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Comment by murbard2 | Hacker News Reader

I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative, but I understand why it is controversial. I understand that the arguments against "letting everyone in" have some merit, though I ultimately disagree with them.

What is a real head scratcher to me is the US policy on highly-skilled immigrants. There are certainly some political constituencies in favor of those, but I can't think of anyone against, at least not one with a modicum of political pull.

One could imagine a regulatory capture scenario where large companies benefit from the regime, because they have an easier time obtaining visas than their smaller competitors, but in practice even those lobby for more, not less immigration.

So who's lobbying against this exactly?

View on HN

> So who's lobbying against this exactly?

If you've ever come across any posts on HN regarding immigrant workers in technology (who are on the same visa, the H1B†, that the author of the Vox article was on), you will see a shockingly offensive amount contempt and hatred for highly-skilled immigrants.

To answer your question more directly, despite high support for skilled immigration reform, there are currently 2 senators who are hell-bent on making life hard for highly-skilled immigrants. One of them is Chuck Grassley, chair of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and the other is Jeff Sessions, chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration. Both senators (esp. Sessions) thoroughly hate immigrants of all kinds, and have avowed to do everything in their power to block immigration reform from passing, and the committee and subcommittee they chair are key to immigration reform passing in the Senate.

Jeff Sessions has even go so far as to write a document full of half-truths and lies, with the goal of convincing other Republicans that even the tiny trickle of high-skilled immigration now permitted is detestable, and must be put to an end. The Cato Institute has an excellent fact-based rebuttal of it: http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-im...

Opposition to immigration itself is pretty hard to believe in country like the U.S., but the opposition to economically beneficial high-skilled worker immigration, is even more shocking.

† Note: there are really no other alternatives than getting a work visa, if someone wants to immigrate as high-skilled worker. I've read ill-informed people on HN say ridiculous things like, they do not have a problem with people "coming to the US normally", but they hate to their guts anyone on a work visa. Ridiculous.

> If you've ever come across any posts on HN regarding immigrant workers in technology (who are on the same visa, the H1B†, that the author of the Vox article was on), you will see a shockingly offensive amount contempt and hatred for highly-skilled immigrants.

Well, that's probably largely because the system is being abused to bring in questionable workers and drive down wages.

No, it's mostly because those commentors on HN can't code worth their salt, and can't find a job, in an industry with thousands of unfilled positions, and need a scapegoat to pile hatred on.

Most of the points stated on those hateful comments are either factually wrong, or overstate something as being the norm, when it probably happens less than 10% of the time.

For one, if you are even decently good at software development, and live in any major city in the US, you really have no excuse for not being able to find a job. (Apart from being really bad at interviews.) Demand far outstrips supply.

Secondly, although work visas are used by outsourcing companies a lot, they are also used heavily by companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, a lot of tech startups, etc, and other companies that are looking talented engineers.

Finally, the work visa requires the employee to be paid at least the prevailing wage for the position, and most of them get paid well above the prevailing wage, so the "driving down wages" point isn't valid either.

Most of these commentors also fail to realize that there is really no other way to immigrate, besides a work visa, unless you want to go the family-based or refugeee route (not an option for most). They also show a total ignorance of the lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

When someone heaps abuse and hatred on highly-skilled immigrants (like those on HN), and call for an end to skilled immigration, they are really calling for an end to all immigration. It's noxious xenophobia and perhaps racially-motivated hatred, plain and simple.

Yes because if you have some criticism of policies that allow Disney to have workers train their foreign replacement you must be some kind of xenophobic racist.

Immigration is a complex issue. Name calling doesn't solve anything.

I'd be open to hearing your criticism of policies that allow Disney to have [American] workers train their foreign replacements that don't invoke any sort of xenophobia or racism.

The whole idea that it would be wrong or humiliating to have to train someone who had the gall to be born in a different (and generally poorer) country is based on the notion that Americans should be treated with more regard than people born elsewhere. If Disney had fired 200 Americans and replaced them with 200 other Americans, would there have been an uproar? Almost certainly not. Since they only difference is the new workers' nation of origin, how is this not a xenophobic or racist reaction?

Lots of issues are complex but complexity is not an excuse for xenophobia.

Is Disney going to pay the new 200 employees the same wages, and work them the same? Are the new employees going to ask for the same pay, and ask for the same treatment? Do they even have an empowered position to ask for that?

Maybe not, but even if not, why are you so sure that would be bad?

Let's say the foreign workers would have made the equivalent of $20k in their own country but will now make $60k for Disney in the U.S. vs. the American workers who made, say, $80k but will now end up settling for new jobs that only pay $60k (in addition to their unemployment, social security and subsidized health insurance and other social safety net features that the foreigners wouldn't have access to in their home countries). Are you really sure this is a bad thing for the world?

(By the way, the stylized figures above are very generous to your anti-immigration case, since while there is plenty of evidence that immigrants 2-3x their incomes by working in the U.S., there is no reason to believe that American's actually suffer 25% income losses to do competition from immigrants. Most studies show no change or a positive impact to native workers' wages and the few that show a negative impact show at most a ~5% decrease.)

> (By the way, the stylized figures above are very generous to your anti-immigration case, since while there is plenty of evidence that immigrants 2-3x their incomes by working in the U.S., there is no reason to believe that American's actually suffer 25% income losses to do competition from immigrants. Most studies show no change or a positive impact to native workers' wages and the few that show a negative impact show at most a ~5% decrease.)

Why do you think Disney would replace a ton of workers with inexperienced ones unless they're saving on wages?

yES dISNEY IS SAVING ON WAGES FOR SURE..Although I personally do not agree with using H1B to displace workers I also think American IT workers need to think about what kind of wages they expect for outdated and rapidly changing IT knowledge.. I have an excellent example in my own company.. A 48yr old American IT worker who makes close to 120-130K per annum... Let me tell you he does a good job but his work merely includes assembling PC's for employees, fixing bugs (rebooting Virus scan) and writing minor scripts once in a year to ensure email and server security. Majority of the time he just makes sure that all the employees machines are running smoothly. In terms of education he has an Associate degree in STEM and has been working for the company for 15 years.His position title says Systems Engineer. However a Systems Engineer in Google might actually be working on the Driver less car. Now the reality is that today the work that he has been doing can be taken care of by anyone even without a technical background.. so why pay him 120K? His knowledge was unique and fresh when he joined in 1998 but now in 2015 he is still in the same position , has the same qualifications and doing the same work everyday.. I am not blaming him..for this .. He is getting 120K for a skill set which is obsolete.. why would he think of trying something more or advancing his career..Since our company has a very small IT staff they might not take a step like Disney but otherwise this guy would have been long replaced. If I were him I would look towards more active roles within the company or else If I am so attracted to IT then I would go back to school update myself with the IT of Today and apply to a company that might need my new skills.. Overall my point is that the technical world is such that today nobody wants to buy an iphone 3GS today. Even if there are some buyers then they definitely do not want to pay $600 to buy it

> I'd be open to hearing your criticism of policies that allow Disney to have [American] workers train their foreign replacements that don't invoke any sort of xenophobia or racism.

If their replacements were white guys from Texas it would still be equally humiliating and offensive for people to be asked to train their lower-wage, less-skilled replacements as a condition for receiving severance. Come on. And unlike citizens, people on work visas have no real leverage to negotiate for higher wages (since their work visas are tied up with the company they work for or at least their ability to find a new sponsor), so the idea that they couldn't possibly suppress wages seems silly.

No, it's mostly because those commentors on HN can't code worth their salt, and can't find a job, in an industry with thousands of unfilled positions, and need a scapegoat to pile hatred on.

I don't think that's true, but I don't expect we'll be giving programming tests to each commentor to get hard data

Most of the points stated on those hateful comments are either factually wrong, or overstate something as being the norm, when it probably happens less than 10% of the time.

If you are accusing others of not using facts and citing sources, then you should do the same with your 10%

Here, the stats are available http://www.myvisajobs.com/Reports/2015-H1B-Visa-Sponsor.aspx

Looking at the top 10 list the vast majority is body shop consultants. Depending which area in IBM the H1Bs are going to, it could be the entire top 10 is outsourcing companies.

That certainly wasn't my experience in the 90's and I suspect given the numbers given on the previous website, it isn't true now. I don't really have the time to check the state-by-state to see.

Most of these commentors also fail to realize that there is really no other way to immigrate, besides a work visa, unless you want to go the family-based or refugeee route (not an option for most).

I certainly realize that, but that doesn't mean we have to like the H1B's version of immigration, and it doesn't mean hating H1B means we are anti-immigration. It does mean if painted in those strokes, most people will respond poorly.

That is the crud political argument that I dearly hate. Paint all of your opponents as the devil with things they don't believe. It serves no one but talk show hosts and is a major reason why immigration reform is impossible in the US. Hating the H1B program or any other program run by the US is not the same as hating immigration or immigrants. Disney is not the only company to abuse immigration and it seems to be a common experience is some areas of the country.

Hell, asking for the borders to be protected has very little to do with immigration but it is heaped in there with being "hateful" when it is a basic security problem.

I cannot imagine why we don't have a system for taking students who come to this country to be educated in college and give them a work visa not tied to a company. I wonder why we don't allow a pool of skilled workers into the country under circumstances where they have a job waiting but are not tied to that employer. Neither of these beliefs will make me not say the H1B program should be abolished as a failed experiment that was gamed and needs replacing.

