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Comment by armada651 | Hacker News Reader

Being pro-immigration used to be a right-wing sentiment, because it was a good way to get labor costs down. And it used to be the left-wing labor parties that were against immigration for that very reason.

True left-wing politicians like Bernie Sanders are still against immigration because it lowers the wages of working class people.

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Politics is a messy business.Angela Merkel’s 2015 open-door policy faced harsh criticism, but the refugees it welcomed have proven their value. Two-thirds of Syrian refugees are now employed, many reducing public reliance and boosting the economy. Beyond jobs, some have become entrepreneurs—founding startups that create new employment and bring innovation. One Syrian-founded tech company alone employs 15 people. With over 83,000 granted citizenship last year, these contributions anchor refugees as vital to Germany’s future, turning initial fears into success stories. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-15/syrian-im...

>> Two-thirds of Syrian refugees are now employed, many reducing public reliance and boosting the economy.

I don't think legitimate Syrian refugees were the biggest problem. Rather, the open-door policy was abused by lots of young men from other MENA-countries, with no eligibility for asylum. Deporting them proved pretty hard, and crime stats prove that some of them had a very bad attitude towards their new host.

  > Two-thirds of Syrian refugees are now employed

Is the 33% unemployment rate of these Syrians above or below the national unemployment rate average?

That's missing the point. This is not a value judgement about whether the refugees contribute to society. By being employed they are in fact helping to keep wages lower than they would be if there was a lower supply of labor. The point is that the main benefactors of immigration are corporations, not working-class families. Thus traditionally left-wing labor parties have been against immigration.

We should be using immigration to shorten the workday for everyone, thus counter-acting its effects of wage suppression and giving people more time to dedicate to relationships, thus recovering the birth rate and reducing the need for immigration. Of course this will never happen, because economic growth is more important than people's well being.

This is one of those cases where the left–right spectrum just doesn’t capture the interplay of various economic, social, and cultural positions.

Sanders has shifted from his old view quite a bit, and is pro immigration specifically for filling low wage jobs, and holding wages down.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/07/bernie-sanders-2020...

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