That’s what happens when people aren’t allowed to become citizens, or to have other long-term legal status which can’t be yanked away at any administration’s whim and which allows free choices of employment and where to live.
I’m going off on a tangent now, since we’re getting into minutia
It’s not so much an opinion piece as an analytic piece. Meaning, Smith’s take is shaped by the economic literature. If the economic literature were different, Smith’s take would be different. Note how his writing is focused on how the economy works (analytic) as opposed to eg whether immigrants are hard working or whether we should be nice to them (opinion). I mean, sure, we’re not discussing absolutes. But the distinction between opinion and analysis is a meaningful one.
Sure, that happens. But eventually the US worker finds another job. Then you have 2 workers each demanding goods and services and higher output in the economy. But what happens to output per citizen-worker? That’s an empirical question, and it depends upon time and place. (The answer is generally speaking it helps domestic workers, but sometimes there’s no observable effect. Which is what you would expect, given that we’re discussing the outcome of 2 conflicting effects. One relates too higher labor supply (foreign worker adds to labor pool). The other relates to higher labor demand (foreign worker buys stuff and adds to demand for goods, services, and corresponding labor).
I think there’s a strong case for some sort of H1B program. Linus Torvalds, the author of the Linux operating system, had trouble immigrating to the US back in the day. You want to open the door for workers with special skills to work in the US. Noah Smith believes the program to be imperfect and that wouldn’t be surprising. But he argues it’s generally speaking a good program. Personally, I have no opinion on it, other than the general one expressed below.
Back to the OP. How should we view immigration? The challenge for Republicans is to persuade the middle class to vote against their economic interests, to keep the donor class happy. Immigration is a convenient culture war issue. Republicans have no interest in underlying immigration policy – if they did they would toughen eVerify requirements and impose penalties on the employer. That way, immigrants would be permitted to spend money in the US - they just can’t take a US job. There’s no appetite for that in Washington. This is a case of political razzmatazz and high profile human rights violations.
My view? Halve immigration or double it: I don’t care. But treat people decently. Stop revering thugs.
Libertarian view? Open borders. AFAIK and as far as DrDeth knows, that hasn’t been tried anywhere.
Matt Yglassias’ view? Quadruple down on economic growth and aim for One Billion Americans. Even that is not open borders. It’s a call for reform mostly at the state and local level to loosen zoning requirements, increase urban density, expand childcare, etc all under the umbrella of a provocative book title (which is not a serious proposal in and of itself). The point being that immigration is only one component of this sort of thinking, and it’s not even the largest part of it.
Hmm.
So, there are an abundant number of (potential) immigrants who do know how to perform hard labor jobs in construction or agriculture. To the extent that they occupy jobs that native-born will shy away from, either due to culture or the ability to work at other jobs at higher levels of productivity, having them immigrate is a good thing.
Many of those who work at such jobs will not be suitable for other jobs that may be higher up the productivity ladder. Though some may - we recently had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Jackson MS which was operated by a former agricultural worker who later got his green card. I don’t see those folks being “stuck” at that rung of the ladder being too much of a problem as long as their rights are respected and they retain every right to move up as they wish. Note also that many of those wish to work here temporarily with an eye to going back to their native countries at some time when they have perhaps earned enough money or are no longer in fear of their lives.
But both temporary workers and those who wish to immigrate permanently will have children who are U.S. citizens, educated in American schools, inured to and part of American culture and who will likely be moving up the productivity scale beyond where their parents made it.
As long as this level of social mobility is permitted - dare I even say, encouraged - we’re not going to “become Abu Dabi (sic)”. This is a pattern that Germans, Irish, Swedes, Norwegians, Italians, scads of Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Mexicans, Haitians, Nigerians and other Africans have repeated over the centuries in America - the first generation moves in at the bottom of the ladder, then successive native-born generations move up and assimilate. (If anything, the H1b or similar visas tend to shortcut the process.)
Of course, one of the big things that could create such an underclass of stateless people (like they have in the UAE) would be to remove birthright citizenship from those children of immigrants. So I would hasten to say that your liberal friends are much less of an obstacle to social uplift for immigrants than the outright bigots represented by Stephen Miller and the Center for Immigration Studies (and the folks who fund them).
We should also get it out of our heads that agricultural, construction, etc. labor requires no skills, is essentially worse for everyone than working retail or in a cubicle, and that it’s proper for it to be poorly paid, done under bad conditions, and disrespected as something that’ by its nature belongs at “the bottom of the ladder”. (And what happens to everybody who thinks they’ve climbed that metaphorical ladder, if its legs are allowed to rot?)