I'd just like to address your last point:

> I cannot imagine why we don't have a system for taking students who come to this country to be educated in college and give them a work visa not tied to a company.

This exists already. It's called "F-1 OPT". It allows students to work in the field of their major for 12 months normally, but if they had a STEM major, for 29 months.

> I wonder why we don't allow a pool of skilled workers into the country under circumstances where they have a job waiting but are not tied to that employer.

That's what the H1B is. You need to "have a job waiting" but you "are not tied to that employer"†.

The only thing preventing an H1B holder from getting a better job is how good they are at what they do, and whether the company they want to switch is willing to handle an "H1B transfer".

Most companies in tech are willing to do perform an H1B transfer, and there's great job mobility in tech, especially for the most talented H1B holders, who are widely sought after.

†Note: Before the year 2000, you couldn't change jobs on the H1B, and you were tied to your initial visa sponsor. This changed after Congress passed a law (called "AC21") that enabled H1B visa holders to change jobs.

So this idea that H1B visa holders can't change jobs is a myth. Also your pining for work visas to be "abolished" without offering a meaningful alternative is equivalent to pining for no skilled immigration. Without work visas, the only people coming here would be refugees and family members. What you should've said is "we need better work visas" or "we need to lift the quota on them".

A lot of international students who study here, and graduate from U.S. schools end up effectively getting deported because of the quota on H1B visas. Here's one HNer who's getting kicked out thanks to the H1B cap: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9767627

> This exists already. It's called "F-1 OPT".

By all accounts, it doesn't work worth a crud in its current form.

> That's what the H1B is.

My friends on H1B's couldn't switch jobs freely. H1B transfers are just trading indentured servants and not a good thing for freedom of the person.

> Also your pining for work visas to be "abolished" without offering a meaningful alternative is equivalent to pining for no skilled immigration.

I have never heard of anyone advocating abolishment of the H1B without a transition for those in the system and having a replacement. Don't try to phrase it like I am against immigration. The current systems don't work for people coming here or US workers.

> A lot of international students who study here, and graduate from U.S. schools end up effectively getting deported because of the quota on H1B visas.

Seems the F-1 OPT isn't working.

> By all accounts, it doesn't work worth a crud in its current form.

You insist that F-1 OPT "doesn't work", but you the fail to give the slightest explanation as to why.

OPT allows students to work a certain amount of time after they graduate, and most students cherish being allowed to do so. After OPT expires, they have to go through the H1B lottery. You can start a startup (i.e. be self-employed) on OPT, so it's actually less restrictive than the H1B.

I'm not saying that any of the work visas / work authorizations in the U.S. are perfect and without flaw. Far from it. Ideally, it would be good if students were allowed to transition to permanent residency after their graduation. But OPT helps a lot of international students, and it isn't fair of you criticize it without explanation. It is arrogant and asshole-like of you to do so.

> My friends on H1B's couldn't switch jobs freely.

Ask them why.

Nothing prevents a person on H1B holder from moving to another employer that sponsors H1Bs. Practically every company in tech is willing to do a transfer, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to switch. A transfer costs a company at most $4000 in total (application fees, attorney fees) which is not much if you're paying the individual $100k+/year.

> You insist that F-1 OPT "doesn't work", but you the fail to give the slightest explanation as to why.

Other folks in this thread have pointed out it doesn't work

> Ask them why.

Because they need a sponsor to switch - that is not freely - and as you say it "costs a company at most $4000" which is not free.

> Other folks in this thread have pointed out it doesn't work

F-1 OPT isn't mentioned any where else in this thread. So you still haven't explained why "OPT is broken".

> Because they need a sponsor to switch ... which is not free

Practically speaking, for people in tech, this isn't a problem, because most/all companies sponsor, and are willing to bear the $3-$4k cost.

"A basic security problem"

So what if anyone can come and go. You live in a town or city, right? So the adjacent towns, they let you just waltz in and out of them right? They "don't control who comes through." Is that so terrible? Do you think your town should have a big wall around it and strict security cause you're worried about a potential fugitive slipping in? No, that's stupid. It's just a really inefficient/cumbersome way to deal with the problem of criminals. Instead, you leave society open and free, and when a criminal pops up, you track him down, arrest him, stick him in jail or whatever. You don't wrap everything up with giant walls and security just cause sometimes there are criminals. So if we don't want walls around towns or cities or counties or states, why do we suddenly want them at the country level? What the hell is so special about your country? Does no one commit crimes there? No, of course they commit crimes.

And by the way, you can get smuggled into the US via the Mexican borders for like a couple thousand bucks. There's a whole industry around this. The people who do the smuggling are called 'coyotes". Any serious terrorist is already here, via that border.

Please see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

Except law enforcement in towns and cities cooperate while if a person does something in the US and leaves the victim may have very little recourse. Your comparison of open borders and and having free movement within a country is weak.

> So what if anyone can come and go.

Nope. The border needs to be secure. There are people who hate the US and have committed violence against its people. This is a basic security problem and open borders would be a disaster. Your city argument is bunk, we are a country under a common Constitution, not a collection of city-states.

> And by the way, you can get smuggled into the US via the Mexican borders for like a couple thousand bucks

Yep, and the government needs to do everything in its power to shut that down. Illegal immigration hurts the chances of any legal immigration package.

I don't think you're being fair here. Law enforcement has trouble crossing national borders, for one thing (especially in the case of Mexico where organized criminals have outright bought off lots of politicians). I don't think people who look at big drug-related massacres in Mexico on the news and feel worried about cartels entering the US are necessarily bigots.

> And by the way, you can get smuggled into the US via the Mexican borders for like a couple thousand bucks. There's a whole industry around this. The people who do the smuggling are called 'coyotes". Any serious terrorist is already here, via that border.

You're making this sound easier than it is. Lots of people die trying to do this now.

Although I personally do not agree with using H1B to displace workers I also think American IT workers need to think about what kind of wages they expect for outdated and rapidly changing IT knowledge.. I have an excellent example in my own company.. A 48yr old American IT worker who makes close to 120-130K per annum... Let me tell you he does a good job but his work merely includes assembling PC's for employees, fixing bugs (rebooting Virus scan) and writing minor scripts once in a year to ensure email and server security. Majority of the time he just makes sure that all the employees machines are running smoothly. In terms of education he has an Associate degree in STEM and has been working for the company for 15 years.His position title says Systems Engineer. However a Systems Engineer in Google might actually be working on the Driver less car. Now the reality is that today the work that he has been doing can be taken care of by anyone even without a technical background.. so why pay him 120K? His knowledge was unique and fresh when he joined in 1998 but now in 2015 he is still in the same position , has the same qualifications and doing the same work everyday.. I am not blaming him..for this .. He is getting 120K for a skill set which is obsolete.. why would he think of trying something more or advancing his career..Since our company has a very small IT staff they might not take a step like Disney but otherwise this guy would have been long replaced. If I were him I would look towards more active roles within the company or else If I am so attracted to IT then I would go back to school update myself with the IT of Today and apply to a company that might need my new skills.. Overall my point is that the technical world is such that today nobody wants to buy an iphone 3GS today. Even if there are some buyers then they definitely do not want to pay $600 to buy it

Eat me. Change H-1B's to follow a worker from job to job and there is no problem with the program. The fact that anyone who wants to hire a H-1B worker away from their company also has to have acquired a H-1B means that it is abused by companies looking for cheap labor.

From my experience, those "transfer" applications are routinely approved because they are not subject to the H-1B cap. Sure, it will take a few weeks for USCIS to process it and will cost the employer some money, but getting a denial is pretty rare.

Transferring an H1-B is a couple of orders of magnitude easier than getting a new H1-B. If a person is here on an H1-B already there's more friction in finding a new apartment to rent than there is in transferring the visa.

I wouldn't say Sen grassley is anti-immigrant. He is infact open to h1b visa provided the tech sector accepts his bill as well to protect abuse. In short what Grassley is providing is a poison pill for Body shops but not for really talented advanced degree graduates. Sessions on the other hand is out right anti immigrant and a racist Pig. All Americans fail to understand that 30-40% of H1B's are Masters/Phd's for American schools.. Not all are body shop products like the ones used in Disney.

Secondly coming to the issue of American IT workers being replaced. Although I personally do not agree with using H1B to displace workers I also think American IT workers need to think about what kind of wages they expect for outdated and rapidly changing IT knowledge.. I have an excellent example in my own company.. A 48yr old American IT worker who makes close to 120-130K per annum... Let me tell you he does a good job but his work merely includes assembling PC's for employees, fixing bugs (rebooting Virus scan) and writing minor scripts once in a year to ensure email and server security. Majority of the time he just makes sure that all the employees machines are running smoothly. In terms of education he has an Associate degree in STEM and has been working for the company for 15 years.His position title says Systems Engineer. However a Systems Engineer in Google might actually be working on the Driver less car. Now the reality is that today the work that he has been doing can be taken care of by anyone even without a technical background.. so why pay him 120K? His knowledge was unique and fresh when he joined in 1998 but now in 2015 he is still in the same position , has the same qualifications and doing the same work everyday.. I am not blaming him..for this .. He is getting 120K for a skill set which is obsolete.. why would he think of trying something more or advancing his career..Since our company has a very small IT staff they might not take a step like Disney but otherwise this guy would have been long replaced. If I were him I would look towards more active roles within the company or else If I am so attracted to IT then I would go back to school update myself with the IT of Today and apply to a company that might need my new skills..

