I really would like to see more work on the Afghan refugees issues re. crime. For example that BBC report, based on German statistics, seems to disagree with your conclusions.
Punchline : "When it comes to violent crime, 10.4% of murder suspects and 11.9% of sexual offence suspects were asylum-seekers and refugees in 2017. This is despite their population representing just 2% of Germany as a whole".
It's certainly true that Europeans aren't keen on more Muslims coming in Europe. I'd like to point out that Muslims are maybe 8-10% of the French population and, regardless of whether the bulk of the integration problem is due to racist natives or to communitarian immigrants, the result is that we have a badly integrated Muslim minority and the issues that this situation creates don't seem to resolve over time.
I used to say it was very comparable to the problems generated by the Hispanic/Latin/Mexican immigration in the US at the height of the pushback of 90s/early 00s but that seems to have calmed down quite a bit - with Hispanics eventually integrating just like other immigrant waves before them.
We don't seem to be able to achieve that integration in Europe...
In the U.S., Afghan refugees have been arrested at far lower rates than the American average. Like, 11x lower. So don't quote German figures to me! This is America I'm talking about! :-)
Assuming that's true and not some kind of statistical error, that's even more interesting... b/c WTF? You got all the good ones and we got all the shitty ones? Or is it that American integration capabilities are just so good? (or native Americans are 200% more violent than native Germans?)
A large part of it is the relative violence levels -- America is about 5x as violent as Germany. But this doesn't explain all of it. Maybe it's about the type of people we get, but my guess is that America accepts foreigners into our society very easily, both economically and socially, and so there's less alienation.
Having their *descendents* become violent is just a form of assimilation here. (I joke but some kids do finding trouble if trouble is around, immigrant or native-born.)
Joking asides (and some comic or other was saying immigrants burning cars was proof they were well integrated French...given our history of rioting), I think that, in France, second generation immigrant kids (ie they're French by rights of birth) are probably more troublesome than first generation/their parents. I don't have stats on that, though so purely an opinion/a guess.
Their parents know the kind of shitholes they left behind (even if memory is tricky and they can get misty eyed about the 'old country'). The kids don't. All they know is they have a difficult future in their country (France) that doesn't like them very much...
I'm not entirely surprised that some say "well, fuck that, let's have some violence and create mayhem".
Generally speaking, I think selection is uber important to immigration success. This is why I always laugh at Australians or Canadians being so proud of their immigrant success stories.
Sure, if I get to select the kind of people that come into my country, I'm going to select nothing but the good 'uns and then it'll go great. What a surprise.
Now that's for standard immigration (point based systems vs. family immigration), not for refugees/asylum but maybe the Anglo Saxons manage to put in selection criteria there too?
Yes, I think selection has a lot to do with it. You can't make it to the US by land from Afghanistan, obviously, so any Afghan refugees in the US are the ones the US was willing to bring in (interpreters who helped the American military, etc.). Interpreters, of course, would be more educated Afghans.
It's possibly pride at the smart policy that minimises domestic political blowback?
Regardless increasing asylum seekers wouldn't cost us too much, plus I think there are unmeasured benefits to being seen as a good and kind country, if you wanted to take purely 'what's in it for me' view on it.
That's not what they are proud of. They're proud of being a good and kind country but being elitist/selecting your immigrants as human meat on the intl' misery market is the contrary of being good and kind.
It's smart, I want the EU to do the same but it's selfish and ruthless, not good and kind.
America is vetting immigrants that aren't coming across the southern border much more carefully than Europeans are able to vet people coming across land borders would be my guess.
Europe has a very homogeneous culture. Despite Europe having lots of different countries, it doesn't have as many subcultures as America. So integration will always pose a bigger problem.
America is not a culture that's very hard to adjust to either: it's wealth-obsessed, individualistic, and funny enough, extremely polite( there are some very nasty outliers and America has a serious problem with its extremely confrontational police, regardless of what anyone affirms).
Immigrants mainly come from places of repression so individualism is appealing and everyone wants to earn their own money. Politeness is also not difficult to adjust to either.
With regard to the German stats, I'd have to see the stats for most European countries overall. There will always be outliers so that will provide a much more comprehensive and truthful overview.
By the way, Europe never had immigration problems. It has race problems. All of the reasons they gave out ceased to be a good excuse after Poland took in with good cause, I must add, over 1 million Ukrainians in a week.
As J.P Morgan once said, every man has a real reason and a reason which sounds good. This also applies to America. And it especially applies to immigration.
One thing that Brits always comment on when they go to America on holiday is what assholes your police are.
Like, it's pretty normal in Britain to walk up to a police officer on the street to ask directions - and to expect to get them if the police officer isn't busy. I have heard several people's accounts of doing that to the NYPD.
But other than your police, Americans are great people and easy to get on with as long as you know where the lines are and don't cross them (and those are mostly obvious: don't insult someone's country while you're a guest there, remember that Americans that go to church actually believe in God, unlike Europeans that go to the state church, their country's politics isn't your business as a guest, find something nice to say if you're going to say anything).
My experience of Europeans that go to their state church (and that was a deliberate qualification), is that they are mostly there out of tradition and don't take their religion all that seriously or deeply. Obviously, there are some people there out of a sincere faith (usually including the priest), but I tend to find that's a minority.
I'm not saying that they would say they don't believe in God, but that they don't take offense at jokes at the expense of God, or statements that assume that He doesn't exist - in ways that Americans (and Europeans who are members of non-state churches) do get offended at.
Richard, yes, I suppose I have never been to a European state church. The churches I have been to in Europe seem to have a lot of very sincere Christians. To be honest, a good number of them are actually not Europeans but even so, they do have a fair amount of Europeans in their congregations.
I think many Europeans, as in most things, are more subtle about their religious views than your typical American. Though, that is admittedly a bit of a stereotype.
I'm thinking especially of the Church of England, or the state churches of Denmark and Sweden; in all three, there are an awful lot of older people who are there entirely because it was socially the right thing to do when they were younger without really needing to take the formal beliefs seriously.
But it's also: if I make a joke at the expense of creationists anywhere in Europe, the chances of actually encountering one is almost zero, the chances in certain parts of America is a lot higher than that, and quite a few people will get angry about it.
> Europe has a very homogeneous culture. Despite Europe having lots of different countries, it doesn't have as many subcultures as America. So integration will always pose a bigger problem.
