Am I the only one here who thinks that a person has a basic right to work with whoever and wherever they want regardless of their birthplace? Is discriminating against someone based on where they were born somehow less of a fallacy than discriminating based on skin color, etc. ?
You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)?
A popular rebuttal is that immigrants will contribute to the growing economy and will pay taxes. But we are talking about completely open borders here (anything else is just some fiddling around current system), where anyone willing to do even minimum wage job can migrate. How can such people contribute enough in taxes, when the welfare cost needed to support them (schools, roads, sewers, hospitals...) and their families far exceeds the taxes paid by them? And while I admit that I don't have any stats to support my argument, I am just going by my gut feeling that generous welfare is usually paid for by the richest and not by the poorest.
Another offered solution is to cap welfare for new migrants until they pay enough taxes. But that just creates a two-tier society and is a separate can of worms in itself.
>You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)?
What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area, where some countries participating have welfare states and some (I believe) do not? Genuine question - I've heard other people make the same argument before and it seems like we have a pretty good real-world example to either verify or refute it.
> What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area
EU countries are much more uniform than the rest of the world in their level of welfare support and social development (e.g. UK and even Portugal are much more alike than say Bangladesh and the US).
Besides, there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries to richer countries within the EU, and many people in the richer countries are angry about this. See Brexit etc.
> there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries
There has also been a lot of movement back towards such countries as soon as their wealth levels improved (or UK ones got worse), which happened in no small part thanks to remittance payments. It's the sort of movement you also observe in-country when industries in certain regions do better than others. How many people from Scotland moved to Southern England in the last 100 years?
But that is the whole point of the European Union, which is also expressed in things like the infrastructure and development funds: we promote solidarity and cooperation between neighboring countries, rather than competition that will ultimately result in war.
It's a shame how you only need a couple of generations to forget everything about their history.
Well...it IS happening in the Schengen Area and in the EU to a massive extent. Why do you think thousands of migrants choose to live in squalor and filth in 'jungle camps' on the northern border of France for months/years, rather than just living in the amazing and beautiful country that they're currently in?
Or why are migrants, against the laws of the EU, streaming through and past Hungary, Austria, Germany, Denmark, in an attempt to claim asylum in specific countries, when each country that they're literally walking through is also amazing and beautiful?
The guy that you replied to is effectively describing what's happening in the EU.
>Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)?
Well, the math on that doesn't work if you're taxing all income rather than just labor income. Driving down wages while doing the same work will increase profits, so the same taxes ought to get paid.
And then there's the issue that adding labor to the economy should make it grow... unless for mysterious reasons like land-rents or parasitic finance systems all growth capacity is getting sucked away somehow.
What is to stop millions of poor masses from being born? (And why does our inability to stop it not inhibit a welfare state?)
The amount of a welfare state you can sustain is certainly dependent on your tax revenue, and in turn on the quality of your economy, on political willingness to set high enough taxes, etc. But I don't think there's a point at which a welfare state is flatly impossible.
And there are certainly lots of unforeseen possibilities. Perhaps an economy where employers can hire anyone without bureaucracy will grow companies that generate enough revenue, even without lots of human employees on payroll, to sustain the welfare state.
People can't choose what country to be born in. But they can choose to move to a country with better welfare.
If you're thinking of women/couples having a lot of kids to collect those kids' welfare, it depends on how the welfare for those kids compares to the cost of raising the kid. Also many people would be morally against bringing a kid into a life of potential suffering just for their own monetary gain. But for someone with no dependents, moving to a new country poses no risks to anyone except themselves.
I support open borders and this is one of the points that I've grappled with for quite some time. I'm not convinced that the decision to move from developing country to a developed one is made purely on economic grounds. Permanently relocating your life is not an easy task. You pretty much have to give up all your social capital, all your community ties (which means that you could face ostracisation back in your birthplace), learn a new language, learn new cultural norms, spend significant funds on travel and relocation costs costs and whatever savings you have left will lose a decent chunk of their value due to exchange rate conversion. You also have no networks to exercise in finding employment in your new home and finding accommodation without any kind of reference is going to be difficult.
