As a British person, the whole nation of immigrants thing - "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" etc - is the very greatest thing about America. I admire how so many non-Americans want to be American, and how proud Americans are of the desirability of their own nationality. I'd hate to see that go.
I live in Denver. We've had nearly 40K migrants from Venezuela; the population of Denver is just over 700K. I donate money to the relevant charities and try to participate in keeping the migrants alive by feeding them lunch occasionally (feeding 200 migrants at a hotel shelter is...an experience).
I'm pretty old, so I know that eventually the migrants will disperse to other parts of the country. Some will be deported. Many will find their places in the economy. Some will become permanent problems. (The criminal element among the migrants is called "The children of Chavism" by the other migrants. Hugo wasn't super popular with everyone in Venezuela.)
We haven't yet had much civil unrest, but we will. The migrants are desperate and don't understand why they can't get work permits. They don't understand why they can't work when they truly want to. They have kids who are sick and the one public hospital is overwhelmed. The self-righteousness of the blue cities calling themselves "sanctuary cities" is coming back to bite us, because the migrants are told that jobs are plentiful, housing is free, health care is free, etc. Sanctuary, right? I hope that eventually word will get back to Venezuela that those things aren't true.
My main point is to reinforce Noah's thesis that this is going to give the Republicans a big advantage in November. Even people in blue states and cities are going to drift reddish if this situation doesn't get addressed. It was easy to ignore and dismiss when it was just Texas. Who cares about Texas? They're so Republican. But now it's us. Biden needs to do something big and dramatic and public, if he possibly can.
Europeans aren't coming to the United States because the European birth rate is even lower than ours. Without immigration, the population of Europe would be shrinking rapidly.
Europeans don't go to the US because doing so legally is difficult.
I've worked in tech my entire life. In my early 20s I was recruited by a big US tech firm, who wanted me to immigrate to California. I had a job but couldn't go, because I couldn't get an H1B. They hit the quotas in those years, so I ended up moving elsewhere in Europe instead.
That's OK, it's nice enough where I live. Maybe in California I'd have had more job opportunities but it'd have been harder to meet women, it's hard to know how life would have worked out. But let's just say I haven't thought about trying again, and I haven't encouraged anyone else to try, nor has anyone encouraged me.
Some years later I became friends with a guy about the same age who also worked in tech, in the same sort of job role as me. He DID manage to get into the USA and became CTO of a startup, but he did it by commissioning an agency to make a popular YouTube video and then claimed to be an artist. For some reason it was easier to get in on a creative/artist visa than on a tech visa, I suppose because of the politics of Indian H1B (ab)use by large contractors?
I also know a girl who won't go to the USA at all. She went once, did something dumb and had to do a few days of community service before being deported. They told her she could go back in two years. After two years she went back and was allowed in. Then some time later she went back again, but this time the border guards bounced her without explaining why. Now to visit the USA she has to book an appointment at the embassy weeks in advance to do an interview, to get a visa that doesn't actually guarantee she'll be let in and maybe the border guards will do it again, so she's just given up on even visiting as a tourist.
Birth rates now are lower than than they once were, but in all our cases the US immigration story was filled with difficulties and caveats - and for us guys that was for highly skilled, highly paid work. Europeans don't have the option of just jumping the border fence. We have to follow the rules!
Thanks for your overview of the difficulties of high skilled European immigrants. TBH, Europeans could overstay their visas and be in the country illegally, but then they would be relegated to jobs like mowing lawns and restaurant work like other “illegals.”
No- but there are plenty of Europeans who would want to come and work and live in the US if it was possible - especially E Europeans but also some Italians, Portuguese, etc
I am not so sure about those East-Europeans. Anecdotal evidence: my brother and I were just talking about how times have changed in this regard here in Czechia. There were so many people around me in the 90s and early 2000s who would have loved to live in the US if they could do it legally. I even knew a few who went there illegally. The Work & Travel USA program was insanely popular among college kids - I was in the US on W&T myself in 2001 and 2002, and so were half of my college buddies.
But today? Students do Erasmus instead of the W&T USA, and I don't know anyone around me who would want to live in the US. Personally, I would consider it a significant step back in terms of quality of life. It still sounds weird just saying that - If someone had told me 20 years ago, I wouldn't have believed it.
Fun fact - I live in a city with a surprising number of American expats (skilled workers - there are a bunch of companies that have something to do with electron microscopy and other tech stuff I don't understand).
A one-way ticket From Frankfurt to New York City costs about $500. People coming across the southern border may pay up to $2000 for help getting across the border.
Frankfurt, not so much. But I know Poles who have come here- also Ukrainians, Georgians and Russians.
Financially, staying in the EU is a better deal for poorer EU citizens - housing, dole, healthcare. However there are plenty of educated professionals in France, Italy, Greece. Spain, Portugal who are terribly underemployed in the EU and would come to the US- but makes no sense for middle class credentialed people to come over as illegals, even if they have a dead end job in Europe. If we make it easier and legal, they will come
Great post. I'm all for compromise, but I have my doubts about the cost of poor, unskilled immigrants. Here where I live there are a lot of them, some "legal," some not, and they all work. They can't get welfare or Medicaid. The work in the trades, the hospitality industry, & as entrepreneurs. Many work several jobs. Where do they live? Where immigrants always have: those who own houses rent rooms to landsmen, others cram into apartments.
As much as it flatters my ego to think the most important immigrants are highly educated people like my parents, coworkers, and friends, the truth is that if someone has the courage and capacity to hike zillions of miles through jungle to a country that doesn’t speak their language for a chance at a bit more money and security, then they have already demonstrated more entrepreneurial spirit and general competence than I ever have, and their descendants are more likely to do great things for this country than I ever will be.
I agree wholeheartedly. I look at my neighbors & I'm amazed. Many don't speak much English; some are barely literate in their native language. But they work incredibly hard & are in many ways more strongly committed to this country than I am. They believe in ideals I'm more than a bit dubious about. We should make a point of welcoming more & more of them.
