This gets talked about surprisingly little, but the other major problem is that instead of the asylum system accepting dissidents or refugees from dangerous situation, it's now mainly used by people who have the resources to just show up on the US/Mexico border. A Massalit refugee starving on the Chad/Sudan border has an excellent asylum case but no ability to get a tourist visa to a South American country, fly there, and pay people to help him trek up to the Rio Grande. The people who do have this ability are generally in no imminent danger.
If Democrats ever take power again and the political mood isn't 1000% against immigration, we need to switch to an asylum system that fulfills the function of protecting people in danger, and this does mean rapidly denying/deporting invalid "refugees".
I don't disagree that Dems need to be opposed to illegal immigration, for all sorts of reason.
But I think that even in your post you downplayed some of the benefits.
"The main thing Democrats had to say about the Haitians in Springfield was that they weren’t eating cats and dogs, and that they weren’t illegal immigrants — they were here legally under TPS.1 But this response did nothing to actually address the concerns of American citizens in Springfield, who were seeing their school system transform to address a six-fold increase in the number of students who weren’t proficient in English, requiring a rapid hiring of numerous ESL and interpretation staff. When your tax dollars are diverted from educating your own children to addressing the needs of non-citizens, you are harmed — these voters had a valid grievance and Democrats had nothing to say about it. "
No argument with any of this, but wasn't it also true that Springfield Ohio was a dying city that experienced some resurgence in its economy due to the addition of these quasi-legal immigrants? Some factory owners were quoted as saying they appreciated the workers.
Are we not allowed to discuss the economic benefits of immigration alongside the harms?
> Some factory owners were quoted as saying they appreciated the workers
Someone wrote a book about how American-born citizens couldn't stay competent enough to keep work at a factory job, even one that one very highly paid and way better than their other options.
> points to his former co-worker, Bob, as a typical example. Out of high school, [they] worked at a tile company, which offered full-time, heavy physical work for $13 per hour to start plus benefits, and up to $16 per hour with seniority, which was excellent work for the region and depressed economy at the time. Yet his boss consistently had trouble finding workers. Eventually he found Bob, a 19 year old high school drop out with a 17 year old pregnant girlfriend. The boss was nice enough to not only hire Bob, but offer his girlfriend a secretary job.
> Bob missed at least two days of work per week, and his girlfriend would miss three. Both never gave notice, and when they did show up they were usually late. Bob would also take 3-5 bathroom breaks per day which were so long that [he] started a game where he would count the minutes out loud each time, usually going up to 30-40.
> Eventually the boss got fed up, and fired both Bob and his girlfriend. Bob responded by nearly physically assaulting the boss, and screaming at him in the warehouse, asking the boss, “how could you do this to me!? I have a pregnant girlfriend! How are we supposed to survive!?”
I can't remember the title, it was called Hillbilly something. They made a Netflix movie out of it so I don't have to bother learning to read.
I think it is a chicken and egg problem. Because migrant labor is cheap, and being more desperate the migrants are willing to work long hours in poor conditions, employers prefer them over natives. Over time, the natives, having lost hope and dependent on government services, fall to opioid or alcohol addiction, and are even less competitive.
Hillbilly analogy is true to an extent, but it is not like the migrants are coming from a highly functional societies, but the fear of deportation keeps them out of trouble with the law, and from getting fired. The point is, once we stem the flow of migrants, we can institute policies to help US working class to get off their addiction, or at the least, ensure the younger ones don't fall into addiction by providing employment opportunities. Low-skilled labor in the US cannot compete with migrant labor because they come from very poor countries and would welcome less than half the pay and living expenses of natives, and still have money to send back home.
I don't think that's a fair critique. Josh correctly notes that "benefit to the USA" is the primary lens to view immigration, but he paints immigration to Springfield as essentially a negative event. The reality is that the issues in that city were probably 80% growth-related, and much less *where the new residents were born.*
I would say having to accept the culture of your city changing so drastically in a few years (language, customs, food, etc.) in order to achieve growth is a deal a lot of people would feel iffy about at best.
The problem is that Josh gave two clear cut examples, and one of them was a situation where it's not even clear if the net impact from a surge in migration was a bad thing. I take seriously the misused education resources and general feeling of unfairness by many Springfield, but I'm not fully convinced that there exists a clear cut case for why this immigration is bad in a tangible way. And the small business owning constituency that is benefitting from these Haitian workers is not nothing.
A similar critique can be made for Josh's NYC example. As a resident of the city myself, I anecdotally notice what I perceive to be more migrants, but that's kind of it. I wasn't particularly impacted by the enormous migrant compound on Randall's Island, and it isn't clear to me that 10,000 hotel beds being occupied meaningfully changed what has always been exhorbitantly expensive lodging. Furthermore, as an NYC resident, the price pain that I'm going to "feel" for hotels that are almost exclusively purchased by tourists, is completely imperceivable.
And I say all of this as someone who WANTS good examples of why this immigration influx is bad. It's clearly a political problem that far too many progressives are keeping their heads in the sand about, and democrats should be firm on it if for no other reason than a majority of Americans want them to be. But I also want to convince these progressives to pull their heads out of said sand, and having better, tangible reasons for why excess immigration feels bad to Americans is helpful to make this case. Unfortunately, I find Josh's ammo for this case to be lacking.
Not only that, at least one factory owner was quoted saying the workers were especially appreciated because they were on time and sober -- unlike much of the local population! This is a pretty common feeling among small- and mid-size business owners that depend on manual, myself included. (Sometimes I like to challenge people to name actual American-born individuals they know who are willing to wash dishes for $15/hour, 40-80 hours per week. Bonus points for reliable sobriety.) I think Dems' tendency to focus on social justice issues distracted from what could have been a better -- well, maybe just less-bad -- talking point: Americans love and depend on cheap stuff, which depends on cheap labor, most Americans aren't willing to do cheap labor, many immigrants are, and we should take them up on that willingness. Of course, the best way to do this is through completely-above-board immigration that isn't politically vulnerable. But yeah, I share in your view that Dems should be more opposed to illegal immigration. And having said that, a lot of the talking points put out there by hawkish Dems just try to moralize against the pro-immigration stance rather than addressing its benefits in any serious way. I'm sure there's a good argument out there, I just haven't come across it yet
We are allowed in fact, but what is seemingly not allowed by Democrat led institutions (or any major and reputable US national research institutions for that matter) is actually studying the affects of Immigration on working class Americans in an unbiased manner. The studies that have been done as far as Iv'e seen focused on Jobs or overall economic impact but never on housing costs, and they all suffer from a lack of more then local focus (among other major flaws).
But the fact is that large, geographically consentrated influxes of foriegn born working class new residents are strongly associated with net domestic out-migration of the US born working class. Most but not all regions with high immigrant percentages also have well above the US average housing costs relative to incomes, yet again I have seen no detaled studies on this. The exceptions are places like Houston, TX, or along the border, but these are places with either unusually abundent housing construction do to unusually lax development regulations or are places with very low wage dominated economies that are also geoghraphically remote from centers of wealth.
Meanwhile, most of the researchers doing studies on foriegn born workers impact on the labor market also have massive conflicts of interest, simply in that they live in high immigrant and high wealth regions and themselves tend to very directly benifit from low wage immigrant labor while also insulating themselves from non migrant laborers as much as possible. These studies also completely ignor differances in local cost of living, nor do they take into account high rates of net domestic out migration of US born workers from areas with high levels of less educated migrants.
Again, in many parts of the US with large migrant populations, certian occupations are overwelming dominated by immigrant (and some secund generation US born) workers from specific ethnic backgrounds, often to the near exclusion of others. Yet for almost all of these occupations, this is not the case elsewhere, often in just the next county over.
Tree trimming is just one example in the county where I live. Here, tree workers are now almost all Mexican (not even other Latinos for the most part) even though our larger working class (including laborers) is still fairly diverse. But go just to the next suburban county over (or to nearby smaller counties) today, or back in time only 15 years, and you will still find plenty of Non Hispanic White American tree workers, groundsmen as well as climbers. Go to some other nearby counties and relatively few Black or Euro-American working class people remain in general, which has only become true in the recent past. This pattern is even starker in many construction occupations.
All this implies a high degree of coerced segregation and displacement caused in part by uncontrolled immigration, yet we don't even know the real details becuse we don't study them honestly. Progressive researchers also usually have a strong fear of touching this issue do to the (likelyhood!) of being accused of rascism and even of loosing rheir position, not to mention the basic lack of funding and support from others.