In that sense, the risk to oneself is so great that only a privileged few in developing countries who wanted to relocate would actually have the resources to overcome them. So for many people, relocating might legally be a choice, but it would be practically impossible.
Realistically, migration is only an option for you if you (1) have a job offer from a company based in the place you intend to migrate, (2) have sufficient funds + skills to cover yourself until you can find a job, (3) have family who can support you and lend you their networks until you can find employment, (4) have sufficient funds to start your own business. Incidentally, those criteria also form categories of US visas (H1-B/TN-1/E-3/L-1, O-1, Family Reunion, EB-5), though, they impose more stringent requirements than economics would.
(Re: your first paragraph) - and yet, we see millions of folks undertaking dangerous journeys over the Middle East or Mediterranean or Central America or Indian Ocean to reach Europe/USA/Australia.... What gives? That life must be very shitty in many parts of the world??
Some of them might not, but quite a lot of them have at least one of those; some have all three. It's not uncommon for illegal immigrants from Mexico, particularly, to be people who would be eligible for family-based immigration but for the expense and decade plus backlog. It's also not unheard of for those that have connections in the immigrant community to have an (likely off-the-books because of documentation requirements) job lined up.
No. Lots of people who haven't thought about the consequences for their nation or their families or who simply don't care agree with you.
It's especially common among young people that want to display their virtuous radicalism and who haven't ever really had to pay for the bad consequences of anyone's actions.
I'm not sure I fully understand your POV right, but I hope you're not suggesting that a person born within the confinement of certain national border should have the privilege of being a bigger priority when chosen for work within the same border confinement.
That's a bit ridiculous. A Syrian Software Engineer shouldn't have to work 1000x more than an American SE to get a job at Google HQ. Let the deserving be decided by their ability for the job rather than their birthplace.
It bothers me how we neglect to work towards a borderless planet. Sure, it wouldn't make sense in terms of economy, politics, and a lot of other things in the beginning, but shouldn't we at least be talking about it and envisioning it, and we even work towards formulating the logistics involved?
If you consider individual actors as adversarial, it becomes less ridiculous quite quickly. Reframe the question as "Why would I, an American software engineer, give my Syrian competition an easier time?". If I have privilege and a family to raise, it makes sense to exploit that privilege rather than to give it up based on the assertion that my privilege is unfair. Often only the young have the privilege to give up their privilege so easily, because of their lacks of dependents.
>If you consider individual actors as adversarial, it becomes less ridiculous quite quickly. Reframe the question as "Why would I, an American software engineer, give my Syrian competition an easier time?".
Wrong framing, though. My adversary isn't some other worker. It's the guy who hires workers, works less or not at all, and takes home the profits.
Do you reject all candidates you interview because they might compete with you to avoid layoffs?
One hopes that when you hire a Syrian software engineer, both you and they will benefit. I'd certainly prefer to hire a good Syrian software engineer than a mediocre American one (and a good American one than a mediocre Syrian one, naturally), if we're hiring someone anyway.
I don't believe this was the point I was addressing in response to the grandparent. If two candidates appear where one has a much better skillset, it makes sense (in most frames) to accept the better candidate, I agree.
What I was responding to was how there may be no responsibility for the American to renounce his privilege such that the Syrian has an easier time becoming a possible candidate (Both in skill set as well as logistically). Additionally, it may even be irrational for the American to do so if we consider them as adversarial actors (In competition, unlike when recruiting co-workers).
Please understand my commentary here is simply in response to the equally extreme logic applied by the grandparent (A world of no nations/borders being optimal) and by no means constitutes my complete opinions on immigration, visas, and the like. We can hopefully elevate the discussion above, allowing immigrants only out of charity, to more rigorous reasons.
Help me understand why you see the idea of a borderless planet as an 'extreme' logic? I was merely proposing we work towards formulating legalities, economics, security, and other logistics involved such that it benefits the planet — rather than just nations — and consequently makes immigration easier.
I never mentioned about Syrian having it easier if the native candidate is more deserving, as you seem to claim I did. A lot of your comment has gone over my head due to it's convolutedness.