Overall my point is that the technical world is such that today nobody wants to buy an iphone 3GS today. Even if there are some buyers then they definitely do not want to pay $600 to buy it

There's no strong lobby against more high-skilled immigration. But as sometimes happens in US politics, the uncontroversial reform is held hostage to the controversial one.

In particular, lobbying groups for and against having an official status for the millions of currently undocumented Mexicans in the US have opposed any immigration bill that doesn't include what they want.

Lawmaking does not allow cherry-picking bugfixes.

Very interesting take, thanks! That is probably what's going on. I wonder what other examples there are of such policies.

> Lawmaking does not allow cherry-picking bugfixes.

It ought to.

Any chance you'd be willing to write a bit more about your support for open borders? In particular, I'm interested in knowing whether you think this is a situation where it would be both moral and beneficial, or if you feel that it is simply wrong to limit where people can live and work based on where they were born (or even where their grandparents were born) even if the overall effect on current citizens of some regions would be negative.

Interesting that the author of this piece comes from New Zealand, because NZ is the country that often springs to mind when I think of a nation that might could change dramatically with open borders.

I haven't been there, but I understand New Zealand is a country about the geographical size of California and Oregon put together (a bit larger), with spectacular natural landscapes, and a very small population (much smaller than the island would be capable of supporting). What would happen to New Zealand if they unilaterally opened up their borders? To keep it simple, let's not worry about malicious people, I just mean honest, hard working immigrants who seek a better life. Should New Zealand open up borders to unlimited migration? Is there a moral imperative for them to do so?

One would think, countries like USA, Australia or NZ might be afraid of immigration because they know what they did to native inhabitants...

Generally, think about the situation where all (most) countries abolish borders, not just NZ or other small country. Moving is the basic human right, and the sooner we realize the better for mankind, assuming the culture of the host country is respected. Of course the culture needs adjustments to respect human rights as well.

Why would one be afraid of immigrants because of past treatment of original natives when chances are the immigrants are descended from people who did similar things to the original natives of their homeland? As an easy example, I'm fairly certain the original natives of the southern portions of the North American continent weren't speaking Spanish when the conquistadors showed up.

I would disagree that is is for the better of mankind. In some cases, it could be, sure. In most cases, it eventually is not. How is it good for anyone to move from one stagnant area into a prosperous one to the point of dragging it down to be stagnant as well? Never mind the affect this has the people who are currently inhabiting the area.

Plus, it would seem to be that once a level of immigration has happened in an area the newcomers no longer feel the need to respect or to assimilate into the local culture, so they maintain their own. Hopefully they are carrying over their bad habits that led to their homeland sucking enough to force them to move, because they'll eventually want to move again. In the long term, that eventually makes things worse for those that lived there before, much like you pointed out in your first statement.

We have a long road to travel before mankind as a whole can, in masses, move about freely throughout the world without there being local consequences.

Guilt. Making a change towards better treatment of people from different places brings up the poor past treatment, which people don't like to take responsibility for.

"Move from one stagnant area into a prosperous one to the point of dragging it down to be stagnant as well?"

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong... 100 times wrong.

Productivity is the root of all prosperity. First read this excellent article: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/02/always_keep_you..... Workers become on average ~20x more productive when they migrate to the first world. Because we are capital rich and we have sane government and law and order. Imagine if you were moved to Haiti and you got stuck there. How much could you contribute to society in Haiti? You could maybe slice some coconuts on the side of the road - is that gonna make the world a lot richer? Roadside sliced coconuts? Nah, much better for you to be in first world even if you're doing a low skilled job here like delivering catering to a high tech startup. That catering company is able to produce food much more efficiently, and in SF or NYC you're able to distribute it much more efficiently, and you're part of this souped-up economic engine that's changing the world. That's why they make 20x or up to 40x more (in the case of the extreme poor) when they migrate to the first world. It's better for everyone! Economists estimate that moving from the status quo to fully liberalized migration (i.e. open borders) would roughly double global gdp - that's an insane silver bullet. That's everyone getting way fucking richer in one fell swoop.

Please see my comment here for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

I'm sorry, I simply cannot fully agree with your statement. I also see you are ignoring a great deal of my statement. It is true up to a certain point that what you say is true, as I also said. But if you open the border wide to let anybody in for any reason the near utopia you are describing is just not possible. When someone crosses the border and finds a job to be the productive citizen you describe, all's well. What about when multiples start crossing and there are no jobs for them to have? Let's say your wonderful catering company has too many workers now and not enough new tech companies to sustain hiring yet more people streaming across your open border. Social services will start to fail as the demand increases but the tax revenue doesn't increase with the demand to support it. There are many municipalities out there that are struggling to come up with the money to support the influx of immigrants that were placed, not moved on their own, by means outside their control. I'm not even talking about obvious things like welfare. I'm talking having to suddenly build schools and hire teachers that weren't in the budget to support all these new kids that are suddenly showing up.

Question, would slicing coconuts on the side of the road in Haiti provide the equivalent in pay as taking a low paying catering job in the US considering and comparing elements such as cost-of-living and whatnot? There are many people living in ways we would consider abject poverty but seem to be much happier with their situation than many of the supposed better off immigrants. It's sometimes about perspective too.

I would also say the current economic status of many countries around the world suggest that "everyone way fucking richer in one fell swoop" is not happening regardless of their immigration policies. Everyone is definitely not getting richer in the US despite the years of people pouring across, what is essentially, our open border.

But hey, I'm not an economist, so what do I know?

assuming the culture of the host country is respected

That's a huge and unfounded assumption, though.

Lets say there are lot of would-be-immigrants willing to respect the culture of prospective host country, become "American person", "NZ person" etc... (this doesn't necessary mean assimilation), but they are denied to do so. We need to fix this.

I agree with you, but unfortunately, the real problem with immigration is that it's a war between traditional views that value the indigenous culture vs multicultural forces that consider the host culture to be irrelevant.

Poor souls like the author of this article are caught in the middle. They don't have representatives in the traditional views camp and the multicultural views camp considers them to be secondary since they're not as likely a voting block once they come in.

Culture can not be respected in fact. Even if people wish to do so.

The problem is that the thing is a moving target. When a lot of still alive people where born 'culture' was: 'a black woman was not supossed to sit in the best places of a bus', 'the children roam free with their friends and dogs and can go everywhere' and 'Is acceptable if I slap my wife in the face sometimes because I feel frustrated for the work'. Yes, this was a small part of the tradition not so long time ago.

Each generation have been educated in a different point of view about what was acceptable or not. What 'culture' should be honored for newcomers?. West coast 1966? Sometimes 'culture' is just plain wrong and should not be respected.

That's cherry picking. I'm talking about cultural basics like learning the country's history, learning the laws and the Constitution, free market capitalism, etc.

Just having an immigration system that is followed legally would be a lesson in culture that we've currently abandoned for political purposes.

It's an interesting issue. The right to move around freely seems more appealing than expecting people to be essentially imprisoned in their countries of citizenship. On the other hand, there are obviously billions of people living in poor and otherwise dis-functional countries, and if even a fraction decided to move to a country like New Zealand, you can imaging it becoming ridiculously overpopulated.

Alternatively, should we accept that population groups that have a higher birth rate should naturally dominate future generations, or is it acceptable to fence off certain parts of the world with lower birth rates and a better natural environment?

It's a very tough question to answer because it's very hard to predict. I have some model of the general effects of allowing greater immigration, but the predictive value of the model breaks down the more radical the change.

- I see letting in anyone with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree (or say anyone that anyone is willing to hire for more $40k a year) as basically having no downsides at all. Empirical data on immigration reveals that it has no impact on wages except at the very low end, among unskilled high-school dropouts.

- As you allow lower incomes, welfare tends to become an issue. Currently, people do not immigrate in the US for the welfare (illegal immigrants tend to be net taxpayers, even when including healthcare) but people do immigrate to Europe for the welfare, so it's something that happens. However, if you take a country like France (where I grew up in), welfare payments aren't the biggest drag on the economy. Taxation is high, but other places with similar levels of taxation fare much better. Regulatory drag, in particular in the job market is a much bigger concern. In turns, this creates unemployment which aggravates any welfare problem. Evidence shows that as societies become more culturally and ethnically mixed, they tend to be less and less in favor of welfare. So higher immigration of welfare seeking immigrants may undermine popular support for welfare. It's a whole other discussion, but I'd consider disappearance of state funded welfare as a good thing. In addition, it's also possible to selectively deny welfare to immigrants, or to require a twenty year residency period before becoming eligible.

- Political externalities are often mentioned. Won't immigrants vote for the same policies that made their home country a living hell? I find this doubtful for two reasons:

  a) The evidence points that in most democracies, the policies that end up being enacted are the ones favored by a wealthy elite, not the ones that have popular support. If you compare the actual policies of the US compared to the views of the median voter, they are strikingly better than you'd expect. How this comes to be is unclear, but the effect is important.

 b) The favorite political view of most people is the status quo, or some very minor version around it

Now getting to New Zealand. Assuming only honest hard working immigrant seeking a better life? You've cut out the work for me! I think you'd see a lot of high rises build up in New Zealand. Consider that the current population of New Zealand could fit in a circle 7 km in radius in a city with the density of New York. If Stewart Island was all built up, it could hold the entire population of Canada.