And as for conservative researchers and institutions, well those are pretty scarse to begin with (which says a lot about American so called "conservatism"!). Yet even they also don't study the above issues in detail, for the simple reasons that while conservatives often love to weaponize concerns over illegal immigration for political ends, they also have a seeming comittment to NOT studying anything that could show patterns of displacement or discrimination in general, because they too, are funded and supported both by businesses that engage in it and by idealogues who dont want to know (if sometimes for differant reasons then progressives) or whom at least find no benifit in better direct evidance, even when it has potential to vindicate (some of) their claims. No, they dont want any of their claims controdicted by clear evidence, especially not when they have gone all in on emotion based propaganda even while decrying the emotion based propaganda of their Democratic party opponants.
I am happy to concede the point that uncontrolled immigration is neither good nor sustainable.
But to the extent that we value economic growth (and we are headed towards long term economic catastrophe if economic growth slows or stops), we should want to have a lot more legal immigration of all skill levels than is currently allowed. Even as the border must be enforced against migrants coming without permission and asylum laws must be changed to prevent exploitation.
We really don’t. Right now, jobs are not growingly rapidly enough to absorb our current college graduates. AI presents real concerns of a shrinkage in the need for white collar workers. New graduates are facing high unemployment. Political tensions over current immigration levels are pushing anti immigrant politicians into power in multiple countries. This is really not the time to try to increase immigration.
If we have a fraction of the projected productivity gains from AI, we will have increased economic growth with a stable population.
Long term, we are going to have to figure out how to increase productivity growth without population growth, because global population is projected to decline.
Nope, I disagree with your premice on growth. We don't need more population growth then we currently have in the US. Slow growing or even shrinking places like Japan or Upstate New York have their (negative growth related) problems to be sure, but also have a better quality of life on average for working class people (and decent overall prosparity and government function) then rapidly growing Florida or (untill recently) California. AI looks like it might soon become a major negative factor in Job loss, and we could be in serious trouble as a result. Notably, this will be true across the world, and not just in rich nations. And what that means, is that if we don't protect our borders soon and learn to become more self relient once again, we soon won't have a country at all!
I know you're asking for study, but you seem to presume cause where you've observed correllation. Maybe immigrants displaced prior residents. But maybe they filled in places that were emptying out. (e.g. Springfield, Ohio).
No, that is not the case, as I am not presuming cause within specific communities. Both displacment and filling in a gap could easily both be true in differant places or even within the same place, -and most likely are. But I think this issue actually needs a lot more studying given certian (statistical, not just anecdotal) patterns.
I also wouldn't include Springfield, OH as a good example of this phenominon, partly because in reality we really don't have good statistics on the migrant influx there despite its prominance in the news, but mostly because that city is simply not a major center of migration in the national US context, especially not at the broader regional level.
And in truth the claim that migrants just filled in the gaps in Springfield or that they led to growth and are more reliable workers (by some factory owners) may be true or only partly true, or not, but is ultimately unsupported. Wildly differant claims have also been made regarding Springfield, also so far unsupported as far as I know but plausable, that many locals have indeed been displaced both do to housing scarcity as well as job displacement and associated discrimmination.
And some of both could well be true: migrants may have caused overall growth in Springfield and largely filled in existing gaps for a time, and might also be better workers on average. But the latter might also be or not not be very significant or be the main reason they are prefered by many employers. They might be more exploitable, and might have, in time, ALSO contributed to significant job and housing strain and displacement of working class locals, even while helping grow the economy and growing the wealth of fhe already affluent. One thing studies HAVE found and that there is relatively little controversy about, is that high rates of immigration appear to lead to greater income and wealth inequality on average(!)
But again, without knowing more at this time, I cannot take any of the claims regarding Springfield, OH in particular at face value.
Great note, thank you. In 2000s you would hear about research reports from a liberal professor at an elite university showing higher economic growth in areas with higher illegal immigrants, and the idea was that immigrants in general are selected to be more hard-working, enterprising and willing to take risks, and therefore they pull themselves up within a generation and are a net benefit tot he economy. However, what was really happening is man y small businesses became viable because of availability of low cost labor, and because the migrant workers are also consumers, they improved the local economy's GDP. However, there is a cost - they took away employment opportunities of native born low-skilled workers. Go into the kitchen of almost any restaurant in major cities and they will all be from Latin America - these are jobs that could have employed working class US born Blacks or Whites, but they don't. One could imagine all these migrant workers gone with a magical wand, and suddenly many native born workers could be in demand. Because they will ask for higher wages and better working conditions, some of these businesses may no longer be viable, and as the weaker ones shut down, the remaining ones will thrive even more and will be able to pay higher wages to native born workers. The overall economy will shrink, but so would demands on infrastructure, including housing.
Progressives need to understand that we have many native born people who need help to get out of, and stay out of, poverty, and till that is accomplished, we must sharply restrict low-skilled immigration.
Agree with the first part. The would be US born workers have mostly moved elsewhere since 1990, -and some have switched occupations or retired, and more younger Americans are jobless or even homeless, or just underemployed (gig work, temp etc) now. And training opportunities in construction and other work have deminished. Illegal immigration is really a problem for us.
However, I need to correct a few things:
1) It's only partly true that major US cities have all Latino immigrant kitchen workers. It is not litterally close to true in any of them in fact, but some do have a very low non immigrant Black or White companant, and some cities near the border have 90%+ Latinos, though many are US born and English speaking.
2) There are also a huge number of US born Latinos and increasingly Asian Americans and mixed people in general, so US born workers are more diverse now. Many Asian restaurants in global US cities do have Asian immigrant kitchen workers, and some fancy or limmited service restaurants tend to have more diverse kitchen workers even then.
But in most of the global city regions of US and other similer cities, Immigrants or specific ethnic groups dominate to near manoploize various occupations, including in most but not all of the restaurant industry.
3) But many other major US cities (and exurbia/far outer suburbia of even most major coastal US cities) do have diverse kitchen workforces, janitors etc. This is true in most of the Midwest, much of the South, and even (large) parts of the West and northeast. They have Landscapers and construction workers who are White, Latino and sometimes Black, and some Asian landscapers (few Asians in construction though), just for example, and mostly White but some Latino tree tree trimmers, instead of mostly Latino tree trimmers. In most of the SF Bay Area, these occupations are largely segregated except in the North Bay and Solano, and some parts of the east bay suburbs.
Personally, I would like to see less immigration overall. I am an idependent (not necessarily moderate), not progressive or leftist but also not a conservative either.
I also believe that a large number of Central and South Americans should actually recieve refugee status, not in any blanket manner, but rather because a great many actually qualify but have not been granted it for purely political reasons, not from Democrats either btw! The US has a long history of ugly interventions in Latin America.
Thanks for the detailed response! I agree with your points (1) and (2) but want to clarify that I meant it was mostly the low-level staff positions like cleaning, chopping vegetables etc. that were filled by migrant workers. It was eyeopening to see even ordinary Indian restaurants hiring Latino workers whereas previously they would be hiring someone from the Indian community (probably with illegal status). Positions like chef are almost always filled by native born workers. I agree with (3), but anecdotally my sister in Cincinnati insisted on hiring working class white for landscaping and lawn mowing work though she could pay less to a migrant worker, and the person she hired complaining how all work had dried up.
Regarding your last point about US intervention in LATAM in 1980s, I don't have strong opinion one way or another (I grew up elsewhere), but I have heard many Americans voice a sentiment similar to yours. I could not help think though that many of these countries were a threat to the US as they aligned with the USSR, and the US had to act to protect its own backyard. And, even if the US wanted to make amends, a better way might be to make direct investments in these countries, build new supply chains from these countries to replace those from China. That would be more effective for both parties rather than allowing a large number of refugees.
: ) Thanks. All of my main points above are a matter of fact if you look it up. I was also refering to those low level posiion you mention, but actually chefs are NOT almost always filled by native born workers more broadly. A significant fraction of chefs are also immigrants. Cooks are more likely to be Latino (many of which are US born) then food prep workers too so its complicated.
What you don't seem to understand yet is that almost all occupations in the US are somewhat diverse at this point, and this is often true even for some bottem tear labor jobs in many large, immigrant heavy cities, which nonetheless also have widespread job segregation up to a point. And the latter is sometimes almost complete for SOME occupations, in SOME large US cities (and various other places) -but that widely varies in reality. Still, it is far from absolute in most cases, with typically many immigrant and native born workers, even when not necessarily many white or black ones.
Cincinnati also has a very low migrant percentage and small Latino population as well so while sure there are a vew migrant run landscaping services there, the local landscaping workforce there is in fact still mainly Anglo American. Certian other parts of the US also have huge citizen Latino populations that are mainly US born and go back generations, with a low immigrant population.