I had the most amazing experience with a Guatemalan fellow who was doing some exterior wood working. I needed similar work done and began to talk with him. Barely a word of English and I speak restaurant Spanish. Anyway, he switched instantly to Google translate and it translated our speech accurately into the language each understood. I asked how to get in touch with his employer and he turned around and his T shirt had all the contact info. I snapped a picture and eventually used his firms services. It was a spectacular experience. More please.
Once they have a kid here they can get Medicaid/SCHIP, food stamps, housing benefits, etc, along with refundable tax credits of various sorts.
I am all for a guest worker program (sourcing from around the world, not just Latam) to bring in hard working people on a trial basis. If they stay employed and crime free for x-years and demonstrate some proficiency in English afterwards then let them In permanently- in controlled numbers, provided they want to become Americans
I tend to agree. We need low skill workers, too for all kinds of jobs that native-born simply will not do or whose skills are too high. Certainly lots of hammer swinging but also abattoirs, low-level health care and restaurants. They all learn English soon enough.
Let's not forget that immigrants, including low-skill, are highly entrepreneurial whether starting their own construction firm or restaurant, etc.
One solution might be a far more effective guest worker program in which a worker is rewarded for obeying rules that include a promise not to stay forever and to leave the family back home. If they pay into the Social Security system, which we need, they can be rewarded for retiring in their home country or conceivably using those funds to grant their children opportunities for higher education, etc.; again from their home countries. Lots of options whatever are chosen.
Recall that during many periods of high immigration, the entire family did not enter the US and that's before easy cross-border funds transfers.
The dependency ratio has increased quite a bit, particularly as Obama policy was focused on getting more children across the border. The children come with benefits attached.
Makes it less clearly an economic win for the country, unless the kids finish their education, don’t commit crimes and are as hard working as the parents. Some cultures seem very good at producing law abiding, hard working American kids who reliably attend school (often more successfully than long-settled American families).
I agree that not all immigrants have equal short or long-term benefits for residents. A merit based system aims for maximum benefits. Of course exactly how one measures merit is important and difficult.
I'm a little puzzled by your comment on Obama "focused on getting more children across the border." Are you referring to DACA?
Here is a pretty good overview of UACs at the border. There has been a massive surge that started in 2013-2014 after Obama’s change in policies - DACA and DAPA and benefits eligibility
“Deferred action for Childhood arrivals”. The name pretty much sums it ups
Minimum two year grace from deportation plus a work permit, plus eligibility for benefits.
And when arrivals surged with some children getting abused, raped (or even killed) along with way, was there any attempt to limit the policy or roll it back by Obama? That is, is there any evidence that a such surge was a completely surprising, unintended and undesirable effect?
Quite the reverse, as far as I can remember. Unless you can think of anything.
Noah, thank you for a characteristically thoughtful and valuable piece. In trying to talk sense to "both sides" on this issue, you are bound to annoy both sides. Comes with the job, I guess.
Speaking as a Reagan Republican turned Biden Democrat whoii loathes Trump, I'd like to offer three constructive criticisms (yes, that is probably at least two too many, but here we go...)
1. "what we need is to care more about solving the problems than about pinning them on our opponents."
Good advice, but understanding how we got here (and I think you do) is important. It is painfully obvious that the history of this issue has left the different sides with no mutual trust. I suspect a little truth-telling and ownership of past mistakes by both sides would help. And no, I don't see that happening in the current environment - Trump is not exactly an "OK, I may have been wrong about that" guy.
2. "I know some right-wingers have this notion that immigrants want to “replace” the American population by turning White people into a minority and then outvoting them."
And I know you are familiar with the Judis/ Teixara "Emerging Democratic Majority" of 2002, which predicted that changing demographic patterns, including the rise of the immigrant vote, would empower Democrats for a generation. Plenty of right-wingers think that the open border isn't an immigrant conspiracy, its a Democratic Party goal. Eg, just about any contemporary article on Turning Texas Blue starts with the Hispanic vote.
3. John Boehner and the House Republicans killed Obama's 2013 immigration deal. But in a To Be Fair moment, let's note that Obama and Big Labor got credit for killing Bush's 2007 attempt. Maybe Obama thought a better deal would be available under President Hillary in 2009. Maybe denying Bush a chance to fly the 'W' in 2007 seemed like good politics, sort of like Johnson and Biden today. Or maybe Obama sincerely didn't like the deal. Or both!
Water under the bridge, but as I said, the history of the bad blood does count for something.
Well, thanks again. I'm sure the comments from both sides will include plenty of criticism. I hope some of it helps.
> Plenty of right-wingers think that the open border isn't an immigrant conspiracy, its a Democratic Party goal. Eg, just about any contemporary article on Turning Texas Blue starts with the Hispanic vote.
There’s also the ending white supremacy rhetoric which treats the coming white minority as a consummation devoutly to be wished. It’s conspiratorial to believe in the replacement or disempowerment of whites but it’s progressive to believe in it.
Do let me pre-emptively say this about (2), the replacement theory - the anti-semitic Jewish conspiracy versions of that theory are ludicrous and shameful, and we all understand that there are kooks and cranks who advocate that.
But I hope we also understand that 'nut-picking' - finding the most deplorable argument your opponent's side is making and insisting it typifies that side - is not the path to mutual understanding and compromise. (OTOH, it's a great way for politicians to raise money and rally their base...)
From a policy point of view, understanding the history may have value but I’m not sure that knowing it will change anyone’s mind. Indeed, I would be concerned that another decade could go by while the parties debate how we got into this mess. Certainly, trying to convince the voters that it was the other side’s fault is a dead end, although the Republicans have an advantage simply because they have been harping on this for a long time.
I am skeptical that blaming the border problem on the Republicans because they backed away from the deal they helped craft will move the dial. The Republicans are claiming that Biden already had the power to act, a contention that they seek to buttress by the political theater in Texas involving the National Guard, which suggests to the average voter that Texas had to step in to do the job the Democrats haven’t. I can’t see voters trying to sort out the legal issues, nor do I think that most will buy the replacement theory, although some concern over crime and jobs is widespread.
However, any deal was going to be a balancing act. Especially in hindsight, Bush and McCain '07 look one of the last gasps of the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Rep party, which loved cheap labor.
