1. Ryan Murphy muses on the implication of French cultural protection arguments for the way some Americans oppose immigration. I actually don't think subsidizing cultural activities like the French film industry is the most awful idea in the world, but on the immigration side it's a pretty distorted sense of American (I'm sorry - Murican) culture that writes out immigrants. Immigrants are like our cultural blood transfusions. I'm sure there's also an asymmetry on this point. Most Americans that rail against Mexican immigration probably have a fairly positive view of Ellis Island. We don't have very many people still going around saying how awful that was. And yes, some of them are George Borjas types that have a somewhat more sophisticated argument for that distinction, but not the vast majority.
2. Anu Bradford proposes immigration bonds to assuage fears of immigrants. Basically immigrants would post bonds and if they became unemployed or went on welfare it would be financed with the bond. If they committed a crime it would pay for deportation costs. I'm not sure what I think of this. Some of it sounds a little odd. Part of me doesn't think there should be an extra cost to living here if we want them to come here. We're basically saying our system ought to be progressive unless you're new here, then it'll be much more regressive. We're also once again saying that low skill immigrants are not the "desirables" and high skill immigrants are, because this quite intentionally raises the cost of immigration for low skill immigrants. Yes I know low skill immigrants impose a higher cost on society than high skill immigrants, but guess what - low skill natives impose a higher cost on society than high skill natives. We want this progressive system and it seems to me if we're welcoming these people as new Americans it shouldn't be selectively applied. Some of it is strange though - unemployment insurance, for example, is only paid to workers if they've paid sufficient payroll taxes in a defined base period. So immigrants would only get that if they have already contributed what we have determined is sufficient for receiving unemployment insurance. It's an interesting idea - and as the author says its much better than government committees picking out desirable traits - but it still makes me uneasy.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
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~Anu Bradford proposes immigration bonds to assuage fears of immigrants.~
ReplyDeleteIn essence that is similar to the current effort to make immigration reform revolve around those who are here "illegally" buy their health insurance. It is a good way of avoiding the problem behind the immigration status of so many "illegals" in the first place - namely that we have no means for these people to efficaciously enter the country. There is no "line" for these people to get into in other words and such proposals do nothing to remedy that.
"... a fairly positive view of Ellis Island"
ReplyDeleteActually there's a long standing tradition in this country of being irate about German immigrants ("Dutch") and Irish ("Micks") and Italian ("Guineas") and Spaniards ("Dagos") and Scandanavians ("Squareheads") and Jews ("Sheenies") and east Europeans ("Polacks") amd Orientals ("Slants"), etc. This predates Ellis Island; I suspect it reaches back to before the Revolution, when the Arcadians were being forced out of Canada and low-caste Scots were bailing out of Britian.
Nativist sentiment of this ilk has pretty much faded since World War 2, possibly because we all became nicer people... but more likely because in the 1960's animosity towards blacks and Hispanics really began to show up.
I've got a rule of thumb that in any mixed community, people in the largest ethnic bloc usually fear/hate/despise people in the second largest bloc, ignoring all other races and creeds. It stands up pretty well.
Ellis Island may or may not have benefitted the citizenry of the U.S. I have yet to see a convincing argument for either conclusion.
ReplyDelete"Yes I know low skill immigrants impose a higher cost on society than high skill immigrants, but guess what - low skill natives impose a higher cost on society than high skill natives"
Because we're already paying some cost, it makes sense to magnify that cost? I would think the opposite.
"Nativist sentiment of this ilk has pretty much faded since World War 2, possibly because we all became nicer people... but more likely because in the 1960's animosity towards blacks and Hispanics really began to show up. "
I think it's because immigration was restricted in the 20s, so there was a long period of time for the existing mass of immigrants to assimilate. The 40s didn't feature the same racial dynamics as the 60s, but they also didn't seem to feature as much animus toward European immigrants.
"I've got a rule of thumb that in any mixed community, people in the largest ethnic bloc usually fear/hate/despise people in the second largest bloc, ignoring all other races and creeds. It stands up pretty well."
I don't think that holds in Iran. Persians and Azerbaijanis seem to get along fine. It's not a bad intuition though, and has been called "biculturalism" as opposed to "multiculturalism". Except there are some small minorities that are really hated even if there's another minority larger than them. Gypsies, for instance.
WA: Nice points about Iran and Gypsies. I'll try to add them to my mental model..
ReplyDeleteAs for nativist animosity towards immigrants... I don't have data in hand, but I was an early baby boomer, growing up in the Midwest, mostly in small towns. And my recollection of growing up was that every so often, I'd hear an adult -- usually uncles or aunts or suchlike -- mumble remarks about Italians being unreliable and the French pissing in public and having no shame about nudity and so on. (Of course, I also heard unfriendly references to Catholics and shiftless, lower class, white "trash".) But once the 1960s came around, the references I'd hear to "those people, you know" pretty consistently were aimed at low income blacks. Maybe it was because I was off in college in a big city, or maybe blacks were more visible as a growing proportion of the US population, or because blacks featured more heavily in the evening news than Italians and Irish. Or all of the above. Or my aged memory may be failing me.
My 2 cents, anyhow.