But as for Indian Restaurants ideed, many Indian restaurants hire Latino immigrant workers (also Southeast Asian, Nepalese, Pakastani, Tabetan, Indian Sikh etc) but that is because there are just not enough working class Hindu Indians at this point, and no they dont usually hire US born Americans (except sometimes family members) for those positions. Where enough of those workers are not available, you just dont see nearly as many Indian restaurants, and those that do exist tend to be truly family run at least in the kitchen. I mentioned Sikh vs Hindu because many Hindu restaurant owners also hire (mostly legal) Sikh Indian immigrants, since a large portion of Sikhs (unlike Hindus in the US) are working class and not college educated. Most Indians in the US overall are Hindu.
Indian owned hotels and motels on the other hand actually do often hire local American workers as well as immigrants. Chinese restaurants usually hire Chinese or Vietnamese workers, but sometimes Latino if they are not soley family run, which many are.
As for the US interventions in Latin America, none of those countries was itself any threat to the USA (nor to the Soviets). It was all proxy war between the two powers durring that time, with the Soviets also invading various countries and commiting otrocities. But US intervention was also to protect US corporate interests in some cases, which is why it has not actually stopped, only declined sharply from it's cold war peak. Regardless there was no excuse for much of what was done, which was totally criminal.
While I think Barro is probably too negative on the economic, I recognise he's seeking to offset the Democrats - or rather the comparative-elite professional class college educated overweight in the other direction in particular on downsides on cost side of rapid absorption of especially illegal immigration.
Since Democrats tend nowadays to
A. Be utterly blind or in total denial about downsides
B. Tend to be heavily overweight to touting in All is Sunny and Kind and Great optics on immigration without real credible regard to the difference in impacts in forms
Barro's counter-balancing has utility.
You are 'allowed' but you should ask yourself to what degree you are continuing to blind yourselves to the downside / tradeoffs and extent to which the immigration narrative chez the Democats started out as a falsely based Political narrative (expectation such people become Democrats in getting citizenship, the rather transparent thinking of the past decade at least).
Overall I am personally fairly pro-immigration, however I myself recognised that the Democrats political discourse has gotten itself into a deep hole and part of that reason for being in deep hole is excessive "Pro-ness"
(again stated from a personal perspective where I am unbothered by immigrants and immigration and generally see structured immigration as a positive. However all things hit points of Diminishing Returns - and even can get to negative returns).
So a bit of wiping the discourse slate / shake up on somewhat naive continuation of overweight on the subject has utility.
By highlighting only the issue of a strain on Springfield services, and ignore the additional truth that Springfield sought and continues to benefit from the labor their *legal* Haitian immigrants have brought, you step away from observations that would help support strong analysis and useful policy prescriptions. And you do it to prove your larger point—which is otherwise a good one now made weaker by your example. Springfield had challenges. Trump and Vance lied about those challenges. No one in Springfield wants the “remedies” now offered by DHS.
"By highlighting only the issue of a strain on Springfield services"
The whole point of his post, clearly stated in the headline, was to highlight the valid reasons people might oppose uncontrolled migration. It was very clearly not a post weighing the pros and cons of immigration policy more generally.
Josh's essay makes it sound like this was something done to the city of Springfield, without them being an active participant in it making informed trade-offs.
(And I'll fully agree that adding a quarter of people from another country to your community is always going to be strain, and it bugged me that Democrats seemed to pretend it didn't happen or people were racist for feeling bad about that kind of rapid change. )
More accurately, it was a decision actively made by Springfield's elected leaders. I don't know if we have a clear idea whether the residents supported it. It's also distinctly possible that they weren't fully aware of what they were signing up for and any potential consequences.
Springfield swung heavily to the right in 2024, so it does seem possible that there was backlash to this policy even if they didn't necessarily agree with comments made by Trump and others.
“Q: Was any government entity – local, state or federal – involved in bringing the Haitian refugees to Springfield?
A: No government entity is responsible for the influx of Haitians into Clark County. Once a person with Temporary Protected Status enters the country, they are free to locate wherever they choose.”
“Q: Why Springfield?
A: Springfield is an appealing place for many reasons including lower cost of living and available work. These conditions are thought to be the primary reasons for immigrants to choose Springfield. Now that there are numerous immigrant families residing in our community, word of mouth is adding to our population, as this communal culture is sharing their positive experiences about living in our community with family and friends who are also seeking to leave the impoverished and dangerous living conditions of their home country.
But it’s not just Clark County. Other Ohio counties that are experiencing similar population increases due to immigration include, Allen County, Hancock County and the Columbus and Cleveland metro areas.”
Springfield swung pretty hard to the right in the 2024 election, harder than most of the state, so I don't think it's as difficult a case as you think.
Lots of places moved right in their voting—in fact almost every place touched by inflation, whether or not they experienced any illegal immigration. Which makes the thesis weak. New York and New Jersey moved further than Ohio.
The author has resources and access. Why not find one—any—other example where a shift can more clearly reflect immigration panic, or whatever you’d call this? Or a place where the costs objectively outpaced the economic benefits? Not finding an example of the latter makes this piece sound like: “hey, Democrats, you weren’t irrationally xenophobic enough.”
He did a poor job though, by not wanting to touch the Job and housing issues. Those could be argued either way, but many (Dems especially) seem not to want to, -too many sacred cows (and friends and donors!) would likely be offended if they did.
Yeah, he like most Dems really doesn't seem to want to touch the housing and job impact issues, which can potentially be argued both ways. But if some possible conclusions (even when they aren't the most likely ones) would deeply offend or be umexceptable to their peers, then it becomes a no go to even look into it seriously.
"We have to be willing to firmly say ‘no’ and deny access to our country"
Why this instead of something like Bryan Caplan's keyhole solutions:
"What would happen, though, if we actually wrote down specific complaints about immigrants and tried to figure out specific solutions? While we’re at it, why not focus on specific solutions that are cheap and relatively humane?" "there are cheaper and more humane solutions for each and every complaint. If immigrants hurt American workers, we can charge immigrants higher taxes or admission fees, and use the revenue to compensate the losers. If immigrants burden American taxpayers, we can make immigrants ineligible for benefits. If immigrants hurt American culture, we can impose tests of English fluency and cultural literacy. If immigrants hurt American liberty, we can refuse to give them the right to vote. Whatever your complaint happens to be, immigration restrictions are a needlessly draconian remedy."
It's easy to deprive immigrants of benefits in theory, but the social consequences of having shanty towns full of non-enfranchised people who can't send their kids to school or access healthcare would be extremely dire. The children who grow up in that milieu would be especially discontented. Caplan just doesn't factor in the riots and conflict that libertarian open borders would give rise to.
I think that people in general are comfortable with all stripes of immigration as long as the numbers are reasonable if there were 100K purely illegal immigrants and 250K questionable asylum seekers we wouldn’t have much of a problem. The need is for a limiting principle and a means to enforce it.
In just about everything, the order of preferences is
1. some
2. none
3. unlimited amount
If people have to choose between 2 and 3 they will choose 2. They want 1, but that might be off the table, especially if the people who want 3 make it impossible (and then accuse the people who say they want 1 of really wanting 2).
People need a sense of control. There's an absolute sense that the Democrats can't really stomach immigration enforcement and that means it's not controlled. Obama could do it and took a lot of grief for it but he did it.
I think this is the crux of the issue. The sense of lawlessness. Or more precisely, *disorder.*
I don't buy the idea that the general public is making a determination about the policy merits of TPS expansion. They just experience it as "too much/too fast" and file it under "illegal." (There's also a segment of the population that is simply lying when they say, "I support legal immigration. Just not illegal.")
Shouldn’t the relevant policy question be what are the net effects of illegal migration, rather than what are the negative consequences individually?
I can think of lots of issues that carry some negative effect but are beneficial in aggregate.
Also isn’t there likely to be some optimal point at which the marginal cost outweighs the marginal benefit and wouldn’t it be helpful to find break even?
I think one can have legit ick for the current enforcers of immigration. I can certainly imagine a well-trained immigration enforcement, but one gets the distinct impression that the bulk of ICE agents are resentful losers who are in it because they dislike brown people and enjoy owning the libs or whatever.
> but one gets the distinct impression that the bulk of ICE agents are resentful losers who are in it because they dislike brown people and enjoy owning the libs or whatever
I feel really bad for that "one" whoever he is.
Border Patrol is over half Latino. ICE Is about 25% and rising.
This blog's point was reinforced by a conservative I spoke with at a recent neighborhood event. He would concede that ICE should be reined in from kidnapping and thuggery if I would concede that it is legitimate to deport people here illegally. The gray zone for our debate was justification for sanctuary cities. He told me that Latinos he has talked to call BS on Progressive claims that by refusing to turn over undocumented criminal suspects to ICE, the community gains by reducing mistrust in policing.
I like what Josh has to say very much, and agree with it, even if I am one of these liberals who are open to higher immigration and TPS protections and so on...still, did immigration policies cost democrats the election? Springfield Ohio and Corona in Queens did not change anything. It's not to say there shouldn't be changes and, certainly, ongoing conversations WRT immigration policy.
