Adam Tooze has a great write up taking the position that the administration's escalations are a deliberate and considered tactic to shore up his core base in the face of flagging support for his tax, trade, and broader economic policies. I'm not American (am married to one) and don't live in America but please please please I hope you guys figure it all out. I miss the America of the 90s and am rooting for you all.
If Democrats want to win on immigration in the court of public opinion against Trump, they badly need a national leader who can get these activists to step back. Clearly, they won’t listen to Newsom. When deportations happen after following due process, there’s not much activists can do besides highlighting through personal stories how it’s affecting communities because that’s the current law. Whenever either side has overreached, there’s been voter backlash. If there’s one issue where Trump has a clear mandate, it’s to stop illegal immigration. His approval rating on immigration started to fall when he refused to follow due process and started harassing legal immigrants and international students.
I’m very pissed off with Democrats for not fixing skilled immigration when they had a chance (there used to be bipartisan consensus on this under Bush and Obama) and always lumping it with illegal immigration because of pressure from groups like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Their tactics failed and now it’ll be impossible to pass any kind of narrowly targeted legislation to fix the skilled immigration issues for many years to come.
There is nobody on Earth or in heaven who could convince these activists to step back IMO. These are the same activists who have spent years advocating for open borders, despite it being political suicide. And forcing Democratic politicians to support immigration policies very unpopular with moderate voters.
These activists are some of the dumbest people out there. They created an environment Trump is thriving in.
Mainstream dems have to grow a spine and vehemently disagree with these activists and take the risk of being targeted online. I think it is a gamble worth taking - whoever does that will become more popular not less.
It’s very common for governments across the western world to decide they’ll try to limit legal migration in response to public concerns over irregular (illegal and what Noah called quasi-legal) migration.
The same thing is happening in the UK. Public concern is highest about people entering the country irregularly. But the strictest measures have been taken against legal migrants - things like tightening the criteria for dependents or ending certain kinds of visas.
The reason for this, and the Trump administration’s, tactics is pretty simple. It’s a lot easier to restrict legal migration than illegal/irregular migration. The legal ones are easier to stop in the first place, and easier to find when they’re in the country. Also many legal migrants are less desperate, and will just up and leave if you make life hard enough for them.
The problem is that this is counterproductive. If you have labour shortages because you’ve gotten rid of the legal migrants, more irregular/illegal ones will probably arrive instead. Denying employers in sectors that need legal migrants hands an advantage to sectors where it’s easier to illegally employ people under-the-table.
I understand the current problem but there were many opportunities to pass standalone bills during the Bush/Obama years when skilled immigration was not a contentious issue and it was usually the Democrats who sunk those bills after attempts to pass CIR failed.
Having grown up in SoCal, I have witnessed many influxes of mass immigration. There are whole cities of Koreans, Vietnamese, and Hispanics. We have a Chinatown along with a Japanese section. SoCal is a polyglot of immigrants, including those from Iowa, who watched the Rose Parade and saw the temperature in January in the 60s or 70s, and moved there.
I also saw who took the jobs Americans no longer wanted to do, from picking strawberries in the summer sun to the construction trades. I do not want to hear the blather about “if you paid more money, more Americans would do that work,” because it is simply not true.
Even if you paid $20 or $25 an hour to pick strawberries, you could get an American kid to bend over in the hot summer sun for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, when the strawberries needed picking. You also couldn’t sell those strawberries at the price you’d need to be profitable. This is why most of the produce comes from Mexico.
We have a crashing birthrate, and it is global. We still need dishwashers, laborers, and other low-skilled jobs. They are not going away soon. Their children will become electricians, bankers, and entrepreneurs. This is how it works.
We need a simple work permit program that matches employers with employees. It doesn’t have to be a pathway to citizenship. We also need to streamline immigration. South of the border persons should not have a leg up on an Albanian PHD candidate, or the Malaysian doctor. We’ll need both.
Americans hate the flaunting of our laws. Americans are fine with immigration; they just want it to be legal and measured. They do not want to see hordes of immigrants crossing into the country without knowing who they are. Seemingly, our broken politics can't do anything about it.
As for the shibboleth of Democrats wanting immigrants for votes, it is true, because Democrats have owned those voters for several hundred years. I go into NYC politics, Boss Tweed etc. The history of the Irish and Italians is crystal clear to me. I suggest Noah would be well served to come to the East Coast and read about city politics in Boston and NY. He’ll understand why Republicans have this as a cannon.
A view from Europe: In both the US and Europe it is surprisingly difficult for governments to make changes to immigration, this fuels the frustration with voters. Why is it so difficult? We are dealing with human beings, often poor or fleeing unsafe countries, and no centrist politician wants to be accused of having no heart and therefore seems paralyzed to do something substantial about it. As a result you get in the end populists in power. But even they seem unable to get it under control. In Europe an important reason is that hands are tied by supra national treaties. Within the EU there is free movement of people therefore no limits can be put on migration within the EU. Internationally European countries signed up to UN refugee treaty and the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) giving basically every asylum seeker the right to stay (and even invite their family over).
And the difference between being an economic migrant and asylum seeker is often razor thin. After all, why would you travel thousands of miles on a dangerous journey through many countries to the country of choice to just seek protection if you could also get that in a neighboring country?
You claim that the US needs high skilled migrants but looking at the countries where most migrants come from this is probably just a small % of total migrants. And I dont think that these high skilled is the group voters in the US and Europe are concerned about.
The welfare states in Europe cannot afford large group of low skilled migrants that will cost more than they bring in with taxes.
Migration became a culture war issue issue in Europe too, but there is no denying that migration has changed cities and areas in a large way in past decades in Europe. Migrants might assimilate easier in the US than Europe because in the US they often come from the South with at least a similar religious cultural background, in Europe for example asylum seekers are almost all from Islamic countries with a different culture.
Nobody wants to become a minority in their own city or country and if you look at the demographics this is certainly a possibility. Native populations in European countries are shrinking, any growth is only coming from migration from outside Europe.
I see a similarity here with climate change, because the process is happening slowly, many people ignore or deny it, including politicians that only look at the next election, but if you look at demographics on a time scale of 50 or 100 years, I think the native populations and cultures in European countries could become minorities. Even if not deliberate, you can still call it replacement.
Being transAtlantic - this is utter and complete nonsense: "Migrants might assimilate easier in the US than Europe because in the US they often come from the South with at least a similar religious cultural background, in Europe for example asylum seekers are almost all from Islamic countries with a different culture."
There's nothing particularly more similar between Central American and Northern american culture other than the false cover of 'shared' religion (except it's Latino-flavored Catholicism rather than N. Euro Irish/Italian).
