or less). However this has not at all been the case historically. The us used to be kind of unique as a country open to multi-national immigration (as opposed to a colony serving as destination for population surplus of a single mother country). That’s what made it historically unique and gave it idiosyncratic characteristics. That’s what MY is referring to, I think.
"The gap is especially stark for young professionals whom the us appear to really not want here whereas the rest of the developed world welcomes with open arms (more or less)."
This is so true. I am an American professor in experimental biological sciences. I mentor people who come here for a PhD and all things equal would like to stay. The channels for skilled immigration are so narrow to navigate relative to most anywhere else in the developed world. The students who happen to meet an American partner and get green card sponsorship that way have a relatively easy time finding employment. Otherwise the channels for visa sponsorship through H1B or E1B are a nightmare to navigate. Many leave for Canada, the EU, or the UK eventually. Canada is particularly attractive due to Express Entry. Some leave for their home countries. Others leave for places like China or Saudi Arabia/Dubai. It's gotten so tough that only the wealthiest of US companies or tenure track academic positions really sponsor visas for PhD level scientists--definitely not an early stage biotech.
Conversely, I myself have considered leaving the US on a few occasions for professional opportunities that have come up both in biotech and universities in other countries. Visa sponsorship for someone with my educational/professional background (PhD in the hard sciences) is a total non-issue. It wasn't even a consideration when evaluating hiring me, even at startups. The process was much more streamlined and the amount of time from visa to permanent resident was much shorter/more straightforward than navigating it in the US.
It’s become a sad joke and I don’t think most Americans, even the educated classes, truly grasp how much the rest of the world caught up and indeed left the us far behind on this, just like with infrastructure and many other things that are getting worse in the us even as peer countries made colossal strides.
It's absolutely true that it is very hard for skilled immigrants to come to the US. Unfortunately, the Republicans have decided to be terrible on this issue, so there is little chance for reform here.
Imo the Democrats mirror the problem by likewise now refusing to distinguish between legal and illegal (and unskilled/skilled) immigration. There are two to this mess of a tango, even if one is a more atrocious dancer.
Yes, yes, you must always both-sides any issue.
He means in terms of total population, not percentage.
I'm pretty sure Biden read some of those Human Rights Watch papers you were talking about and asked AMLO to tone down the human rights abuses, and they refused. That's why the arrangement isn't working anymore. Furthermore, this European style "first safe harbor" policy, which I agree seems sensible, only works when dealing with governments. The problem in Mexico is we aren't dealing with just a government; the cartels control more of Mexico's borders than the state does.
You're making a good case for military action. It seems the choice of outcome goes something like this:
1. Keep the 3rd safe country agreement and require asylum seekers to behave as though they are actually seeking asylum away from their home countries and not just ostensibly doing so under the painfully obvious guise of immigrating to a richer country for economic reasons. Ignore the fact that the cartels are making billions off of these people and generally treating them the way uncivilized people do. This was what happened toward the end of the Trump administration.
2. Eliminate the 3rd safe country agreement in the name of being nice or "not MAGA." Wait for the impossible, multi-year backlog of fallacious asylum claims to work its way out. Under an administration that obeys the law and deports those who fail to meet valid asylum standards under the law, the majority of those not from Venezuela or Cuba will be ordered to leave the country but many likely will not. This is our current status quo.
3. Do something about the cartels. Sanctions won't make a dent in them, and no amount of outside political pressure against AMLO will strike fear for his life more than the cartels will. The US military could raise our beautiful flag over Mexico City in no time given the fact that we can do that half a globe away against much more powerful countries. It's kind of a self-own on Mexico's part that the criminals have all the power and the citizens so few. This is what late-stage gun control looks like in a low-trust culture with weak national leadership.
I have a cheaper, easier, and much more fun way to deal with the cartels: legalize cocaine and opium. Bonus: when we can all legally buy cocaine at the local mini mart, the meth market will collapse.
“…when we can all legally buy cocaine at the local mini mart…”
…our neighborhoods will be totally safe for pedestrians.
You want the U.S. to invade and occupy Mexico?
What could possibly go wrong?