In practice, as more people would emigrate, real estate prices would appreciate, to the point where it wouldn't be economical for immigrants to come in, even if the borders were open.

So it hurts the "the very low end, among unskilled high-school dropouts."

Maybe we should not be hurting these people.

Not everyone with a bachalors degree is needed. There are plenty of Americans with bachalors that need work.

The effect measured was about -5%. On the other hand, for many, immigration is a matter of life and death.

For most immigration isn't life or death. For most it is about moving up economically. But whose interest do you value more citizens or non citizens?

There are about 200 countries/territories in the world. The isn't the only option and the US isn't obligate to take everyone.

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~jkennan/research/OpenBorders.pdf?ne...

And what if we don't consider having policies created and selected by a wealthy elite to be a good thing, and actually want the will of the masses to make policy? Or, in other words, what if we actually prefer democracy over plutocracy?

The debate the politicians in my state (Schleswig-Holstein, a state in Germany) had about this was really interesting, sadly it’s in German.

Essentially, it boils down to two issues:

Morally, we all are descendants of immigrants, or at least most.

Economically, most immigrants are willing to work hard. Combined with the fact that our society has a birth rate below replacement rate (1.3 vs. 2.1) we need immigrants just to keep our standard of living. And if we can give them a better life at the same time, it’s definitely great.

> Economically, most immigrants are willing to work hard.

`Hard' as in `cheaper' ?

'cheaper' is a comparison. 'hard' is not.

I don't think anyone wants salaries to go into free-fall but that's not a necessary result of easing immigration.

Isn't it? By definition wouldn't an increase in supply of talent for a given job decrease market wage for that talent unless it was already in a shortage (which we never really know until it's over)?

It would also decrease prices and thus raise living standards. Customers would then turn their attention to better goods and services, increasing the demand for labor. You're committing the lump of labor fallacy.

Think about it this way, if two countries were to merge, would everyone be worse off because of the increased competition on the job market? No, people would be better off due to the increased amount of trade.

How does that play out with increased consolidation and automation?

Sound logic, but it is not an automatically enforced one.

Take waste collectors, for example:

Very few people want to do it, very few people actually do it. And it is necessary. By our sound logic, their salaries should be soaring, but they're not.

On the other hand, take lawyers in the U.S. A huge number of people want to do it. A huge number of people ends up doing it (I think the number of lawyers tripled in 30 years, for a 40% increase in population), and compared to waste collection, it is not that necessary a profession. But the salaries don't follow. They have probably dropped compared to what a lawyer used to make in the 60's (I'm not sure), but those who end up doing it still make good money.

So it doesn't seem to be a law of nature that is enforced automatically.

What do you think?

but those who end up doing it still make good money

If they can land a good job or a partnership. Many struggle[0].

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/business/dealbook/burdened...

Interestingly waste collectors (garbos in Aussie slang) are well paid and it is quite a desirable job. They are also the hardest working government employees you see as they are given a route and when they have finished they can go home. Amazing how government can work when the structure is right.

Yes! There are certain countries that deal with these matters in a way that's alien to the rest of us. It appears that Japan has an interesting way, too.

As a side note, speaking of governement.. as a teenager, one of the books that were laying around was "The American Challenge" (Le Défi Américain) by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. It was a parallel between European countries and the U.S.A. It also addressed the Japanese and Swedish models, the technology gap (he warned that if Europe let the U.S. get ahead, there will be a time where the gap is simply too big to cross).

It is a very interesting book.

and they are quite efficient - I compare garbage collection here in Seattle to Adelaide and in Australia it's only one person per truck doing most of the work without leaving a cabin.

Yes this is what happens when you have well paid labor - you focus of labor efficiency.

I wish we could figure out a way of "garboing" council road crews. With them you see 5 people standing around watching the one poor apprentice do the work.

But there is also an increase in demand, those new works have money and want to spend it.

It balances out usually in the positive.

Yes. They make for nice replacement for "demanding" local workers.

Another frequently-cited benefit of opened borders is that -- for the most part -- current citizens own everything in this country, and stand to make a bit of cash if there's an influx of new faces looking to buy houses, used cars, rent rooms, etc etc etc.

I can only follow that argument if we're talking about citizens that already have assets. Increased competition for houses, used cars, and rentals will drive up prices, which is good news only if you own houses, cars, and rental property respectively.

Productivity is the root of all prosperity. Read this excellent article: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/02/always_keep_you..... Workers become on average ~20x more productive when they migrate to the first world. Because we are capital rich and we have sane government and law and order. Imagine if you were moved to Haiti and you got stuck there. How much could you contribute to society in Haiti? You could maybe slice some coconuts on the side of the road - is that gonna make the world a lot richer? Roadside sliced coconuts? Nah, much better for you to be in first world even if you're doing a low skilled job here like delivering catering to a high tech startup. That catering company is able to produce food much more efficiently, and in SF or NYC you're able to distribute it much more efficiently, and you're part of this souped-up economic engine that's changing the world. That's why they make 20x or up to 40x more (in the case of the extreme poor) when they migrate to the first world. It's better for everyone! Economists estimate that moving from the status quo to fully liberalized migration (i.e. open borders) would roughly double global gdp - that's an insane silver bullet. That's everyone getting way fucking richer in one fell swoop.

Please see my comment here for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

And that’s exactly why the politicians in my state were the first in europe to allow all refugees and asylum seekers to live and work like any citizen. Because that productivity increase also boosts the local economy.

I don't know that that's really true anymore.

Given that 50% of Americans have zero or a negative net worth, I think all it would do is further increase inequality.

Median net worth in the US, last I saw, was on the order of $45K -- since that value is > $0, its not the case that 50% of Americans have zero or a negative net worth.

> Another frequently-cited benefit of opened borders is that -- for the most part -- current citizens own everything in this country

This is not true. Very many things in this country are owned by entities that are not citizens -- foreign corporations and/or foreign individuals.

> and stand to make a bit of cash if there's an influx of new faces looking to buy houses, used cars, rent rooms, etc etc etc.

Sure, some people (some of whom are citizens) own things for which local demand and prices would increase with an influx of new people. Lots of citizens don't own much, and would be competing to purchase those things, and would suffer rather than benefit from the higher prices.

The benefit here is pretty much directly in proportion to current ownership of capital (just like the benefit from greater supply, and therefore lower prices, from labor.)

Productivity is the root of all prosperity. First read this excellent article: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2015/02/always_keep_you..... Workers become on average ~20x more productive when they migrate to the first world. Because we are capital rich and we have sane government and law and order. Imagine if you were moved to Haiti and you got stuck there. How much could you contribute to society in Haiti? You could maybe slice some coconuts on the side of the road - is that gonna make the world a lot richer? Roadside sliced coconuts? Nah, much better for you to be in first world even if you're doing a low skilled job here like delivering catering to a high tech startup. That catering company is able to produce food much more efficiently, and in SF or NYC you're able to distribute it much more efficiently, and you're part of this souped-up economic engine that's changing the world. That's why they make 20x or up to 40x more (in the case of the extreme poor) when they migrate to the first world. It's better for everyone! Economists estimate that moving from the status quo to fully liberalized migration (i.e. open borders) would roughly double global gdp - that's an insane silver bullet. That's everyone getting way fucking richer in one fell swoop.

Please see my comment here for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

You make the all too common mistake of confusing aggregate output growth with everyone getting richer. That's not a valid equivalence, as the 2001-2009 economic expansion in the US showed fairly dramatically, with the bottom three quintiles doing worse over the period of expansion, the fourth quintile mostly flat, and most of the gains in the to quintile (and, within that quintile, mostly in the top few percentiles.)

Aggregate growth doesn't mean everyone gets more; we have a system in which the major holders of capital are very good at capturing output growth.

Policies favoring aggregate growth aren't good for most people without policy reform that alters the way gains from such growth end up being distributed.

You do need immigrants, but you need them to be low level workers. Which explains the amount of unskilled people working in both Germany and the US legally, while high skilled immigrants can't get their foot through the door.

Japan is doing quite well without the insane immigration policies most of Western Europe has. It boggles my mind, how people came up with the idea of slowly replacing the native population with low-skilled immigrants for economic reasons and how that is still considered a good idea (despite all the obvious problems multiculturalism has shown to bring along in Europe).

All this current immigration system leads to is more Islam and more 3rd world in Europe.

I'm not the OP, but I mostly support the idea of open borders and I'm from Canada. Canada has many of the same issues that New Zealand has. We are the second largest country (by landmass) in the world, yet our population is slightly smaller than California. Much of our land is quite rugged, or very cold but our country is still capable of supporting more than the 35 million we currently have.

The best argument that I have ever heard against opening up our border is that we are big, but size does not equal the ability to support a decent quality of life. Some argue that if we open up our borders, dreams of higher incomes will compel lesser skilled people to move to Canada. These people often will not understand basic labour laws like minimum wage, or the need for benefits and so they will drive down the cost of labour. Others argue that adding even five million people sounds like a good idea, but that it would require massive investments in health care, housing, and basic infrastructure.

Like I said, I mostly support open borders but have never been too impressed by the moral arguments. Canada is a great country and I love it dearly, but I have spent a little too much in some bad neighbourhoods and become friends with too many unhappy immigrants. Rather, I would argue that we are an amazing country, but that many immigrants who bought into the hype, came here and live in poverty far worse than that which they escaped. I say 'far worse' because, while our social safety net is fairly good, it involves navigating an intense bureaucracy that is difficult for native English speakers and near impossible for immigrants, especially those with more limited English language skills. And, unfortunately, parts of our population are very anti-immigration and argue that they should 'stay home' instead of clogging up our social services.