European failures are all about bad (naive) European policies, a lack of a cultural orientation to "immigration fusion" that for all US flaws, is pretty profound in American cultural references.
Maghrebine Muslims underneath xenophobic religious attitudes are really nothing more than South Mediterraneans. When one has lived on both sides of the Med for any time, it's more than abundantly clear.
Europeans using the religious excuse are doing nothing more than what the Old Guard Protestants of 19th century USA did in saying about exactly the same thing about Catholics (most especially S. Italian/Sicilian darkies) for pretty much the same reasons.
Liberal (international sese not USA sense) Europeans were naive and blind about immigration, too much simplistic Kumbaya thinking too little practical reflection informed by N. American (Canada and USA) or Ausssie experiences for good or bad. and too much too fast
(as see Brexit and Polish Plumbers reaction, so utter nonsense the finger pointing at Muslims qua Muslims)
´European failures are all about bad (naive) European policies, a lack of a cultural orientation to "immigration fusion" that for all US flaws, is pretty profound in American cultural references.´
Not sure what you mean with ´lack of cultural orientation to immigration fusion´, could you please explain and what Europeans in your opinion could learn from the USA?
And if N-America and Australia did better, why do they have the same problems and political polarization?
Apart from that, it is in my opinion a choice of a country what kind of policy they choose regarding to the level of immigration and integration of immigrants, somewhere between assimilation and multi-culturalism. The difference I see between Europe and traditional immigration countries like the USA is that in European countries like my own voters were never asked if they agreed with mass immigration, it simply happened. As a result there was never a clear choice for the amount of immigrants or how to handle integration issues. And there still isnt.
Australia doesn't have that level of political polarization about immigration though (the radical parties like One Nation, Trumpets of Patriots, etc. never got double digits in the polls anywhere!)
Partly this is because the ranked-choice voting system + mandatory voting that forced parties to be moderate; and partly this is due to the detention centres that Australia built to deter boat people though. (These are riddled with abuses and bad conditions, and being an infamous stain in Australia's reputation!)
It's quite clear that really high levels of immigration slow down assimilation. Also when immigrants are concentrated in certain areas that also slows down immigration.
If there is 1 immigrant per 100 people, and they are spread out, they basically have to assimilate.
But when you group them together, it becomes much easier for them to stick together and not assimilate.
Just between those two factors right there you can clearly see why Europe would be in trouble. Large amounts of immigration, and they are concentrated in certain areas not spread out.
That being, said, I do agree that certain cultures probably assimilate better than others.
I have read most of your pieces about immigration with great interest.
I am not American so can't claim to have an answer but the one thing that is missing, in my opinion, is a credible explanation of why the Great Replacement Theory is wrong.
To be clear, I am NOT saying it is right, but your only counterclaim appears to be "I can't quite tell [why Dems allowed a flood of illegal immigration] but Biden probably just thought it would be a winning culture war issue".
This is insufficient to address the claims made by the right. For this reason, a lot of otherwise moderate and sensible independent and centre right Americans I know believe that Democrats allow illegal immigration to change the country to achieve permanent Democrat control.
Until there is a credible explanation of why this isn't true, they will keep believing this.
Noah does provide one explanation in his post of why the great replacement theory is wrong; "Hispanic Americans themselves have trended toward the Republican party "
Do you think that illegal immigrants are voting in federal elections? Because they aren’t allowed to.
The replacement theory relies on a crucial step of turning these illegal immigrants to voters. Republicans think there’s just mass amounts of voter fraud, which has been disproven time and time again, most notably with dozens of lawsuits across the country in 2020 that all failed.
If there isn’t fraud, you either need naturalization or to rely on their kids. Amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants would be great imo but isn’t going anywhere. Kids of illegal immigrants that spend their whole lives in American are just Hispanic voters.
This is ultimately a question of fact as to intent. There is no evidence that Biden or the Democrats loosened border controls or policies to increase the numbers of Democrats. None. Not a piece of paper, no testimony, no emails, no texts, no speeches, no registration or voting records — no nothing.
The great replacement claim is a total fabrication, a cynical and racist scam to mislead and scare voters. The ultra-right bears the burden of establishing at least a prima facie case. They have nothing. Democrats can’t prove a negative but they have no need to since there is no evidence to rebut.
The Great Replacement Theory is wrong because it is fundamentally innumerate nonsense.
There is in no way the birthrates (post immigration) nor other assumed factors that the racists behind the Great Replacement Theory assert.
It's nonsense, pure and simple.
That however is separate from the idea that the Lefty Left, a certain fraction of the hard-Left and the wokey segment of the Democrats really were buying into an idea that they would take a permanent majority via identarian politics and ever-increasing levels of People-of-Color in the USA, and then they wouldn't have to dirty their hands appealing to the Deplorables (i.e. working class whites with for-Lefty Woke deplorable cultural beliefs).
So while Great Replacement is nonsense the relationship between the Right side belief and an equally nonsense belief set on the Wokey Left is there (two sets of innumerate and ahistorical nonsense married in a marriage of hell).
Not to mention books like "The Emerging Democrat majority" made similar points but from the left. That Democrats were going to ride a demographic change to permanent majority.
But of course the current majority probably doesn't want to become a minority.
I don't think there really is a counterclaim that will satisfy these people, much in the same way that no evidence-based counterclaim has satisfied the far leftists who believe that the United States is a fundamentally white supremacist country. Once people are that far down an internet rabbit hole, you're not going to bring them back by engaging directly with their argument, because it's become part of their personal identity.
I think better to come at it from a different angle. The truth is that Americans just aren't willing to do physical labor at the (low) pay rates that are necessary to provide cheap services to consumers. Ask any manufacturer, or restaurant owner, or farmer, or provider of care for elders, disabled people, or children; the list goes on. You have to get people to think about whether they're willing to do those jobs, or if they know anyone who is. And not just as a hypothetical -- ask people to name specific individuals that they know, who will wash dishes 8 hours a day for $15/hr.
It seems silly to take the “Great Replacement Theory” at face value, to pursue claims and counterclaims about the MOTIVES of the Democratic Party. I suppose one could search for memoranda from internal platform debates for evidence about motives, but I think it’s more likely that the “Great Replacement Theory” is just a paranoid, politically-motivated interpretation of progressive “openness” to new ideas, change, and otherness.
Immigrants don’t vote until they’ve been here long enough to become citizens - very few within a decade, and not a majority until multiple decades. Their children have a slight tendency to vote for Democrats, but not very strong, so this isn’t any more effective as a way to achieve control than blocking construction in California and hoping that Democrats moving to Texas will lead to a takeover there.