But if inflation hadn't been as high as it was, if it had been "normal"...is it likely Harris is President?
Also, why are Trump's immigration policies, his strongest number, under 50%?
Perhaps Josh is talking about the margins, in which case perhaps there are single-issue voters whose issue is immigration, and enough of them to change the outcome of an election. I have my doubts about that.
Immigration, where I live in Northern CA, is an important part of the economy. There is more than enough wealth to absorb the costs, as it were, just as there is in NYC. And if some Spanish-speaking voters in Queens didn't like the fact that some of the new people got hotel beds, my guess is they were far more annoyed and focused on the cost-of-living changes due to inflation, which happened here, too.
"Also, why are Trump's immigration policies, his strongest number, under 50%?"
People can disapprove of Trump's handling of an issue, but still trust him to handle the issue better than than a Democratic president. Just like how you could disapprove of Biden's handling of some issue, but still trust Biden (or Harris) to handle it better than Trump.
Of course. I didn't pull that out to show democrats are more popular, but that it's not a success for Trump now. It was part of the opening about how immigration was and is an issue at the margins, in my view. My murky writing & your failure to be a good faith interlocutor.
Where did the millions of Biden voters go? Some went to Trump. Many more stayed away. It's the big mystery, and it seems most likely answered by "inflation".
When evaluating Trump, you can't start in 2024. Was immigration a significant factor in Trump winning in 2016? I think the answer is yes.
He may not have gained the winning margin of immigration voters in 2024. But that's because they had already been on the Trump Train for eight years, and Biden did less than zero to bring them into the Democratic fold.
Based on what? He had millions of fewer votes. What do people in PA and WI care about immigration (on the whole)? And how much does it alter MI voters? That HRC was reviled by plenty of men and some women seems far more potent than immigration, which at the time showed something like 60% of Americans in favor of a pathway to citizenship...only 25% of people said it was decisive to them. See also, Electoral College.
Not more trust in Republicans, more trust in "not these people" i.e. incumbents. Very different. And also same for all countries with COVID inflation spikes, regardless of where on the political spectrum the incumbent lay.
Hey guys, let's look at an issue regarding importing a cohort of immigrants whose views about women date back to 19th century? Years ago, in Montgomery County Maryland, I had a high school classmate who was scared that her (South Asian) parents had sold her into a marriage with a stranger. Later, I encountered an early version of Facebook being used by an immigrant from Pakistan to advertise his US citizen daughter as a bride. His daughter's citizenship commanded a higher price from a would-be husband's family in the home country.
My reading of the 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery) makes no exception for religious or cultural practices that effectively enslave others, such as girls.
To steal a quote from the film Cool Hand Luke, what we have here is a failure to assimilate.
I agree that Republicans are leading on this issue. Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene:
"As a conservative and as a business owner in the construction industry, and as a realist, I can say we have to do something about labor. And that needs to be a smarter plan than just rounding up every single person and deporting them just like that."
I hope Josh takes that "as a realist" part seriously. Illicit immigration is an ongoing necessity throughout the country, including in heavily Republican areas, and one of the reasons that's the case is that illegal labor is easier to exploit - cheaper, no oversight, and you can still go to the ballot box and pull the lever for Trump.
I think Josh's proposed solution for addressing the Democrat's deficit in trust on immigration is, well, bad. What's going to happen in Springfield, Ohio when the Haitians leave? Will they recover all that public money and thrive in our new AI-powered economy? I doubt it. I'm going to be blunt here: constantly apologizing for policy missteps on TIPS in 2026 that the average voter isn't likely to remember or even know about sounds to me like something a pundit might worry about, but not necessarily a savvy politician who is trying to win. It makes the Democrats look weak.
I'm paying most attention to Greg Abbott and how he's going to thread the needle on immigration. At a certain point, you have to figure out how to keep the crews staffed. The so-called "Texas Miracle" (not the education one) was predicated on a high tolerance for illegal crossings, and Obama was the first President to really challenge that. If Dems need to project a "tough on immigration" posture, they shouldn't do it by pretending to be Republicans and punching down, they should do it by demonstrating they understand the whole hustle here, and calling out the system that enables it. And that system is heavily Republican.
I "rage" subscribed just to write this (anything to avoid schoolwork), but I see immigration as such a fundamental piece to the American story, and historical attempts to limit immigration have generally been for wildly racist/xenophobic reasons, that we should probably figure out how to mitigate the harms and amplify the benefits rather than try to limit people as a category from coming to the United States.
The communities that are getting flooded with immigrants ought to receive national support. The process for entering and living in the United States ought to be a simple one with no meaningful backlog. And yes, if someone has a *legitimate* prior criminal history (countries outlaw all kinds of things that aren't illegal in the United States, and foreign judicial systems are often not at the same standard as ours), it should count against someone trying to enter the country. But stopping people from entering simply because there are "too many" people here already? That feels anti-American, unpatriotic in a "huddled masses" sense.
I'm definitely team Abundance, but I think part of that involves looking at what we have and saying that yeah, we can probably make more of this stuff and yeah, we should probably make this stuff available to as many people as possible who buy into the American idea.
In any event, I think it's going to be hard to convince Democrats that the view I just described is wrong, and the view in this post is right.
Does that apply here? My argument is that Abundance centrists would have more success pitching a permissive border policy that mitigates the downsides, rather than restricting immigration to avoid the problems all together.
I'm supporting that argument by pointing out that immigration has strong roots in American history and is arguably one of the main "things" that has resulted in the kind of America that I think we should be proud of (in the "What do Americans have to be proud of?" sense, not in a "This is my personal politics." sense).
That it's *also* morally sound is a useful argument for those who care about acting morally, but not necessary to make the argument.
Liberal position on illegal immigration is a cop out from making the morally correct decision that is not pleasant. Deporting well-meaning, hard-working people is not pleasant, but that is the role of the government. Well-off, better educated progressives have nothing to lose from illegal immigration, and they experience net benefit from access to low cost labor in construction, restaurant and yard work industries. Agriculture work is a little different that can be easily carved out as a special case and solved with a special visa for seasonal workers.
in the 2000s it was common for liberals to pint to a study by some liberal professor showing regions with higher immigrant populations experiencing higher GDP growth. Indeed, if I am a restaurant in a city like San Francisco, I can hire workers at a much lower rate than I would be without illegal immigrants, which means the my business can remain viable at lower prices that in turn encourages more people to eat out, and so the local economy benefits and we see higher GDP. However, more money needs to be funneled into failing public school systems, or fight homelessness, which are funded by property tax and/or diverting from other programs such as police force to deter crime and so on. Furthermore, most of the kids born to these poor migrants will probably need assistance from the welfare state most of their lives. In the meantime, you have diverted funds from policies to help poor Black (and white) Americans who have been in the US for generations to escape generational poverty.
I’m pretty sure any argument that could be used to retroactively justify turning around the MS St. Louis and sending hundreds of Jewish refugees back to their deaths in 1939 probably needs at least some nuance.
I have long thought that illegal immigration (II) is a problem less about substance and more about optics. Yes, there are calculable costs to II, but there are also measurable benefits, as seen in Springfield. However, most voters aren't going to bother doing a cost-benefits analysis to figure out if II is, on balance, a positive or a negative. They're going to respond to whatever makes them angry or frightened and vote accordingly. Any policy that makes them less angry or frightened is going to land well with these people, regardless of what that policy actually does, which most voters are never going to trouble themselves to investigate. As long as you don't go appear too goon-squaddish, as ICE is currently, people aren't going to worry much about what happens to folks who aren't even supposed to be here anyway. It's like reality show, in which a certain amount of reprehensible behavior will garner camera time and applause but too much will turn off viewers.
Soooo...if this is all theatre, then Democrats might as well compete for a the best possible part. Make some high-visibility deportations for media to cover while on the down-low pursuing good policy that makes things easier on states and cities. Circuses for the people and bread for the localities is the way to navigate this problem, I think. It's not optimal policy, but it might still be successful.
This gets talked about surprisingly little, but the other major problem is that instead of the asylum system accepting dissidents or refugees from dangerous situation, it's now mainly used by people who have the resources to just show up on the US/Mexico border. A Massalit refugee starving on the Chad/Sudan border has an excellent asylum case but no ability to get a tourist visa to a South American country, fly there, and pay people to help him trek up to the Rio Grande. The people who do have this ability are generally in no imminent danger.
If Democrats ever take power again and the political mood isn't 1000% against immigration, we need to switch to an asylum system that fulfills the function of protecting people in danger, and this does mean rapidly denying/deporting invalid "refugees".
I don't disagree that Dems need to be opposed to illegal immigration, for all sorts of reason.
But I think that even in your post you downplayed some of the benefits.