I don't know about that part. Pillarization within the Netherlands and within Belgium? Lingering differences between the ex-FRG and ex-GDR? Catalonia vs. the Basque Country vs. Galicia vs. the rest of Spain? Northern Italy vs. southern Italy? Switzerland and its 3 official languages? Kosovo vs. Serbia (and central Serbia vs. richer Vojvodina with its substantial Hungarian minority and 6 official languages)? "Poland A" vs. "Poland B"? Northern Albania vs. southern Albania? The Irish-nationalist insurgency in the British Isles? School segregation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (and Northern Ireland)? Segregation of Roma across Europe?
I very much agreed with Noah’s post last year “Love It and Leave It”. I would add that travelling in other countries also gives us some perspective on our homeland that we would not otherwise have. Yesterday’s post made me think about what I have learned about my country and myself from immigrants I have known. When I was in grad school, one of my fellow students who was from a repressive nation said to me, “You Americans are so lucky to have your Bill of Rights.” I have to say that I had never given the Bill of Rights much thought; it was something I had to learn about in a high school government class. But, as my friend pointed out, I’ve never lived in a fascist country.
I have worked in the high tech field. One of my colleagues, from a European country, told me that she had inquired about a job in her home country and was told the job was for men only. When she told them that would be illegal in the United States, she was told she could return to the US. Another female colleague, a university professor, told me that in her country, the male members of her family practice professions such as medicine and engineering, while the women do not attend school past about the sixth grade. She told me how lucky I am to have been born here.
That said, I have to mention that in my experience issues such as sexual harassment have been more common when I have dealt with men from countries where women have a lower status than in the US. American men are either more enlightened or better socialized.
A weird observation: The Brookings graphs coincidently match up with the double helix in Turchin's theory (extremes in 1910s and 1970s), AND the "what happened in 1971" about a change in social paradigm. Would US regress towards isolationism, like what they did about 11 decades ago?
Also notice that one of our greatest periods of unrest, 1965-1973, came when our foreign-born population was at its lowest ever. That suggests that the nativists are wrong about immigration driving social conflict.
A small possible counter: perhaps civic nativists (those that tolerate by values/faiths) and ethnic nativists (those that tolerate by skin color or skull shape) are two different demographics. The former makes sense in the Catholic-centrism in Northern US and Protestant-centrism in Southern. US, especially with the new-age conservatives. The latter is only justifiable if the imported migrants are exclusively or majoritarity those that prefers over-application of positive (welfare-esque) rights over the cultural default of negative (permissive) rights, which explains why radical right populism is dying down since ethnicity and cultural value selection has de-correlated. Now doesn't that sound "reactionary" to conditional changes?
The distinction would be more pronounced (compared to genetically adjacent Afghans) for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians or Latino Catholics (religiously aligned, ethnically divergent) and Western European Liberals (religiously divergent, ethnically similar). Civics prefer the former, Ethnics prefer the latter, even though both would agree that French North Africans (religious and ethnic divergent) are not preferred.
Turchin kind of scares me on an epistemological level... it's easy to get into the trap of turning his theory into an ideology. Like Strauss-Howe, it overfits the present, paves over a lot of the past to extrapolate the model into it, and presents a nice shiny theory with a bit too much confidence, despite the requisite lip service to self-doubt.
Unfortunately Turchin (and independently Ray Dalio) is planning to fit the same theory towards ancient history ala mSeshat, which will make or break this theory, either by prediction model conflicts, or by data residuals.
Housing cost is taken into account during resettlement. They tend to be steered places where there's a immigrant community but with a lower cost of living. For Afghans, the Bay Area got dropped from the list and Sacramento also downgraded unless they already have family here. They are, of course, welcome but it's not easy to establish a life even with assistance.
Chicago has a lot of Ukrainians and is much cheaper so I'm guessing a lot will go there. But refugees in particular have already endured tough conditions. They'll make it work wherever they end up and can also later move around the country for opportunities.
That still removes housing supply from an under-supplied market. If we want the population to welcome more immigration, it would be wise to first address valid economic concerns like housing inflation.
Of course we need to fix the supply issue. However, much of the country doesn't have the same crunch that California has and their housing prices have been dropping as they depopulate. Illinois has been depopulating significantly which is why I cited it (Chicago's population specifically has been flat.).
Yes, some places are worse than others. But in the current money-induced bout of inflation we are seeing housing costs rise sharply everywhere regardless of demographic trends, etc.
Mostly because housing has huge lags, but if there is increased demand, more houses will be built.
BTW, Buffalo had a median house price of $110K in 2021 and has taken in refugees. In fact, the only reason why Buffalo grew for the first time in 70 years according to the 2020 census is because of immigrants and refugees there.
I think it helps that many Americans feel closer to Ukraine in terms of culture and identity. Many of us have worked with developers there. There is a sense that many Ukraines share more of our values and thus make it easier to imagine them assimilating well. Their sudden distress from a bully aggressor stirs a strong desire to offer help and assistance. We should bring in as many as want to come here IMO.
I lived in Ukraine and I wouldn't say they got much overlap with US in terms of culture... :)
That said, they are White. I'm sure they'd assimilate fast... (since tone doesn't carry on internet, I am being sarcastic. The above is true but it is a statement about the kind of people WE (or the Americans; I'm French but it's the same in France) are, not about Ukrainians).
I moved to Israel as an academic in 2000, shortly after a wave of Russian immigration had significantly changed the country's demographics. My language class had an entire back row named Boris, or at least it seemed that way. And at the university we had a new problem, as it appeared that the Russian students took cheating as just a fact of life, based on their experiences in their homeland. We don't hear that any more, although the Russian contribution to the culture has only increased. And the contribution to the main streams of the economy is significant. It just takes time.
Regarding the superman clip -- when did this appear. Just curious. I strongly agree that we need to open up to immigrants. I believe that immigrants success is in part driven by their knowledge of how bad things can get; something far outside the imagination of most Americans.
Point made perfectly. Been reading your column since you published on your own blog and it used to be a refreshing point of view. Was excited to see some of your columns get picked up by the Browser it the early days. No longer the same. Enjoy.
Nah, this is one of Noah's best posts. No punching left, no bootlicking, just a clear and extensive argument for doing the right thing. Ukrainian, Afghan, Syrian? Just admit the refugees.