Birth rate differences overwhelm impacts from immigration. Whites are birthing children at levels far below replacement rate. Minorities (black,Latino, Muslim) have much higher birth rates. There is a strong correlations between wealth and birth rates. This changes with second and third generation immigrants as they get wealthier and more Americanized.
In theory, I agree with the high-minded ideals with that tweet about "nobody chooses where they're born". My own preferred framing is essentially to look at the issue through the veil of ignorance - if I was told I would be born into the world as it exists but not told where, I would prefer to have the option of making my own way to a free & prosperous country rather than risk being stuck in a wartorn shithole.
But I do think us pro-immigration people have a duty to work out how we can sustain these levels of immigration without it triggering civil unrest. This is something of a blind spot for progressives.
The "nobody chooses where they are born" argument for open borders is stupid because it still doesn't solve the problem of where you are born. There's a reason the US has millions of Mexican immigrants walking across the border and not millions of Chinese immigrants walking across the border.
To actually erase "nobody chooses where they are born" you'd need to pair open borders with a program that subsidies transportation based on distance so that a poor Cambodian is just as likely to enter the US as a poor South American.
The problem isn't with the financial cost of different entry routes - even the global poor could probably stump up a few hundred dollars for a once-in-a-lifetime lump sum to cover a one-way flight to America. The true issue your example illustrates is the ease with which different entry routes can bypass legality. It is much easier to walk across a land border thousands of miles long than it is to slip past airport security without a visa.
And in a world where all migration was legal, this would cease to be a problem.
Exactly. Many migrants to the U.S. from Latin America or Europe from the Middle East pay significantly more to people-smugglers than the cost of a flight from Phnom Penh to San Francisco.
How is that stupid? Saying you shouldn’t put arbitrary limits on mobility is different from taking on the costs of subsidizing people who have other mobility limits. It might be nice to live in a world where everyone can afford to travel wherever and whenever they want (so we need energy abundance). But you don’t have to argue for that in order to argue against spending money to make it harder for people to travel.
I would fully agree on "world as it exists" not what I would prefer.
the challenge is fundamentally that taking a broad international view, it is more than clear that whatever noble feelings, standards, immigration flows that tip over a certain percentage of 'recent immigrants' clearly trigger severe popular reaction - we can see it across geographies and cultures, Americas, Europe, North Africa relative to sub-Saharan.
Has to be taken as a human baseline and rather than wished away, worked with on its own basis.
US basically ended up stopping net-Mexican inflows via NAFTA - reform for economic growth in "issuing countries"
One of the most frustrating migration talking points for me is when people describe it as “importing” foreign workers - a way to combine ‘scary immigrants’ and ‘scary trade’. Strictly speaking, the only part of migrant labour that really “counts” as imports is whatever they send back as remittances. Globally, this is 15% of migrant earnings. This thinking is, I believe, the crux of the idea that migrants take jobs or depress wages. It exists because of how many people seem to subconsciously believe migrants aren’t real human beings who actually buy and consume stuff where they live too.
I remember an even more frustrating version of this in the debate over foreign students where I’m from in the UK. Numerous people described it as an “import dependence” on foreign students because of the fees they provide. But those students pay for the fees in British pounds, based on money they or their families have earned in their local currencies. Foreign students are an EXPORT for the UK, not an import.
Another frustrating aspect of migration policy is how Goodhart’s Law makes itself felt. Most of the time, as Noah says, the kind of immigration more voters have a problem with is this quasi-legal or illegal immigration. But the proof point becomes getting overall numbers down, and it’s way easier practically speaking to lower legal than illegal immigration.
What you have then are governments shutting off legal routes in response to frustration over more irregular immigration. This almost guarantees you get more irregular migration. Gaps in the labour market end up getting filled by more desperate people, and those who you probably want will go somewhere else when they have the choice to do so.
I agree that a decline in immigration will substantially reduce the US GDP, creating winners and losers that will be bad overall.
At the same time, I think a bigger, more legitimate concern is that at least some of these immigrants hold genuinely anti-American sympathies and resentments. Here is Illhan Omar’s daughter, who was welcomed into this country with open arms and given the opportunity to study at an Ivy League University, calling for Death to America:
What should happen to people like this? If even a small percentage of immigrants, let alone a large percentage of immigrants from the 3rd world, feel this way, what do you think the US is going to look like in a few generations?
I agree that lower immigration generally makes us poorer, and that's bad. Still, I have a genuinely difficult time understanding liberals who say we shouldn't be concerned about people like this.
Her daughter is a natural-born American citizen, so while I find her internet activity very distasteful, I don't really think anything should "happen to her" any more than something should happen to a dumbass frat bro who has a Confederate flag on his dorm room wall.
Where do you think she got these ideas from? What do you think will happen to the US if we keep importing people who openly say they want to destroy the country?
Previous waves of immigrants whether it was from Italy or Poland or somewhere else never openly said they wanted to destroy the country.
To me, it would be like if your child came to you and said “I’m planning to kill myself” and you said to them “Well, that’s a valid life choice.”
- I think the number of immigrants who want to destroy America is actually extremely small and highly overrepresented on social media, just based on my experience IRL (I work in an industry with a very, very large immigrant workforce)
- ever heard of Leon Czolgosz, or Sacco and Venzetti? The Anarchist movement and the (often excessive) response to it are an significant part of Polish and Italian-American history
Why is there such a big panic over a handful of people? Most Americans love their country and new immigrants are usually more patriotic. It’s usually the people on the far left and MAGA who are constantly dissing the country. Is it because she’s black or Muslim because I hear the same or more nonsense from white leftists who are from families that moved here several generations ago. It’s a consequence of getting your brain fried on social media.
Sorry, but I just can't take anyone seriously who thinks you should be able to illegally enter the US 8 months pregnant and get rewarded for it by citizenship for your kids. I really can't think of a more idiotic immigration policy.
Yes, if you look at it through a narrow framework such as that, then you surely would conclude it is idiotic. My take is that the broad scope of American history shows that birthright citizenship is a significant part of what has made us an exceptional country, economically, culturally, and militarily. To me, it is idiotic to disregard those benefits, and frankly completely fucking stupid to conclude that it’s more important to prevent cynical births like the ones you describe than to reap the rewards of exceptionalism. It’s not like the countries without birthright citizenship are doing better than we are.
Yeah, you can't do much about her, but you can sure prevent more people like her from coming. And you can sure kick out other not citizens that share her view.
