Comment by abracat1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by abracat1 | Hacker News Reader

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To come back to my point - after '94 illegal immigration significantly increased. There are several reasons for this, e.g. The military was no longer responsible for enforcing the border (which fell to the police), liberal policies wrt immigration, Mugabe's experiments in Zimbabe, etc...

Post '94 there were two patterns of migration - skilled people left the country (e.g. to Usa, Canada, aus and new zealand), and unskilled people immigrated to South africa (mostly from other African countries). The size of the illegal immigrant population is difficult to estimate, but probably 10% of the population.

What was the result of this 'free' immigration?

Higher unemployment for the poorest of South Africans, increase in crime (with a large part of crime done by unemployed illegal immigrants) and then of course the fairly recent xenophobic killings(which saw a return of the brutal necklacing killings). I think it would be justified to say that illegal immigration is the biggest threat to stability in SA today.

TL;DR: South Africa should be used as an example of why immigration control is absolutely necessary. illegal immigration threatens the poorest of the poor (those struggling to find employment), leads to higher crime and threatens societal stability.

Ps: typed on iPhone, please forgive typos.

What is

"Apartheid was concerned with the area people lived in the same country (in this area it might be seen as unjust - since people had citizenship to the country."

I use the term Apartheid advisedly. I do not regard place of birth a legitimate discriminator any more than I do race.

As for the "poorest of the poor", they live in poor countries. Again, I do not see the relatively poor of wealthy countries as being more worthy than the absolutely poor of poor countries. There are huge gains to be had in economic growth and human rights from free migration.

I discuss some of this and the South African example in http://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2007/08/06/apartheid-trends/

I recommend the book "Let Their People Come: Breaking the Gridlock on Global Labor Mobility" by Lant Pritchett.

Usage of the word Apartheid in your link is bogus! The word Apartheid is only used in order to evoke white guilt.

It is argued that because of Apartheid, blacks were poorer (even if blavk poverty increased significantly after '94, that is not the point.) The point is that the stereotype is that in South Africa black poverty is due to white people.

Your article implicitly makes the same claim. Here is the quote:

> Like the world, it was about 15% white, the rest African and Asian. Like the world, the whites were segregated from the non-whites by law (of course the West does have some blacks and Asians, but it segregates the vast majority of them). The whites lived in prosperity, the blacks in poverty,

So here is the question: how can whites still be (implicitly) blamed for African poverty? Most african countries have been sovereign for more than half a century. Many of them have been sovereign for as long as history (or only had short periods of colonial rule) - e.g. Swaziland, lesotho, ethopia.

The crude (and wrong) comparison ignores issues of culture, historical development patterns, traditional power stucture, etc...

Cont. Below

Part 2.

Your article also states that:

> However, it is a far from perfect analogue. Bryan Caplan cites evidence that immigrants to the U.S. commit crimes at a far lower rate than U.S. citizens.

So? This is expected! It shows the success of current immigration policies. The current policy is to only let the best of the best into the country (i.e. Those without criminal records and who has at least a degree in a technical field/ or doctor).

The blog post makes no argument that th crime rate of immigrants would still be lower if this barrier and selection would be removed (it would not!).

Furthemore, look at the South African example in this area - illegal immigrants (without work, etc...) turn to crime. Zimbabweans and Mozambiqucans esp. In violent crime. Many Nigerians ar involved in drug crime and other crimessuch as prostitution and human trafficing. Not pretty.

I strongly suspect that if South Africa enforced its border, Mugabe would have been overthrown.

But currently, most of the Zimbabweans that would be responsible for a coup de ta in Zimbabwe (18-40 year old males), are doing manual labour in South Africa.

The current policy is to only let the best of the best into the country (i.e. Those without criminal records and who has at least a degree in a technical field/ or doctor).

That is most certainly not current US immigration policy, which explicitly provides priority for family connections. Technical qualifications are a secondary factor and a modest advantage only for employer-applied visas. The vast bulk of visa applications are family-based.

The blog post makes no argument that th crime rate of immigrants would still be lower if this barrier and selection would be removed (it would not!).

[citation needed]

Usage of the word Apartheid in your link is bogus! The word Apartheid is only used in order to evoke white guilt.

Oh FFS. I have no guilt about being white but if you're going to argue that apartheid was in any sense a fair system then you're welcome to it.

> That is most certainly not current US immigration policy, which explicitly provides priority for family connections.

That is true. But the person who broughthif family over, how did he get here? Because he is skilled and already at the top of his field! So, a skilled person bringing over his family or an American whi brings over his foreign wife is already at the top of society.

I myself looked at immigration (chiefly yo USA, Ireland and Britain) - almost impossible for me to do if I didn't have an advanced degree.

> [citation needed]

You are willing to believe an unfounded assertian of the nlog post, yet evidence of countries with more liberal policies you ignore?

I stated the example of South Africa with an open border. In many Nordic countries with a liberal immigration policy, crime by immigrants is much higher (finland, sweden, etc...).

> i have no guilt about being white...

Yet the premise of article is that the world is divided into rich white people and poor black/asian people and the reason for that is "International Apartheid".

So according o the article, if a person supports rational immigration policies, he is a racist who supports global apartheid.

Perhaps you did not comphrehend the article or you feel the same - hence no need for white guilt since you support open borders.

> if you are going to argue...

I am not arguing that Apartheid was a fair system (it was not). Yet the world is a lot more nuanced than good/bad black/white.

South Africa is an extremely complex country (11 national languages, four capital cities, traditional leadeship, two Europen populations, massive inequality between black and white, rich black and poor black, inequality between urban and rural, more people on welfare (13 million) than tax payers (<5 million), probably more illegal immigrants than white people, more HIV+ people than tax payers, etc...). An incredibly complex (and interesting) country that you describe in terms of a black white world view.

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