McCain was working with Ted Kennedy (and Obama, as part of a bipartisan 'gang') on something that eventually had to clear Nancy Pelosi's House. So any bill was going to require solid Dem support.
At crunch time, to Kennedy's consternation Obama went rogue (per CNN) and backed an amendment sure to kill the fragile coalition. Bush ended up losing the support of 38 Reps and 11 Dem Senators. To me that sounds like a combination of far right, moderate right and far left outvoted the centrists. Why blame just the far right, and why was Kennedy yelling at Obama?
Per the NY Times "People on opposite sides of the political spectrum, in effect, banded together to defeat the middle...
...
Although they rarely publicly voiced their opposition, the muscle of organized labor worked vigorously behind the scenes to defeat the measure. A key concern was the guest worker program.
Although dozens of amendments from senators were never called, Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, had three chances to offer amendments to eliminate or set an end date on guest workers, because the leadership wanted to balance the scales after the Republicans had won major changes.
The proposal to end the guest worker program after five years passed just after midnight on Thursday morning."
The Dorgan amendments were the ones in which Obama deserted Kennedy's workgroup and voted to pass them. I assume he sincerely believed it made for a better bill, but he also had to have understood (as Kennedy did) that the better bill would be DOA.
Well. The death blow might have been something else, eventually. The right objected to amnesty, Big Labor did not seem to want to import workers (go figure!), and all these years later the contours of the debate seem pretty familiar.
Among the many problems with the current system, one that is causing particular difficulty for New York is that people who have a pending asylum hearing aren’t allowed to work for the first 6 months they’re in the US.
In theory, this rule is designed to disincentivize asylum-seeking. In practice it means that the NY city and state government has to foot the bill to keep these asylum-seekers fed and sheltered for their first 6 months. This is unfortunate because there is lots of demand for labor (NYC has a roughly 5% unemployment rate at the moment) and I’m sure many of these asylum-seekers would love to get a job. In practice, I expect many of the asylum-seekers do find work despite lacking employment authorization. Some New York State officials have floated the prospect of NYS creating a state-level employment authorization in defiance of federal law, specifically to cover these cases.
Of course, if immigration hearings could be processed faster, this issue would all be moot.
One solution would be to let the asylum applicants work until their asylum hearing, but keep some portion (perhaps 30%) of their wages in escrow, and if their asylum claim is denied (most are, it’s very hard to prove without solid evidence) then make them pay for the costs of the hearing, processing and deportation. If the claim is accepted they get their escrowed wages back. This would remove any incentive for fake asylum applicants to arrive, let the ones waiting for hearings (current wait time 4.5 years) support themselves and pays for more asylum court judges/administrators. It would also stimulate more demand for housing if these millions of people were working instead of staying in NYC or other government funded hotel rooms without anything to do all day.
How many electricians does America need to switch to renewable energy; replace all gas appliances; install wall batteries in every building & home; replace ACs & heaters with heat pumps; and install 220V outlets in every parking spot?
How long would it take to train immigrants how to do these things? A year to become entry-level?
What about cleaning up fossil fuel infrastructure? Gas piping, abandoned wells, refineries (which are the size of small towns), offshore rigs, gas stations, etc. All the land around these structures will need to be remediated too.
What about home construction? As the YIMBYs secure defeats against the NIMBYs on permitting and more units get approved for construction, we’re going to need a lot more construction workers. Heck, we need lots of buildings built to house and process these immigrants!
Southwestern states have plenty of bilingual citizens who can manage these workers. The rest of the country has Spanish language classes offered in high school (unless the curriculum has changed). It’s difficult to learn a language without having real world practice, so in that regard many of these immigrants would be helpful for cementing those language lessons.
Lots of these immigrants become house cleaners, dishwashers, farm workers, and elder care workers already. Lots of demand for all of these jobs still.
My younger son, adopted from Guatemala, is an apprentice electrician in Denver. They are desperate for workers. He's a 2nd year apprentice and will made over $60k (with overtime) last year. The companies also pay and host the Associate Degree classes for electricians.
How well do you reckon an immigrant without an English-language education could fare in such a system? Any Spanish language instructors? Other considerations?
I think in most trades in big vibrant cites like Denver probably 20-40% speak Spanish (roofers and drywall it’s got to be over 80%). These guys will work on roofs, 3 stories above concrete, right up to the edge, no safety lines. It’s actually hard on my son, who doesn’t speak Spanish, when people address him in Spanish. I’m sure for apprentices good sized electrical firms have plenty of bilingual supervisors. Pay someone $25/hr I bet they will learn English quickly.
I just asked my son about this. Electricians a low Spanish speaking compared to other trades, but electricians have to interact with many other trades. He said the bi-lingual electricians are Gold for his company (the ones he works with are born in the US speaking Spanish at home).
Hot take: A lot of these migrants that Republicans cry are "Democrats importing votes" will actually vote republican when (if) they can vote. A lot of these people are fleeing oppressive regimes and align heavily with the notion of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps + being tough on crime. Look at Florida - the Dems lost nearly all the Cuban vote!
Also it's unbelievable that high skilled Indian immigrants no longer have any road to a Green Card with country based quotas. You're paying in millions into the system only to remain in an H-1B hell scape - a lot of high skill Indians are deciding to forgo this and just remain in India which is a huge loss for us.
I suspect there will be a big shift in the Muslim vote, but it won't be exactly because of the war in Gaza. The war in Gaza will be a convenient excuse for that. The Muslims are a conservative community that cannot stand an education system trying to convince its boys that they are actually girls and vice versa. Such things get under their skin. But they can't support the Republicans because they are pro-Israel and Islamophobic. Biden's behavior on the war issue provides them with a convenient excuse: they're all the same, so it's possible to get an exemption from the obligation to vote for extreme liberalism.
This is the main problem with the liberals. They are a minority among whites who try to bring the religious conservatives of other ethnic groups to vote for them through bribery and temptation. In Europe it works because even the right is not socially conservative. In America, there is a real religious right, so it's a bit more complicated.
> drawing wild condemnations from the right wing for supporting “population replacement”.