My apologies, I used the word extreme because it is one end of a spectrum, which is to change everything. I did not mean "extreme" as a value judgement as the word is often implicitly used as. My logic was also extreme in that it argued that nothing should be changed.
In regards to your second paragraph, I know you didn't and I hopefully didn't insinuate that you did. I'll try to clarify: Moving from the current system would be done by the American (Person of privilege) helping the Syrian compete for his job, which the American logically may not be interested in, given that it threatens his or her stability.
My apologies, again, if you believe my comment was convoluted. I can rephrase if you direct me to what specifically was difficult.
If you want to disregard economics, politics and a lot of other things (which is a big assumption, but let's continue with it), lets start with the first principles - why do you advocate borderless planet? Whats so compelling about it?
I'm not disregarding it. I'm suggesting we should be working towards formulating economics, politics and everything else which works out for a borderless planet.
In regards to why I advocate it - like I said, the way the system works today, some people have more privilege than the others, and this isn't by choice. We should be trying to bring everyone upto the same datum, not the other way around. While the current visa systems are not the texbook definition of discrimination, we are in some way still limiting people's choices based on the land they were born in.
If we're talking first principles, a human should be able to roam wherever he chooses. Of course, this isn't an ideal world, and I'm not advocating for terrorists to be able to make it through wherever they wish, but I'm sure if thought hard enough, we'll be able to come up with a system that ensures that a couple of groups of terrorist, and a few other kinds of knobheads don't pull their entire nations down. But right now, we're working in the opposite direction.
Can you clarify why a human has a right to roam to zones other humans have established for their own safety and prosperity? Couldn't one also argue that a group of humans have a right to exclude other humans from the zones they hold, which seems to be as strong of an argument as the right to traverse arbitrary zones?
From the terrorist portion of your comment, it appears you agree that certain actors can be excluded. If we can exclude people from our tribal zones, then nations have strong logical foundations, as they are simply the manifestation of the ability of tribes to exclude others.
>Couldn't one also argue that a group of humans have a right to exclude other humans from the zones they hold
They could, but they'd be dating back to the principles that were prevalent when various species of the Homo genus existed. When Sapiens were a threat to the Neanderthals, the Neanderthals a threat to the habilis etc. They were thought of as threats for similar reasons as you mentioned; one being more privileged than the other, which led to an insecurity.
A lot of factors such as the geography, and the natural resources that companions the land play a huge factor in the well-being of the society. From what you're suggesting, I get the idea that you want that to remain as a given privilege that should only be cherished by the people who were born around it. That a human born in terrible conditions is a threat to the more affluent, and it's resources and security, solely because the latter was born in a better habitat.This doesn't seem very different to me than the ideologies adopted by the tribes and the cavemen that date back to tens of thousands of years.
I hope I'm not coming off too strong with my words. The language is my barrier, and I've been known to go off on a tangent sometimes due to that. I hope you understand.
Can you clarify why, from the third person, such significant privilege that affords such significant benefits would ever so willingly given up? I'm asking you to supply the logic such that we can convince individual members of our tribal states that they should support the movement towards a borderless/nationless world. So far, the argument has been moral (When privileged, you have a moral obligation to elevate those less privileged), though I was hoping for a stronger argument than that.
Isn't it a sufficient argument that we should strive to create a world where all people have equal opportunity? Yes, there is a natural human instinct to try provide the best situation for oneself. But beyond that, you can either decide everything is arbitrary and nothing matters, or you can make decisions based on a moral framework. Equal opportunity for everyone, regardless of the circumstances of their birth beyond their control, seems like a good basis to me.
That said, I expect there are more robust philosophical arguments. I'm no philosopher, but I'll take a stab at it. Consider the prisoner's dilemma. If everyone acts solely in their own self-interest, it's worse for the whole than if people act cooperatively. Human civilization can be seen the same way. An individual might elevate themselves by acting purely out of self-interest, but on the average we're better off acting cooperatively. So I would suggest that not only is there a moral imperative to strive toward equality, doing so will also improve quality of life overall.
I actually agree that it is wholly sufficient (Based on my life situation) though not necessarily convincing in general. I've been trying to explore the frame used by people voting along protectionist lines, and I don't believe this form would convince them given that the most common narrative against globalization appears to be losing too much to others.
