This might be a GQ question, but I figure with the possible political dimensions it would be better asked here. I recently saw that the new French President said in a speech (to paraphrase), come to France if America turns you away…we want you here. Canada, also, is changing it’s Visa policies to attract immigrants who might have gone to the US but instead are nervous or been turned off by the recent attempts by the Trump administration to get immigration policies tightened up. My question is…has this started to have a real, measurable impact yet? Is there any evidence that the current policy direction of the US government and at least part of the electorate have started to have a measurable impact? Has this been reflected in increased immigration to places like France and Canada (or anywhere else)?
I guess, for debate, we could go to…will it have such an impact, and what do you think it will be? I know this is a serious concern in places like Silicon Valley, but it impacts a lot of different industries in the US and many different areas here. I recall seeing some videos a few months ago that Indian’s who would normally be looking at Visas or other things were concerned by the anti-India acts of a few Americans as well as by the general direction of the seeming policy directions of Trump et al (even though they weren’t the targets of things like the Muslim bans). There have also been a lot about Mexican immigration, especially the focus on illegals in the US that I had heard had changed the dynamics of Mexican’s trying to get into the US. Just curious about what 'dopers think about this, whether there are any numbers available on what if any impact it’s had so far, and where people think this is headed. Will we see places like Canada and France taking the bulk of the immigrants that would have come to the US, or will there be no noticeable effect?
That’s not true either. Canada has a point-based skill assessment system for normal immigration, but it also has a generous quota and a vetting system for refugees and exceptional circumstances. From what I’ve been reading, many of the recent refugees – notably the families from Syria – while not typically highly educated tend to be hard-working blue-collar types, and the fathers and some of the older sons have typically found productive employment in the trades, and the younger ones gone to school with similar vocations in mind. These, too, are useful and productive members of society. In fact a few years ago I had some challenging renovation work done by just such immigrants, and the work quality was superb.
Almost all countries have the same racist, “you can’t sit here” immigration policies as the US. Until that changes, I doubt we will see a measurable differential impact. (The economic impact is there, of course, it’s just that it’s hard to measure since we tend to do so by comparison to other countries – it’s been too long since we had open borders to make convincing comparisons with the past.)
I would imagine that the type of non-legal immigration that doesn’t involve overstaying a visa would be pretty hard for most such immigrants to pull off if they had to cross an entire ocean or go around (or through) the US to do it. So I’m thinking that when you say that (only) legal immigration has been impacted, that’s exactly the type of immigration the OP is talking about.