If a small percentage of immigrants feel this way, I think we will be exactly as we always have been, where a small percentage of native-born Mayflower descendants feel this way. We should be more concerned about measles than about a small percentage of people having weird views.
I live in Houston TX, and I just had an insight. Texas has as many undocumented immigrants as California, but Trump is willing to make the life of California Democratic politicians hell, while our Texas Republicans get a break. I am SO GLAD that we won't be seeing this in Houston.
I thought the same thing about Florida. We are #3 in illegals and they are all out there in plain sight. what is Rubio going to say when they round up the Cubans in Tampa? What businesses have been prosecuted for not living up to the e-verify laws. None because we watered it down. We pass tough laws against immigrants and homelessness but actually do nothing. It is all theater.
It’s obvious why he picked California and not a red or swing state. He knows that people here will react and take the bait and even if his plan fails the damage will be limited because it’s not a swing state.
There is tribal math on immigration. Once foreign born % of population exceeds 12%, you get the populist, xenophic anti-immigration push back at a high level. This happened in the US in 1924 and we shut down immigration for 40 years. Not just US--true everywhere. Look at Sweden and what is going on in Canada.
Could it be that this whole troops to LA was done to take the media focus off of the failed tariff plan, failed budget proposal, failure to end the Ukraine war ? It's Like the old multi event wrestling matches. Sneak up on the public and hit them over the head with a chair. It's all so predictable. We know it's now entertainment but we still watch it. Sad. Next He will send in Bobo Brazil & Chief Wahoo McDaniels's to LA. Remember the education secretary is a player in wrestling (entertainment). We are so far behind we think we are first.
In my opinion, Americans are justified in feeling angry about “quasi-legal immigration,” but that anger should not be directed at immigrants; that anger should be directed at Congress which has intentionally refused to update the immigration process in order to keep immigration as a political hot button.
If you are continuing research on immigration, I’d encourage you to reach out to WOLA, the Washington Office on Latin America, an NGO of experts on factual information at the southern border.
That is also stupid. Business owners are entitled to hire whoever they think fits their needs best. They should not have to spend their money running an affirmative action program for less qualified natives.
In the Netherlands, which is a rather small country compared to the US, the anti-immigration vote is also large. Geert Wilders, our main anti-immigration guy, won the last elections but luckily still needed to form a coalition with others (and no one wanted him as prime minister, so they chose some high profile government official not affiliated to any party). The other coalition partners were pro-farmer/anti protection of nature, Christian conservative but for a better functioning of the government (after some scandals where the government wrongfully accused thousands of cheating on childcare benefits), and the traditional (neo-)liberal party. A coalition that failed after 11 months by Wilders, while he tried to play hardball on asylum seekers. The main issues people experience are a housing shortage (made worse by a 'nitrogen crisis' that blocks a lot of projects near protected natural areas) , increasing healthcare costs, increasing energy costs, no/few fixed contract jobs in the lower deciles, grocery prices and in some areas lowered feelings of safety. So it's all the basics that matters most (well, that, with some racism and anti Islam sentiments). The kind of stuff that people feel the government could solve, and in fact used to play a much bigger role in (for example through the land-use and planning ministry), but doesn't want to anymore since, from the 80/90s onwards, 'the market' had to be trusted to provide a solution. Meanwhile the economy keeps rolling for the top deciles, who can still build or expand their houses, who benefit from the flexibilization of contract laws, etc.
Basically, like in the US, some people feel as if, or correctly recognize, that the game is not in their favor and they vote for someone who seems to care (but doesn't offer a real solution). At the same time politicians have been unwilling to acknowledge that trade-offs need to be made, instead projecting 'economic growth' as the solution for everything.
While not specifically informed on the Dutch situ being a transatlantean w EU exposure, much of what the US Dem Abundance Agenda writing about Lefty/traditional regulation and stranglling outcomes of supposed market availability applies doubly so to EU land.
But then Draghi correctly put his finger on this.
whether the Draghi report moves a needle... well hopefully
Draghi, as far as I understood (didn't read the full report) was mostly talking about enabling tech, innovation & higher growth industries. Not the kind of basics I'm talking about. Maybe he included land use, but the Netherlands has had much better outcomes with that by keeping tight control than Belgium, which had much laxer regulations and oversight, and better results than it's having now ever since it killed an effective land use and housing ministry.
I think that without immigrants many things would be more expensive as they tend to work in food, construction and health services industries in the USA.
I agree, but that doesn't really matter for populist politicians. The correlation between it got more expensive, we have more immigrants, government is not doing enough is what gets the populist vote at the moment, together with opposition to environmental legislation.
It is worth acknowledging that the reactionary right view of immigration "replacing whites" itself has had a kind of Lefty Left corralary (probably to fade and diminish as the entirely expectable evolution of older-wave LatinAm immigration follows the Italo-Irish route) where the People of Color would due to be more Lefty Inclined help bring the Lefty Left to power w/o having to address their (Left-Democrats / Lefty Left) falling appeal to 'white' working class.
Neither discourse is particularly well rooted in real democraphics but certainly informed each-other in some fashion ( I would guess including own-team tribal reactions).
But for the love of God I wish someone would knock some sense into the protests - goddamn foreign flags is a PR win for Trump.
California officials woudl serve own-selves in suppressing these.
Hasn't the 2024 election basically falsified the Great Replacement narrative? In order for that narrative to work, you need immigrants and their descendants to consistently vote Democratic. 2024 showed that they do not.
The problem is that pretty much all immigrants who don't just show up and go on the welfare dole (which is hard to do except for this asylum loophole Noah talks about) benefit the US economy. Even the unskilled who are willing to work. Good luck selling enough people on that idea, though.
Adam Tooze has a great write up taking the position that the administration's escalations are a deliberate and considered tactic to shore up his core base in the face of flagging support for his tax, trade, and broader economic policies. I'm not American (am married to one) and don't live in America but please please please I hope you guys figure it all out. I miss the America of the 90s and am rooting for you all.
If Democrats want to win on immigration in the court of public opinion against Trump, they badly need a national leader who can get these activists to step back. Clearly, they won’t listen to Newsom. When deportations happen after following due process, there’s not much activists can do besides highlighting through personal stories how it’s affecting communities because that’s the current law. Whenever either side has overreached, there’s been voter backlash. If there’s one issue where Trump has a clear mandate, it’s to stop illegal immigration. His approval rating on immigration started to fall when he refused to follow due process and started harassing legal immigrants and international students.