Everyone knows there is huge IQ difference between a refugee from Somalia and a refugee from Europe. Absorbing huge low IQ population has catastrophic consequences. I wonder why Sweden and Denmark are not so happy getting more Syrian refugees if it works so well. People in Scandinavia used to be extremely tolerant.
This article is like the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe never happened. But it did.
Getting refugees from Ukraine is fine but I am not sure it is good for Ukraine itself which needs its citizens at home in the end of the war.
It sounds like a typical response to a kid saying "The emperor had no clothes". Your assumption that all members of all societies have similar potential as immigrants is not reasonable.
You might get a kick out of Clemens and Pritchett's paper "The New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment" (https://docs.iza.org/dp9730.pdf). It builds a simple model of "dynamically optimal migration" that explicitly includes differences in total factor productivity between immigrants and non-immigrants. Somalia is one of its example immigrant sources.
After estimating parameters and calibrating the model, the paper estimates that while Somalian-born workers in Somalia are only 1/6 as productive as US-born workers in the US with the same age, gender, and education, most of that productivity gap vanishes after Somalians move to the US. The paper's ballpark estimate of annual "optimal" Somalia-to-US migration is about 1.5% of the US's population, or 5,000,000 Somalians per year.
In other words, the first year of "optimal" Somalian migration would expand the US's Somalian-immigrant community by a factor of 30–140, depending on your number for the community's current size (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Americans#Demographics). Even rejecting any "assumption that all members of all societies have similar potential as immigrants" there's a purely economic case (never mind humanitarian and general freedom concerns) for MASSIVELY expanding Somalian immigration to the US.
The article doesn't discuss issues like terror and crime that made native residents of Malmo and other places in Europe scared. Living in a town where a girl can walk alone at night has a huge value and you lose it once you accept immigrants from some countries.
> The article doesn't discuss issues like terror and crime
Correct. I did not know that by "IQ" and "potential" you actually meant "terror and crime".
> that made native residents of Malmo and other places in Europe scared. Living in a town where a girl can walk alone at night has a huge value and you lose it once you accept immigrants from some countries.
Somalian and Syrian immigration may have increased terrorism in Europe (source?) but the frequency of European terrorism clearly remains very low. So in itself it's not an obvious basis for restricting Somalian/Syrian immigration — and one ought to account also for the terror that would-be immigrants experience in their origin countries when Europe strands them there.
As for crime in general, while immigrants — like native residents — commit crimes, I'm not aware of convincing evidence that they made crime in general spike in Germany and Sweden, which had large absolute/relative immigration inflows. See https://reason.com/2020/09/15/the-myth-of-europes-migrant-crisis/.
You allude to interpersonal offenses against girls and mention Malmö, a Swedish city. The Reason article also digs into Sweden's recorded sex crimes. To try to summarize that part concisely, reported rapes "increased by 34 per cent" from 2009 to 2018, but that increase is confounded with a 2013 expansion in the definition of rape; and sex-offense reports in general have fluctuated without a clear link to migrant populations.
If you ever had any contact with actual individuals you would know that the Somali are the product of intense selectionary pressures that as a population rank them among some of the most intelligent people on the planet. This is also reflected in their powers of memorisation proven in Q'uran recitation competitions and demonstrated problem solving facilities under conditions of stress. A high ranking State Department official at the Nairobi Embassy intimated as much to me when discussing the opening of the pipeline from camps in Kenya during the 1990s. They tend to bring economic vitality and prosperity to the new places where they settle, be it the transformed Eastleigh area of the Kenya capital, east side of London, or in the State of Maine. Your comment is either naive, very poorly informed, or simply racist.
most Somali-Americans remain at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder. Nearly 57 percent of Somalis live in poverty, according to the report, while 26 percent live in near-poverty. Other measures also show how many Somali-Americans are struggling, even compared to other minority groups in the state. Somalis currently have the lowest median household income among immigrant and minority groups in Minnesota, as well as the lowest rates of educational attainment and home ownership.
I am sure all these indicators are accurate enough, and your input is well taken. But they don't tell the whole story. This is an issue of integration (which is always a three generation process for non-English speakers) in circumstances where refugees from a war torn society have gathered in ethnic ghettoes. Although they are rich in networked connections, cultural endowment, and social capital, this can act as a constraint in general for pockets of settlement where ethnic communities clump together, like the Minneapolis area in the case of the article you posted. Their strong clan orientation is a behavioural liability in many contexts. But this is in no way an accurate indicator of intelligence. Many of the Somali professionals I know identified the problem in advance, and settled away from their people's ethnic enclaves when they came to the USA. Having spent a lot of time with these people and working with them across the Horn of Africa, I came to respect them for their resilience, good humour, courage, and equanimity under stress. They do not whine and bitch and complain like myself and my fellow Americans are prone to do when inconvenienced. In any case, you need to add comparative data for the large communities in Toronto, San Diego, Atlanta, the Gulf region in Arabia, and other places where they have migrated. I expect they will do well over the long run. In any event, they have already overachieved for a pastoralist community coming from one of the most forbidding and remote environments on the globe, where the starting point of their modern history is complicated by a series of negative political interventions over the past century.
The IQ you referred to is biased and irrelevant. For that matter, I have excelled in standardised tests and have a two discipline Ph.D. from a leading university, taught at Yale, etc etc, but remain in a low income category due to whatever culturally and ideological influenced choices I have made in the cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Regardless, the thesis articulated in this article stands up well.
> Everyone knows there is huge IQ difference between a refugee from Somalia and a refugee from Europe. Absorbing huge low IQ population has catastrophic consequences.
I'll play along with that just for a moment and do some back-of-envelope math. Suppose we're talking about the US (population 330 million) adding the entire population of Somalia (population 16 million). Even assuming a "huge IQ difference" of 20 points between the US and Somalian population averages, the average US IQ would sink by...less than a point. Catastrophic?
> I wonder why Sweden and Denmark are not so happy getting more Syrian refugees if it works so well. People in Scandinavia used to be extremely tolerant.
> This article is like the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe never happened. But it did.