Thanks for this answer. It made me go back and re-read your points again, and reflect on my own viewpoint a bit more deeply. I expect that were I not personally as financially comfortable as I am, it would be less easy to think in the abstract about the merits of equality. I believe in immigration, I donate a decent amount to both domestic and international charities, etc... but it's not like I do it to the extent of materially affecting my own way of life.
And of course, that's natural; people DO value their own well-being and that of their families and friends (and especially children) more than that of strangers. It's a very rare person who's willing to completely sacrifice their own standard of living in the name of global utilitarianism. (Mother Teresa comes to mind, but that's about it...) But it's also pretty rare for a person not to feel any selfless compassion for others either; it's just harder when one feels one's own needs aren't being met.
So maybe that's the real solution to your problem: find a way to address people's needs without resorting to a zero-sum mentality. When people feel they're getting by alright, they will naturally be less begrudging of others. Easier said than done of course, but not impossible. Much more difficult when the focus is on this zero-sum game instead though.
> Isn't it a sufficient argument that we should strive to create a world where all people have equal opportunity?
It would seem not, or this conversation wouldn't have played out the way it has. I'd certainly be interested to see a defense of this claim that didn't rely on one's interlocutor sharing one's own moral precepts in order to cohere.
Can you also make a defense for racism using the same parameters as you want the aforementioned points reasoned out with? Sometimes, logic needs to be manufactured hand-in-hand with what's morally right. The transition from slavery, to equality wasn't easy, and neither was it done overnight.
I'm not saying a borderless planet would work out; at least not anytime soon. But we should at least be working towards it.
We know that AI could go bizzarlly wrong, but we still work towards achieving better results everyday.
> Sometimes, logic needs to be manufactured hand-in-hand with what's morally right.
The point I'm making is that not everyone agrees with you about what's morally right. In fact, most people in the US, at least, do not. If you want to effectively advance your cause, it is worth finding an argument for your claims which does not rely on moral precepts your interlocutor may not share.
As a side note, likening the existence of national borders to the institution of slavery is probably not such an argument.
If you take it with an open mind, you'll see that my intention is not to liken them, but to demonstrate that not every cause has an inherent, intrinsic argument.
It's not a surprise to me that it's most people in the US that are against the idea of this, because they fear that instead of the datum of other countries moving up, that of USA will go down. This insecurity always annoys me. But take everything I say with a grain of salt because I do not consider myself patriotic whatsoever, and in that sense, my thoughts are in the opposite direction as those of Americans, who, through personal observation are the most patriotic people I've come across.
I don't believe any answer to a "what ought we do..." question can cohere without agreeing to a shared moral framework. The answer to the question will always assume you want to maximize something(s) and choosing among those competing somethings will always be a values judgment.
Well what would the logical alternative be? If I argue that someone should support a policy because it serves their self interest, that presumes a moral framework. If I argue they should support it for the greater good, that assumes a moral framework. And so on. I don't think it's a question of looking really hard for the right argument, such an argument is logically precluded.
And it seems to me that most people's framework tends to fall somewhere between the two. People actually aim to maximize some function that depends on both self-interest AND the greater good. The weighting between the two varies between individuals, based on numerous other variables, but very few people are 100% one way or the other (Mother Teresa vs a sociopath). So ISTM now that the goal isn't to convince people to follow a particular moral framework, but rather to attempt to influence the variables that already steer people toward one or another. One of those is exposure. There's that Mark Twain quote, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..." Another, as discussed above, is financial well-being. The more comfortable one is personally, the easier it is to consider the plight of others. There are certainly others.
I agree with you that while there are some appeals to self-interest that support a goal of equality, fundamentally it is an issue of morality. And I agree with you that you can't logic someone from one moral framework to another. But I would add that almost everyone does have some amount of 'maximize the greater good' built into their moral framework already, so the only logical way to work toward this is to focus on the variables that will add weight to that side of the equation.
I'm not the person you're asking but I hold similar views. An alternative argument could be that should your particular zone have a reversal of fortune - war or climate change, say - It would be good to have the ability to move freely to somewhere with better prospects. The world isn't static.