"The main thing Democrats had to say about the Haitians in Springfield was that they weren’t eating cats and dogs, and that they weren’t illegal immigrants — they were here legally under TPS.1 But this response did nothing to actually address the concerns of American citizens in Springfield, who were seeing their school system transform to address a six-fold increase in the number of students who weren’t proficient in English, requiring a rapid hiring of numerous ESL and interpretation staff. When your tax dollars are diverted from educating your own children to addressing the needs of non-citizens, you are harmed — these voters had a valid grievance and Democrats had nothing to say about it. "
No argument with any of this, but wasn't it also true that Springfield Ohio was a dying city that experienced some resurgence in its economy due to the addition of these quasi-legal immigrants? Some factory owners were quoted as saying they appreciated the workers.
Are we not allowed to discuss the economic benefits of immigration alongside the harms?
> Some factory owners were quoted as saying they appreciated the workers
Someone wrote a book about how American-born citizens couldn't stay competent enough to keep work at a factory job, even one that one very highly paid and way better than their other options.
> points to his former co-worker, Bob, as a typical example. Out of high school, [they] worked at a tile company, which offered full-time, heavy physical work for $13 per hour to start plus benefits, and up to $16 per hour with seniority, which was excellent work for the region and depressed economy at the time. Yet his boss consistently had trouble finding workers. Eventually he found Bob, a 19 year old high school drop out with a 17 year old pregnant girlfriend. The boss was nice enough to not only hire Bob, but offer his girlfriend a secretary job.
> Bob missed at least two days of work per week, and his girlfriend would miss three. Both never gave notice, and when they did show up they were usually late. Bob would also take 3-5 bathroom breaks per day which were so long that [he] started a game where he would count the minutes out loud each time, usually going up to 30-40.
> Eventually the boss got fed up, and fired both Bob and his girlfriend. Bob responded by nearly physically assaulting the boss, and screaming at him in the warehouse, asking the boss, “how could you do this to me!? I have a pregnant girlfriend! How are we supposed to survive!?”
I can't remember the title, it was called Hillbilly something. They made a Netflix movie out of it so I don't have to bother learning to read.
I think it is a chicken and egg problem. Because migrant labor is cheap, and being more desperate the migrants are willing to work long hours in poor conditions, employers prefer them over natives. Over time, the natives, having lost hope and dependent on government services, fall to opioid or alcohol addiction, and are even less competitive.
Hillbilly analogy is true to an extent, but it is not like the migrants are coming from a highly functional societies, but the fear of deportation keeps them out of trouble with the law, and from getting fired. The point is, once we stem the flow of migrants, we can institute policies to help US working class to get off their addiction, or at the least, ensure the younger ones don't fall into addiction by providing employment opportunities. Low-skilled labor in the US cannot compete with migrant labor because they come from very poor countries and would welcome less than half the pay and living expenses of natives, and still have money to send back home.
"Are we not allowed to discuss the economic benefits of immigration alongside the harms?"
Josh never said you weren't.
The whole point of this post, stated clearly in the headline, is that there are valid reasons to oppose uncrontrolled migration.
I don't think that's a fair critique. Josh correctly notes that "benefit to the USA" is the primary lens to view immigration, but he paints immigration to Springfield as essentially a negative event. The reality is that the issues in that city were probably 80% growth-related, and much less *where the new residents were born.*
Is unpopular immigration policy that contributes to Trump winning the presidency beneficial to the USA?
I would say having to accept the culture of your city changing so drastically in a few years (language, customs, food, etc.) in order to achieve growth is a deal a lot of people would feel iffy about at best.
The problem is that Josh gave two clear cut examples, and one of them was a situation where it's not even clear if the net impact from a surge in migration was a bad thing. I take seriously the misused education resources and general feeling of unfairness by many Springfield, but I'm not fully convinced that there exists a clear cut case for why this immigration is bad in a tangible way. And the small business owning constituency that is benefitting from these Haitian workers is not nothing.
A similar critique can be made for Josh's NYC example. As a resident of the city myself, I anecdotally notice what I perceive to be more migrants, but that's kind of it. I wasn't particularly impacted by the enormous migrant compound on Randall's Island, and it isn't clear to me that 10,000 hotel beds being occupied meaningfully changed what has always been exhorbitantly expensive lodging. Furthermore, as an NYC resident, the price pain that I'm going to "feel" for hotels that are almost exclusively purchased by tourists, is completely imperceivable.
And I say all of this as someone who WANTS good examples of why this immigration influx is bad. It's clearly a political problem that far too many progressives are keeping their heads in the sand about, and democrats should be firm on it if for no other reason than a majority of Americans want them to be. But I also want to convince these progressives to pull their heads out of said sand, and having better, tangible reasons for why excess immigration feels bad to Americans is helpful to make this case. Unfortunately, I find Josh's ammo for this case to be lacking.
Not only that, at least one factory owner was quoted saying the workers were especially appreciated because they were on time and sober -- unlike much of the local population! This is a pretty common feeling among small- and mid-size business owners that depend on manual, myself included. (Sometimes I like to challenge people to name actual American-born individuals they know who are willing to wash dishes for $15/hour, 40-80 hours per week. Bonus points for reliable sobriety.) I think Dems' tendency to focus on social justice issues distracted from what could have been a better -- well, maybe just less-bad -- talking point: Americans love and depend on cheap stuff, which depends on cheap labor, most Americans aren't willing to do cheap labor, many immigrants are, and we should take them up on that willingness. Of course, the best way to do this is through completely-above-board immigration that isn't politically vulnerable. But yeah, I share in your view that Dems should be more opposed to illegal immigration. And having said that, a lot of the talking points put out there by hawkish Dems just try to moralize against the pro-immigration stance rather than addressing its benefits in any serious way. I'm sure there's a good argument out there, I just haven't come across it yet
We are allowed in fact, but what is seemingly not allowed by Democrat led institutions (or any major and reputable US national research institutions for that matter) is actually studying the affects of Immigration on working class Americans in an unbiased manner. The studies that have been done as far as Iv'e seen focused on Jobs or overall economic impact but never on housing costs, and they all suffer from a lack of more then local focus (among other major flaws).
But the fact is that large, geographically consentrated influxes of foriegn born working class new residents are strongly associated with net domestic out-migration of the US born working class. Most but not all regions with high immigrant percentages also have well above the US average housing costs relative to incomes, yet again I have seen no detaled studies on this. The exceptions are places like Houston, TX, or along the border, but these are places with either unusually abundent housing construction do to unusually lax development regulations or are places with very low wage dominated economies that are also geoghraphically remote from centers of wealth.
Meanwhile, most of the researchers doing studies on foriegn born workers impact on the labor market also have massive conflicts of interest, simply in that they live in high immigrant and high wealth regions and themselves tend to very directly benifit from low wage immigrant labor while also insulating themselves from non migrant laborers as much as possible. These studies also completely ignor differances in local cost of living, nor do they take into account high rates of net domestic out migration of US born workers from areas with high levels of less educated migrants.
Again, in many parts of the US with large migrant populations, certian occupations are overwelming dominated by immigrant (and some secund generation US born) workers from specific ethnic backgrounds, often to the near exclusion of others. Yet for almost all of these occupations, this is not the case elsewhere, often in just the next county over.
Tree trimming is just one example in the county where I live. Here, tree workers are now almost all Mexican (not even other Latinos for the most part) even though our larger working class (including laborers) is still fairly diverse. But go just to the next suburban county over (or to nearby smaller counties) today, or back in time only 15 years, and you will still find plenty of Non Hispanic White American tree workers, groundsmen as well as climbers. Go to some other nearby counties and relatively few Black or Euro-American working class people remain in general, which has only become true in the recent past. This pattern is even starker in many construction occupations.
All this implies a high degree of coerced segregation and displacement caused in part by uncontrolled immigration, yet we don't even know the real details becuse we don't study them honestly. Progressive researchers also usually have a strong fear of touching this issue do to the (likelyhood!) of being accused of rascism and even of loosing rheir position, not to mention the basic lack of funding and support from others.
And as for conservative researchers and institutions, well those are pretty scarse to begin with (which says a lot about American so called "conservatism"!). Yet even they also don't study the above issues in detail, for the simple reasons that while conservatives often love to weaponize concerns over illegal immigration for political ends, they also have a seeming comittment to NOT studying anything that could show patterns of displacement or discrimination in general, because they too, are funded and supported both by businesses that engage in it and by idealogues who dont want to know (if sometimes for differant reasons then progressives) or whom at least find no benifit in better direct evidance, even when it has potential to vindicate (some of) their claims. No, they dont want any of their claims controdicted by clear evidence, especially not when they have gone all in on emotion based propaganda even while decrying the emotion based propaganda of their Democratic party opponants.