Would it? I don't think people who get upset about immigration care about economic arguments much, or consider GDP growth to be a euphemism for population replacement. The argument that more people = higher GDP is trivially true and not interesting for most people with an even very passing understanding of economics, who understand that simply moving economic activity from one place to another doesn't necessarily increase quality of life for themselves. But it also isn't an argument that makes people furious.
The population replacement stuff is much more triggered by what (to your credit) you talk about later, where immigration is being presented as a way to permanently disenfranchise anyone who isn't on the left. It's a reaction to a "if you don't like the current voters, why not dissolve them and elect another" trend in elite discourse.
The left like to paint this belief as a conspiracy theory, which of course means it's true. This is most likely to happen first in the UK, where Labour are openly talking about granting voting rights to massive numbers of "settled migrants" and also 16 year olds for good measure. They consider this only because these recent arrivals are much more left wing than the rest of the country. So the idea that any time too many people become right wing a left wing government will just import more voters from poor countries with bad governance is not so much a conspiracy theory as something that's openly debated as policy by the most likely next government.
If you're not left wing then this amounts to an announcement of endless political oppression of your views, making you into a permanent underclass of people who can technically vote but will always lose thanks to endless immigration driven by welfare spending that is in turn driven by foreign borrowing and currency depreciation. It's a nightmarish thought for those on the right and an irresistable end-run around democracy for those on the left. Of course it's a neuralgic issue as a consequence.
Personally, I'm an open-borders, pro-refugee type (my grandfather was one). But that position is clearly political poison right now, as you point out.
I think the media is causing massive harm by discussing border/asylum issues as "immigration". Most immigration has nothing to do with that specific, concentrated problem area. The US needs to streamline procedures for work visas, green cards, etc. I (a US citizen) submitted the petition for my wife (not a US citizen) to get her green card and become a permanent resident in *October 2022* and it's still pending (this is not unusual; current wait times even in this preferred category are 17-18 months). These issues, which exclusively affect people who are "following the rules", get swept up in the nonstop discussion of the "squeaky wheel" of asylum overruns. Whatever philosophy any of us has, we have to move past this issue so we can start actually improving the system instead of just playing defense.
Also, Texas governor Greg Abbott should be tried and convicted of attempted murder for sending buses of migrants to Chicago in January wearing shorts and sandals (two weeks ago, it was -6 F overnight). (And yes, I've seen this personally; I live just a few L stops away from Chicago Union Station.)
Advanced countries have an immigration problem. Climate change is driving mass migration. Incentives to flee starvation, civil
wars, gangs, and drug-cartel controlled territories is far more powerful than any one country’s immigration policy and enforcement. Absent a multi-hemispheric policy and coordinated cooperation, illegal migration won’t be solved. At no other time in recorded history have more people been on the move. Long term, even domestic migration will become a problems as the oceans rise and flood the lower land where the poor settle in coastal cities. For the first time in recorded history, more people lived in metropolitan areas than the countryside. Most of this migration concentrated into coastal cities where globalization concentrated the jobs because of the infrastructure (deep-water ports, rail lines, highways, etc. This mass migration into the world’s coastal cities will be reversed in the coming decades.
Your current position seems much closer to the David Frum Atlantic article that you critiqued in 2019 (link https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1105156605664874497 ). It would be a good exercise for you and your subscribers to revisit the previous critique, and note where adjustments are needed, and why. (In addition, your attitude towards Mr. Frum was a bit harsh, and I hope you will consider apologizing to him)
Assuming that you have abandoned the ‘1 billion Americans’ thesis (not possible without massive immigration), is it correct to say that your preferred policy goal is to maintain the U.S.’s current population? If so, encouraging high-skilled immigrants is unlikely to provide sufficient numbers.
This means that unskilled immigrants are also necessary, but under what conditions? If the current border surge since the Biden administration is temporary, that’s one thing. But if we are witnessing a long-term increase, more comprehensive (and humane) solutions are needed, including advanced cooperation with Mexico and Canada.
It’s a complicated problem, but you can’t blame Australia for this one!
How does the new bipartisan Senate bill that Biden is endorsing (and Sen. Lankford is getting attacked by Republicans for) stack up against the 2013 bill? We only know rumors and Platonic shadows so far, but it seems it will cover many of the areas you mention. thanks.
55% of new businesses are started by immigrants. They’re job creators, not job takers. There was all-time record new-business formation in 2030 and 2021. And new-business formation is still trending upwards. Historically, immigration has been America’s best economic engine.
I propose a 3rd compromise: If you came to the US as an adult ilegal immigrant, the most you should be able to get is permanent residency (ie green card) and not citizenship.
I think this would alleviate conservative concerns that immigrants would mostly vote democratic (true or not), allow the US to deport any bad apples and is also fundamentally fair that if you broke the law there should be some recognition of that.
I say this as a legal immigrant who had to jump through dozens of hoops and spent thousands on immigrations fees and lawyers to guide me though the process.
Or rather can truly desperate people be stopped by anything other than mass murder and crimes against humanity? And is that a price we’re willing to pay at in order to remain in control?
As a British person, the whole nation of immigrants thing - "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" etc - is the very greatest thing about America. I admire how so many non-Americans want to be American, and how proud Americans are of the desirability of their own nationality. I'd hate to see that go.
I live in Denver. We've had nearly 40K migrants from Venezuela; the population of Denver is just over 700K. I donate money to the relevant charities and try to participate in keeping the migrants alive by feeding them lunch occasionally (feeding 200 migrants at a hotel shelter is...an experience).
I'm pretty old, so I know that eventually the migrants will disperse to other parts of the country. Some will be deported. Many will find their places in the economy. Some will become permanent problems. (The criminal element among the migrants is called "The children of Chavism" by the other migrants. Hugo wasn't super popular with everyone in Venezuela.)
We haven't yet had much civil unrest, but we will. The migrants are desperate and don't understand why they can't get work permits. They don't understand why they can't work when they truly want to. They have kids who are sick and the one public hospital is overwhelmed. The self-righteousness of the blue cities calling themselves "sanctuary cities" is coming back to bite us, because the migrants are told that jobs are plentiful, housing is free, health care is free, etc. Sanctuary, right? I hope that eventually word will get back to Venezuela that those things aren't true.
