> Equally striking is what did not happen. Employment of low-skill American workers at losing firms did not increase. Across all firms the effect of foreign hiring on US employment was zero or positive, and in a prespecified subsample of rural firms it was significantly positive, with an elasticity of 0.61, meaning that for every one percent increase in H-2B workers there was just over half a percent increase in US workers.
> "If you don't allow firms to hire immigrant workers, they just become smaller firms," Lewis said. "They are not replaced with US workers. Instead, the output of the firm shrinks, and there are fewer total workers."
This is incredibly important. Everyone who fears immigration is going to take their job should read this and realize that fear is not only false but inverted.
I also think that the main fear - at least where I live - is not job loss but national identity and crime. At least that's what the anti-immigration political messaging is about. I haven't seen the job loss argument in the decade I've lived here.
Facts are much lesd helpful here because half of the perceived problem is emotional.
I mean, people worry about crime even in places where study after study shown that immigrants have lower crime rates. People see immigrant and assume crime. And I intentionally put "in places" in there, immigrant crime rates do differ between places.
And as similar data point, you see certain Americans scared of going to UK assuming some super high crime levels there ... while it has overall smaller crime levels then where they like. And you see rural people feeling super afraid the moment they step into a low crime city, because they are predisposed to think city = immoral crime.
You got it reverse - people look at prison populations and deduce criminality rate from there. Switzerland almost 3/4 are foreigners, Germany its 50% and so on.
Unless given country has similar % of foreigners (and of course they don't), you get where they come from and where the emotion 'foreigners bad' stems from. Even if one ignores flashy news about high profile attacks/criminality, which of course are impossible to ignore. Right or not, this statistics is primary level math that anybody can do in their head and even folks following populists will do.
Now what would you say to these people in such case? Bear in mind the topic is in western Europe, ie Germany so toxic that even saying above got high ranking people like police chiefs fired on spot. Exactly kind of dumb over-corrected setup that makes things like ADF thrive quietly, till election come and then folks are 'shocked' that they don't understand their own population at all.
> Now what would you say to these people in such case?
The honest thing would have been to tell them - you're right, yes there's an overrepresenation in crime - but we're working on it , it will get better in the 2nd and 3rd generation (it does but very slowly), etc. But lots of the establishment doesn't seem able to even do that - they have to completely deny the problem, by for example pulling tricks like counting immigrants from India, Thailand and MENA together, or by not allowing the collection of data at all. This is really bad policy imo.
> it is not said honestly out loud, because it is absolutely insane, and would be rightfully rejected
I don't think not saying it out loud is helping the current policy makers; the right and the far right understood right away this was their biggest point. By not engaging them in the discussion , or engaging with hand wavy trickery, you kinda lose the debate I think.
As someone who happens to be a descendant of one of the very rare pre-1965 immigrants from the subcontinent, I assure you I am not writing this from the inside of a jail cell.
And even if that would be a reasonable argument it would still be an argument for stopping more migration because otherwise you continue to have new first generations.
>it will get better in the 2nd and 3rd generation (it does but very slowly)
What about african americans?
What about african amercians?
It's like I'm the stupid goose in the meme.
African americans were on track to be more wealthy and less crimey, same as every other poor ethnic group in the US has done before. Irish, Italians, Poles, etc. Something went off the rails.
What happened? It ain't the skin or some societal factor that gets applied because of the skin. We got plenty of African and Caribbean immigrants to use as control groups.
(I don't expect you to answer this question, I expect this question to make a lot of people around here uncomfortable.)
>by for example pulling tricks like counting immigrants from India, Thailand and MENA together, or by not allowing the collection of data at all. This is really bad policy imo.
>> It ain't the skin or some societal factor that gets applied because of the skin. We got plenty of African and Caribbean immigrants to use as control groups.
Are you saying that Jim Crow never happened? Pretty sure the violence was applied on the basis of skin color. Can you understand how a century of oppression and expropriation might retard your wealth and likelihood of ending up in jail, relative to an Italian or a Pole?
Why would (more recent) African immigrants be an appropriate group to compare against? They have a completely different economic and cultural history.
As for Caribbean people -- they have their own experiences of slavery and genocide. Migrants to the colonizing nations have not necessarily thrived.
> people look at prison populations and deduce criminality rate from there.
They don't do that. They do not do that for local population either.
> Exactly kind of dumb over-corrected setup that makes things like ADF thrive quietly
Yeah, the far right exists only because of supposed left claim pops up again. The fact it, far right fans themselves tend to be more criminal and more violent then general population. And you make that claim in relation to Germany from all the places. AfD has large popularity roughly where Hitler was popular and roughly where communists led the country for years.