I am happy to concede the point that uncontrolled immigration is neither good nor sustainable.
But to the extent that we value economic growth (and we are headed towards long term economic catastrophe if economic growth slows or stops), we should want to have a lot more legal immigration of all skill levels than is currently allowed. Even as the border must be enforced against migrants coming without permission and asylum laws must be changed to prevent exploitation.
We really don’t. Right now, jobs are not growingly rapidly enough to absorb our current college graduates. AI presents real concerns of a shrinkage in the need for white collar workers. New graduates are facing high unemployment. Political tensions over current immigration levels are pushing anti immigrant politicians into power in multiple countries. This is really not the time to try to increase immigration.
If we have a fraction of the projected productivity gains from AI, we will have increased economic growth with a stable population.
Long term, we are going to have to figure out how to increase productivity growth without population growth, because global population is projected to decline.
Nope, I disagree with your premice on growth. We don't need more population growth then we currently have in the US. Slow growing or even shrinking places like Japan or Upstate New York have their (negative growth related) problems to be sure, but also have a better quality of life on average for working class people (and decent overall prosparity and government function) then rapidly growing Florida or (untill recently) California. AI looks like it might soon become a major negative factor in Job loss, and we could be in serious trouble as a result. Notably, this will be true across the world, and not just in rich nations. And what that means, is that if we don't protect our borders soon and learn to become more self relient once again, we soon won't have a country at all!
I know you're asking for study, but you seem to presume cause where you've observed correllation. Maybe immigrants displaced prior residents. But maybe they filled in places that were emptying out. (e.g. Springfield, Ohio).
No, that is not the case, as I am not presuming cause within specific communities. Both displacment and filling in a gap could easily both be true in differant places or even within the same place, -and most likely are. But I think this issue actually needs a lot more studying given certian (statistical, not just anecdotal) patterns.
I also wouldn't include Springfield, OH as a good example of this phenominon, partly because in reality we really don't have good statistics on the migrant influx there despite its prominance in the news, but mostly because that city is simply not a major center of migration in the national US context, especially not at the broader regional level.
And in truth the claim that migrants just filled in the gaps in Springfield or that they led to growth and are more reliable workers (by some factory owners) may be true or only partly true, or not, but is ultimately unsupported. Wildly differant claims have also been made regarding Springfield, also so far unsupported as far as I know but plausable, that many locals have indeed been displaced both do to housing scarcity as well as job displacement and associated discrimmination.
And some of both could well be true: migrants may have caused overall growth in Springfield and largely filled in existing gaps for a time, and might also be better workers on average. But the latter might also be or not not be very significant or be the main reason they are prefered by many employers. They might be more exploitable, and might have, in time, ALSO contributed to significant job and housing strain and displacement of working class locals, even while helping grow the economy and growing the wealth of fhe already affluent. One thing studies HAVE found and that there is relatively little controversy about, is that high rates of immigration appear to lead to greater income and wealth inequality on average(!)
But again, without knowing more at this time, I cannot take any of the claims regarding Springfield, OH in particular at face value.
Great note, thank you. In 2000s you would hear about research reports from a liberal professor at an elite university showing higher economic growth in areas with higher illegal immigrants, and the idea was that immigrants in general are selected to be more hard-working, enterprising and willing to take risks, and therefore they pull themselves up within a generation and are a net benefit tot he economy. However, what was really happening is man y small businesses became viable because of availability of low cost labor, and because the migrant workers are also consumers, they improved the local economy's GDP. However, there is a cost - they took away employment opportunities of native born low-skilled workers. Go into the kitchen of almost any restaurant in major cities and they will all be from Latin America - these are jobs that could have employed working class US born Blacks or Whites, but they don't. One could imagine all these migrant workers gone with a magical wand, and suddenly many native born workers could be in demand. Because they will ask for higher wages and better working conditions, some of these businesses may no longer be viable, and as the weaker ones shut down, the remaining ones will thrive even more and will be able to pay higher wages to native born workers. The overall economy will shrink, but so would demands on infrastructure, including housing.
Progressives need to understand that we have many native born people who need help to get out of, and stay out of, poverty, and till that is accomplished, we must sharply restrict low-skilled immigration.
There was a bipartisan commission chaired by the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, first black congresswoman to Texas House, that recommended restricting low-skilled immigration in a 1997 report. https://iaproject.org/resources/report/us-commission-on-immigration-reform/
Agree with the first part. The would be US born workers have mostly moved elsewhere since 1990, -and some have switched occupations or retired, and more younger Americans are jobless or even homeless, or just underemployed (gig work, temp etc) now. And training opportunities in construction and other work have deminished. Illegal immigration is really a problem for us.
However, I need to correct a few things:
1) It's only partly true that major US cities have all Latino immigrant kitchen workers. It is not litterally close to true in any of them in fact, but some do have a very low non immigrant Black or White companant, and some cities near the border have 90%+ Latinos, though many are US born and English speaking.
2) There are also a huge number of US born Latinos and increasingly Asian Americans and mixed people in general, so US born workers are more diverse now. Many Asian restaurants in global US cities do have Asian immigrant kitchen workers, and some fancy or limmited service restaurants tend to have more diverse kitchen workers even then.
But in most of the global city regions of US and other similer cities, Immigrants or specific ethnic groups dominate to near manoploize various occupations, including in most but not all of the restaurant industry.
3) But many other major US cities (and exurbia/far outer suburbia of even most major coastal US cities) do have diverse kitchen workforces, janitors etc. This is true in most of the Midwest, much of the South, and even (large) parts of the West and northeast. They have Landscapers and construction workers who are White, Latino and sometimes Black, and some Asian landscapers (few Asians in construction though), just for example, and mostly White but some Latino tree tree trimmers, instead of mostly Latino tree trimmers. In most of the SF Bay Area, these occupations are largely segregated except in the North Bay and Solano, and some parts of the east bay suburbs.
Personally, I would like to see less immigration overall. I am an idependent (not necessarily moderate), not progressive or leftist but also not a conservative either.
I also believe that a large number of Central and South Americans should actually recieve refugee status, not in any blanket manner, but rather because a great many actually qualify but have not been granted it for purely political reasons, not from Democrats either btw! The US has a long history of ugly interventions in Latin America.
Thanks for the detailed response! I agree with your points (1) and (2) but want to clarify that I meant it was mostly the low-level staff positions like cleaning, chopping vegetables etc. that were filled by migrant workers. It was eyeopening to see even ordinary Indian restaurants hiring Latino workers whereas previously they would be hiring someone from the Indian community (probably with illegal status). Positions like chef are almost always filled by native born workers. I agree with (3), but anecdotally my sister in Cincinnati insisted on hiring working class white for landscaping and lawn mowing work though she could pay less to a migrant worker, and the person she hired complaining how all work had dried up.
Regarding your last point about US intervention in LATAM in 1980s, I don't have strong opinion one way or another (I grew up elsewhere), but I have heard many Americans voice a sentiment similar to yours. I could not help think though that many of these countries were a threat to the US as they aligned with the USSR, and the US had to act to protect its own backyard. And, even if the US wanted to make amends, a better way might be to make direct investments in these countries, build new supply chains from these countries to replace those from China. That would be more effective for both parties rather than allowing a large number of refugees.
: ) Thanks. All of my main points above are a matter of fact if you look it up. I was also refering to those low level posiion you mention, but actually chefs are NOT almost always filled by native born workers more broadly. A significant fraction of chefs are also immigrants. Cooks are more likely to be Latino (many of which are US born) then food prep workers too so its complicated.
What you don't seem to understand yet is that almost all occupations in the US are somewhat diverse at this point, and this is often true even for some bottem tear labor jobs in many large, immigrant heavy cities, which nonetheless also have widespread job segregation up to a point. And the latter is sometimes almost complete for SOME occupations, in SOME large US cities (and various other places) -but that widely varies in reality. Still, it is far from absolute in most cases, with typically many immigrant and native born workers, even when not necessarily many white or black ones.
Cincinnati also has a very low migrant percentage and small Latino population as well so while sure there are a vew migrant run landscaping services there, the local landscaping workforce there is in fact still mainly Anglo American. Certian other parts of the US also have huge citizen Latino populations that are mainly US born and go back generations, with a low immigrant population.
But as for Indian Restaurants ideed, many Indian restaurants hire Latino immigrant workers (also Southeast Asian, Nepalese, Pakastani, Tabetan, Indian Sikh etc) but that is because there are just not enough working class Hindu Indians at this point, and no they dont usually hire US born Americans (except sometimes family members) for those positions. Where enough of those workers are not available, you just dont see nearly as many Indian restaurants, and those that do exist tend to be truly family run at least in the kitchen. I mentioned Sikh vs Hindu because many Hindu restaurant owners also hire (mostly legal) Sikh Indian immigrants, since a large portion of Sikhs (unlike Hindus in the US) are working class and not college educated. Most Indians in the US overall are Hindu.