But the way to get decent wages and working conditions isn’t to refuse to accept immigrants. It’s to make sure that the immigrants can come legally, stay legally, and work legally. And, of course, change jobs if they want; and be able to wind up running their own farms and construction companies if that’s what they want. And not have to be afraid of the police unless they’re really up to something nefarious.
Those people miss an awful lot of things, but that’s a big one - I love the look on their faces when I point out that ICE can’t give due process to only citizens because you need due process to be able to prove you are a citizen. ( I won’t even get into what they miss about the birthright citizenship EO)
Depends on what exactly you mean by Protestants - my guess is that Anglicans and Lutherans commemorate the day in a similar manner as Catholics do and that Southern Baptists and evangelicals don’t,
I have a tougher view than you. I think it is proper for farm labor, certain kinds of construction labor, and certain kinds of restaurant labor to be poorly paid and done under bad conditions, because it’s an improvement over what our new arrivals left behind. No disrespect though: every American should grasp the concept of picking up your stakes and physically moving to an uncertain future in the hopes of improving your life.
Tangent
And yes this includes African Americans, a group which participated in one of the largest mass migrations in human history during the the 20th century. It also includes Native Americans who transversed on and off the Rez over the past hundred years or more.
As you note, this shouldn’t be and more than likely won’t be a permanent situation, but rather part of a well-trodden path taken by the Irish, the German, the Italian, and heck the Anglo Saxon communities in the past.
Interesting idea; new immigrants should be happy to be employed at all in shitty jobs at shitty wages because at least they’re no longer in the shithole countries from which they emigrated. Never mind that some percentage of those employed in farms, construction and restaurants aren’t new immigrants but people who were born here. Do the employers separate the employees into two groups, with those who aren’t recent immigrants getting better work?
The magic of the marketplace entails that usually the alternatives to a given place of work are mostly inferior to where they are working, taken as a whole. That view is heavily qualified by the monopsony power of most employers to varying extents.
Also, free societies should permit collective bargaining and progressives such as myself should support unions and prudent regulation. But that’s a little extra-topical to the subject of the OP, though it addresses your concerns.
I disagree. Mind you, knowing something about migrant farm labor, the pay was not bad at all. It was the working conditions- ranging from kinda nice (CA on a nice day) to terrible.
When they don’t just call immigration enforcement to deport the workers before payday, at least.
That would be exceedingly stupid, since then ICE and the IRS fines the hell out of the employer. Knowingly hiring “illegals”? Paying under the table? Could even be jail time.
And in most cases, a farm labor contractor handles the pay and hiring.
They are supposed to, that doesn’t mean they will. Purging brown people is the point, not immigration; immigration enforcement is consistently harshly applied to anyone of dark skin (immigrant or not), while the (usually white) employers are allowed to go their way unpunished.
This is not true, at least for the IRS- the IRS rigorously enforces employment tax violations. I dont know about this new ICE of trumps, but employers who willfully hired “illegals” got cited, and since the pay nowadays come from contractors, not the farmer, what you claim is very rarely done. Have you even actually worked in this field?
knowingly and willfully hiring “illegals” can even be a felony. And it is enforced-
Now since employers have gotten smarter and either require SSN cards (even if fake) or use contractors it is harder to indict them.
I’m not hitting you as hard as the previous guy did, so it’s fine for me to keep hitting you?
— what forum are we in, here? — OK, rephrasing.
People doing such work are the people keeping you alive. No, whether immigrants or not (and a lot of us aren’t) we shouldn’t be expected to take shit for shit pay just because it’s worse somewhere else.
Not that she wasn’t white, but you’re assuming a whole lot there. She happened to be Scottish, grew up in England, and when she graduated, had two MS degrees.
But due to the way that the immigration quotas work, the quota for immigrants from European countries is typically pretty small. Which is my entire point- why should we let in less educated and potentially less able to communicate immigrants from anywhere if we’ve got more educated native English speaking ones?
It’s not a prize, it’s not an exercise in political correctness, and we should make it easy for people like her. It’s just stupid not to.
but under Trump, the quotas for White Europeans, and now South Africans, is much greater than for a LONG list of his “undesirable” countries, which was the point I was trying to make
What is the way immigration quotas work?
All I was trying to get at is that someone with two master’s degrees and who was a native speaker of English should have not been counted under any quota- the path should have been easy and quick for someone with her particular skill set and situation.
Instead it was a nightmare of red tape and bureaucracy.
It shouldn’t be a nightmare of red tape and bureaucracy for anybody.
Why do you think her particular skill set should be privileged?