Yep! 😅 “What could possibly go wrong?” is exactly the right question, lol
What about the effect of immigration on culture? As an immigrant myself, I don’t think it’s entirely positive. We bring our different ways of thinking and I don’t think it’s always a good thing. I think Americans seriously underestimate how long that socialization endures. I grew up in the US since age 5, and I’m still quite different in my thinking than other Americans.
Matt mentions historical immigration, but was that positive? I can’t help but notice that e.g. Italian immigration made New York City more like Italy (chaotic and disorganized). Wouldn’t it be better, or at least more orderly, if it was still New Amsterdam and populated by Dutch people?
The Netherlands seems like a great place, but it was still New Yorkers who had to bail their asses out in WW2. I'm sure that our culture has changed significantly over the years as our immigration levels and directions have changed, but that change isn't necessarily bad or good. Italian culture is good at some things and bad at others. There is no one single culture that is the best at everything. And I don't think the dutch culture today is the same as it was in the 1800s, so how much does it really matter anyway? We are one of the strongest, most innovative nations on the planet so how can we now claim that the cultural diversity was a weak point? Is it the culture of England that made us strong? Then why are we now stronger than England? I don't think there is any evidence to say that maintaining one kind of culture leads to better outcomes.
It all depends on the culture. I don’t think that, for example, Korean immigrants bitterly clinging to their love of education and high social cohesion is making the US worse off.
This comment isn't even wrong. It's an unfalsifiable, ahistorical statement that doesn't even purport to explain how immigration affects local culture and government over long periods.
In an effort to try to stay very strictly on-topic with my top level comment, as I already shared my radical opinions on immigration on the merits last week, it seems to me that a major factor why the bipartisan immigration consensus is gone is due to the devastation of the labor left as a political force. That force, often skeptical of immigration out of concerns of job and wage competition, would counteract with the pro-business right who like it for that very reason--and the balance would be sealed with the inverted competition between the civil rights left and the racist/xenophobic right.
But without the labor left, the balance gets wrecked with the civil rights left becoming dominant on immigration in the Democratic Party, while the pro-business right in the Republican Party has a lot harder work to do in internally competing with a rise in the racist/xenophobic right that otherwise might have been contained more on the labor left side of things.
There's truth to this as political analysis, but the thing is that the labor left's skepticism about immigration was never actually based in economic reality. Increased immigration doesn't really hurt union members materially.
So why has the labor movement in the us faired so poorly compared to Europe?
Oh I agree with that, but I don't know if they always did.
At a certain point, why not just charge a hefty fine, but allow people to pay it off over time? Coyotes are already $5k+ a person. Why not charge a "fine" of say, $40/50k, payable over 30+ years? The monthly payment comes out to like $300 a month at current mortgage rates, which is likely less than the wage premium of having a green card. Pretty much everyone wins. Treasury gets money, conservatives get to feel like they punished people, liberals get to avoid senseless deportations. Hell, would make legal immigration a hell of a lot easier too. For an extra year's worth of international student tuition, you get a green card. Companies would def offer it as a fringe benefit.
At some point this just becomes allowing people to pay for citizenship, which I believe many countries to actually do, but they charge a lot more for it than that. It sounds like an idea worth exploring.
"Why not charge a "fine" of say, $40/50k, payable over 30+ years?"
"Saint Peter, don't you call me, cause I can't goooo....
I owe my soul to the company store."
[dun-dun-dun-dun-dundundun-DUNNNN]
We should do "comprehensive immigration reform" but we should stop tying high-skill visa-based immigration to it. A much easier bill to hanmer out is one that just increases visa and green cards caps and adds new categories as needed.
Unfortunately, there's a large anti-immigrant caucus that won't support anything that increases any category of legal immigration without decreasing some category of immigration.
I don't completely disagree with you about that, but I think there is still value in a push.
In public comments, there is a voting majority with enough GOP Senators and Representatives who have stated they have no problem with high-skill legal immigrants and that this is only about securing our borders. In practice I think you are right. I think these GOP representatives will expend zero political capital on behalf on immigrants and are all too inclined to instead hold them hostage to other political negotiations.
But if that's the case, I think we really should drive a wedge in the GOP coalition. And in the process, we'd be sucessfully anchoring public perceptions of immigrants to doctors, programmers, graduate students, etc.