I’m very pissed off with Democrats for not fixing skilled immigration when they had a chance (there used to be bipartisan consensus on this under Bush and Obama) and always lumping it with illegal immigration because of pressure from groups like the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Their tactics failed and now it’ll be impossible to pass any kind of narrowly targeted legislation to fix the skilled immigration issues for many years to come.
There is nobody on Earth or in heaven who could convince these activists to step back IMO. These are the same activists who have spent years advocating for open borders, despite it being political suicide. And forcing Democratic politicians to support immigration policies very unpopular with moderate voters.
These activists are some of the dumbest people out there. They created an environment Trump is thriving in.
Choice is to take Clinton's [in]famous Sista Soulja throw them under the bus.
Mainstream dems have to grow a spine and vehemently disagree with these activists and take the risk of being targeted online. I think it is a gamble worth taking - whoever does that will become more popular not less.
It’s very common for governments across the western world to decide they’ll try to limit legal migration in response to public concerns over irregular (illegal and what Noah called quasi-legal) migration.
The same thing is happening in the UK. Public concern is highest about people entering the country irregularly. But the strictest measures have been taken against legal migrants - things like tightening the criteria for dependents or ending certain kinds of visas.
The reason for this, and the Trump administration’s, tactics is pretty simple. It’s a lot easier to restrict legal migration than illegal/irregular migration. The legal ones are easier to stop in the first place, and easier to find when they’re in the country. Also many legal migrants are less desperate, and will just up and leave if you make life hard enough for them.
The problem is that this is counterproductive. If you have labour shortages because you’ve gotten rid of the legal migrants, more irregular/illegal ones will probably arrive instead. Denying employers in sectors that need legal migrants hands an advantage to sectors where it’s easier to illegally employ people under-the-table.
I understand the current problem but there were many opportunities to pass standalone bills during the Bush/Obama years when skilled immigration was not a contentious issue and it was usually the Democrats who sunk those bills after attempts to pass CIR failed.
Couldn't agree more. They held out for a grand bargain and now this issue has become toxic for Democrats.
Having grown up in SoCal, I have witnessed many influxes of mass immigration. There are whole cities of Koreans, Vietnamese, and Hispanics. We have a Chinatown along with a Japanese section. SoCal is a polyglot of immigrants, including those from Iowa, who watched the Rose Parade and saw the temperature in January in the 60s or 70s, and moved there.
I also saw who took the jobs Americans no longer wanted to do, from picking strawberries in the summer sun to the construction trades. I do not want to hear the blather about “if you paid more money, more Americans would do that work,” because it is simply not true.
Even if you paid $20 or $25 an hour to pick strawberries, you could get an American kid to bend over in the hot summer sun for 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, when the strawberries needed picking. You also couldn’t sell those strawberries at the price you’d need to be profitable. This is why most of the produce comes from Mexico.
We have a crashing birthrate, and it is global. We still need dishwashers, laborers, and other low-skilled jobs. They are not going away soon. Their children will become electricians, bankers, and entrepreneurs. This is how it works.
We need a simple work permit program that matches employers with employees. It doesn’t have to be a pathway to citizenship. We also need to streamline immigration. South of the border persons should not have a leg up on an Albanian PHD candidate, or the Malaysian doctor. We’ll need both.
Americans hate the flaunting of our laws. Americans are fine with immigration; they just want it to be legal and measured. They do not want to see hordes of immigrants crossing into the country without knowing who they are. Seemingly, our broken politics can't do anything about it.
As for the shibboleth of Democrats wanting immigrants for votes, it is true, because Democrats have owned those voters for several hundred years. I go into NYC politics, Boss Tweed etc. The history of the Irish and Italians is crystal clear to me. I suggest Noah would be well served to come to the East Coast and read about city politics in Boston and NY. He’ll understand why Republicans have this as a cannon.
Humanoid robots will solve most of these problems pretty soon.
Also, I agree that Americans are fine with legal immigration up to a point. The level of immigration matters Too many people too fast causes problems
don't even need to be humanoid to pick fruit or harvest vegetables.
A view from Europe: In both the US and Europe it is surprisingly difficult for governments to make changes to immigration, this fuels the frustration with voters. Why is it so difficult? We are dealing with human beings, often poor or fleeing unsafe countries, and no centrist politician wants to be accused of having no heart and therefore seems paralyzed to do something substantial about it. As a result you get in the end populists in power. But even they seem unable to get it under control. In Europe an important reason is that hands are tied by supra national treaties. Within the EU there is free movement of people therefore no limits can be put on migration within the EU. Internationally European countries signed up to UN refugee treaty and the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) giving basically every asylum seeker the right to stay (and even invite their family over).
And the difference between being an economic migrant and asylum seeker is often razor thin. After all, why would you travel thousands of miles on a dangerous journey through many countries to the country of choice to just seek protection if you could also get that in a neighboring country?
You claim that the US needs high skilled migrants but looking at the countries where most migrants come from this is probably just a small % of total migrants. And I dont think that these high skilled is the group voters in the US and Europe are concerned about.
The welfare states in Europe cannot afford large group of low skilled migrants that will cost more than they bring in with taxes.
Migration became a culture war issue issue in Europe too, but there is no denying that migration has changed cities and areas in a large way in past decades in Europe. Migrants might assimilate easier in the US than Europe because in the US they often come from the South with at least a similar religious cultural background, in Europe for example asylum seekers are almost all from Islamic countries with a different culture.
Nobody wants to become a minority in their own city or country and if you look at the demographics this is certainly a possibility. Native populations in European countries are shrinking, any growth is only coming from migration from outside Europe.
I see a similarity here with climate change, because the process is happening slowly, many people ignore or deny it, including politicians that only look at the next election, but if you look at demographics on a time scale of 50 or 100 years, I think the native populations and cultures in European countries could become minorities. Even if not deliberate, you can still call it replacement.
"The welfare states in Europe cannot afford large group of low skilled migrants that will cost more than they bring in with taxes."
That's a failure of European economies, though. The American economy can certainly use low skilled migrants who can work.
Being transAtlantic - this is utter and complete nonsense: "Migrants might assimilate easier in the US than Europe because in the US they often come from the South with at least a similar religious cultural background, in Europe for example asylum seekers are almost all from Islamic countries with a different culture."
There's nothing particularly more similar between Central American and Northern american culture other than the false cover of 'shared' religion (except it's Latino-flavored Catholicism rather than N. Euro Irish/Italian).
European failures are all about bad (naive) European policies, a lack of a cultural orientation to "immigration fusion" that for all US flaws, is pretty profound in American cultural references.
Maghrebine Muslims underneath xenophobic religious attitudes are really nothing more than South Mediterraneans. When one has lived on both sides of the Med for any time, it's more than abundantly clear.