Morally, I think that I could just as easily argue that we should stop all immigration entirely until we can do a better job of caring for the immigrants that we already have.

My all-time favourite argument in favour of opening up our immigration system is that it is one of the best chances that we have of saving our manufacturing industry. Since the 2008 financial crisis, much of the manufacturing industry has been in a horrible shambles and years later, factory jobs simply have not returned to eastern Canada. Factory jobs have mostly been a victim of cost and so the theory goes that opening up borders to lesser skilled people will drive down the cost of lower skilled labour. If you drive the cost of lower skilled labour down closer to minimum wage and get rid of the often union negotiated benefits, suddenly the cost disparity between producing in Canada versus China or Mexico looks a little better.

Another argument I love is that the last time our borders were mostly open, we allowed an influx of mostly eastern European people to come into our country. (My last name is Hluska and my great grandfather was one of them). There were some growing pains and for many people (my great grandfather included), the move to Canada was really difficult. However, after a few generations, these immigrants' children and grandchildren have become important entrepreneurs, business and political leaders.

So, the argument goes that in our history, mostly open borders lead to a difficult decade or two, but that the kind of person who will immigrate tends to be resourceful enough to bring enhanced opportunity for many generations after.

Opening the Canadian border would not magically bring jobs back that have been moved to low wage countries.

people failed to realize while still in time that the outsourcing of manufacturing would have destroyed the production chain of all related goods.

even if one were to reduce labor costs to china level, china has the infrastructure (technological and industrial) to build things and the countries that were abandoned 20 years ago do not, not anymore and not at the level they have.

it is not about, say, producing mobile phones or cars, it's about the steel and plastic they need. and at least all around my area all refineries and mills are long gone. even if we drive down labor prices, china is now technically more advanced than us and at a scale we would never reach.

Context for this argument: The US is still the largest manufacturer of goods in the world. But the number of people in the US involved in manufacturing has declined.

Of course it won't..and in no way did I imply that it would.

However, latest labour force survey indicated that ~ 1.7 million people still work in manufacturing. While this is the lowest number of manufacturing jobs in Canada since 1976, it still employees a relatively large percentage of our work force. The issue that worries economists is that a large percentage of our remaining manufacturers operate below capacity. When our dollar declined relative to the U.S. dollar, some economists thought it would slow the slide, but the issue remains that manufacturing still costs too many Canadian dollars. Since NAFTA prevents our government from directly subsidizing manufacturing (in most sectors), lowering labour cost is the best tonic left.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

"unhappy immigrants" - surely they're no where near as unhappy as the extreme poor. The moral case for opening the borders is an absolute slam dunk.

> Interesting that the author of this piece comes from New Zealand, because NZ is the country that often springs to mind when I think of a nation that might could change dramatically with open borders.

You might want to do some research about New Zealand's current housing crisis and other socio-economic issues (such as Māori being significantly over-represented in poverty statistics) before unilaterally advocating a country that you admit you have never been to and know nothing about (other than its size and population) open its borders because you won't have to deal with the consequences.

Why do you think I'm advocating this?

Open borders would enrich everyone, not just the immigrants or the poor. Please see my comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632. I live in SF where there's a "housing crisis". All it means is that a lot of people want to live here and so it's expensive. And NIMBY pieces of trash vote against high rise development so supply isn't allowed to naturally keep up with demand. It's not really a 'crisis', it's less than peanuts compared to the crisis of extreme poverty. Rich first worlders like you and me, we can deal, we'll be fine.

We haver good immigration numbers at the moment, and society is ever-changing for the better as we balance a healthy mix of cultures. The trick is to constrain the rate of immigration so that the infrastructre and society can adapt. As it is out biggest city, Auckland, is experiencing insanely high house prices that folks in the Bay area would grimace at. Aside from that it's a wonderful wonderful place to live, and the start-up ecosystem is thriving.

> As it is out biggest city, Auckland, is experiencing insanely high house prices that folks in the Bay area would grimace at.

I was a little surprised by this comment and wondered how true it actually was. According to Numbeo, rental prices in Auckland are 67% lower than SF. Likewise property purchase prices are between 66% and 71% lower on a price per square metre basis. Something worth noting these figures are for SF on average, not just the Bay Area.

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

Edit: Formattting

Absolutely they should. Open borders would enrich everyone, not just the immigrants and not just the poor. Please see my comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

I've spent about 8 years in Japan. I love parts of the culture (the good parts, not the bad parts). Things like the service ethic, politeness, safety, and the basic idea of "do whatever you want in your private life but don't put out anyone else while doing it."

My guess is that a massive influx of foreigners would likely destroy that culture.

Is there any way to open borders and still preserve a place's culture, at least the good parts, or is that just doomed?

No. Re: Sweden.

Lol, yeah, compare one of the most progressive countries in the world with Japan's nearly feudal traditions...

It wouldn't be doomed. Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

Your comment is very thought provoking but I don't agree the culture wouldn't be ruined nor do I agree it's a minor concern. It's already visibly being ruined by the massive influx of rude Chinese tourists.

Cultural enclaves don't say anything about crime like the fact that 19 times out of 20 if you lose your wallet in Japan you'll get it back with all the money in it. It's hard to imagine that would stay true with a much larger percent of non Japanese culture people.

The children of immigrants who grow up in the new culture learn it quickly and it becomes their own. American Chinese who grow up here behave just like white Americans. And BTW the Japanese thing you mentioned is likely almost entirely due to more efficient & convenient lost and found process: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/20140...

There are plenty of domestic groups opposed to open borders for high-skilled immigrants. Doctors, nurses, and others within the medical profession spring first to mind, and they are incredibly powerful politically. Ditto lawyers or really any other trade that controls its own barrier to entry via the certification process.

And let's not forget software engineers - just see what happens whenever H1-B comes up.

Doctors and Lawyers are already protected by the licensing requirements, why would they fear immigrants?

No, you're right. Lawyers are protected by their licensing requirements. However the medical profession does protect itself and is opposed to bringing in many foreign born nurses, medical staff, etc.

Lawyers have that nice shield that is the bar exam, but that is also de facto immigration since only ABA accredited schools qualify. So in one sense you're right, the legal profession does not need to lobby against high skilled immigration. However, the reason they don't need to isn't for any moral reason but rather because they can just lock out immigrants through non-legislative means.

Legal prohibitions on providing law-related services without officially qualifying as a lawyer aren't exactly non-legislative means.

I have never encountered any opposition to high-skill immigration among lawyers. There would be no point--entry into the profession is already gated by the JD/LLM/bar exam requirements. The problem is that getting a greencard requires your employer to prove that they can't find a qualified domestic candidate, which is difficult when large law firms take only 10-15% of the domestic JD graduating class each year and a third to half are unemployed.

While open borders is an ultimate goal, it would be a bit perilous to allow 'everyone who wanted to' to enter a given country, as things stand.

First, I think we should seek bilateral treaties such that we can enter their country as much as they can enter ours and that both parties have reciprocal rights. This should allow all parties entering an agreement to slowly stabilize, or reach some kind of equilibrium.

One of the downsides is that this adds to globalization and homogeneity of culture, language, etc. Although personally, I don't think that's a big problem --it's mostly an emotional issue rather than actual, but it's still an issue given how people cry 'globalization', 'imperialism', 'monoculture', 'mainstream', etc.

From Europe, where people share some culture, they never the less still experience integration issues where locals resent foreign populations, example France and polish workers, or Germany and Serbs or Turks, or Spaniards.

Maybe grant larger quotas based on population would be fairer and then harden the borders, else the closer neighbor has an unfair advantage. So say Italy booms, quotas would make living in Croatia no better than new Zealand or south Africa in terms of odds of getting into Italy (or Canada the US or Nigeria.) But politics would never allow a fair quota system to work.

> From Europe, where people share some culture, they never the less still experience integration issues where locals resent foreign populations, example France and polish workers, or Germany and Serbs or Turks, or Spaniards.

It's not really foreign populations per se. The resentment is really mostly socioeconomic. Nobody resents Persians in the Netherlands because the Persians who migrated here are mostly upper-class with a long tradition of higher education. Whereas the Turks you mentioned were considered guest laborers, Dutch companies literally drove busses to the poorest little villages in Turkey in the 60s and found the people with the least education, who couldn't read or write and had perhaps 2-3 years of primary education, then offered them a job working unskilled labour in a factory hoping they'd go back home after 10 years, basically the 1960s equivalent of off-shoring production to China at a pre-globalisation time when the factories were still back home.

Knowing what we know of lower-socioeconomic classes (higher rates of crime, lower rates of education, higher pregnancy rates, more conflict with authority etc etc), it's no real surprise it turned out this way. The sad thing is that in Europe the debate about these problems acts as if it's a cultural issue (e.g. Turkish culture or Islamic culture), when it's really a socioeconomic problem (taking the least educated people from an already poor country, putting them in factory housing and not teaching them the local language, and expecting them to go back home or thrive), not a cultural one. And this debate has essentially created tons of animosity because it invites all this 'class of civilisations' bs rhetoric and turns it into what in the US is referred to as a 'racial' problem.