Effectively a utilitarian argument, using good-will today as a hedge against tomorrow. I believe the argument, though the strength depends on how much risk you expect tomorrow versus how much you give up today.
i don't think we have convincing evidence to maintain consensus that open borders would be better, neither do we have it about closed borders . On purely theoretical grounds, one could offer Occam's razor as a justification for doing away with borders.
Another thing is the free flow of capital. Why can money have open borders but people can't? Anyone who advocates for closed borders should also be in favor of capital flow controls.
People may prefer capital over humans purely for selfish reasons. Money coming in your region, assuming you have some degree of control over it, usually help the local economy (growth of jobs, wages, assets) unless its already inflated one like SFBA. Humans on the other hand tend to be a mixed bag. Highly talented migrants (whatever definition of talent suits you) should be a boon to your region but same cannot be said about untrained undeveloped masses.
For a politician, it would make sense to advocate for easy capital inflows, somewhat controlled capital outflows and highly selective immigration process.
>How else would one view the Social Security program that you are paying into?
I'm certainly no expert, but that sounds more like a description of an IRA or 401K, I think.
As far as I know, the social security program in the US isn't actually structured in such a way that each person's SS taxes are going into an individual investment account under their own name (despite the "how much I've earned" statements which might seem to suggest this).
In fact, the SS taxes being collected right now from you and the entire current generation of earners, are going directly to the current generation of retirees.
So rather than being a career-long savings/investment scheme where your own money comes back to you at the end, it is actually implemented as a wealth transfer scheme from the current generation of earners to the current generation of retirees.
Some years the fund might book a surplus (more taxes raised than benefits paid) and in some years a deficit.
But I agree that it seems to be a common view (or perhaps just metaphor) that people's own SS taxes are being accrued against their name for later payback as benefits. But as far as I can tell, social security has never worked that way and wasn't designed to.
> As far as I know, the social security program in the US isn't actually structured in such a way that each person's SS taxes are going into an individual investment account under their own name (despite the "how much I've earned" statements which might seem to suggest this).
It's not structured that way, but you do need to 'earn credits' to establish eligibility for benefits, and the benefits are calculated with a formula based on the amount of your wages that were subject to social security tax; and the official name is old age insurance. It certainly feels like it's retirement insurance that you pay into while you're working, and get the benefits should you live long enough.
It's interesting looking at the US Social Security system coming from a country (Australia) where the social security system doesn't have the facade of being a contributory system and is funded entirely out of general tax revenue - there's no such thing as "paying in" to the social security system. There's still a bit of an attitude of "I've paid my taxes, now I deserve my pension", but the system doesn't act as a piggy bank for you to save up over time. (For that, we have a mandatory minimum 9.5% superannuation/401k-equivalent contribution that you invest in shares/property/bonds etc.)
In my mind, this is fairer than the US system, but there is a good case to be made that keeping elements of a "contributory" system helps to maintain political support for the welfare state among people who are a bit more, um, selfish.
(An interesting piece I read a while ago that describes how the "contributory" nature of Australia's social security system in the 1940s was actually just a cover for a general tax increase: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/berg-chifleys-politica...)
Not certain about Australia, but here in NZ we call it "NZ Super" (or just "the pension") instead of "social security". It is a universal superannuation which kicks in at age 65, is not means-tested, and is paid in the same amount to everyone who qualifies. The money that the fund invests/disburses comes from an annual government contribution to the NZ Super Fund, determined by some legislated formula. Individual workers/earners don't "pay into" it in any way that is separately taxed or monitored.
To collect the pension you simply need to be lawfully living in the country (e.g. citizen or permanent resident status), have made NZ your primary/main country of residence (usually by living and working here), and you must have lived in New Zealand for 10 years since the age of 20, of which five of the years must have been since the aged of 50 years.
If the above applies to you, you should sign on and start getting your $792.34 per fortnight :-)
Over in Australia, "social security" is merely the technical name for all of the government welfare programs handled by the Department of Human Services, including Age Pension, Youth Allowance (study benefits), Newstart Allowance (unemployment benefits), Disability Support Pension and so on and so forth. No-one really uses the term "social security" unless you're reading the legislation. With no further qualification, "the pension" means the Age Pension.