Europeans using the religious excuse are doing nothing more than what the Old Guard Protestants of 19th century USA did in saying about exactly the same thing about Catholics (most especially S. Italian/Sicilian darkies) for pretty much the same reasons.
Liberal (international sese not USA sense) Europeans were naive and blind about immigration, too much simplistic Kumbaya thinking too little practical reflection informed by N. American (Canada and USA) or Ausssie experiences for good or bad. and too much too fast
(as see Brexit and Polish Plumbers reaction, so utter nonsense the finger pointing at Muslims qua Muslims)
´European failures are all about bad (naive) European policies, a lack of a cultural orientation to "immigration fusion" that for all US flaws, is pretty profound in American cultural references.´
Not sure what you mean with ´lack of cultural orientation to immigration fusion´, could you please explain and what Europeans in your opinion could learn from the USA?
And if N-America and Australia did better, why do they have the same problems and political polarization?
Apart from that, it is in my opinion a choice of a country what kind of policy they choose regarding to the level of immigration and integration of immigrants, somewhere between assimilation and multi-culturalism. The difference I see between Europe and traditional immigration countries like the USA is that in European countries like my own voters were never asked if they agreed with mass immigration, it simply happened. As a result there was never a clear choice for the amount of immigrants or how to handle integration issues. And there still isnt.
Australia doesn't have that level of political polarization about immigration though (the radical parties like One Nation, Trumpets of Patriots, etc. never got double digits in the polls anywhere!)
Partly this is because the ranked-choice voting system + mandatory voting that forced parties to be moderate; and partly this is due to the detention centres that Australia built to deter boat people though. (These are riddled with abuses and bad conditions, and being an infamous stain in Australia's reputation!)
It's quite clear that really high levels of immigration slow down assimilation. Also when immigrants are concentrated in certain areas that also slows down immigration.
If there is 1 immigrant per 100 people, and they are spread out, they basically have to assimilate.
But when you group them together, it becomes much easier for them to stick together and not assimilate.
Just between those two factors right there you can clearly see why Europe would be in trouble. Large amounts of immigration, and they are concentrated in certain areas not spread out.
That being, said, I do agree that certain cultures probably assimilate better than others.
I have read most of your pieces about immigration with great interest.
I am not American so can't claim to have an answer but the one thing that is missing, in my opinion, is a credible explanation of why the Great Replacement Theory is wrong.
To be clear, I am NOT saying it is right, but your only counterclaim appears to be "I can't quite tell [why Dems allowed a flood of illegal immigration] but Biden probably just thought it would be a winning culture war issue".
This is insufficient to address the claims made by the right. For this reason, a lot of otherwise moderate and sensible independent and centre right Americans I know believe that Democrats allow illegal immigration to change the country to achieve permanent Democrat control.
Until there is a credible explanation of why this isn't true, they will keep believing this.
Noah does provide one explanation in his post of why the great replacement theory is wrong; "Hispanic Americans themselves have trended toward the Republican party "
That does not counter the claim that the Democrats are importing illegal immigrants to get more voters for themselves.
Hispanic Americans and illegal immigrants are not the same group of people.
Do you think that illegal immigrants are voting in federal elections? Because they aren’t allowed to.
The replacement theory relies on a crucial step of turning these illegal immigrants to voters. Republicans think there’s just mass amounts of voter fraud, which has been disproven time and time again, most notably with dozens of lawsuits across the country in 2020 that all failed.
If there isn’t fraud, you either need naturalization or to rely on their kids. Amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants would be great imo but isn’t going anywhere. Kids of illegal immigrants that spend their whole lives in American are just Hispanic voters.
This is ultimately a question of fact as to intent. There is no evidence that Biden or the Democrats loosened border controls or policies to increase the numbers of Democrats. None. Not a piece of paper, no testimony, no emails, no texts, no speeches, no registration or voting records — no nothing.
The great replacement claim is a total fabrication, a cynical and racist scam to mislead and scare voters. The ultra-right bears the burden of establishing at least a prima facie case. They have nothing. Democrats can’t prove a negative but they have no need to since there is no evidence to rebut.
The Great Replacement Theory is wrong because it is fundamentally innumerate nonsense.
There is in no way the birthrates (post immigration) nor other assumed factors that the racists behind the Great Replacement Theory assert.
It's nonsense, pure and simple.
That however is separate from the idea that the Lefty Left, a certain fraction of the hard-Left and the wokey segment of the Democrats really were buying into an idea that they would take a permanent majority via identarian politics and ever-increasing levels of People-of-Color in the USA, and then they wouldn't have to dirty their hands appealing to the Deplorables (i.e. working class whites with for-Lefty Woke deplorable cultural beliefs).
So while Great Replacement is nonsense the relationship between the Right side belief and an equally nonsense belief set on the Wokey Left is there (two sets of innumerate and ahistorical nonsense married in a marriage of hell).
Not to mention books like "The Emerging Democrat majority" made similar points but from the left. That Democrats were going to ride a demographic change to permanent majority.
But of course the current majority probably doesn't want to become a minority.
That book has heavily damaged Democrats with lazy thinking and policies that were born out drinking that Kool Aid.
I don't think there really is a counterclaim that will satisfy these people, much in the same way that no evidence-based counterclaim has satisfied the far leftists who believe that the United States is a fundamentally white supremacist country. Once people are that far down an internet rabbit hole, you're not going to bring them back by engaging directly with their argument, because it's become part of their personal identity.
I think better to come at it from a different angle. The truth is that Americans just aren't willing to do physical labor at the (low) pay rates that are necessary to provide cheap services to consumers. Ask any manufacturer, or restaurant owner, or farmer, or provider of care for elders, disabled people, or children; the list goes on. You have to get people to think about whether they're willing to do those jobs, or if they know anyone who is. And not just as a hypothetical -- ask people to name specific individuals that they know, who will wash dishes 8 hours a day for $15/hr.
It seems silly to take the “Great Replacement Theory” at face value, to pursue claims and counterclaims about the MOTIVES of the Democratic Party. I suppose one could search for memoranda from internal platform debates for evidence about motives, but I think it’s more likely that the “Great Replacement Theory” is just a paranoid, politically-motivated interpretation of progressive “openness” to new ideas, change, and otherness.
Immigrants don’t vote until they’ve been here long enough to become citizens - very few within a decade, and not a majority until multiple decades. Their children have a slight tendency to vote for Democrats, but not very strong, so this isn’t any more effective as a way to achieve control than blocking construction in California and hoping that Democrats moving to Texas will lead to a takeover there.