If by "2015 refugee crisis in Europe" you mean "discriminatory European politicians and institutions playing hot potato with refugees" then such a crisis did indeed happen. Simply allocating asylum seekers to European countries based on each European country's capacity was a better option on the table; it had majority popular support (https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/83226/1/Hangartner_Europeans%20support_2017.pdf).
> Getting refugees from Ukraine is fine but I am not sure it is good for Ukraine itself which needs its citizens at home in the end of the war.
That is fine but I am not sure it is good for Ukrainian citizens if non-Ukrainians trap them in a war zone.
Claiming that IQ represents some fixed capacity is surely undermined by measuring it with a timed test given to someone who's busy thinking about how their family was killed in a war.
Of course, you didn't actually give any refugees an IQ test to determine this anyway.
I think part of the problem is the decline of mainstream religion and the rise of feminism. Back in the day mainstream denominations had an internationalist outlook, supporting the UN and Unicef, staffing the refugee resettlement NGO's, etc. And college-educated wives had the time to staff NGOs, whether refugee aid, League of Women Voters, or whatever. No longer. Society could coast on the inertia of the past, but Trump and the rising influence of evangelical religion in politics have derailed that train.
You can see on these links how much the post-war migration boom changed Australia, yes we still had the shameful White Australia Policy, but at this time expanded the definition of 'White' to include Southern Europeans, ending the historic immigration rules that tried to keep all immigration to those from the British Isles only, this also helped lead within a few decades to Melbourne becoming the 2nd largest Greek Population city outside Athens (a fact we used when pitching for the Centenary Olympics in 1996, that was shamefully stolen from us by Atlanta)
Though we did continue to try to keep Australia as British as possible, with the famous 10 Pound Poms, where for 10 pounds you could get your transport to Australia by ship (this also led to Perth gaining a huge British population as it was the first stop of the ships on their way to Melbourne and Sydney, as each ship pulled into Port, hundreds of British immigrants would go to the docks and yell out to the ppl on the boat encouraging them to get off the ship and stay in Perth instead, telling them that it was superior to Sydney, which ended up being important in populating the empty west of the Continent
When looking at the reasons for this population push, it would be enough to make Matthew Yglesias sing, as the express reason given to the people by our politicians was that we could not defend ourselves against the Asian hordes (OK, he might not have liked that part) without filling up the Continent with ppl. One Billion Australians to coin a phrase
Then came the end of the White Australia Policy with the Whitlam Govt in 1972 (which combined with counting Aboriginals in the census and giving them citizenship after the 1967 Referendum) saved Australia, right at the last second from being ostracised like Sth Africa.
Then after the Vietnam war the Liberal (we confusingly have a Conservative Party called the Liberal Party) Fraser Govt welcomed in the Vietnamese Boat ppl which again led to huge demographic change in the country & led to immigration being opened up to Asians as well as Europeans at long last. Which has led to the final massive change, Howard responded to the rise of the Nativist One Nation Party in the late 90s with our shameful treatment of mainly middle-eastern Refugees, with offshore processing of (mainly middle-easterners) arriving by boat on the northern coast, boat turn-backs, offshore detention and our current system where we lock ppl up who arrive by boat offshore in Nauru or Papua New Guinea with no time limit on how long ppl can be stuck in legal limbo
However, one thing has happened at the same time as this, that has led to the largest demographic change since the post-war southern european boom, while all the focus has been on 200-800 refugees who tried to arrive by boat being locked up in indefinite offshore detention, the rules Howard bought in to try & be racist without mentioning race backfired (backfired in the sense of what he wanted) & the tests ended up working out to give Chinese immigrants a real leg-up in being approved as immigrants, so in the last 20 years we have seen a huge influx of Chinese immigration that is noticeable on the streets, most suburbs now have Chinese as the highest minority group, with some areas like Rhodes, Box HIll and Burwood being almost totally Chinese.
There is a lesson though in the lack of backlash to the Chinese immigration, its happened at a time of huge political focus (really quite awful politics to be honest) about border security, but while that has been the focus actual legal immigration has expanded in number and demographically changed the colour of the country with little or no backlash from the broader public, which maybe suggests that if you can make people confident that the borders are secure, that the people who are entering the country followed the rules and went through the correct processes then the concerns ppl have about immigration can be assuaged while you bring in the population boost the country needs
In practice this would mean near open borders, which I think is great, but you do not seem to think is great in other writings, but I think you should.
Depends how you define tyranny as well. I would consider the haitain government extremely and intolerably tyranical, but there is no active civil war going on so we dont seem to take in haitain refugees.
Similarly, I would consider the usa tyrannical in excessive drug punishments, and indeed the Norway court agrees with me, and refuses extradition to certain usa prisons.
Good post. I think we need to also ensure we establish a system where refugees are placed in communities in appropriate numbers. Some communities might not have the infrastructure to welcome thousands of people but imagine if small towns in say, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa or Missouri took in several families a piece from Ukraine. It would not overwhelm them and would also allow for the local communities to engage with the refugees on a more personal basis.
I am curious what the average education level is for Ukrainians vs Afghans or Syrians. I have a feeling it is pretty different and lumping education level of all refugees doesnt seem fair.
I really would like to see more work on the Afghan refugees issues re. crime. For example that BBC report, based on German statistics, seems to disagree with your conclusions.
Punchline : "When it comes to violent crime, 10.4% of murder suspects and 11.9% of sexual offence suspects were asylum-seekers and refugees in 2017. This is despite their population representing just 2% of Germany as a whole".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45419466
It's certainly true that Europeans aren't keen on more Muslims coming in Europe. I'd like to point out that Muslims are maybe 8-10% of the French population and, regardless of whether the bulk of the integration problem is due to racist natives or to communitarian immigrants, the result is that we have a badly integrated Muslim minority and the issues that this situation creates don't seem to resolve over time.
I used to say it was very comparable to the problems generated by the Hispanic/Latin/Mexican immigration in the US at the height of the pushback of 90s/early 00s but that seems to have calmed down quite a bit - with Hispanics eventually integrating just like other immigrant waves before them.
We don't seem to be able to achieve that integration in Europe...
In the U.S., Afghan refugees have been arrested at far lower rates than the American average. Like, 11x lower. So don't quote German figures to me! This is America I'm talking about! :-)
Assuming that's true and not some kind of statistical error, that's even more interesting... b/c WTF? You got all the good ones and we got all the shitty ones? Or is it that American integration capabilities are just so good? (or native Americans are 200% more violent than native Germans?)