In Europe it is a cultural issue also. There is a reason even Canada has Canadian content laws to protect from the onslaught of American music. It is not unreasonable for people to want to preserve culture.

>It is not unreasonable for people to want to preserve culture.

It has sentimental and historical value, but I don't think it's particularly important. We can argue cultural identity, but that's only important so long as there are various cultures. In a monoculture world, the idea of cultural identity would be a lost concept.

Cultural anthropology, which while highly interesting and informative of human relations, isn't very highly valued by most people. The jobs are in such low demand (and with such low salary) that I decided not to try and get a job as a cultural and linguistic anthropologist. Which, while I'd have loved the work and have found it interesting, I can't exactly say it has much "meaningful" merit.

As for CanCon laws, I've yet to speak to a Canadian that was supportive of them. I'm sure they exist - or the laws wouldn't. A large number of Canadian Netflix users mask their IP to be from America to get "better content" [0]. It seems that Canadian nationalism is mostly a 60's/70's generation thing.

[0] http://o.canada.com/technology/internet/thousands-of-canadia...

The reason people want to move to the US is the US's culture. The people share a wide agreement for rule of law, want to resolve issues through the political process, can usually be shamed into supporting freedom of speech, and don't want to kill their neighbors for having the wrong religion.

It's not something magical about the soil that makes people want to move to the US. It's the culture. The more people that can use it, the better, but add too many new people too fast and it suddenly stops working.

Certainly, that is not all of it. For example, I would think that many, many Mexicans mainly try to move to the US for the money.

> The reason people want to move to the US is the US's culture.

No dude, it's the money.

I have at least a dozen friends who are on H1Bs working in SV for different large software companies. They're either going there because that's where the best-paying jobs are or they're staying for just a couple of years to save some money.

It's the culture than enables the money.

If you were to beam all the Americans into space and them beam all the Mexicans into their place, they wouldn't magically achieve US levels of income just because of their physical location.

The culture doesn't enable the money. Historical reasons going far beyond that explain it very well, among them: the size of the internal American market, the amount and ease of investing capital within the US, leverage of the US government's global projection of power by its industries, ease of immigration (prior to this past decade's immense increase in difficulty for migrating legally for skilled migrants), etc etc.

It's true that just swapping people places right now would not substitute anything. But you can bet that the immense natural resources, available land and influx of immigrants through the 20th century have impacts as much, if not more, important than whatever contemporary cultural trends exist.

Natural resources don't guarantee success; conversely, lack of natural resources does not guarantee doom. Russia and Brazil on the one hand, and Japan and Britain on the other hand, tiny island nations, relatively speaking.

Culture has a lot to do with it. Brazil had the immigrants (and still does have LatAm immigrants). On the other hand Japan has been very averse to immigration.

It's absolutely not the culture and legal/political process. And occasionally Americans do seem to kill their neighbours for having the wrong religion or skin colour.

It's almost entirely money/opportunity. That drives everything.

Who have you been talking to?

Why do you think North Africans move to Europe and South Americans move to the US? Because it's the closest country with the best economic opportunities.

Economic immigration is huge. Cultural immigration is tiny.

In fact American culture is the joke of the world (its media can be consumed from wherever and is quite popular, but its values and policies on things like health care, sexual education, religion, crime etc are mocked by more than a few modern economies) and its institutions (e.g. ensuring freedom of speech, freedom of the press, gender equality, life expectancy, racism, gay rights) usually don't find themselves ranked among the top 20, let alone top 10 of countries.

In fact, it's one of the main reasons I wouldn't want to move to the US. I'm in the Netherlands, my partner is American, we could move anytime. But I much prefer the politics, institutions and culture here. (and it's far from perfect here).

I mean you write 'share a wide agreement for rule of law, want to resolve issues through the political process, can usually be shamed into supporting freedom of speech, and don't want to kill their neighbors for having the wrong religion' as if the US is unique in this regard. You write it as if the poorest people on the planet simply want to move to a country that 'doesn't kill its neighbours for having the right religion', as if this is the nr 1 thing on their mind, if only they could move to such a country! That's ridiculous, as opposed to wanting to move to the US for economic opportunities to get a decent standard of life for them and their family.

Culture is not totally benign. The export of America's culture has had a huge impact on the world, for better or worse. I think people who want to preserve their own culture have reasons aside from simple nostalgia.

Up and till approx the 40s we imported our culture from Europe -as did much of the rest of the economies of the world. American culture exports didn't become popular till the US became an economic power to contend with.

In Asia, however, the cultural exporters, at the moment, are Japan and Korea, not so much China, despite its economic size. Fortunately and unfortunately, Asia is more pragmatic about cultural imports. There isn't the OMG our indigenous culture is being subverted and devoured!!

The pragmatism is in the form of foreign ideas with Asian values which seems to make the ideas less problematic.

Never the less, I think in many places, it's uncertainty or inferiority and superiority complexes which give rise to ideas of wanting to preserve culture. A fear of change. In the US people lament the change in our culture for 'the worse', as some believe. In other places, similar local changes are interpreted as 'westernization'. But really, do they want to go to how their culture existed in 1900, for example?

Culture exports carry with them morals, ethics, and value systems. Different countries have different m/e/v, and they may not want America's. There's nothing to say America has the right set of m/e/v; hell, people bitch about America's puritanical nature on this very website all the time. In which case it's easy to see why a country might be concerned about importing America's culture, given the m/e/v that come with it.

> There isn't the OMG our indigenous culture is being subverted and devoured

South Korea has laws literally banning Japanese TV and music. One South Korean song was banned from broadcast because it had one Japanese word in it.

Those are politically motivated posturing. The masses, the consumers, they don't care the way people in some countries decry 'debased american/western culture which undermines our local spirit'.

Only slightly related, but for as much as Americans consider ourselves inextricably linked with Europe, we're much more similar both economically and culturally to South America. The average American's life looks a lot more like that of an office worker in Colombia or Brazil than it does someone in Berlin or London. This is likely because South American countries developed using the USA as a model, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Culturally the US is protestant leaning. Latam is culturally catholic. Latams see Spain as a cultural beacon, whereas the the U.S. now a beacon in its own right, used to have Britain and France as their cultural beacons --yes France was nominally catholic, but they culturally leaned protestant in many ways. They are more northern European than Mediterranean.

Also, while in the U.S. the so called 'old boys net' helps to get things done, in Latam there's something akin to Chinese guanxi (關係) in getting things done. Relationships are paramount and make corruption endemic and inextricable. It's quite diff from U.S. and euro culture.)))

Historically you are right, but as far as things like food, music, business attitudes, etc. there's a lot more common ground. Spain has also lost a lot of its cultural cache in recent years; many South American countries are better places to live at this point (well, unless you have enough money that you don't need a job, in which case Spain is one of the best places on earth).

If I had to pick one thing though, it's the outspoken gregariousness. Europeans are generally pretty reserved; you would never approach someone you didn't know and try to strike up a conversation. A European might tiptoe around a sensitive subject, while people from the USA or South America would be very opinionated and launch into an argument -- even if they don't know you very well.

Also, it doesn't hurt that everyone in South America basically shops at Wal-Mart (seriously, they are freaking everywhere; even more so than in the US).

And not so long ago, corruption was inextricable from business in the US and Europe as well. Trust-busting in the US in the early 1900s broke down the networks here, and WW2 smashed them across Europe, but similar rule-of-law revolutions haven't happened yet in other parts of the world. But they are starting to as the education level rises and the middle-class expands and demands a clean-up.

> Relationships are paramount and make corruption endemic and inextricable.

Well, in honor of the harsh reality USA have also is own quota of this cake, supporting some very shady people in South America in the last decades, like Pinochito for example...

In the US, relationships don't matter as much. They still matter for your career, but someone will do business with you as a way to start a relationship. In many places, the relationship is a prerequisite to doing business. If you don't have the relationship, you can usually just pay a bribe.

I wouldn't try to link the US' foreign policy to our cultural norms. Foreign policy exists in the realm of realpolitik, and every rational actor would likely behave the same way if they were in the US' place. When it comes to setting the global balance of power, anything and everything is fair game. This is why presidents customarily don't criticize those who come after them.

Please see all my comments elsewhere in this thread for context on this issue from someone who has read a lot about it. I've responded to the points you've brought up, but in different comments. Feel free to respond to me here.

Well, i'm glad you see open borders as an ultimate goal, kudos there, but why do you think its important for "bilateral treaties". Workers are engines of production. They're valuable. We want more of them. Even if they're poor, they can still produce value. Production is the root of all prosperity. So there's no harm in letting people come here at whatever rate is best for them - if it's a sensible move for them, that implies that their productivity (reflected by their income) is increasing. More productivity = more stuff = more stuff for everyone in the economy to enjoy. Again, there's no harm in letting people come. Only increased production. So we should definitely let in anyone who wants to come. And so should every other country. But if the other countries remain economically stupid / bigoted and want to keep valuable workers at bay, fine, doesn't mean we should make the same mistake. It's still hugely beneficial to us (and everyone) to let them come here unilaterally.

Please see my other comment in this thread for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

>So who's lobbying against this exactly?

About a decade ago I attended an internal presentation at Microsoft, made by a person who was lobbying immigration changes on behalf of that company. He explained this phenomenon - in some parts of the country the voting public does not have the attention span to listen long enough to make the distinction between "immigrants" and "high-skill immigrants". For that reason many politicians who are privately supportive of high-skill immigration still prefer not to try the patience of the voters, and come out against all immigration in public. Especially when there is an opponent who is ready to yell "he's soft on immigrants!".