Birth rate differences overwhelm impacts from immigration. Whites are birthing children at levels far below replacement rate. Minorities (black,Latino, Muslim) have much higher birth rates. There is a strong correlations between wealth and birth rates. This changes with second and third generation immigrants as they get wealthier and more Americanized.
In theory, I agree with the high-minded ideals with that tweet about "nobody chooses where they're born". My own preferred framing is essentially to look at the issue through the veil of ignorance - if I was told I would be born into the world as it exists but not told where, I would prefer to have the option of making my own way to a free & prosperous country rather than risk being stuck in a wartorn shithole.
But I do think us pro-immigration people have a duty to work out how we can sustain these levels of immigration without it triggering civil unrest. This is something of a blind spot for progressives.
The "nobody chooses where they are born" argument for open borders is stupid because it still doesn't solve the problem of where you are born. There's a reason the US has millions of Mexican immigrants walking across the border and not millions of Chinese immigrants walking across the border.
To actually erase "nobody chooses where they are born" you'd need to pair open borders with a program that subsidies transportation based on distance so that a poor Cambodian is just as likely to enter the US as a poor South American.
The problem isn't with the financial cost of different entry routes - even the global poor could probably stump up a few hundred dollars for a once-in-a-lifetime lump sum to cover a one-way flight to America. The true issue your example illustrates is the ease with which different entry routes can bypass legality. It is much easier to walk across a land border thousands of miles long than it is to slip past airport security without a visa.
And in a world where all migration was legal, this would cease to be a problem.
Exactly. Many migrants to the U.S. from Latin America or Europe from the Middle East pay significantly more to people-smugglers than the cost of a flight from Phnom Penh to San Francisco.
This article should give anyone who doesn’t know an idea of the lengths people will go to, and the money they will spend: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70664266plo.amp
How is that stupid? Saying you shouldn’t put arbitrary limits on mobility is different from taking on the costs of subsidizing people who have other mobility limits. It might be nice to live in a world where everyone can afford to travel wherever and whenever they want (so we need energy abundance). But you don’t have to argue for that in order to argue against spending money to make it harder for people to travel.
The US doesn't have milllions of Mexicans any more. Net Mexican (Mexican actual nationals) immigration essentially stopped, or more accurately became a trickle https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-covid-19-more-mexicans-came-to-the-u-s-than-left-for-mexico-for-the-first-time-in-years/
the current millions are Latin and Central Americans from much farther south. Economic messes.... et voila.
Your link says there are 11.4 million Mexican immigrants living in the US.
I think what he meant (but didn’t say) is that that population is not rising from further immigration.
I would fully agree on "world as it exists" not what I would prefer.
the challenge is fundamentally that taking a broad international view, it is more than clear that whatever noble feelings, standards, immigration flows that tip over a certain percentage of 'recent immigrants' clearly trigger severe popular reaction - we can see it across geographies and cultures, Americas, Europe, North Africa relative to sub-Saharan.
Has to be taken as a human baseline and rather than wished away, worked with on its own basis.
US basically ended up stopping net-Mexican inflows via NAFTA - reform for economic growth in "issuing countries"
One of the most frustrating migration talking points for me is when people describe it as “importing” foreign workers - a way to combine ‘scary immigrants’ and ‘scary trade’. Strictly speaking, the only part of migrant labour that really “counts” as imports is whatever they send back as remittances. Globally, this is 15% of migrant earnings. This thinking is, I believe, the crux of the idea that migrants take jobs or depress wages. It exists because of how many people seem to subconsciously believe migrants aren’t real human beings who actually buy and consume stuff where they live too.
I remember an even more frustrating version of this in the debate over foreign students where I’m from in the UK. Numerous people described it as an “import dependence” on foreign students because of the fees they provide. But those students pay for the fees in British pounds, based on money they or their families have earned in their local currencies. Foreign students are an EXPORT for the UK, not an import.
Another frustrating aspect of migration policy is how Goodhart’s Law makes itself felt. Most of the time, as Noah says, the kind of immigration more voters have a problem with is this quasi-legal or illegal immigration. But the proof point becomes getting overall numbers down, and it’s way easier practically speaking to lower legal than illegal immigration.
What you have then are governments shutting off legal routes in response to frustration over more irregular immigration. This almost guarantees you get more irregular migration. Gaps in the labour market end up getting filled by more desperate people, and those who you probably want will go somewhere else when they have the choice to do so.
I agree that a decline in immigration will substantially reduce the US GDP, creating winners and losers that will be bad overall.
At the same time, I think a bigger, more legitimate concern is that at least some of these immigrants hold genuinely anti-American sympathies and resentments. Here is Illhan Omar’s daughter, who was welcomed into this country with open arms and given the opportunity to study at an Ivy League University, calling for Death to America:
https://x.com/drewpavlou/status/1932186390093250598?s=46&t=Q8jY_01pxrn1gdh1chWBjg
What should happen to people like this? If even a small percentage of immigrants, let alone a large percentage of immigrants from the 3rd world, feel this way, what do you think the US is going to look like in a few generations?
I agree that lower immigration generally makes us poorer, and that's bad. Still, I have a genuinely difficult time understanding liberals who say we shouldn't be concerned about people like this.
Her daughter is a natural-born American citizen, so while I find her internet activity very distasteful, I don't really think anything should "happen to her" any more than something should happen to a dumbass frat bro who has a Confederate flag on his dorm room wall.
Where do you think she got these ideas from? What do you think will happen to the US if we keep importing people who openly say they want to destroy the country?
Previous waves of immigrants whether it was from Italy or Poland or somewhere else never openly said they wanted to destroy the country.
To me, it would be like if your child came to you and said “I’m planning to kill myself” and you said to them “Well, that’s a valid life choice.”
- I think she probably got her ideas from TikTok
- I think the number of immigrants who want to destroy America is actually extremely small and highly overrepresented on social media, just based on my experience IRL (I work in an industry with a very, very large immigrant workforce)
- ever heard of Leon Czolgosz, or Sacco and Venzetti? The Anarchist movement and the (often excessive) response to it are an significant part of Polish and Italian-American history
- I think that analogy is a little much
Why is there such a big panic over a handful of people? Most Americans love their country and new immigrants are usually more patriotic. It’s usually the people on the far left and MAGA who are constantly dissing the country. Is it because she’s black or Muslim because I hear the same or more nonsense from white leftists who are from families that moved here several generations ago. It’s a consequence of getting your brain fried on social media.
Well for one thing we should get rid of the idiocy of birthright citizenship which no other rich country on earth has.
Hard pass!