What is going on?
A large part of it is the relative violence levels -- America is about 5x as violent as Germany. But this doesn't explain all of it. Maybe it's about the type of people we get, but my guess is that America accepts foreigners into our society very easily, both economically and socially, and so there's less alienation.
Je-sus! 5x more violent?! ouch.
Yep.
Having their *descendents* become violent is just a form of assimilation here. (I joke but some kids do finding trouble if trouble is around, immigrant or native-born.)
Joking asides (and some comic or other was saying immigrants burning cars was proof they were well integrated French...given our history of rioting), I think that, in France, second generation immigrant kids (ie they're French by rights of birth) are probably more troublesome than first generation/their parents. I don't have stats on that, though so purely an opinion/a guess.
Their parents know the kind of shitholes they left behind (even if memory is tricky and they can get misty eyed about the 'old country'). The kids don't. All they know is they have a difficult future in their country (France) that doesn't like them very much...
I'm not entirely surprised that some say "well, fuck that, let's have some violence and create mayhem".
Generally speaking, I think selection is uber important to immigration success. This is why I always laugh at Australians or Canadians being so proud of their immigrant success stories.
Sure, if I get to select the kind of people that come into my country, I'm going to select nothing but the good 'uns and then it'll go great. What a surprise.
Now that's for standard immigration (point based systems vs. family immigration), not for refugees/asylum but maybe the Anglo Saxons manage to put in selection criteria there too?
Yes, I think selection has a lot to do with it. You can't make it to the US by land from Afghanistan, obviously, so any Afghan refugees in the US are the ones the US was willing to bring in (interpreters who helped the American military, etc.). Interpreters, of course, would be more educated Afghans.
It's possibly pride at the smart policy that minimises domestic political blowback?
Regardless increasing asylum seekers wouldn't cost us too much, plus I think there are unmeasured benefits to being seen as a good and kind country, if you wanted to take purely 'what's in it for me' view on it.
That's not what they are proud of. They're proud of being a good and kind country but being elitist/selecting your immigrants as human meat on the intl' misery market is the contrary of being good and kind.
It's smart, I want the EU to do the same but it's selfish and ruthless, not good and kind.
Anyone willing to cross an ocean is probably capable of the kind of delay of gratification that leads to lesser violence.
America is vetting immigrants that aren't coming across the southern border much more carefully than Europeans are able to vet people coming across land borders would be my guess.
Europe has a very homogeneous culture. Despite Europe having lots of different countries, it doesn't have as many subcultures as America. So integration will always pose a bigger problem.
America is not a culture that's very hard to adjust to either: it's wealth-obsessed, individualistic, and funny enough, extremely polite( there are some very nasty outliers and America has a serious problem with its extremely confrontational police, regardless of what anyone affirms).
Immigrants mainly come from places of repression so individualism is appealing and everyone wants to earn their own money. Politeness is also not difficult to adjust to either.
With regard to the German stats, I'd have to see the stats for most European countries overall. There will always be outliers so that will provide a much more comprehensive and truthful overview.
By the way, Europe never had immigration problems. It has race problems. All of the reasons they gave out ceased to be a good excuse after Poland took in with good cause, I must add, over 1 million Ukrainians in a week.
As J.P Morgan once said, every man has a real reason and a reason which sounds good. This also applies to America. And it especially applies to immigration.
One thing that Brits always comment on when they go to America on holiday is what assholes your police are.
Like, it's pretty normal in Britain to walk up to a police officer on the street to ask directions - and to expect to get them if the police officer isn't busy. I have heard several people's accounts of doing that to the NYPD.
But other than your police, Americans are great people and easy to get on with as long as you know where the lines are and don't cross them (and those are mostly obvious: don't insult someone's country while you're a guest there, remember that Americans that go to church actually believe in God, unlike Europeans that go to the state church, their country's politics isn't your business as a guest, find something nice to say if you're going to say anything).
Richard,
I must say you have a bit of a cynical take on European Church-goers. What leads you to that conclusion?
My experience of Europeans that go to their state church (and that was a deliberate qualification), is that they are mostly there out of tradition and don't take their religion all that seriously or deeply. Obviously, there are some people there out of a sincere faith (usually including the priest), but I tend to find that's a minority.
I'm not saying that they would say they don't believe in God, but that they don't take offense at jokes at the expense of God, or statements that assume that He doesn't exist - in ways that Americans (and Europeans who are members of non-state churches) do get offended at.
Richard, yes, I suppose I have never been to a European state church. The churches I have been to in Europe seem to have a lot of very sincere Christians. To be honest, a good number of them are actually not Europeans but even so, they do have a fair amount of Europeans in their congregations.
I think many Europeans, as in most things, are more subtle about their religious views than your typical American. Though, that is admittedly a bit of a stereotype.
I'm thinking especially of the Church of England, or the state churches of Denmark and Sweden; in all three, there are an awful lot of older people who are there entirely because it was socially the right thing to do when they were younger without really needing to take the formal beliefs seriously.
But it's also: if I make a joke at the expense of creationists anywhere in Europe, the chances of actually encountering one is almost zero, the chances in certain parts of America is a lot higher than that, and quite a few people will get angry about it.
> Europe has a very homogeneous culture. Despite Europe having lots of different countries, it doesn't have as many subcultures as America. So integration will always pose a bigger problem.
I don't know about that part. Pillarization within the Netherlands and within Belgium? Lingering differences between the ex-FRG and ex-GDR? Catalonia vs. the Basque Country vs. Galicia vs. the rest of Spain? Northern Italy vs. southern Italy? Switzerland and its 3 official languages? Kosovo vs. Serbia (and central Serbia vs. richer Vojvodina with its substantial Hungarian minority and 6 official languages)? "Poland A" vs. "Poland B"? Northern Albania vs. southern Albania? The Irish-nationalist insurgency in the British Isles? School segregation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (and Northern Ireland)? Segregation of Roma across Europe?
I very much agreed with Noah’s post last year “Love It and Leave It”. I would add that travelling in other countries also gives us some perspective on our homeland that we would not otherwise have. Yesterday’s post made me think about what I have learned about my country and myself from immigrants I have known. When I was in grad school, one of my fellow students who was from a repressive nation said to me, “You Americans are so lucky to have your Bill of Rights.” I have to say that I had never given the Bill of Rights much thought; it was something I had to learn about in a high school government class. But, as my friend pointed out, I’ve never lived in a fascist country.