And their big things are more into "Russia should be our friend, actually", "we dont like modern art" and "the retirees will have super large pensions if we win".
> Facts are much lesd helpful here because half of the perceived problem is emotional.
Well in countries like Denmark and Sweden the facts do show over representation of MENA immigrants (and their descendants) in violent crime. I don't think it's something that could or should be wished away. But I also don't think it's the main issue , it's for sure also a cultural/religious clash.
I work with immigrants for a living. It's a wonderfully complex issue, but one that I rarely enjoy discussing because it either makes racist people go mask-off, or makes progressive people think you're a racist person going mask-off.
I think that the issue is less cultural and more socioeconomic. Being "other"ed your entire life sucks. Making it in another country with far more limited resources sucks. It's hard to ignore the toll it takes on the people I interact with.
> I think that the issue is less cultural and more socioeconomic. Being "other"ed your entire life sucks. Making it in another country with far more limited resources sucks. It's hard to ignore the toll it takes on the people I interact with.
You can look at it like that. Another way to look at it is those accepting countries possibly saved your life (if you're claiming you're a refugee) or in the very least gave you a much much safer existence and better healthcare and standard of living. And it's really quite a big expense on the hosting countries who aren't doing that great themselves lately.
The socioeconomics explanation irks me - when you accept a refugee / low skilled worker they are almost by definition going to be poorer than the locals. There's absolutely no way you could equate their wealth to the locals. This is no one's fault, just the reality of taking in people from poorer countries and/or with low skills. I'm also not sure it's fair to say poorer immigrants are always more violent (you didn't say this but it was implied); immigrants from Thailand, India, Philipines into Europe are actually underrepresented in crime.
So yeah , this is complex I agree.
Why do you think the distinction matters ? Whether they're refugees, low skilled economic migrants or some kind of status holders like family renuions, they get a safer and better standard of living than what they had before and they get big budgets thrown at their integrations. Otherwise - why would they come ?
Because that's the word you're using and the people you're talking about, so it's what I'm addressing.
Economic migrants didn't have their lives saved. They were not welcomed to their host country as an act of charity. The conditional and transactional nature of their presence is made very clear to them.
> Economic migrants didn't have their lives saved. They were not welcomed to their host country as an act of charity.
There's lots of people who are not refugees and getting into Europe. They can come from places like Morocco, Turkey, Somalia or even Syria as it is now. The strict definition of refugee won't apply to many of them - yet they are able get in and stay (how is another discussion). The best definition would be economic migrant - they are not fleeing immediate war, their main motivation is getting a better standard of living.
I have no idea who you're working with but the definition refugee / legal migrant is not enough there's a lot of in between.
Is it crazy to expect at least a little gratitude from such people, or in the very least no hostility ? To me it is not crazy, you can disagree.
It's interesting to see people castigate the host country while wholly absolving their actual home countries from any fault. Like they expect the host country to be better at treating a person who migrates than the actual country the migrant leaves. If anything, people should focus on the faults of the country of origin and get them to treat and accept their own people as their own that they are. And if there is a problem that's driving people from their home countries, fix that. Don't add fuel to the fire where the country is left with the worst of all people with little chance to recover.
JoshTriplett · · focus · HN ↗
> "If you don't allow firms to hire immigrant workers, they just become smaller firms," Lewis said. "They are not replaced with US workers. Instead, the output of the firm shrinks, and there are fewer total workers."
This is incredibly important. Everyone who fears immigration is going to take their job should read this and realize that fear is not only false but inverted.
CobrastanJorji · · focus · HN ↗
nicbou · · focus · HN ↗
Facts are much lesd helpful here because half of the perceived problem is emotional.
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
And as similar data point, you see certain Americans scared of going to UK assuming some super high crime levels there ... while it has overall smaller crime levels then where they like. And you see rural people feeling super afraid the moment they step into a low crime city, because they are predisposed to think city = immoral crime.
kakacik · · focus · HN ↗
Unless given country has similar % of foreigners (and of course they don't), you get where they come from and where the emotion 'foreigners bad' stems from. Even if one ignores flashy news about high profile attacks/criminality, which of course are impossible to ignore. Right or not, this statistics is primary level math that anybody can do in their head and even folks following populists will do.
Now what would you say to these people in such case? Bear in mind the topic is in western Europe, ie Germany so toxic that even saying above got high ranking people like police chiefs fired on spot. Exactly kind of dumb over-corrected setup that makes things like ADF thrive quietly, till election come and then folks are 'shocked' that they don't understand their own population at all.
