“The case for allowing people to move is simply put: openness to newcomers is morally right, economically beneficial and culturally enriching.”
From Them and Us by Philippe Legrain
The Case for Immigration
Moving
“Generally people move to better themselves not bum off others.”
From Them and Us by Philippe Legrain
Identity
“Immigrants typically feel a strong attachment to the country that has welcomed them.”
From Them and Us by Philippe Legrain
Sharing
“We may not share a common ancestry but we share a present and a future.”
From Them and Us by Philippe Legrain
Immigration Policy
“If the U.S. were to design an immigration policy from scratch that would most hurt growth it would be much like our current one.”
Rich Karlgaard, Publisher Forbes Magazine
Immigration Overall
Another Immigration Argument
When people study history one or two hundred years from now. They will remember this era for two things: positively, because we began to explore space and negatively because we opposed most migration. Today we look at the idea of slavery as an abomination but in 1830 slavery was common and support for abolition was rare. The same is true for free migration. Today everybody sees a reason why we can’t allow free migration so they are opposed to even moving in that direction. History may see us the way we look at slaveholders.
Ethics change don’t get on the wrong side if you want to be remembered well by history.
Paradox Two
China has 1.2 billion people. The USA has about 330 million. We have about one quarter the population of China. For many reasons that I think are obvious, but which I will explain below the fold, size matters for nations.
If we want to stay one of the leading nations of the world we need to grow a lot. Controlled, organized and rapid immigration is the only available means to accomplish this.
So Paradox Two is that we profess to want to complete with China. The only way to do that is to grow our population through immigration and yet we limit legal immigration to less than one third of one percent of our population each year. Millions of people from around the world would move here and help us complete with China and we won’t let them.
We are being stupid, short-sighted and paranoid.
Paradox One
Our country has a labor shortage that is slowing economic growth. At the same time that we are employing more than 240,000 people in the Department of Homeland Security to keep out the millions of people who want to come here to fill those jobs.
We should be embarrassed by our stupidity and ashamed of our behavior. Read more of my writing on immigration.
Immigration 9