I have worked in the high tech field. One of my colleagues, from a European country, told me that she had inquired about a job in her home country and was told the job was for men only. When she told them that would be illegal in the United States, she was told she could return to the US. Another female colleague, a university professor, told me that in her country, the male members of her family practice professions such as medicine and engineering, while the women do not attend school past about the sixth grade. She told me how lucky I am to have been born here.
That said, I have to mention that in my experience issues such as sexual harassment have been more common when I have dealt with men from countries where women have a lower status than in the US. American men are either more enlightened or better socialized.
A weird observation: The Brookings graphs coincidently match up with the double helix in Turchin's theory (extremes in 1910s and 1970s), AND the "what happened in 1971" about a change in social paradigm. Would US regress towards isolationism, like what they did about 11 decades ago?
https://peterturchin.com/age-of-discord/
Also notice that one of our greatest periods of unrest, 1965-1973, came when our foreign-born population was at its lowest ever. That suggests that the nativists are wrong about immigration driving social conflict.
A small possible counter: perhaps civic nativists (those that tolerate by values/faiths) and ethnic nativists (those that tolerate by skin color or skull shape) are two different demographics. The former makes sense in the Catholic-centrism in Northern US and Protestant-centrism in Southern. US, especially with the new-age conservatives. The latter is only justifiable if the imported migrants are exclusively or majoritarity those that prefers over-application of positive (welfare-esque) rights over the cultural default of negative (permissive) rights, which explains why radical right populism is dying down since ethnicity and cultural value selection has de-correlated. Now doesn't that sound "reactionary" to conditional changes?
I'm not sure people are able to mentally distinguish the two of these. If Afghans were Christian, there's a good chance they'd be labeled "white".
The distinction would be more pronounced (compared to genetically adjacent Afghans) for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians or Latino Catholics (religiously aligned, ethnically divergent) and Western European Liberals (religiously divergent, ethnically similar). Civics prefer the former, Ethnics prefer the latter, even though both would agree that French North Africans (religious and ethnic divergent) are not preferred.
Turchin kind of scares me on an epistemological level... it's easy to get into the trap of turning his theory into an ideology. Like Strauss-Howe, it overfits the present, paves over a lot of the past to extrapolate the model into it, and presents a nice shiny theory with a bit too much confidence, despite the requisite lip service to self-doubt.
Yeah, those long-cycle theories never have enough data to empirically test.
Unfortunately Turchin (and independently Ray Dalio) is planning to fit the same theory towards ancient history ala mSeshat, which will make or break this theory, either by prediction model conflicts, or by data residuals.
Where will they live? We have no affordable housing and any supply response is absurdly slow.
We have a ton of declining half-full towns in this country. All but a few cities are losing population. We're emptying out!! Plenty of room.
How do we make the refugees stay there?
We don't, but dropping our country's population isn't a way to make SF and NYC cheaper. So let's not try that.
Housing cost is taken into account during resettlement. They tend to be steered places where there's a immigrant community but with a lower cost of living. For Afghans, the Bay Area got dropped from the list and Sacramento also downgraded unless they already have family here. They are, of course, welcome but it's not easy to establish a life even with assistance.
Chicago has a lot of Ukrainians and is much cheaper so I'm guessing a lot will go there. But refugees in particular have already endured tough conditions. They'll make it work wherever they end up and can also later move around the country for opportunities.
That still removes housing supply from an under-supplied market. If we want the population to welcome more immigration, it would be wise to first address valid economic concerns like housing inflation.
Of course we need to fix the supply issue. However, much of the country doesn't have the same crunch that California has and their housing prices have been dropping as they depopulate. Illinois has been depopulating significantly which is why I cited it (Chicago's population specifically has been flat.).
Yes, some places are worse than others. But in the current money-induced bout of inflation we are seeing housing costs rise sharply everywhere regardless of demographic trends, etc.
Mostly because housing has huge lags, but if there is increased demand, more houses will be built.
BTW, Buffalo had a median house price of $110K in 2021 and has taken in refugees. In fact, the only reason why Buffalo grew for the first time in 70 years according to the 2020 census is because of immigrants and refugees there.
That's why Bosnians went to St. Louis and Buffalo, and Somalis to Minnesota.
I think it helps that many Americans feel closer to Ukraine in terms of culture and identity. Many of us have worked with developers there. There is a sense that many Ukraines share more of our values and thus make it easier to imagine them assimilating well. Their sudden distress from a bully aggressor stirs a strong desire to offer help and assistance. We should bring in as many as want to come here IMO.
I lived in Ukraine and I wouldn't say they got much overlap with US in terms of culture... :)
That said, they are White. I'm sure they'd assimilate fast... (since tone doesn't carry on internet, I am being sarcastic. The above is true but it is a statement about the kind of people WE (or the Americans; I'm French but it's the same in France) are, not about Ukrainians).
I moved to Israel as an academic in 2000, shortly after a wave of Russian immigration had significantly changed the country's demographics. My language class had an entire back row named Boris, or at least it seemed that way. And at the university we had a new problem, as it appeared that the Russian students took cheating as just a fact of life, based on their experiences in their homeland. We don't hear that any more, although the Russian contribution to the culture has only increased. And the contribution to the main streams of the economy is significant. It just takes time.
Regarding the superman clip -- when did this appear. Just curious. I strongly agree that we need to open up to immigrants. I believe that immigrants success is in part driven by their knowledge of how bad things can get; something far outside the imagination of most Americans.
Finally time to unfollow Noah.
Oh nooooo, whatever will I do
Point made perfectly. Been reading your column since you published on your own blog and it used to be a refreshing point of view. Was excited to see some of your columns get picked up by the Browser it the early days. No longer the same. Enjoy.
Yeah you totally read my old blog huh: http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/no-we-dont-need-immigration-pause.html
This was one of my favorites. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/redistribute-wealth-no-redistribute.html
Thanks! Did you see the recent follow-up? https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/wokeness-as-respect-redistribution?s=w
Nah, this is one of Noah's best posts. No punching left, no bootlicking, just a clear and extensive argument for doing the right thing. Ukrainian, Afghan, Syrian? Just admit the refugees.