My main point is to reinforce Noah's thesis that this is going to give the Republicans a big advantage in November. Even people in blue states and cities are going to drift reddish if this situation doesn't get addressed. It was easy to ignore and dismiss when it was just Texas. Who cares about Texas? They're so Republican. But now it's us. Biden needs to do something big and dramatic and public, if he possibly can.
Europeans aren't coming to the United States because the European birth rate is even lower than ours. Without immigration, the population of Europe would be shrinking rapidly.
Europeans don't go to the US because doing so legally is difficult.
I've worked in tech my entire life. In my early 20s I was recruited by a big US tech firm, who wanted me to immigrate to California. I had a job but couldn't go, because I couldn't get an H1B. They hit the quotas in those years, so I ended up moving elsewhere in Europe instead.
That's OK, it's nice enough where I live. Maybe in California I'd have had more job opportunities but it'd have been harder to meet women, it's hard to know how life would have worked out. But let's just say I haven't thought about trying again, and I haven't encouraged anyone else to try, nor has anyone encouraged me.
Some years later I became friends with a guy about the same age who also worked in tech, in the same sort of job role as me. He DID manage to get into the USA and became CTO of a startup, but he did it by commissioning an agency to make a popular YouTube video and then claimed to be an artist. For some reason it was easier to get in on a creative/artist visa than on a tech visa, I suppose because of the politics of Indian H1B (ab)use by large contractors?
I also know a girl who won't go to the USA at all. She went once, did something dumb and had to do a few days of community service before being deported. They told her she could go back in two years. After two years she went back and was allowed in. Then some time later she went back again, but this time the border guards bounced her without explaining why. Now to visit the USA she has to book an appointment at the embassy weeks in advance to do an interview, to get a visa that doesn't actually guarantee she'll be let in and maybe the border guards will do it again, so she's just given up on even visiting as a tourist.
Birth rates now are lower than than they once were, but in all our cases the US immigration story was filled with difficulties and caveats - and for us guys that was for highly skilled, highly paid work. Europeans don't have the option of just jumping the border fence. We have to follow the rules!
But the US lost out from your not being able to immigrate. The ide a a limit of H1B visas is crazy!
Thanks for your overview of the difficulties of high skilled European immigrants. TBH, Europeans could overstay their visas and be in the country illegally, but then they would be relegated to jobs like mowing lawns and restaurant work like other “illegals.”
When Trump was in office it was a lot more difficult for people coming here- that may have been why she had a problem coming in.
I doubt it was Trump. European immigration to the US has been low and difficult for generations.
They are not coming because they can’t walk here and because the housing and dole benefits are better in Europe
Let's have merit based immigration and see. I'll bet at least one or two would forego the dole and housing (?) benefits.
The quality of life differential is not what it was when Europeans were streaming into Eliis Island
No- but there are plenty of Europeans who would want to come and work and live in the US if it was possible - especially E Europeans but also some Italians, Portuguese, etc
I am not so sure about those East-Europeans. Anecdotal evidence: my brother and I were just talking about how times have changed in this regard here in Czechia. There were so many people around me in the 90s and early 2000s who would have loved to live in the US if they could do it legally. I even knew a few who went there illegally. The Work & Travel USA program was insanely popular among college kids - I was in the US on W&T myself in 2001 and 2002, and so were half of my college buddies.
But today? Students do Erasmus instead of the W&T USA, and I don't know anyone around me who would want to live in the US. Personally, I would consider it a significant step back in terms of quality of life. It still sounds weird just saying that - If someone had told me 20 years ago, I wouldn't have believed it.
Fun fact - I live in a city with a surprising number of American expats (skilled workers - there are a bunch of companies that have something to do with electron microscopy and other tech stuff I don't understand).
Most such people find it much easier and just as attractive to migrate within Europe. Ever been to London? It is rife with European migrants.
Yeah, but the Europeans would make more PPP money in the US were they allowed to work. Especially the skilled workforce.
Yes- my kids are dual US/UK citizens
A one-way ticket From Frankfurt to New York City costs about $500. People coming across the southern border may pay up to $2000 for help getting across the border.
Frankfurt, not so much. But I know Poles who have come here- also Ukrainians, Georgians and Russians.
Financially, staying in the EU is a better deal for poorer EU citizens - housing, dole, healthcare. However there are plenty of educated professionals in France, Italy, Greece. Spain, Portugal who are terribly underemployed in the EU and would come to the US- but makes no sense for middle class credentialed people to come over as illegals, even if they have a dead end job in Europe. If we make it easier and legal, they will come
Great post. I'm all for compromise, but I have my doubts about the cost of poor, unskilled immigrants. Here where I live there are a lot of them, some "legal," some not, and they all work. They can't get welfare or Medicaid. The work in the trades, the hospitality industry, & as entrepreneurs. Many work several jobs. Where do they live? Where immigrants always have: those who own houses rent rooms to landsmen, others cram into apartments.
As much as it flatters my ego to think the most important immigrants are highly educated people like my parents, coworkers, and friends, the truth is that if someone has the courage and capacity to hike zillions of miles through jungle to a country that doesn’t speak their language for a chance at a bit more money and security, then they have already demonstrated more entrepreneurial spirit and general competence than I ever have, and their descendants are more likely to do great things for this country than I ever will be.
I agree wholeheartedly. I look at my neighbors & I'm amazed. Many don't speak much English; some are barely literate in their native language. But they work incredibly hard & are in many ways more strongly committed to this country than I am. They believe in ideals I'm more than a bit dubious about. We should make a point of welcoming more & more of them.
I had the most amazing experience with a Guatemalan fellow who was doing some exterior wood working. I needed similar work done and began to talk with him. Barely a word of English and I speak restaurant Spanish. Anyway, he switched instantly to Google translate and it translated our speech accurately into the language each understood. I asked how to get in touch with his employer and he turned around and his T shirt had all the contact info. I snapped a picture and eventually used his firms services. It was a spectacular experience. More please.
Once they have a kid here they can get Medicaid/SCHIP, food stamps, housing benefits, etc, along with refundable tax credits of various sorts.
