I’m writing this article during a somewhat hectic plane trip, so I’ll try to do it without links. Most relevant sources can be found via perplexity.Ai, or even on MR itself. Google too.
Overall, I am distressed by the contagion effects when it comes to opinions on immigration. A lot of people are much more anti-immigration than before, in part because others are even more anti-immigration. All sorts of anecdotes are circulating. But let’s look more systematically at what we’ve learned about immigration over the past decade. Not all of these measures should be considered pro-immigration, but much of them should, with one huge caveat.
As for the effects of immigration on wages, there is very little additional evidence in the positive direction. I wouldn’t put much stock in it, but it certainly doesn’t go the other way.
The United States shows that it can have a higher number of immigrants and a lower crime rate. I’m not proposing a causal model here, but again, this should be more reassuring than false.
There is additional evidence of positive tax benefits for immigrants, including lower-skilled immigrants. Some of this comes from the CBO, some of which I described in a Bloomberg column about a month ago. I don’t view these findings as major revisions, but again, they’re not going in the wrong direction.
There is reasonable, but not decisive, macroeconomic evidence that immigrant labor supply has contributed significantly to America’s strong post-pandemic recovery.
If you are a right-winger who feared that Latinos coming to the United States would vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, you can rest easy. You can also take this as evidence of a particular type of assimilation.
Fertility rates are falling much more than expected, including in the United States. This argues in favor of immigration a lot stronger.
There is growing evidence that immigrant-rich Florida and Texas are doing quite well. The picture is significantly less positive in many parts of California, but I suppose I see evidence that it is the white progressive left that is primarily at fault, not immigrants. Nonetheless, I think it can be reasonably argued that immigrants and the progressive left interact in dysfunctional ways. I’m not surprised that so many anti-immigrant voices are coming from California.
Overall, I’m struck by the fact that immigration critics don’t send me cost-benefit studies, nor do they seem to commission them. If the case against immigration is so strong, why aren’t these studies created and then sent to me? You could get a good one for a few hundred thousand dollars, right? Instead, in my emails and such, I receive a storm of negative emotions and all kinds of anecdotal statements about how bad various things are, but never a decent ABC. I consider it to be endogenous. I think it’s widely accepted that America, having welcomed people who are now Italian-Americans, would pass a cost-effectiveness test, even though the Mafia ruled New Jersey and Rhode Island for decades. Somehow people are less inclined to apply this same type of reasoning in the future, even if they are happy to regale you with stories of crimes committed by current immigrants.
I see clear signs of declining trust in the U.S. government, but I attribute this primarily to the Martin Gurri effect. I mean, look at the current manipulators in the White House and in the media: they are not primarily immigrants, quite the contrary. Or were all the Covid-related errors due to “immigrants”? I do not see it.
Now let’s look at the knowledge updates on the other side of the ledger, namely the new knowledge that should make us more skeptical of immigration.
We now see that external hostility toward Israel and Taiwan is stronger than we thought. So the case for a more relaxed immigration policy in Israel is much weaker than it used to be. As for Taiwan, it should be more careful about admitting mainland Chinese. Estonia should be more careful about admitting Russians, and it is. And there may be other countries where this kind of logic applies. Do I really know the situation between Burundi and Rwanda? In general, as the level of conflict in the world increases, these kinds of cases will multiply. This is also a major concern for anything that is close to Ukraine. Small countries should be concerned about it first and foremost.
I should point out that this problem does not appear to apply to North America, although stricter security clearances may be required for some jobs currently held by Chinese migrants.
The second problem, and this is the more important one, is that voters hate immigration much more than they used to. The size of this effect has been surprising, as has the extent to which it has spread. I am writing this on election day in France, and the preliminary results suggest a very real risk that France will become ungovernable. Immigrants are clearly a major factor in this outcome, even in the context of extremely lenient views that do not “blame” immigrants themselves at all.
Similar versions occur in many countries, not just a few, and these are often countries that were previously fairly well governed.
I think it’s better for countries in such situations to be much tougher on immigration than to suffer these kinds of political consequences.
But let’s honestly look at the overall revision of our views. Politics is dumber and less ethical than before, including immigration (but not only that! Fellow citizens have also become more negative towards other fellow citizens with divergent opinions, and I see negativism as the root of the general problem). We must take this into account and therefore all kinds of pro-migration dreams must be put aside for the moment, at least in many countries. Nevertheless, the actual practical consequences of immigration, excluding political reactions, are somewhat more positive than we thought. However, for some smaller countries this may not be the case, Israel being the easiest to understand example but not the only one. Longer term, we would also like to prepare for the day when higher levels of immigration may resume, although this seems distant at the moment. So we should not denigrate immigration in itselfInstead, we should try to combat excess negativity in many areas of life.
In some ways, this view is too complicated for people to understand, and so they instinctively rush to the anti-immigration movement. Too much negativity. But in fact, my point of view is better than theirs, and so they should defend it.