Everyone knows there is huge IQ difference between a refugee from Somalia and a refugee from Europe. Absorbing huge low IQ population has catastrophic consequences. I wonder why Sweden and Denmark are not so happy getting more Syrian refugees if it works so well. People in Scandinavia used to be extremely tolerant.
This article is like the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe never happened. But it did.
Getting refugees from Ukraine is fine but I am not sure it is good for Ukraine itself which needs its citizens at home in the end of the war.
Lolllll OK bro
It sounds like a typical response to a kid saying "The emperor had no clothes". Your assumption that all members of all societies have similar potential as immigrants is not reasonable.
You might get a kick out of Clemens and Pritchett's paper "The New Economic Case for Migration Restrictions: An Assessment" (https://docs.iza.org/dp9730.pdf). It builds a simple model of "dynamically optimal migration" that explicitly includes differences in total factor productivity between immigrants and non-immigrants. Somalia is one of its example immigrant sources.
After estimating parameters and calibrating the model, the paper estimates that while Somalian-born workers in Somalia are only 1/6 as productive as US-born workers in the US with the same age, gender, and education, most of that productivity gap vanishes after Somalians move to the US. The paper's ballpark estimate of annual "optimal" Somalia-to-US migration is about 1.5% of the US's population, or 5,000,000 Somalians per year.
In other words, the first year of "optimal" Somalian migration would expand the US's Somalian-immigrant community by a factor of 30–140, depending on your number for the community's current size (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Americans#Demographics). Even rejecting any "assumption that all members of all societies have similar potential as immigrants" there's a purely economic case (never mind humanitarian and general freedom concerns) for MASSIVELY expanding Somalian immigration to the US.
The article doesn't discuss issues like terror and crime that made native residents of Malmo and other places in Europe scared. Living in a town where a girl can walk alone at night has a huge value and you lose it once you accept immigrants from some countries.
> The article doesn't discuss issues like terror and crime
Correct. I did not know that by "IQ" and "potential" you actually meant "terror and crime".
> that made native residents of Malmo and other places in Europe scared. Living in a town where a girl can walk alone at night has a huge value and you lose it once you accept immigrants from some countries.
Somalian and Syrian immigration may have increased terrorism in Europe (source?) but the frequency of European terrorism clearly remains very low. So in itself it's not an obvious basis for restricting Somalian/Syrian immigration — and one ought to account also for the terror that would-be immigrants experience in their origin countries when Europe strands them there.
As for crime in general, while immigrants — like native residents — commit crimes, I'm not aware of convincing evidence that they made crime in general spike in Germany and Sweden, which had large absolute/relative immigration inflows. See https://reason.com/2020/09/15/the-myth-of-europes-migrant-crisis/.
You allude to interpersonal offenses against girls and mention Malmö, a Swedish city. The Reason article also digs into Sweden's recorded sex crimes. To try to summarize that part concisely, reported rapes "increased by 34 per cent" from 2009 to 2018, but that increase is confounded with a 2013 expansion in the definition of rape; and sex-offense reports in general have fluctuated without a clear link to migrant populations.
More recently, there was a cluster of Swedish femicides about a year ago (https://www.thelocal.se/20210420/swedens-party-leaders-to-discuss-measures-against-male-violence-after-five-women-killed/), but that seems to have been intimate-partner violence rather than the scenario you allude to (immigrant stranger surprising a girl alone on the street at night). Another incident, specifically in Malmö, doesn't fit your profile either: a week ago an 18-year-old killed two middle-aged female teachers at his high school (https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/student-confesses-to-killing-two-teachers-at-malmo-school-lawyer-says).
I still disagree, but I really appreciate the depth and seriousness of your answers and their added value.
If you ever had any contact with actual individuals you would know that the Somali are the product of intense selectionary pressures that as a population rank them among some of the most intelligent people on the planet. This is also reflected in their powers of memorisation proven in Q'uran recitation competitions and demonstrated problem solving facilities under conditions of stress. A high ranking State Department official at the Nairobi Embassy intimated as much to me when discussing the opening of the pipeline from camps in Kenya during the 1990s. They tend to bring economic vitality and prosperity to the new places where they settle, be it the transformed Eastleigh area of the Kenya capital, east side of London, or in the State of Maine. Your comment is either naive, very poorly informed, or simply racist.
most Somali-Americans remain at the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder. Nearly 57 percent of Somalis live in poverty, according to the report, while 26 percent live in near-poverty. Other measures also show how many Somali-Americans are struggling, even compared to other minority groups in the state. Somalis currently have the lowest median household income among immigrant and minority groups in Minnesota, as well as the lowest rates of educational attainment and home ownership.
https://www.minnpost.com/politics-policy/2017/08/complicated-reality-behind-story-somali-communitys-success-minnesota/
I am sure all these indicators are accurate enough, and your input is well taken. But they don't tell the whole story. This is an issue of integration (which is always a three generation process for non-English speakers) in circumstances where refugees from a war torn society have gathered in ethnic ghettoes. Although they are rich in networked connections, cultural endowment, and social capital, this can act as a constraint in general for pockets of settlement where ethnic communities clump together, like the Minneapolis area in the case of the article you posted. Their strong clan orientation is a behavioural liability in many contexts. But this is in no way an accurate indicator of intelligence. Many of the Somali professionals I know identified the problem in advance, and settled away from their people's ethnic enclaves when they came to the USA. Having spent a lot of time with these people and working with them across the Horn of Africa, I came to respect them for their resilience, good humour, courage, and equanimity under stress. They do not whine and bitch and complain like myself and my fellow Americans are prone to do when inconvenienced. In any case, you need to add comparative data for the large communities in Toronto, San Diego, Atlanta, the Gulf region in Arabia, and other places where they have migrated. I expect they will do well over the long run. In any event, they have already overachieved for a pastoralist community coming from one of the most forbidding and remote environments on the globe, where the starting point of their modern history is complicated by a series of negative political interventions over the past century.
The IQ you referred to is biased and irrelevant. For that matter, I have excelled in standardised tests and have a two discipline Ph.D. from a leading university, taught at Yale, etc etc, but remain in a low income category due to whatever culturally and ideological influenced choices I have made in the cause of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Regardless, the thesis articulated in this article stands up well.