I am all for a guest worker program (sourcing from around the world, not just Latam) to bring in hard working people on a trial basis. If they stay employed and crime free for x-years and demonstrate some proficiency in English afterwards then let them In permanently- in controlled numbers, provided they want to become Americans
I tend to agree. We need low skill workers, too for all kinds of jobs that native-born simply will not do or whose skills are too high. Certainly lots of hammer swinging but also abattoirs, low-level health care and restaurants. They all learn English soon enough.
Let's not forget that immigrants, including low-skill, are highly entrepreneurial whether starting their own construction firm or restaurant, etc.
One solution might be a far more effective guest worker program in which a worker is rewarded for obeying rules that include a promise not to stay forever and to leave the family back home. If they pay into the Social Security system, which we need, they can be rewarded for retiring in their home country or conceivably using those funds to grant their children opportunities for higher education, etc.; again from their home countries. Lots of options whatever are chosen.
Recall that during many periods of high immigration, the entire family did not enter the US and that's before easy cross-border funds transfers.
And although the restricionson housing supply is unfortunate, isn't it better to have those working productive people here than not here?
The dependency ratio has increased quite a bit, particularly as Obama policy was focused on getting more children across the border. The children come with benefits attached.
Makes it less clearly an economic win for the country, unless the kids finish their education, don’t commit crimes and are as hard working as the parents. Some cultures seem very good at producing law abiding, hard working American kids who reliably attend school (often more successfully than long-settled American families).
I agree that not all immigrants have equal short or long-term benefits for residents. A merit based system aims for maximum benefits. Of course exactly how one measures merit is important and difficult.
I'm a little puzzled by your comment on Obama "focused on getting more children across the border." Are you referring to DACA?
Here is a pretty good overview of UACs at the border. There has been a massive surge that started in 2013-2014 after Obama’s change in policies - DACA and DAPA and benefits eligibility
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43599
Trump tightened things up with remain in Mexico as well as record keeping, biometrics, etc after a big surge early in his term
Biden junked all that so new records were set
I still think that it is a stretch to characterize DACA as "focused on getting more children across the border."
“Deferred action for Childhood arrivals”. The name pretty much sums it ups
Minimum two year grace from deportation plus a work permit, plus eligibility for benefits.
And when arrivals surged with some children getting abused, raped (or even killed) along with way, was there any attempt to limit the policy or roll it back by Obama? That is, is there any evidence that a such surge was a completely surprising, unintended and undesirable effect?
Quite the reverse, as far as I can remember. Unless you can think of anything.
Noah, thank you for a characteristically thoughtful and valuable piece. In trying to talk sense to "both sides" on this issue, you are bound to annoy both sides. Comes with the job, I guess.
Speaking as a Reagan Republican turned Biden Democrat whoii loathes Trump, I'd like to offer three constructive criticisms (yes, that is probably at least two too many, but here we go...)
1. "what we need is to care more about solving the problems than about pinning them on our opponents."
Good advice, but understanding how we got here (and I think you do) is important. It is painfully obvious that the history of this issue has left the different sides with no mutual trust. I suspect a little truth-telling and ownership of past mistakes by both sides would help. And no, I don't see that happening in the current environment - Trump is not exactly an "OK, I may have been wrong about that" guy.
2. "I know some right-wingers have this notion that immigrants want to “replace” the American population by turning White people into a minority and then outvoting them."
And I know you are familiar with the Judis/ Teixara "Emerging Democratic Majority" of 2002, which predicted that changing demographic patterns, including the rise of the immigrant vote, would empower Democrats for a generation. Plenty of right-wingers think that the open border isn't an immigrant conspiracy, its a Democratic Party goal. Eg, just about any contemporary article on Turning Texas Blue starts with the Hispanic vote.
https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/a-blue-texas-is-in-reach/
3. John Boehner and the House Republicans killed Obama's 2013 immigration deal. But in a To Be Fair moment, let's note that Obama and Big Labor got credit for killing Bush's 2007 attempt. Maybe Obama thought a better deal would be available under President Hillary in 2009. Maybe denying Bush a chance to fly the 'W' in 2007 seemed like good politics, sort of like Johnson and Biden today. Or maybe Obama sincerely didn't like the deal. Or both!
Water under the bridge, but as I said, the history of the bad blood does count for something.
Well, thanks again. I'm sure the comments from both sides will include plenty of criticism. I hope some of it helps.
> Plenty of right-wingers think that the open border isn't an immigrant conspiracy, its a Democratic Party goal. Eg, just about any contemporary article on Turning Texas Blue starts with the Hispanic vote.
There’s also the ending white supremacy rhetoric which treats the coming white minority as a consummation devoutly to be wished. It’s conspiratorial to believe in the replacement or disempowerment of whites but it’s progressive to believe in it.
Do let me pre-emptively say this about (2), the replacement theory - the anti-semitic Jewish conspiracy versions of that theory are ludicrous and shameful, and we all understand that there are kooks and cranks who advocate that.
But I hope we also understand that 'nut-picking' - finding the most deplorable argument your opponent's side is making and insisting it typifies that side - is not the path to mutual understanding and compromise. (OTOH, it's a great way for politicians to raise money and rally their base...)
From a policy point of view, understanding the history may have value but I’m not sure that knowing it will change anyone’s mind. Indeed, I would be concerned that another decade could go by while the parties debate how we got into this mess. Certainly, trying to convince the voters that it was the other side’s fault is a dead end, although the Republicans have an advantage simply because they have been harping on this for a long time.
I am skeptical that blaming the border problem on the Republicans because they backed away from the deal they helped craft will move the dial. The Republicans are claiming that Biden already had the power to act, a contention that they seek to buttress by the political theater in Texas involving the National Guard, which suggests to the average voter that Texas had to step in to do the job the Democrats haven’t. I can’t see voters trying to sort out the legal issues, nor do I think that most will buy the replacement theory, although some concern over crime and jobs is widespread.
You can’t make a legal deal with someone who makes up law by fiat as they go along
I disagree on culprits. In 2007, the execrable Tom Tancredo ignited much of the right-wing fury against immigration and killed the legislation.