Immigration is broken. But you cannot have open borders and a welfare system. It is completely unsustainable.

By that logic, you cannot have a welfare state without mandatory sterilization of the poor. Most will recoil in horror at this, and yet, the harm done by closed border is far greater (people are literally dying while eating dirt because they were born in the wrong country).

But that's beside the point since I was specifically addressing highly skilled immigration.

It's a major problem for Scandinavian countries right now, if you read the local news, its a big problem that many immigrants have a higher and satisfactory conditions of living on welfare compared to where they were from. They have little incentive to work when they are provided what they consider a high standard of living with no effort. It's caused quite a bit of backlash and "racism" in their otherwise progressive countries.

So no, sterilization isn't really an issue because what is considered high standards for living by the second generation go up, but for those based on the old standard, they end up leeching off the system where there is an unspoken social contract for natives that you contribute or always try to do better than the bare minimum and improve one's self. You can't assume that cultural value is instilled in immigrants from other countries, especially when the society has an honor system more or less based on that principal.

http://www.thelocal.se/20120907/43078 http://www.thelocal.se/20140829/reinfeldtrefugee-focus-puts-... http://www.thelocal.se/20131224/13060

The children of people on welfare are still more likely to end up on welfare. So why is not OK to let an immigrant in on the ground that he is likely to end up on welfare?

If a welfare system only works because people are culturally indoctrinated/shamed away from using it, then it's broken by design. Sure, it would be nice to have a culture in which people are disinclined to be supported by charity unless they absolutely need it (though that kind of shaming can also push people to avoid it even when they do need it). But at the same time, if that cultural disinclination is the only control on the welfare system, it's broken. The goal of any welfare system should be to prevent people from suffering or dying because something went horribly wrong; it's an insurance mechanism. Nobody should die just because they fell on a string of bad luck or circumstances; on the other hand, why should welfare support someone with piles of opportunities available but no inclination to pursue them?

That's how a functioning society works, you're shamed away from unnecessarily doing lots of things that create a burden on others. Littering for example. It creates a burden on society to clean up after others.

There isn't shame in using welfare as a safety net, its there to catch you from following in to absolute destitution from which there is no climbing out of in many cases. There is shame or stigma with staying on it and not finding work, or not retraining to find work. Their is shame in unnecessary long term dependency of an able bodied person being on it. There is shame if everyone just up and decided everything I want is already being paid for, why should I bother. That's abuse, by doing so, you take away from others who truly need welfare to survive and aren't capable of finding work or disabled, you take money from other areas that need it like healthcare, parental leave, education, etc. That's finding a candy jar of free candy and just dumping all the candy in your pocket.

There is no welfare system in existence, theoretical or otherwise that could sustain a disproportionally large number of people dependent on it by active choice, where there is more being taken out then being paid into it. There isn't a socialist democracy that can function that way.

Other than the fact that littering is typically a legal offense (albeit an extremely minor one, as it should be), I think you're saying exactly the same thing.

A safety net is exactly what a welfare or other charity system should be. I'm simply suggesting that ensuring it's no more than a safety net should be backed up by more than just shame.

To be clear, the reason to not do something wrong shouldn't just be "because I'll get in legal trouble if I do"; laws should reflect morality. But that needs to be around as a backup for the sadly large number of people who will only pay attention to that and nothing less. Some people avoid littering because it's wrong and disrepectful to others; others avoid littering because it's illegal and will cost them a fine. Some people avoid drinking and driving because it could hurt or kill people; others only avoid it because it's illegal. Some people turn down charity because they actively want to be self-sufficient and contribute something; others will only do so if it is limited to need.

> There is no welfare system in existence, theoretical or otherwise that could sustain a disproportionally large number of people dependent on it by active choice, where there is more being taken out then being paid into it. There isn't a socialist democracy that can function that way.

Agreed completely. There isn't any governmental or societal system that can function that way.

you take money from other areas that need it like healthcare, parental leave, education, etc.

That's a truism. Investing money in one sector necessarily means it doesn't go to another. All that money spent on education is one that isn't going to space research, but most people would find that sort of statement abhorrent.

basic income, basic income, basic income. In the US there are a lot of cliffs in the support system. make over 10k? ok, you get nothing for support. This creates a terrible effect where people are unwilling to even try.

I think the key is picking a bare minimum standard, and any work beyond that is better. People need the incentive. Maybe it's just to buy booze, who cares? Working 5 hours a week must be better than actively avoiding work.

(perhaps not basic income, but that captures the idea of incentive to work while providing a worst-case floor for people. Perhaps the Scandinavian floor is unsustainably high.)

The non-workers still contribute to the economy with rent, food, bills, they're just horribly inefficient. Furthermore, 1 J.K. Rowling offsets a whole lot of people who actively avoid contributing. The possibility to live in poverty and create art has some pretty profound cultural effects.

I'll support my taxes being raised to pay for more wage subsidy for the working poor.

I won't support my taxes going up in order to let people stay home and not work. I wouldn't even pay for that for my own kids, I'm surely not going to do it for some stranger's kids.

There will always be lazy fucks who try to game the system. It's important to structure the system to ensure they're worse off than anyone else. Really, i think those people are very rare. If mom lets you live in the basement so you can masterbate and play video games all day, ok. but that's on mom, not us.

There are three cases that are far far more common, i'd guess 2-3 orders of magnitude. First, the person having a bad time. We've all worked with the guy who got cancer, or is going through a bad divorce, who just becomes worthless at work. Not everyone gets that bad, but some people can't keep it together. Those folks just need some time. In a year or two they'll get back on their feet and be amazing productive members of society.

Two, the crazy homeless guy. Part of that is not really being capable of asking for the help they need. I'm not sure what fraction are (i hate to say it this way, but there it is) fixable. I do know that getting drunk, passing out when it's 10 below, and going to the hospital consumes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Third, it's not true of everyone, but there are certainly people that just can't work. Hellen Keller, perhaps some disabled veterans. Maybe someday, but there's no hope today.

A zero tolerance policy might be best. I'd say, we're better off as a civilization recovering as many people as we can, and just suck up the fraud caused by the handful of losers. I don't know how to avoid that, but i agree with you, fuck that guy.

When they make enough money, do you un-sterilize them?

It's called RISUG. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_inhibition_of_sperm...

I suspect you'll find that scrotal swelling, albumin in your urine, and being coerced in to medical procedures tends to decrease people's acceptance of tax-funded public assistance.

"Poor" isn't an intrinsic human attribute, it's a bad thing that happens to people. Forcing someone who's paid taxes for 20 years to undergo a forced medical procedure in order to benefit from the programs they helped directly fund is insane.

The federal budget comes primarily from personal and corporate income tax. Sure, there's a little bit from other sources like excise taxes, but those are a drop in the bucket.

Open borders means the US should make it trivial to get a tax id and work. Fundamentally, that's what people want to do anyway, work. Some people may get small handouts for food, or perhaps more expensive handouts for healthcare. The dominating factor by far is the infrastructure. good roads, reliable power, access to good food and clean water, contract enforcement. That stuff costs way way more than a $50 food stamp.

You'd be hard pressed to find an economist that thinks adding more people to the market makes the market worse. I understand the concerns about open borders, but making things so fabulously difficult is just blindingly stupid. If people want to come and work, it's literally better for everyone.

You seem to have a pretty good head for economics. Let me point you to my other comment in this thread for some more info on this important topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

It's more sustainable if you have US style welfare where benefits are things like wage subsidies, for a limited duration after employment, or in kind in some way like Medicaid or food stamps.

EDIT: I think I should point out that the tradeoff is that this way of doing welfare is less efficient but requires less trust.

Sure you can... you just have to not extend those benefits in full to new migrants. Europe seems slowly moving in that direction in response to this exact problem, though it's not straightforward as the current jurisprudence seems to regard this as an infringement on EU citizens' freedom of movement.

When going through the US immigration system, as part of the green card application you need to specify a sponsor who will be responsible for you financially if you hit hardship. As an immigrant, you do not get welfare in the US.

Source: US immigrant, did the paperwork.

That's not an answer to the point above. Having people who live in our society but are ineligible for our social benefits is harmful and destabilizing to us.

Also note that people who are in the US on nonimmigrant visas still have to pay SSDI taxes, even though they are ineligible for the benefits. (Though they get to count them towards the time needed for sponsorship if they become immigrants.)

Depending on the state non-immigrants may be eligible if they've paid into the system as generally the state benefits are for state residents, a status that even as a non-immigrant you qualify for.

However most visa categories require you to leave the US within ten days if you no longer meet the visa requirements. So it's difficult to claim said benefits without messing up your future immigration chances.

I've never, ever heard of any Federal, State, or local governmental agency suing a sponsor to enforce an affidavit of support.

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone else has.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/obligations-affidavit-su... - This details at least one court case of USCIS enforcing an Affidavit of Support, and was literally the first Google result on which I clicked. They do mention that it's rare, but it happens.

No, that's an immigrant enforcing the affidavit of support as a third party beneficiary against the sponsor, I've heard of cases like that, though they are relatively rare.

What I was talking about was where a government agency sues to recoup funds when a beneficiary uses in a means tested program. That I've never seen and google doesn't seem to come up with any examples.

Fair enough.