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
The honest thing would have been to tell them - you're right, yes there's an overrepresenation in crime - but we're working on it , it will get better in the 2nd and 3rd generation (it does but very slowly), etc. But lots of the establishment doesn't seem able to even do that - they have to completely deny the problem, by for example pulling tricks like counting immigrants from India, Thailand and MENA together, or by not allowing the collection of data at all. This is really bad policy imo.
npstr · · focus · HN ↗
it is not said honestly out loud, because it is absolutely insane, and would be rightfully rejected.
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
I don't think not saying it out loud is helping the current policy makers; the right and the far right understood right away this was their biggest point. By not engaging them in the discussion , or engaging with hand wavy trickery, you kinda lose the debate I think.
selimthegrim · · focus · HN ↗
account42 · · focus · HN ↗
cucumber3732842 · · focus · HN ↗
What about african americans?
What about african amercians?
It's like I'm the stupid goose in the meme.
African americans were on track to be more wealthy and less crimey, same as every other poor ethnic group in the US has done before. Irish, Italians, Poles, etc. Something went off the rails.
What happened? It ain't the skin or some societal factor that gets applied because of the skin. We got plenty of African and Caribbean immigrants to use as control groups.
(I don't expect you to answer this question, I expect this question to make a lot of people around here uncomfortable.)
>by for example pulling tricks like counting immigrants from India, Thailand and MENA together, or by not allowing the collection of data at all. This is really bad policy imo.
Agreed
t0mpr1c3 · · focus · HN ↗
Are you saying that Jim Crow never happened? Pretty sure the violence was applied on the basis of skin color. Can you understand how a century of oppression and expropriation might retard your wealth and likelihood of ending up in jail, relative to an Italian or a Pole?
Why would (more recent) African immigrants be an appropriate group to compare against? They have a completely different economic and cultural history.
As for Caribbean people -- they have their own experiences of slavery and genocide. Migrants to the colonizing nations have not necessarily thrived.
watwut · · focus · HN ↗
They don't do that. They do not do that for local population either.
> Exactly kind of dumb over-corrected setup that makes things like ADF thrive quietly
Yeah, the far right exists only because of supposed left claim pops up again. The fact it, far right fans themselves tend to be more criminal and more violent then general population. And you make that claim in relation to Germany from all the places. AfD has large popularity roughly where Hitler was popular and roughly where communists led the country for years.
And their big things are more into "Russia should be our friend, actually", "we dont like modern art" and "the retirees will have super large pensions if we win".
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
Well in countries like Denmark and Sweden the facts do show over representation of MENA immigrants (and their descendants) in violent crime. I don't think it's something that could or should be wished away. But I also don't think it's the main issue , it's for sure also a cultural/religious clash.
nicbou · · focus · HN ↗
I think that the issue is less cultural and more socioeconomic. Being "other"ed your entire life sucks. Making it in another country with far more limited resources sucks. It's hard to ignore the toll it takes on the people I interact with.
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
You can look at it like that. Another way to look at it is those accepting countries possibly saved your life (if you're claiming you're a refugee) or in the very least gave you a much much safer existence and better healthcare and standard of living. And it's really quite a big expense on the hosting countries who aren't doing that great themselves lately.
The socioeconomics explanation irks me - when you accept a refugee / low skilled worker they are almost by definition going to be poorer than the locals. There's absolutely no way you could equate their wealth to the locals. This is no one's fault, just the reality of taking in people from poorer countries and/or with low skills. I'm also not sure it's fair to say poorer immigrants are always more violent (you didn't say this but it was implied); immigrants from Thailand, India, Philipines into Europe are actually underrepresented in crime. So yeah , this is complex I agree.
nicbou · · focus · HN ↗
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
nicbou · · focus · HN ↗
Economic migrants didn't have their lives saved. They were not welcomed to their host country as an act of charity. The conditional and transactional nature of their presence is made very clear to them.
weatherlite · · focus · HN ↗
There's lots of people who are not refugees and getting into Europe. They can come from places like Morocco, Turkey, Somalia or even Syria as it is now. The strict definition of refugee won't apply to many of them - yet they are able get in and stay (how is another discussion). The best definition would be economic migrant - they are not fleeing immediate war, their main motivation is getting a better standard of living. I have no idea who you're working with but the definition refugee / legal migrant is not enough there's a lot of in between. Is it crazy to expect at least a little gratitude from such people, or in the very least no hostility ? To me it is not crazy, you can disagree.
mc32 · · focus · HN ↗