Tancredo was certainly a star of the opposition.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jul-05-na-tancredo5-story.html
However, any deal was going to be a balancing act. Especially in hindsight, Bush and McCain '07 look one of the last gasps of the Chamber of Commerce wing of the Rep party, which loved cheap labor.
McCain was working with Ted Kennedy (and Obama, as part of a bipartisan 'gang') on something that eventually had to clear Nancy Pelosi's House. So any bill was going to require solid Dem support.
At crunch time, to Kennedy's consternation Obama went rogue (per CNN) and backed an amendment sure to kill the fragile coalition. Bush ended up losing the support of 38 Reps and 11 Dem Senators. To me that sounds like a combination of far right, moderate right and far left outvoted the centrists. Why blame just the far right, and why was Kennedy yelling at Obama?
https://www.cnn.com/2014/11/21/politics/obama-immigration-flashback/index.html
Per the NY Times "People on opposite sides of the political spectrum, in effect, banded together to defeat the middle...
...
Although they rarely publicly voiced their opposition, the muscle of organized labor worked vigorously behind the scenes to defeat the measure. A key concern was the guest worker program.
Although dozens of amendments from senators were never called, Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, had three chances to offer amendments to eliminate or set an end date on guest workers, because the leadership wanted to balance the scales after the Republicans had won major changes.
The proposal to end the guest worker program after five years passed just after midnight on Thursday morning."
The Dorgan amendments were the ones in which Obama deserted Kennedy's workgroup and voted to pass them. I assume he sincerely believed it made for a better bill, but he also had to have understood (as Kennedy did) that the better bill would be DOA.
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/washington/09immig.html
Well. The death blow might have been something else, eventually. The right objected to amnesty, Big Labor did not seem to want to import workers (go figure!), and all these years later the contours of the debate seem pretty familiar.
Among the many problems with the current system, one that is causing particular difficulty for New York is that people who have a pending asylum hearing aren’t allowed to work for the first 6 months they’re in the US.
In theory, this rule is designed to disincentivize asylum-seeking. In practice it means that the NY city and state government has to foot the bill to keep these asylum-seekers fed and sheltered for their first 6 months. This is unfortunate because there is lots of demand for labor (NYC has a roughly 5% unemployment rate at the moment) and I’m sure many of these asylum-seekers would love to get a job. In practice, I expect many of the asylum-seekers do find work despite lacking employment authorization. Some New York State officials have floated the prospect of NYS creating a state-level employment authorization in defiance of federal law, specifically to cover these cases.
Of course, if immigration hearings could be processed faster, this issue would all be moot.
One solution would be to let the asylum applicants work until their asylum hearing, but keep some portion (perhaps 30%) of their wages in escrow, and if their asylum claim is denied (most are, it’s very hard to prove without solid evidence) then make them pay for the costs of the hearing, processing and deportation. If the claim is accepted they get their escrowed wages back. This would remove any incentive for fake asylum applicants to arrive, let the ones waiting for hearings (current wait time 4.5 years) support themselves and pays for more asylum court judges/administrators. It would also stimulate more demand for housing if these millions of people were working instead of staying in NYC or other government funded hotel rooms without anything to do all day.
Of course they find work
And let’s be honest - how many of these people are actually persecuted refugees entitled to asylum? That doesn’t mean it won’t be granted.
How many electricians does America need to switch to renewable energy; replace all gas appliances; install wall batteries in every building & home; replace ACs & heaters with heat pumps; and install 220V outlets in every parking spot?
https://www.newyorker.com/news/dept-of-energy/the-great-electrician-shortage
How long would it take to train immigrants how to do these things? A year to become entry-level?
What about cleaning up fossil fuel infrastructure? Gas piping, abandoned wells, refineries (which are the size of small towns), offshore rigs, gas stations, etc. All the land around these structures will need to be remediated too.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/nov/04/fossil-fuel-assets-worthless-2036-net-zero-transition
What about home construction? As the YIMBYs secure defeats against the NIMBYs on permitting and more units get approved for construction, we’re going to need a lot more construction workers. Heck, we need lots of buildings built to house and process these immigrants!
Southwestern states have plenty of bilingual citizens who can manage these workers. The rest of the country has Spanish language classes offered in high school (unless the curriculum has changed). It’s difficult to learn a language without having real world practice, so in that regard many of these immigrants would be helpful for cementing those language lessons.
Lots of these immigrants become house cleaners, dishwashers, farm workers, and elder care workers already. Lots of demand for all of these jobs still.
My younger son, adopted from Guatemala, is an apprentice electrician in Denver. They are desperate for workers. He's a 2nd year apprentice and will made over $60k (with overtime) last year. The companies also pay and host the Associate Degree classes for electricians.
How well do you reckon an immigrant without an English-language education could fare in such a system? Any Spanish language instructors? Other considerations?
I think in most trades in big vibrant cites like Denver probably 20-40% speak Spanish (roofers and drywall it’s got to be over 80%). These guys will work on roofs, 3 stories above concrete, right up to the edge, no safety lines. It’s actually hard on my son, who doesn’t speak Spanish, when people address him in Spanish. I’m sure for apprentices good sized electrical firms have plenty of bilingual supervisors. Pay someone $25/hr I bet they will learn English quickly.
I just asked my son about this. Electricians a low Spanish speaking compared to other trades, but electricians have to interact with many other trades. He said the bi-lingual electricians are Gold for his company (the ones he works with are born in the US speaking Spanish at home).
Hot take: A lot of these migrants that Republicans cry are "Democrats importing votes" will actually vote republican when (if) they can vote. A lot of these people are fleeing oppressive regimes and align heavily with the notion of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps + being tough on crime. Look at Florida - the Dems lost nearly all the Cuban vote!
Also it's unbelievable that high skilled Indian immigrants no longer have any road to a Green Card with country based quotas. You're paying in millions into the system only to remain in an H-1B hell scape - a lot of high skill Indians are deciding to forgo this and just remain in India which is a huge loss for us.