What we call "super" you'd call KiwiSaver, except over here it's mandatory. I suspect the NZ use of the term "superannuation" is probably closer to the original/traditional use of the term.
There is a residency requirement. But no requirement that during that residency period you actually need to be working or otherwise "contributing" to the system.
I don't think any Millennial pays into Social Security under the delusion that they will ever get anything back. The program is on track to be insolvent once it's done serving the generation currently in power.
This seems like a reply with relatively little information content: lots of people who haven't thought about consequences agree with all sorts of political opinions. I could easily accuse young people who wear any candidate's or political concept's apparel of wanting to display their virtuous radicalism, but that's hardly a useful criticism of the candidate or concept.
I suppose you're attempting to imply that people who have thought about the consequences, or who do care, or who are old people who have had to pay for the bad consequences of people's actions, are unlikely to agree. Is there a reason, is there evidence, to believe that much more interesting claim? Or is this merely an accusation of "virtue signaling"?
You probably aren't the only one, but I can try to explain the other side.
When you live and work in (let's say) America, you are paying taxes and following the law. If suddenly, anyone could come to America, America would probably experience a huge population increase from Africa and Asia. While some of them may be productive people, there will definitely be a lot of them who will not necessarily follow the law or find useful jobs. In addition, if it was so easy to enter America, what's stopping them from entering, committing a huge crime, and then leaving?
Another reason to be against what you are proposing is because it is in a nation's interest to make sure that the people living there aren't poor or starving. If an American doesn't have that many skills and can only work in a specific field, by allowing anyone in the world to compete with them increases the likelihood that they will be out of a job.
Immigrants are actually more law-abiding than US citizens and they are less likely to end up in jail. [1,2]
Immigrants and the children of immigrants are also disproportionately likely to be productive citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if half the current Fortune 500 were founded by immigrants and the children of immigrants. (The figure for 2010 was 40%.) See my comment below. [3]
It's certainly possible that the majority of America's wealth is generated by relatively recent immigrants.
Of course, this is controlled immigration. No country anywhere lets just anybody in.
I don't have any stats to back this up, but could it be that immigrants are more law abiding because they have to pass the long and difficult process that verifies them? If the system were to change in such a way that more people can immigrate to the US it seems very likely that a lot of the people who would not be granted citizenship would be the type of people who Americans would not want.
If we look at France or Sweden, two countries who excepted a lot of migrants, we can see that the results are not so good. Sweden is now ranked as the country with the most reported rapes [1] and France has areas where the police are afraid to enter [2] .
Think about immigrations like drugs (medical ones). There are many drugs that can save many peoples lives but are not able to pass the FDA for whatever reason (eg. lack of money). While it is sad that people will die because of that, if most drugs were allowed to be marketed by doctors, many more people could die. Similarly with immigration, currently a lot of people who have the potential of adding a lot of value to America are not allowed in. However, if most people were allowed in, it could cause a lot more damage to America.
To become a legal immigrant in America takes a lot of effort. It's almost like saying people of new money are less likely to go to jail.
As for illegal immigrants I've got no idea as to how many bad actors there are.
However I'll give a stat that many liberals in Europe failed to realize. Their are many people in this world that do not like Western culture. E.g take Muslims around the world wanting sharia law (http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...). We shouldn't block immigrants from coming to the us. But we should only allow immigrants who will "melt" and become part of the American melting pot.
> To become a legal immigrant in America takes a lot of effort.
I wish someone would explain this to Donald Trump. He is currently lying his head off about immigrants "pouring in" as though Homeland Security didn't even exist. Just visiting the USA is a huge pain for many people.
I've been hassled entering the USA on a 5-year visitor's visa (in fact, on 25 years of 5-year visitor's visas) with hotels booked, return tickets booked, and a well-paying job, house, wife and pension in my country of origin.
Many people have been handcuffed imprisoned and deported for entering on the wrong visa, including one woman who had an American husband, an American-born child, and several years of living as a permanent resident in the USA.
Both. Illegal immigrants are generally keen to avoid any contact with a legal system that might deport them.
