What are some good reasons for having controls on immigration? Strongly preferred are posts citing actual findings from actual empirical observation of masses of people–rather than posts citing intuitions about what people feel very sure would probably happen.
I dunno, what are some good reasons for giving every dollar you have to everyone that walks down the street?
I can’t think of any.
For very clear economic, societal, and cultural reasons. No country that I am aware of has unlimited immigration, so you are probably not gonna get much in the way of cites, but the likely results stemming from the developed world embracing such a policy is pretty obvious.
In most developed countries, there is a decent safety net that keeps most people put of extreme poverty. Since even poor people in the US live better than a good portion of the planet, you can be assured that unlimited immigration would encourage far too many people to come here to live off the government’s dime, which would eventually bankrupt the system.
You also need to consider that a stable and productive population is what allows for a stable and productive economy. Imagine what would happen to prices if a disaster in a foreign country caused millions of refugees to suddenly cross the border in search of food and shelter? This exact thing happens in Africa all the time (currently in Somalia, among other places).
There are also legitimate fears of cultural balkanization and tension that can occur when rapid immigration isn’t coupled with broader cultural evolution. Witness all the backlash against Muslims in France.
Also, the right to protect one’s borders is a security issue as well. Allowing any and everyone to enter a country makes it far more difficult protect people and ensure safety.
Well, it’s worth remember that the US did effectively have unlimited immigration - at least for whites - up until about 1921, and for much of that time it did receive very substantial immigration. So there are clearly at least some circumstances in which an unrestricted immigration policy seems to make sense to policymakers.
My impression is that a few factors led to the change in policy.
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Improving transport and communications, and growing prosperity even in the “sending” nations, consistently made it cheaper and and easier to travel to the US. Thus if immigration were not restricted, numbers of migrants could be expected to continue to rise indefinitely.
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Independently of that factor, massive political, economic and physical dislocation in Europe after the Great War might have been expected to produce a large rise in migration.
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There were definite racial concerns. The migrations limits introduced were intended to preserve the “racial mix” which had prevailed among migrants to the US in the past (favouring migrants from Western Europe, essentially).
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In general, nations welcome large scale migration when they have a labour shortage, which happens during times of rapid economic and/or territorial expansion. Perhaps there was a sense in the 1920s that the US was maturing as a nation and an economy, and continuing to expand the labour force would lead to social or economic instability, downward pressure on wages and living standards, inter-ethnic tensions, etc.
Don’t forget the closing of the frontier. Up until the 20th century, the US had a lot of empty frontier waiting to be exploited. The US was so desperate to fill it, to bring the land under cultivation, that it even gave the land away free to people who wanted it, with bills like the Homestead Act. Throughout the 19th century, at the same time it was trying to settle the frontier, the US was also industrializing. Put these factors together, and you had a massive labor shortage that the United States wanted to fill. So, it had a liberal immigration and naturalization policy. But by 1920, the US had finished industrializing and the frontier had disappeared, and all of a sudden, the US didn’t need all sorts of new people to work in their factories and settle the west.
How much financial assistance (or other type of welfare) could an immigrant in that time period receive? That’s the key.
And you can’t set a policy where we have open immigration but you only get welfare after “x” number of years. Our society won’t accept a bunch of people dying in the streets because they can’t find work, food, or medical care.
Why is that the key? I think there was little or no welfare for immigrants, but they still came in huge numbers, in search of the economic opportunities and advantages which the US offered but which didn’t happen to take the form of welfare. Presumably economic opportunities and advantages will attract immigrants whether or not they take the form of welfare.
If the argument is that, given that the US now have rather more generous welfare programmes than it did in the 19th century, large numbers of immigrants will put a strain on those programmes, well, yes. But that’s just an aspect of the social or economic instability that I mentioned already. Large numbers of immigrants would tend to drive down wages. Would that be any more acceptable to American workers than tending to drive up taxes to pay for welfare programmes?
Except that is not a fair analogy. Immigrants do tend to actually work and that labor is taxed. More so if they didn’t have to work under the table. It’s not as if the OP is advocating giant refugee camps.
Most of the reasons against open immigration, as **brickbacon **said, are cultural and racial.
A better anology might be “what are some good reasons for not letting anyone off the street live in your gated community?”
To preserve the cultural unity and cohesion of the Republic. In addition immigrants must be screened for undesirable types such as degenerates, perverts, terrorists, and those of the criminal class.
There are cultural aspects too. For example, completely unrestricted migration could lead to, say, The Netherlands becoming an English speaking country or Canada becoming a Muslim nation overnight.
Restrictions on immigration help the country to maintain some semblance of continuity and help to ensure that the country will not be overwhelmed by change overnight, and, if it does change due to immigration, will change slowly enough that the country will not be put under heavy stress.
Another reason for not letting more people live in your gated community is it might be too crowded. Nevermind that the place the person is moving from might be even more crowded, it’s your community so you should have a say in who gets to move in.
Is this a quote from someone in the 19th century?
They do tend to work, partly because there are requirements for both immigration and citizenship. In other words, they don’t let just anyone live and work here, much less obtain the benefits of citizenship. If they were to offer citizenship to everyone regardless of one’s background or qualification, then all bets would be off.
This it true, but IRT Homestead Act, it was given freely to Whites, which I think is important. The United States wanted immigration and for the land to be cultivated, but only by a certain type of people. Not just anyone.
Not really. A gated community isn’t self sufficient, it doesn’t have it’s own hospital, schools, garbage men. It’s real estate, not an interdependent society.
Restricting immigration doesn’t have to be racist or tribalism. With no restrictions refugee camps is exactly what will appear, and I’m sure the OP is well aware of that.
Because China has more than 4x the population of the US?
Step 1: 25% of them move here ensuring a majority.
Step 2: Change name of country to China II: Electric Chinaloo
Step 3: Profit.
Close. Someone playing dress-up, wearing stick-on mutton chops and a novelty monocle.
Amusing how this argument is made by Irish Catholics, Italian-Americans, Armenian-Americans, & apparently now Korean-Americans.
Dude, we let your ancestors in. It’s OK.
None of that requires quotas though.
Athena help me, but I tend to agree with this sentence, though I’d not have worded it quite that way. In particular speaking of “the Republic” that way strikes me as a bit unseemly nowadays. For reasons I have difficulty articulating it seems – how to put it? – a tad too America is history’s greatest nation and the right hand of Jesus in its implications.
Okay, I’ll bite. What “degenerates & perverts” do you want screened out? Homosexuals?
And what the hell is the “criminal class,” exactly? That is, do you mean persons who have committed major felonies, or do you persons the social group from which felons are most likely to come?