Sorry, but I just can't take anyone seriously who thinks you should be able to illegally enter the US 8 months pregnant and get rewarded for it by citizenship for your kids. I really can't think of a more idiotic immigration policy.
Yes, if you look at it through a narrow framework such as that, then you surely would conclude it is idiotic. My take is that the broad scope of American history shows that birthright citizenship is a significant part of what has made us an exceptional country, economically, culturally, and militarily. To me, it is idiotic to disregard those benefits, and frankly completely fucking stupid to conclude that it’s more important to prevent cynical births like the ones you describe than to reap the rewards of exceptionalism. It’s not like the countries without birthright citizenship are doing better than we are.
Yeah, you can't do much about her, but you can sure prevent more people like her from coming. And you can sure kick out other not citizens that share her view.
If a small percentage of immigrants feel this way, I think we will be exactly as we always have been, where a small percentage of native-born Mayflower descendants feel this way. We should be more concerned about measles than about a small percentage of people having weird views.
I live in Houston TX, and I just had an insight. Texas has as many undocumented immigrants as California, but Trump is willing to make the life of California Democratic politicians hell, while our Texas Republicans get a break. I am SO GLAD that we won't be seeing this in Houston.
I thought the same thing about Florida. We are #3 in illegals and they are all out there in plain sight. what is Rubio going to say when they round up the Cubans in Tampa? What businesses have been prosecuted for not living up to the e-verify laws. None because we watered it down. We pass tough laws against immigrants and homelessness but actually do nothing. It is all theater.
It’s obvious why he picked California and not a red or swing state. He knows that people here will react and take the bait and even if his plan fails the damage will be limited because it’s not a swing state.
There is tribal math on immigration. Once foreign born % of population exceeds 12%, you get the populist, xenophic anti-immigration push back at a high level. This happened in the US in 1924 and we shut down immigration for 40 years. Not just US--true everywhere. Look at Sweden and what is going on in Canada.
Could it be that this whole troops to LA was done to take the media focus off of the failed tariff plan, failed budget proposal, failure to end the Ukraine war ? It's Like the old multi event wrestling matches. Sneak up on the public and hit them over the head with a chair. It's all so predictable. We know it's now entertainment but we still watch it. Sad. Next He will send in Bobo Brazil & Chief Wahoo McDaniels's to LA. Remember the education secretary is a player in wrestling (entertainment). We are so far behind we think we are first.
In my opinion, Americans are justified in feeling angry about “quasi-legal immigration,” but that anger should not be directed at immigrants; that anger should be directed at Congress which has intentionally refused to update the immigration process in order to keep immigration as a political hot button.
If you are continuing research on immigration, I’d encourage you to reach out to WOLA, the Washington Office on Latin America, an NGO of experts on factual information at the southern border.
Why does the immigration process need updating? Why can't we just enforce the laws against illegal entry and remove the quasi-legal nonsense?
How about anger at the business owners that hire them?
That is also stupid. Business owners are entitled to hire whoever they think fits their needs best. They should not have to spend their money running an affirmative action program for less qualified natives.
In the Netherlands, which is a rather small country compared to the US, the anti-immigration vote is also large. Geert Wilders, our main anti-immigration guy, won the last elections but luckily still needed to form a coalition with others (and no one wanted him as prime minister, so they chose some high profile government official not affiliated to any party). The other coalition partners were pro-farmer/anti protection of nature, Christian conservative but for a better functioning of the government (after some scandals where the government wrongfully accused thousands of cheating on childcare benefits), and the traditional (neo-)liberal party. A coalition that failed after 11 months by Wilders, while he tried to play hardball on asylum seekers. The main issues people experience are a housing shortage (made worse by a 'nitrogen crisis' that blocks a lot of projects near protected natural areas) , increasing healthcare costs, increasing energy costs, no/few fixed contract jobs in the lower deciles, grocery prices and in some areas lowered feelings of safety. So it's all the basics that matters most (well, that, with some racism and anti Islam sentiments). The kind of stuff that people feel the government could solve, and in fact used to play a much bigger role in (for example through the land-use and planning ministry), but doesn't want to anymore since, from the 80/90s onwards, 'the market' had to be trusted to provide a solution. Meanwhile the economy keeps rolling for the top deciles, who can still build or expand their houses, who benefit from the flexibilization of contract laws, etc.
Basically, like in the US, some people feel as if, or correctly recognize, that the game is not in their favor and they vote for someone who seems to care (but doesn't offer a real solution). At the same time politicians have been unwilling to acknowledge that trade-offs need to be made, instead projecting 'economic growth' as the solution for everything.
While not specifically informed on the Dutch situ being a transatlantean w EU exposure, much of what the US Dem Abundance Agenda writing about Lefty/traditional regulation and stranglling outcomes of supposed market availability applies doubly so to EU land.
But then Draghi correctly put his finger on this.
whether the Draghi report moves a needle... well hopefully
Draghi, as far as I understood (didn't read the full report) was mostly talking about enabling tech, innovation & higher growth industries. Not the kind of basics I'm talking about. Maybe he included land use, but the Netherlands has had much better outcomes with that by keeping tight control than Belgium, which had much laxer regulations and oversight, and better results than it's having now ever since it killed an effective land use and housing ministry.
I think that without immigrants many things would be more expensive as they tend to work in food, construction and health services industries in the USA.
I agree, but that doesn't really matter for populist politicians. The correlation between it got more expensive, we have more immigrants, government is not doing enough is what gets the populist vote at the moment, together with opposition to environmental legislation.
It is worth acknowledging that the reactionary right view of immigration "replacing whites" itself has had a kind of Lefty Left corralary (probably to fade and diminish as the entirely expectable evolution of older-wave LatinAm immigration follows the Italo-Irish route) where the People of Color would due to be more Lefty Inclined help bring the Lefty Left to power w/o having to address their (Left-Democrats / Lefty Left) falling appeal to 'white' working class.
Neither discourse is particularly well rooted in real democraphics but certainly informed each-other in some fashion ( I would guess including own-team tribal reactions).
But for the love of God I wish someone would knock some sense into the protests - goddamn foreign flags is a PR win for Trump.
California officials woudl serve own-selves in suppressing these.
Hasn't the 2024 election basically falsified the Great Replacement narrative? In order for that narrative to work, you need immigrants and their descendants to consistently vote Democratic. 2024 showed that they do not.
The problem is that pretty much all immigrants who don't just show up and go on the welfare dole (which is hard to do except for this asylum loophole Noah talks about) benefit the US economy. Even the unskilled who are willing to work. Good luck selling enough people on that idea, though.