Either way, the USA has almost no illegal immigrants who are Muslims. Almost all Mexicans are Christians (88% Catholics). Most Cubans are Catholics as well (60%).
Indeed, the USA has very few legal immigrants who are Muslim either. "According to a new estimate in 2016, there are 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States, about 1% of the total U.S. population." At least a quarter of those are US-born Americans like Mohammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaq O'Neal, Mos Def, Busta Rhymes, Yusef Lateef etc.
"According to a 2004 telephone survey of a sample of 1,846 Muslims conducted by the polling organization Zogby, the respondents were more educated and affluent than the national average, with 59% of them holding at least an undergraduate college degree."
Immigrants are less likely to get caught, not more law abiding. In my city we have persistent problems where crime victims won't report to the police because they're illegal just like the criminals.
That quickly adds up to lower crime statistics in illegal communities. It does not mean less crime in those communities.
In fact, it creates conditions for ongoing gang crime operations unchallenged in those communities.
Frederick Trump was a German American businessman. Born in Kallstadt, in the Kingdom of Bavaria, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 16 and started working as a barber. Several years later in 1891
Also, Donald Trump's mother was a Scottish immigrant, Mary Anne Macleod. Donald Trump's wife is a Slovenian immigrant who appears to have worked illegally (as a nude model) in the USA.
There's an old joke about immigrants doing dirty jobs that Americans won't do, and being married to Donald Trump may be one of them...
The Trump family lied about being Swedish, though more recently, Donald has aired his pride in his superior German genes.
I don't think so many people would disagree with you i.e. Hire the best person for the job irrespective of where they come from. However that's not what is happening with many of the H1B visas. Here cheaper foreign workers irrespective of skill are being recruited instead of more expensive local workers. With your global outlook how do you solve this problem? Or do you just let it be and let the cheaper workers depress the wages of the local workers, thereby making the local workers struggle financially and bringing unhappiness to many ?
>> that's not what is happening with many of the H1B visas
That looks like a speculation, and a justification that a less skillful local worker might want to use. There are all kinds of H-1B Visa holders out there. More, equally, or less skilled compared to the local workers - but they are invariably less expensive than their local counterparts with same skillset. That's why companies are using them. Low quality software has a cost associated to it as well in the long run, so we can safely assume that the companies are deciding what's financially best for them. It's equivalent to competition in any market. Same argument is used by the less developed nations when an American multinational company begins their business there and kills all small local players in the market. Then these local companies bring their fake nationalism/patriotism in picture, but with globalization it's bound to happen and whining about it is not going to help.
We can assume that companies are deciding what's financially best for them, but not what is best for the country they have a social responsibility to. Look at some of the monumental IT failures we have seen recently and will see in the future (some UK banks for example). And with globalisation it's not bound to happen anymore because people are finding a voice. Do you think trump or brexit would have happened if people thought globalisation was working for them. There's more than low income people supporting these 'movements'.
And your argument for full globalisation doesn't work for me. Should we send all manufacturing to a country in the Far East with questionable labour laws and regulations. I don't feel comfortable with that. Certainly not the level playing field you think it is.
I think I can agree with your basic premise, as human beings we have a fundamental, basic even inalienable right to any part of our planet.
The fact is humans living in a particular generation are far more connected to each other than to our ancestors.
The problem is this is classic utopianism completely divorced from the historical development of our political and economic systems, property rights and the structure of nation states and societies. Tribalism will always perpetuate the concept of the outsider and a natural suspicion, and often with good reason. That's how colonialism happened.
In any time going and being accepted in other societies is 2 different things. In other times we would need technology and resources to travel, account for disease and the reception of native populations. Now we have nation states and rule of law that governs movement of people for travel and emigration. These rules can be improved but there is no alternative that does not impose controls, even if we have post nation states there will still be controls.
What I would like is significantly less restrictions and more 'openness' and good faith policies that acknowleged every human being's right to travel and see the rest of 'their world' unhindered.
Same could be said about the minimum wage. Who am I to tell a homeless person that they can't sign a voluntary contract to work for less than $15/hr? We won't let them live on starvation wages, we will just ensure they never get a job.