> Everyone knows there is huge IQ difference between a refugee from Somalia and a refugee from Europe. Absorbing huge low IQ population has catastrophic consequences.
I'll play along with that just for a moment and do some back-of-envelope math. Suppose we're talking about the US (population 330 million) adding the entire population of Somalia (population 16 million). Even assuming a "huge IQ difference" of 20 points between the US and Somalian population averages, the average US IQ would sink by...less than a point. Catastrophic?
> I wonder why Sweden and Denmark are not so happy getting more Syrian refugees if it works so well. People in Scandinavia used to be extremely tolerant.
While you wonder, I've searched for actual survey data. Swedes gave more pro-refugee answers in 2016 than they did 20 years ago (https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/refugees-welcome-cross-european-public-opinion-on-asylum-seekers-following-the-2015-crisis/).
> This article is like the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe never happened. But it did.
If by "2015 refugee crisis in Europe" you mean "discriminatory European politicians and institutions playing hot potato with refugees" then such a crisis did indeed happen. Simply allocating asylum seekers to European countries based on each European country's capacity was a better option on the table; it had majority popular support (https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/83226/1/Hangartner_Europeans%20support_2017.pdf).
> Getting refugees from Ukraine is fine but I am not sure it is good for Ukraine itself which needs its citizens at home in the end of the war.
That is fine but I am not sure it is good for Ukrainian citizens if non-Ukrainians trap them in a war zone.
Claiming that IQ represents some fixed capacity is surely undermined by measuring it with a timed test given to someone who's busy thinking about how their family was killed in a war.
Of course, you didn't actually give any refugees an IQ test to determine this anyway.
Fuck Ukraine and fuck Poland. In fact, send back everyone with Slavic ancestry then drop nuclear bombs on Slavic countries
I think part of the problem is the decline of mainstream religion and the rise of feminism. Back in the day mainstream denominations had an internationalist outlook, supporting the UN and Unicef, staffing the refugee resettlement NGO's, etc. And college-educated wives had the time to staff NGOs, whether refugee aid, League of Women Voters, or whatever. No longer. Society could coast on the inertia of the past, but Trump and the rising influence of evangelical religion in politics have derailed that train.
You can see on these links how much the post-war migration boom changed Australia, yes we still had the shameful White Australia Policy, but at this time expanded the definition of 'White' to include Southern Europeans, ending the historic immigration rules that tried to keep all immigration to those from the British Isles only, this also helped lead within a few decades to Melbourne becoming the 2nd largest Greek Population city outside Athens (a fact we used when pitching for the Centenary Olympics in 1996, that was shamefully stolen from us by Atlanta)
Though we did continue to try to keep Australia as British as possible, with the famous 10 Pound Poms, where for 10 pounds you could get your transport to Australia by ship (this also led to Perth gaining a huge British population as it was the first stop of the ships on their way to Melbourne and Sydney, as each ship pulled into Port, hundreds of British immigrants would go to the docks and yell out to the ppl on the boat encouraging them to get off the ship and stay in Perth instead, telling them that it was superior to Sydney, which ended up being important in populating the empty west of the Continent
When looking at the reasons for this population push, it would be enough to make Matthew Yglesias sing, as the express reason given to the people by our politicians was that we could not defend ourselves against the Asian hordes (OK, he might not have liked that part) without filling up the Continent with ppl. One Billion Australians to coin a phrase
https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/postwar-immigration-drive
Then came the end of the White Australia Policy with the Whitlam Govt in 1972 (which combined with counting Aboriginals in the census and giving them citizenship after the 1967 Referendum) saved Australia, right at the last second from being ostracised like Sth Africa.
Then after the Vietnam war the Liberal (we confusingly have a Conservative Party called the Liberal Party) Fraser Govt welcomed in the Vietnamese Boat ppl which again led to huge demographic change in the country & led to immigration being opened up to Asians as well as Europeans at long last. Which has led to the final massive change, Howard responded to the rise of the Nativist One Nation Party in the late 90s with our shameful treatment of mainly middle-eastern Refugees, with offshore processing of (mainly middle-easterners) arriving by boat on the northern coast, boat turn-backs, offshore detention and our current system where we lock ppl up who arrive by boat offshore in Nauru or Papua New Guinea with no time limit on how long ppl can be stuck in legal limbo
https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/offshore-processing/
However, one thing has happened at the same time as this, that has led to the largest demographic change since the post-war southern european boom, while all the focus has been on 200-800 refugees who tried to arrive by boat being locked up in indefinite offshore detention, the rules Howard bought in to try & be racist without mentioning race backfired (backfired in the sense of what he wanted) & the tests ended up working out to give Chinese immigrants a real leg-up in being approved as immigrants, so in the last 20 years we have seen a huge influx of Chinese immigration that is noticeable on the streets, most suburbs now have Chinese as the highest minority group, with some areas like Rhodes, Box HIll and Burwood being almost totally Chinese.
There is a lesson though in the lack of backlash to the Chinese immigration, its happened at a time of huge political focus (really quite awful politics to be honest) about border security, but while that has been the focus actual legal immigration has expanded in number and demographically changed the colour of the country with little or no backlash from the broader public, which maybe suggests that if you can make people confident that the borders are secure, that the people who are entering the country followed the rules and went through the correct processes then the concerns ppl have about immigration can be assuaged while you bring in the population boost the country needs
In practice this would mean near open borders, which I think is great, but you do not seem to think is great in other writings, but I think you should.
Depends how you define tyranny as well. I would consider the haitain government extremely and intolerably tyranical, but there is no active civil war going on so we dont seem to take in haitain refugees.
Similarly, I would consider the usa tyrannical in excessive drug punishments, and indeed the Norway court agrees with me, and refuses extradition to certain usa prisons.
With our 11m+ job openings, we have plenty of capacity for immigrants who want to work
Good post. I think we need to also ensure we establish a system where refugees are placed in communities in appropriate numbers. Some communities might not have the infrastructure to welcome thousands of people but imagine if small towns in say, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa or Missouri took in several families a piece from Ukraine. It would not overwhelm them and would also allow for the local communities to engage with the refugees on a more personal basis.
I am curious what the average education level is for Ukrainians vs Afghans or Syrians. I have a feeling it is pretty different and lumping education level of all refugees doesnt seem fair.