I’m writing this post on a plane, so I’ll try to do it without links. Most of the relevant sources you can find on confusion.Ai, or even on MR itself. Google too.
Overall, I am concerned about the effects of contagion when it comes to the views of people from other countries. A large number of people are more opposed to immigration than ever, in part because some are still strongly opposed to immigration. All kinds of anecdotes circulate. But let’s take a systematic look at what we’ve learned about immigration over the past decade or so. Not all should count as pro-immigration, but most should, with one major caveat.
When it comes to the wage effects of immigration, there is more and more modest evidence on the positive side. I wouldn’t put too much weight on that, but it certainly doesn’t point in the other direction.
The United States shows that it can have a high immigration rate and declining crime rates. I’m not suggesting a causal model there, but again that should be more convincing than not.
There is increasing evidence of the positive financial benefits of immigrants, including low-skilled immigrants. Some of this is from the CBO, some of which I covered in a Bloomberg column maybe a month or so ago. I don’t view those results as major updates, but they don’t point in the wrong direction either.
There is compelling, however, strong macroeconomic evidence that the supply of immigrant labor contributed significantly to America’s strong post-pandemic recovery.
If you’re a right-winger worried that incoming Latinos will vote Democratic by some large percentage, you can put your mind at ease on that. And you can take this as evidence of some kind of match.
Interest rates are falling more than we expected, including in the United States. This constitutes an immigration offense a lot stronger.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Florida and Texas’ wealthy immigrants are doing very well. The picture is decidedly not so good in many parts of California, but I think I see evidence that the white Progressive Left is mainly at fault there, not immigrants. Still, I think you can make a valid argument that immigrants and the Progressive Left are dysfunctional. It’s no surprise to me that most of the anti-immigrant voices come from California.
Overall, I’m impressed that immigration critics don’t send me cost-benefit studies, and they don’t seem to. If the immigration case is so strong, why aren’t these studies created and sent to me? You can have a good one for a few thousand dollars, right? Instead, in my emails and so on I get a storm of negative emotions, and all kinds of anecdotal claims about how bad various things are, but not a decent CBA. I take that for granted. I think it is widely accepted that America’s takeover of Italian-Americans will pass the cost-benefit test, even though the Mafia ruled New Jersey and Rhode Island for decades. Somehow people are not very willing to use this kind of forward thinking, even though they are happy to tell you about the crimes of modern immigrants.
I see good evidence that trust in the American government is declining, but I attribute that mainly to the Martin Gurri effect. I mean, look at the current gaslighters in the White House and in the media – they’re not primarily immigrants, quite the contrary. Or all the mistakes of Covid, were they due to “immigrants”? I don’t see it.
Now let’s look at information updates on the other side of the ledger, i.e. new information that should make us more skeptical about immigration.
Now we see that the external hostility towards Israel and Taiwan is stronger than we thought. So the case for Israel’s immigration policy is weaker than ever. As for Taiwan, they should be very careful about allowing international Chinese. Estonia needs to be very careful about allowing the Russians, and it really is. And there may be other countries where this kind of mentality works. Do I know so much about the situation between Burundi and Rwanda? Generally, as the level of conflict increases in the world, there will be more of these cases. There is also a great deal of consideration anywhere near Ukraine. Small countries need to worry about this more than anything.
I should note that this problem doesn’t seem to apply in North America, although you may need a strong security clearance for some jobs currently held by Chinese immigrants.
The second issue, and it’s a paradox, is that voters don’t like immigration, much more than before. The magnitude of this effect has been surprising, as well as the extent of its spread. I’m writing this post on Election Day in France, and the early results suggest a very real risk that France could end up out of control. Immigrants are clearly a major factor in this outcome, even under the taint of stereotypes that don’t “blame” immigrants themselves at all.
Versions of this happen in many countries, not just a few, and often these countries were previously well-governed.
I think it is better for countries in such positions to be more strict on immigration, rather than face these kinds of political consequences.
But let’s look honestly at the full review of our views. Politics is stupider and less moral than before, including immigration (but not only! Fellow citizens have become worse with other citizens who have different views, and I see misunderstandings as the root of the problem all around). We need to consider that, so all kinds of dreams that promote migration need to be put aside for now, at least in most countries. Yet the real effects of immigration, political backlash aside, are far more positive than we imagined. In other small countries, however, that may not hold, Israel is an easy example to hold but not the only one. In the long term, we would also like to prepare for the day when high levels of immigration may resume, however distant that may seem. So we should not talk about immigration by myself. Instead we should try to fight against excessive negativism in many areas of life.
Somehow that idea is too complex for people to process, so instead they just jump on the anti-immigration bandwagon. Too much negativism. But actually my idea is better than theirs, so they should take it.
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