It sounds like a good idea and I have considered it myself for a while. It may not seem like a great idea to have an immigration and importation process and controls at first.
However, consider the realities that are encountered. A few examples: Years ago, the European pioneers showed up 'freely' and for all intents destroyed the Native Americans' way of living (and many of their lives). There have been areas with diseases in humans and animals in certain countries that are much less common in others, that could cause disastrous scenarios for livestock, agriculture, and humans if introduced haphazardly. People also showed up 'freely' and kidnapped humans from Africa and sold them as slaves in the US.
If one argues that there should be rules in place to prevent such things from happening, then you essentially need a process by which to discriminate whether 'outsiders', and how many, should be allowed in one's physical space (edit: along with sufficient military force to repel a large group that will attempt to forcefully ignore such a process).
I don't believe this (H-1B Visa issue, not the article) is about discrimination based on birthplace. Personally, I have absolutely no problems with bringing in workers into this country. After all, that is one of the founding principles behind this country. My issue is... those that do it for the sole purpose of saving money. In other words, companies that cut "american employees" for H-1B visa holders because they'll be spending a fraction of the salary in the long term. Since I am an Indian, I also happen to know that those that come here are willing to take anything (unfair treatment) to immigrate here.
To sum up,
1) If US companies want to import employees, pay them US market rate for their skill-level and what their responsibilities are.
2) Those that exploit the H-1B visa sponsorship should not be given this leverage over their new employees simply because they were able to work in the US because they were sponsored.
I saw the text of Jimmy Carter's Voyager message recently, and I was struck by the introduction:
"This Voyager spacecraft was constructed by the United States of America. We are a community of 240 million human beings among the more than 4 billion who inhabit the planet Earth. We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization."
It wasn't very long ago that the idea that it was desirable for borders to one day disappear was common enough that the President could say so on behalf of Earth. I suppose this was also the era where things like the Schengen visa came into existence. I haven't heard many people on any side of the political spectrum express such an idea recently, unfortunately, and I think that's a goal that the left has conceded without entirely realizing it was conceding anything.
> I haven't heard many people on any side of the political spectrum express such an idea recently, unfortunately, and I think that's a goal that the left has conceded without entirely realizing it was conceding anything.
Because there are some really big problems in practice. The biggest is wealth inequality at a global scale, there are several billion people in poor countries who would happily move to western nations, likely causing negatives for the poor and rich countries.
The other is that the more me learn about each other the bigger the cultural divide is/seems. The religious right is often derided in the west, but imagine if it was the whole world voting on things like gay marriage and women's rights, animal rights, etc.
I'm curious to learn more, especially if there have been studies about the effects of border rule changes.
Do we expect poor people who take the initiative to move (i.e., not refugees) to remain poor? My impression is that poverty is mostly about opportunity and access to resources, not about personal desire to be poor.
I don't see how social issues would be particularly different from the status quo in the US. If you asked individual states to vote on gay marriage (which was the case until 2015), they'd vote differently. Different states still have wildly different rules on abortion, including places where abortion is effectively inaccessible. And that's not a disaster for the Union. It's even possible for people to move between states en masse and tilt voting one way or another, but that seems never to happen in practice. Even organized efforts with this explicit goal, like the Free State Project, seem to not be succeeding.
> Do we expect poor people who take the initiative to move (i.e., not refugees) to remain poor? My impression is that poverty is mostly about opportunity and access to resources, not about personal desire to be poor.
Yes, especially the ones with the most means, this risks creating a serious brain from the poorer countries. It also risks wealthy countries becoming too reliant on poor countries paying for education. We already see this to some extent today.
Also, as a species we're very migratory. Huge population movements only really ended when modern day nation states began. Even militaristic empires like Rome couldn't stop them.
> I don't see how social issues would be particularly different from the status quo in the US. If you asked individual states to vote on gay marriage (which was the case until 2015), they'd vote differently
Just how different are they? Some states may be against gay marriage, but is it 51% against or 60%? I doubt there would be states where it's much more than that, but if we took the world as a whole it would be.
No studies I know of though, if anyone has any I'd be interested too.