I suspect there will be a big shift in the Muslim vote, but it won't be exactly because of the war in Gaza. The war in Gaza will be a convenient excuse for that. The Muslims are a conservative community that cannot stand an education system trying to convince its boys that they are actually girls and vice versa. Such things get under their skin. But they can't support the Republicans because they are pro-Israel and Islamophobic. Biden's behavior on the war issue provides them with a convenient excuse: they're all the same, so it's possible to get an exemption from the obligation to vote for extreme liberalism.
This is the main problem with the liberals. They are a minority among whites who try to bring the religious conservatives of other ethnic groups to vote for them through bribery and temptation. In Europe it works because even the right is not socially conservative. In America, there is a real religious right, so it's a bit more complicated.
> drawing wild condemnations from the right wing for supporting “population replacement”.
Would it? I don't think people who get upset about immigration care about economic arguments much, or consider GDP growth to be a euphemism for population replacement. The argument that more people = higher GDP is trivially true and not interesting for most people with an even very passing understanding of economics, who understand that simply moving economic activity from one place to another doesn't necessarily increase quality of life for themselves. But it also isn't an argument that makes people furious.
The population replacement stuff is much more triggered by what (to your credit) you talk about later, where immigration is being presented as a way to permanently disenfranchise anyone who isn't on the left. It's a reaction to a "if you don't like the current voters, why not dissolve them and elect another" trend in elite discourse.
The left like to paint this belief as a conspiracy theory, which of course means it's true. This is most likely to happen first in the UK, where Labour are openly talking about granting voting rights to massive numbers of "settled migrants" and also 16 year olds for good measure. They consider this only because these recent arrivals are much more left wing than the rest of the country. So the idea that any time too many people become right wing a left wing government will just import more voters from poor countries with bad governance is not so much a conspiracy theory as something that's openly debated as policy by the most likely next government.
If you're not left wing then this amounts to an announcement of endless political oppression of your views, making you into a permanent underclass of people who can technically vote but will always lose thanks to endless immigration driven by welfare spending that is in turn driven by foreign borrowing and currency depreciation. It's a nightmarish thought for those on the right and an irresistable end-run around democracy for those on the left. Of course it's a neuralgic issue as a consequence.
Personally, I'm an open-borders, pro-refugee type (my grandfather was one). But that position is clearly political poison right now, as you point out.
I think the media is causing massive harm by discussing border/asylum issues as "immigration". Most immigration has nothing to do with that specific, concentrated problem area. The US needs to streamline procedures for work visas, green cards, etc. I (a US citizen) submitted the petition for my wife (not a US citizen) to get her green card and become a permanent resident in *October 2022* and it's still pending (this is not unusual; current wait times even in this preferred category are 17-18 months). These issues, which exclusively affect people who are "following the rules", get swept up in the nonstop discussion of the "squeaky wheel" of asylum overruns. Whatever philosophy any of us has, we have to move past this issue so we can start actually improving the system instead of just playing defense.
Also, Texas governor Greg Abbott should be tried and convicted of attempted murder for sending buses of migrants to Chicago in January wearing shorts and sandals (two weeks ago, it was -6 F overnight). (And yes, I've seen this personally; I live just a few L stops away from Chicago Union Station.)
Advanced countries have an immigration problem. Climate change is driving mass migration. Incentives to flee starvation, civil
wars, gangs, and drug-cartel controlled territories is far more powerful than any one country’s immigration policy and enforcement. Absent a multi-hemispheric policy and coordinated cooperation, illegal migration won’t be solved. At no other time in recorded history have more people been on the move. Long term, even domestic migration will become a problems as the oceans rise and flood the lower land where the poor settle in coastal cities. For the first time in recorded history, more people lived in metropolitan areas than the countryside. Most of this migration concentrated into coastal cities where globalization concentrated the jobs because of the infrastructure (deep-water ports, rail lines, highways, etc. This mass migration into the world’s coastal cities will be reversed in the coming decades.
They should build bigger sea defenses and stay put.
Your current position seems much closer to the David Frum Atlantic article that you critiqued in 2019 (link https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1105156605664874497 ). It would be a good exercise for you and your subscribers to revisit the previous critique, and note where adjustments are needed, and why. (In addition, your attitude towards Mr. Frum was a bit harsh, and I hope you will consider apologizing to him)
Assuming that you have abandoned the ‘1 billion Americans’ thesis (not possible without massive immigration), is it correct to say that your preferred policy goal is to maintain the U.S.’s current population? If so, encouraging high-skilled immigrants is unlikely to provide sufficient numbers.
This means that unskilled immigrants are also necessary, but under what conditions? If the current border surge since the Biden administration is temporary, that’s one thing. But if we are witnessing a long-term increase, more comprehensive (and humane) solutions are needed, including advanced cooperation with Mexico and Canada.
It’s a complicated problem, but you can’t blame Australia for this one!
How does the new bipartisan Senate bill that Biden is endorsing (and Sen. Lankford is getting attacked by Republicans for) stack up against the 2013 bill? We only know rumors and Platonic shadows so far, but it seems it will cover many of the areas you mention. thanks.
55% of new businesses are started by immigrants. They’re job creators, not job takers. There was all-time record new-business formation in 2030 and 2021. And new-business formation is still trending upwards. Historically, immigration has been America’s best economic engine.
How many of those immigrant-owned businesses have no employees, or employ only their own co-ethnics (perhaps just their own extended family members)?
I propose a 3rd compromise: If you came to the US as an adult ilegal immigrant, the most you should be able to get is permanent residency (ie green card) and not citizenship.
I think this would alleviate conservative concerns that immigrants would mostly vote democratic (true or not), allow the US to deport any bad apples and is also fundamentally fair that if you broke the law there should be some recognition of that.
I say this as a legal immigrant who had to jump through dozens of hoops and spent thousands on immigrations fees and lawyers to guide me though the process.
Another question is this: is it even possible to restrict illegal immigration?
Or rather can truly desperate people be stopped by anything other than mass murder and crimes against humanity? And is that a price we’re willing to pay at in order to remain in control?
I think historically the US has sought to aid countries where migrants are moving from, so they don’t become so desperate.
In the case of Venezuela we would likely have to aid neighboring countries, like Columbia, so they could settle closer to home.