Indian owned hotels and motels on the other hand actually do often hire local American workers as well as immigrants. Chinese restaurants usually hire Chinese or Vietnamese workers, but sometimes Latino if they are not soley family run, which many are.
As for the US interventions in Latin America, none of those countries was itself any threat to the USA (nor to the Soviets). It was all proxy war between the two powers durring that time, with the Soviets also invading various countries and commiting otrocities. But US intervention was also to protect US corporate interests in some cases, which is why it has not actually stopped, only declined sharply from it's cold war peak. Regardless there was no excuse for much of what was done, which was totally criminal.
Thanks again. You are really knowledgeable and I appreciate the insights! I think I agree with everything you say.
While I think Barro is probably too negative on the economic, I recognise he's seeking to offset the Democrats - or rather the comparative-elite professional class college educated overweight in the other direction in particular on downsides on cost side of rapid absorption of especially illegal immigration.
Since Democrats tend nowadays to
A. Be utterly blind or in total denial about downsides
B. Tend to be heavily overweight to touting in All is Sunny and Kind and Great optics on immigration without real credible regard to the difference in impacts in forms
Barro's counter-balancing has utility.
You are 'allowed' but you should ask yourself to what degree you are continuing to blind yourselves to the downside / tradeoffs and extent to which the immigration narrative chez the Democats started out as a falsely based Political narrative (expectation such people become Democrats in getting citizenship, the rather transparent thinking of the past decade at least).
Overall I am personally fairly pro-immigration, however I myself recognised that the Democrats political discourse has gotten itself into a deep hole and part of that reason for being in deep hole is excessive "Pro-ness"
(again stated from a personal perspective where I am unbothered by immigrants and immigration and generally see structured immigration as a positive. However all things hit points of Diminishing Returns - and even can get to negative returns).
So a bit of wiping the discourse slate / shake up on somewhat naive continuation of overweight on the subject has utility.
By highlighting only the issue of a strain on Springfield services, and ignore the additional truth that Springfield sought and continues to benefit from the labor their *legal* Haitian immigrants have brought, you step away from observations that would help support strong analysis and useful policy prescriptions. And you do it to prove your larger point—which is otherwise a good one now made weaker by your example. Springfield had challenges. Trump and Vance lied about those challenges. No one in Springfield wants the “remedies” now offered by DHS.
"By highlighting only the issue of a strain on Springfield services"
The whole point of his post, clearly stated in the headline, was to highlight the valid reasons people might oppose uncontrolled migration. It was very clearly not a post weighing the pros and cons of immigration policy more generally.
Josh's essay makes it sound like this was something done to the city of Springfield, without them being an active participant in it making informed trade-offs.
(And I'll fully agree that adding a quarter of people from another country to your community is always going to be strain, and it bugged me that Democrats seemed to pretend it didn't happen or people were racist for feeling bad about that kind of rapid change. )
According to the Springfield website, this was not sponsored by the city government.
More accurately, it was a decision actively made by Springfield's elected leaders. I don't know if we have a clear idea whether the residents supported it. It's also distinctly possible that they weren't fully aware of what they were signing up for and any potential consequences.
Springfield swung heavily to the right in 2024, so it does seem possible that there was backlash to this policy even if they didn't necessarily agree with comments made by Trump and others.
Not according to the city website. https://springfieldohio.gov/immigration-faqs/
“Q: Was any government entity – local, state or federal – involved in bringing the Haitian refugees to Springfield?
A: No government entity is responsible for the influx of Haitians into Clark County. Once a person with Temporary Protected Status enters the country, they are free to locate wherever they choose.”
“Q: Why Springfield?
A: Springfield is an appealing place for many reasons including lower cost of living and available work. These conditions are thought to be the primary reasons for immigrants to choose Springfield. Now that there are numerous immigrant families residing in our community, word of mouth is adding to our population, as this communal culture is sharing their positive experiences about living in our community with family and friends who are also seeking to leave the impoverished and dangerous living conditions of their home country.
But it’s not just Clark County. Other Ohio counties that are experiencing similar population increases due to immigration include, Allen County, Hancock County and the Columbus and Cleveland metro areas.”
“The whole point of his post” was to admonish Democrats. Springfield is a particularly difficult case with which to accomplish that.
Springfield swung pretty hard to the right in the 2024 election, harder than most of the state, so I don't think it's as difficult a case as you think.
Lots of places moved right in their voting—in fact almost every place touched by inflation, whether or not they experienced any illegal immigration. Which makes the thesis weak. New York and New Jersey moved further than Ohio.
The author has resources and access. Why not find one—any—other example where a shift can more clearly reflect immigration panic, or whatever you’d call this? Or a place where the costs objectively outpaced the economic benefits? Not finding an example of the latter makes this piece sound like: “hey, Democrats, you weren’t irrationally xenophobic enough.”
You can look at the shifts yourself.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us/elections/2024-election-map-precinct-results.html
He did a poor job though, by not wanting to touch the Job and housing issues. Those could be argued either way, but many (Dems especially) seem not to want to, -too many sacred cows (and friends and donors!) would likely be offended if they did.
Yeah, he like most Dems really doesn't seem to want to touch the housing and job impact issues, which can potentially be argued both ways. But if some possible conclusions (even when they aren't the most likely ones) would deeply offend or be umexceptable to their peers, then it becomes a no go to even look into it seriously.
"We have to be willing to firmly say ‘no’ and deny access to our country"
Why this instead of something like Bryan Caplan's keyhole solutions:
"What would happen, though, if we actually wrote down specific complaints about immigrants and tried to figure out specific solutions? While we’re at it, why not focus on specific solutions that are cheap and relatively humane?" "there are cheaper and more humane solutions for each and every complaint. If immigrants hurt American workers, we can charge immigrants higher taxes or admission fees, and use the revenue to compensate the losers. If immigrants burden American taxpayers, we can make immigrants ineligible for benefits. If immigrants hurt American culture, we can impose tests of English fluency and cultural literacy. If immigrants hurt American liberty, we can refuse to give them the right to vote. Whatever your complaint happens to be, immigration restrictions are a needlessly draconian remedy."
It's easy to deprive immigrants of benefits in theory, but the social consequences of having shanty towns full of non-enfranchised people who can't send their kids to school or access healthcare would be extremely dire. The children who grow up in that milieu would be especially discontented. Caplan just doesn't factor in the riots and conflict that libertarian open borders would give rise to.
Those just sound like more complaints that can be more cheaply and humanely targeted by keyhole solutions instead of blanket immigration restrictions.
I think that people in general are comfortable with all stripes of immigration as long as the numbers are reasonable if there were 100K purely illegal immigrants and 250K questionable asylum seekers we wouldn’t have much of a problem. The need is for a limiting principle and a means to enforce it.
In just about everything, the order of preferences is
1. some
2. none
3. unlimited amount
If people have to choose between 2 and 3 they will choose 2. They want 1, but that might be off the table, especially if the people who want 3 make it impossible (and then accuse the people who say they want 1 of really wanting 2).
People need a sense of control. There's an absolute sense that the Democrats can't really stomach immigration enforcement and that means it's not controlled. Obama could do it and took a lot of grief for it but he did it.
I think this is the crux of the issue. The sense of lawlessness. Or more precisely, *disorder.*
I don't buy the idea that the general public is making a determination about the policy merits of TPS expansion. They just experience it as "too much/too fast" and file it under "illegal." (There's also a segment of the population that is simply lying when they say, "I support legal immigration. Just not illegal.")
Shouldn’t the relevant policy question be what are the net effects of illegal migration, rather than what are the negative consequences individually?
I can think of lots of issues that carry some negative effect but are beneficial in aggregate.
Also isn’t there likely to be some optimal point at which the marginal cost outweighs the marginal benefit and wouldn’t it be helpful to find break even?
I think one can have legit ick for the current enforcers of immigration. I can certainly imagine a well-trained immigration enforcement, but one gets the distinct impression that the bulk of ICE agents are resentful losers who are in it because they dislike brown people and enjoy owning the libs or whatever.
> but one gets the distinct impression that the bulk of ICE agents are resentful losers who are in it because they dislike brown people and enjoy owning the libs or whatever
I feel really bad for that "one" whoever he is.
Border Patrol is over half Latino. ICE Is about 25% and rising.
Latinos, like others, do pull the ladder up behind them.
This blog's point was reinforced by a conservative I spoke with at a recent neighborhood event. He would concede that ICE should be reined in from kidnapping and thuggery if I would concede that it is legitimate to deport people here illegally. The gray zone for our debate was justification for sanctuary cities. He told me that Latinos he has talked to call BS on Progressive claims that by refusing to turn over undocumented criminal suspects to ICE, the community gains by reducing mistrust in policing.
I like what Josh has to say very much, and agree with it, even if I am one of these liberals who are open to higher immigration and TPS protections and so on...still, did immigration policies cost democrats the election? Springfield Ohio and Corona in Queens did not change anything. It's not to say there shouldn't be changes and, certainly, ongoing conversations WRT immigration policy.
But if inflation hadn't been as high as it was, if it had been "normal"...is it likely Harris is President?
Also, why are Trump's immigration policies, his strongest number, under 50%?
Perhaps Josh is talking about the margins, in which case perhaps there are single-issue voters whose issue is immigration, and enough of them to change the outcome of an election. I have my doubts about that.
Immigration, where I live in Northern CA, is an important part of the economy. There is more than enough wealth to absorb the costs, as it were, just as there is in NYC. And if some Spanish-speaking voters in Queens didn't like the fact that some of the new people got hotel beds, my guess is they were far more annoyed and focused on the cost-of-living changes due to inflation, which happened here, too.
"Also, why are Trump's immigration policies, his strongest number, under 50%?"
People can disapprove of Trump's handling of an issue, but still trust him to handle the issue better than than a Democratic president. Just like how you could disapprove of Biden's handling of some issue, but still trust Biden (or Harris) to handle it better than Trump.
Of course. I didn't pull that out to show democrats are more popular, but that it's not a success for Trump now. It was part of the opening about how immigration was and is an issue at the margins, in my view. My murky writing & your failure to be a good faith interlocutor.
Where did the millions of Biden voters go? Some went to Trump. Many more stayed away. It's the big mystery, and it seems most likely answered by "inflation".
When evaluating Trump, you can't start in 2024. Was immigration a significant factor in Trump winning in 2016? I think the answer is yes.
He may not have gained the winning margin of immigration voters in 2024. But that's because they had already been on the Trump Train for eight years, and Biden did less than zero to bring them into the Democratic fold.
Based on what? He had millions of fewer votes. What do people in PA and WI care about immigration (on the whole)? And how much does it alter MI voters? That HRC was reviled by plenty of men and some women seems far more potent than immigration, which at the time showed something like 60% of Americans in favor of a pathway to citizenship...only 25% of people said it was decisive to them. See also, Electoral College.
If you have to pick one issue in 2024, it's inflation. Very important and more trust in the Republicans.
Would immigration matter with/without the cost-of-living issue? Maybe.
Not more trust in Republicans, more trust in "not these people" i.e. incumbents. Very different. And also same for all countries with COVID inflation spikes, regardless of where on the political spectrum the incumbent lay.
Hey guys, let's look at an issue regarding importing a cohort of immigrants whose views about women date back to 19th century? Years ago, in Montgomery County Maryland, I had a high school classmate who was scared that her (South Asian) parents had sold her into a marriage with a stranger. Later, I encountered an early version of Facebook being used by an immigrant from Pakistan to advertise his US citizen daughter as a bride. His daughter's citizenship commanded a higher price from a would-be husband's family in the home country.
My reading of the 13th Amendment (outlawing slavery) makes no exception for religious or cultural practices that effectively enslave others, such as girls.
To steal a quote from the film Cool Hand Luke, what we have here is a failure to assimilate.
I agree that Republicans are leading on this issue. Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene:
"As a conservative and as a business owner in the construction industry, and as a realist, I can say we have to do something about labor. And that needs to be a smarter plan than just rounding up every single person and deporting them just like that."
I hope Josh takes that "as a realist" part seriously. Illicit immigration is an ongoing necessity throughout the country, including in heavily Republican areas, and one of the reasons that's the case is that illegal labor is easier to exploit - cheaper, no oversight, and you can still go to the ballot box and pull the lever for Trump.
I think Josh's proposed solution for addressing the Democrat's deficit in trust on immigration is, well, bad. What's going to happen in Springfield, Ohio when the Haitians leave? Will they recover all that public money and thrive in our new AI-powered economy? I doubt it. I'm going to be blunt here: constantly apologizing for policy missteps on TIPS in 2026 that the average voter isn't likely to remember or even know about sounds to me like something a pundit might worry about, but not necessarily a savvy politician who is trying to win. It makes the Democrats look weak.
I'm paying most attention to Greg Abbott and how he's going to thread the needle on immigration. At a certain point, you have to figure out how to keep the crews staffed. The so-called "Texas Miracle" (not the education one) was predicated on a high tolerance for illegal crossings, and Obama was the first President to really challenge that. If Dems need to project a "tough on immigration" posture, they shouldn't do it by pretending to be Republicans and punching down, they should do it by demonstrating they understand the whole hustle here, and calling out the system that enables it. And that system is heavily Republican.
I "rage" subscribed just to write this (anything to avoid schoolwork), but I see immigration as such a fundamental piece to the American story, and historical attempts to limit immigration have generally been for wildly racist/xenophobic reasons, that we should probably figure out how to mitigate the harms and amplify the benefits rather than try to limit people as a category from coming to the United States.
The communities that are getting flooded with immigrants ought to receive national support. The process for entering and living in the United States ought to be a simple one with no meaningful backlog. And yes, if someone has a *legitimate* prior criminal history (countries outlaw all kinds of things that aren't illegal in the United States, and foreign judicial systems are often not at the same standard as ours), it should count against someone trying to enter the country. But stopping people from entering simply because there are "too many" people here already? That feels anti-American, unpatriotic in a "huddled masses" sense.
I'm definitely team Abundance, but I think part of that involves looking at what we have and saying that yeah, we can probably make more of this stuff and yeah, we should probably make this stuff available to as many people as possible who buy into the American idea.
In any event, I think it's going to be hard to convince Democrats that the view I just described is wrong, and the view in this post is right.
Back to the enternal Democratic question: "Do I want to win, or would I prefer to feel good about being 'right'?"
Does that apply here? My argument is that Abundance centrists would have more success pitching a permissive border policy that mitigates the downsides, rather than restricting immigration to avoid the problems all together.
I'm supporting that argument by pointing out that immigration has strong roots in American history and is arguably one of the main "things" that has resulted in the kind of America that I think we should be proud of (in the "What do Americans have to be proud of?" sense, not in a "This is my personal politics." sense).
That it's *also* morally sound is a useful argument for those who care about acting morally, but not necessary to make the argument.
Liberal position on illegal immigration is a cop out from making the morally correct decision that is not pleasant. Deporting well-meaning, hard-working people is not pleasant, but that is the role of the government. Well-off, better educated progressives have nothing to lose from illegal immigration, and they experience net benefit from access to low cost labor in construction, restaurant and yard work industries. Agriculture work is a little different that can be easily carved out as a special case and solved with a special visa for seasonal workers.
in the 2000s it was common for liberals to pint to a study by some liberal professor showing regions with higher immigrant populations experiencing higher GDP growth. Indeed, if I am a restaurant in a city like San Francisco, I can hire workers at a much lower rate than I would be without illegal immigrants, which means the my business can remain viable at lower prices that in turn encourages more people to eat out, and so the local economy benefits and we see higher GDP. However, more money needs to be funneled into failing public school systems, or fight homelessness, which are funded by property tax and/or diverting from other programs such as police force to deter crime and so on. Furthermore, most of the kids born to these poor migrants will probably need assistance from the welfare state most of their lives. In the meantime, you have diverted funds from policies to help poor Black (and white) Americans who have been in the US for generations to escape generational poverty.
How liberals can be so heartless I don't know.
I’m pretty sure any argument that could be used to retroactively justify turning around the MS St. Louis and sending hundreds of Jewish refugees back to their deaths in 1939 probably needs at least some nuance.
I have long thought that illegal immigration (II) is a problem less about substance and more about optics. Yes, there are calculable costs to II, but there are also measurable benefits, as seen in Springfield. However, most voters aren't going to bother doing a cost-benefits analysis to figure out if II is, on balance, a positive or a negative. They're going to respond to whatever makes them angry or frightened and vote accordingly. Any policy that makes them less angry or frightened is going to land well with these people, regardless of what that policy actually does, which most voters are never going to trouble themselves to investigate. As long as you don't go appear too goon-squaddish, as ICE is currently, people aren't going to worry much about what happens to folks who aren't even supposed to be here anyway. It's like reality show, in which a certain amount of reprehensible behavior will garner camera time and applause but too much will turn off viewers.
Soooo...if this is all theatre, then Democrats might as well compete for a the best possible part. Make some high-visibility deportations for media to cover while on the down-low pursuing good policy that makes things easier on states and cities. Circuses for the people and bread for the localities is the way to navigate this problem, I think. It's not optimal policy, but it might still be successful.
We’ve made too hard to be a legal immigrant. Fix that part first.
We’ve made it too hard to be a legal immigrant. Fix that part first.