It's never enforced even though countless immigrants apply for mean-tested benefits. One more piece of dysfunctional immigration system.

Just out of curiosity, can you sketch out some back-of-napkin numbers that would actually show how it's unsustainable?

Wrong wrong wrong.

Reality check: (1) Immigrants are actually NET CONTRIBUTORS to the welfare system. (2) Immigrants (at least the poor ones you're apparently worried about) are hard-working and yearn for financial stability; leisure is an utterly alien concept to them. (3) As societies become more heterogenous, welfare systems decline, because of inherent racism/xenophobia. The various elements of the population don't want to contribute to welfare cause they don't feel in communion with those "others". (4) If the welfare system becomes overburdened, I say Great! It just forces us to fix our broken system sooner than we otherwise would have. (Although again mainly because of my points 1 and 2 this would never happen.) (5) We can charge immigrants an entry fee, or a tax premium, or we can exclude them from benefits altogether. Any of those options would be vastly more humane than the status quo where we keep these foreigners trapped in their unproductive backwaters making ~$1 a day, starving.

Please see my other comment on this thread here for more info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

Moral imperatives do not always correlate with survival imperatives. I'm not going to say whether or not I believe in immigration, but there are two things I will say:

1. Arguments against immigration stem not from moral imperatives, but from survival instinct.

2. If we open up immigration, America as we know it will change dramatically, in either a good or bad way. I think what we have now is already pretty good, so why change the status quo?

You seem to be talking exclusively about the survival of the American economy, rather than then the survival of humankind.

You seem to be talking exclusively about the comfort of well-educated people who would prefer to live in the US and have the resources to emigrate, rather than the survival of humankind.

Let me make it utterly clear: I am absolutely talking only about the survival of the American economy.

I'm a descendent of immigrants born to poor circumstances. I'm lucky to be here as a result of getting past strict immigration policies. But I gotta be real, If America tried to "save" every one on the face of the earth by letting everyone in need into this country, we'd probably triple our population, and change the state of everything.

Firstly, America as we know it has been changing dramatically and continuously since its inception. I don't see anyone mourning the loss of the Bourbon Democrats or tariff acts, but suffice to say they aren't here anymore.

Secondly, what are you referring to by "what we have now"? Immigration law in particular, or U.S. policy on a macro level?

>Firstly, America as we know it has been changing dramatically and continuously since its inception. I don't see anyone mourning the loss of the Bourbon Democrats or tariff acts, but suffice to say they aren't here anymore.

It's been changing, sure, but the change you address is different from the change of say dropping a nuclear bomb on all our major cities or discovering sources of unlimited, zero-emission energy. The change I'm talking about, which is eliminating immigration law completely by making ANYONE able to come here is entirely different from the "continuos change since inception" that you're addressing.

By "what we have now" I mean the state of everything as it is today. The economy, the people, our values, our resources. When you increase the population and let ANYONE in, all of these things will change.

Whatever "what we have now" is, it is good, by assumption, because people are trying to get into it.

Therefore it's worth asking if that "whatever it is" will remain good in the face of any proposed changes.

If a nation faces some future peril due to some degree of overpopulation, while the world as a whole faces greater future peril due to a markedly larger degree of overpopulation, then the people of that nation are likely better off not opening their borders. I have yet to decide whether the present situation of the USA fits this description, but it is at least not far fetched.

Those who don't want the wages for "highly-skilled" jobs depressed to sub-lower-middle-class levels?

> I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative

Or close them. The moral imperative is to have a consistent and fair rules. You can't really be the US and let people live for decades in a grey state with all the obligations of a citizen but little of the rights. You take them in or not but that should a quick and permanent decision (i.e. no 3 year limit nonsense)

That's by the way not a US-only problem. That is the same in the UK and most of Europe, even worse, I believe, in Japan.

Using a lottery system for skilled workers tends to select from the world's wealthiest people, too. So if you think inequality is a problem now... On the other hand opening borders would create a stampede. Pretty sure that would cause a completely different set of social problems.

"open borders" doesn't have to mean you open them overnight. You can attenuate the flow to a rate that's manageable to keep up with, to give the various infrastructure a chance to grow/adapt to meet the influx. You've attacked a straw man.

Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

Opening borders works for multicultural countries built on immigration. For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging.

He's referring to america... and I have to disagree.

What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs? Culture is probably worth preserving, but often culture is simply "the way it's always been" -- I'd argue the opposite, bringing different cultures together, if done right, will promote creating new culture that make more sense for today's reality, and not some 19th century status quo. Creation of culture is more important, imo, than maintaining culture -- as the latter can be done with history books while the former is a real policy that might enrich the lives of citizens.

While I agree with this in theory, I'm going to point you to this fascinating piece on some of the ongoing problems that the French tradition of republican laicity is facing from Muslim immigrants, as a general illustration of the conflicts involved:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/mar/05/france-...

In summary: the very culture of tolerance and openness towards others itself is sometimes threatened by those it wishes to welcome, and that's a hard problem to solve.

So there is no value in a uniquely Norwegian culture? Or Korean? Or Japanese?

One of the side effects of totally open borders is that human culture might homogenize, with strong bias toward the developing world where birthrates are exceptionally high. I think Indian and Bangladeshi culture are both wonderful, however I do not think they are necessary worth more than Norwegian, Japanese, etc.

> What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs?

If you're from a country that has a great history and traditions, and you are ethnically related to that, then your DNA constitutes a cultural artifact, just like some carving in a museum in your capital city or a traditional folk song. Through ancestry, you are related to the people who made those things.

It would be stupidly inconsistent to preserve those other artifacts, yet to deny that your living DNA has value in connection with them.

Chesterson's fence.

There is something about the US that makes it desirable for people to move to the US. When proposing changes to the US, you need to wonder about that that thing is, so you can figure out if/how it will be changed by your new policy.

> For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging.

Let's take those one at a time.

Language: Sure, granted, there's a tendency to gravitate towards more common languages. Arguably that's a net benefit for people who would otherwise have grown up only speaking a less common language; learning a more common language grants access to a much larger set of speakers, information, and opportunities. That said, language doesn't tend to be lost, just not kept as an exclusive cultural barrier. Witness the massive efforts to internationalize information, to improve accessibility. And it's still common in many countries to look down upon anyone not speaking the native language, if that can be considered a feature.

Ethnicity: What do you have in mind other than language and culture, here? Because I hope you're not suggesting "racial purity" as a property worth preserving.

Finally, culture: Only if that culture is unable to propagate itself on its own merits, or in other words, if that culture has merits worth propagating. Some cultures have incredible history and traditions, and those have typically been preserved and spread further than they ever would have been otherwise. On the other hand, there are cultures built on oppression, indoctrination, suppression of dissent, lack of opportunity, and other undesirable properties; those cultures don't tend to survive exposure to broader information and the outside world (as well as the visibility of those cultures and their traditions to the outside world), which is all the more reason for such exposure. Not all traditions are worth preserving.

> propagate itself on its own merits

You're right that not all traditions are worth preserving, but Darwinism isn't the best way to choose which traditions are worth preserving. The problem is that ability to propagate does not imply merit. If you put a bad guy and a good guy in a room together, sometimes the bad guy just beats up the good guy, and you realize that you shouldn't have put them together. This is the same kind of fallacy as "if a company went out of business, it must've been a bad company", and also "the invisible hand of gravity means it's good that the vase broke".

For example, there's tons of cultures that think murder for personal grievances is okay and praise-worthy. I've seen first hand what happens when such a culture meets a gentle Western culture, when the latter doesn't have an overwhelming force advantage. It's not pretty.

Some people in a small, homogeneous country might feel hat their traditions are worth preserving. Theirs is the voice that matters.

You can't hold a global referendum on that, because their votes would be vastly outnumbered by those who don't care or who want to trample on them and help themselves to their resources or whatever.

> Some people in a small, homogeneous country might feel hat their traditions are worth preserving. Theirs is the voice that matters.

Some cultures have long and proud traditions of oppression, suppression, subjugation, racism, sexism, murder, genocide, and similar; those cultures don't get a vote in whether to continue those traditions.

But with the exception of that, then of course, any culture gets to choose whether it wants to (collectively, rather than just individually) participate and interact with the rest of the world.

And this has nothing to do with resources; we're talking about culture and traditions here, not about land and strip-mining.

You can't hold a global referendum on that, because their votes would be vastly outnumbered by those who don't care or who want to trample on them and help themselves to their resources or whatever.

Eh, that's just cultural conservatism, the rallying cry of racists and skinheads the world over. Are you also afraid they might marry your women and corrupt your children?

It's really quite fascinating... Europe, for generations, colonized the rest of the world, imposing their own cultures on indigenous populations (and I say that as a Canadian... we spent 100 years trying to wipe out our own indigenous population).

Now that the tables are turning and Europeans are struggling with immigration into their own countries, violent xenophobia is springing up like a vile weed.

Ironic, really.

Now, that's not to say large, unintegrated (and note, I say unintegrated, not unassimilated... those are different things) immigrant populations aren't a challenge. They most definitely are. Any isolated population, particularly if they're disconnected from government, law enforcement, or the social safety net, are a difficult challenge (my own city struggles with pockets of unintegrated north african immigrant populations, for example). But it's a challenge xenophobic europeans created for themselves, by allowing these immigrant populations to remain isolated in the first place... ironically, in part specifically because of that very xenophobia.

> It's really quite fascinating... Europe, for generations, colonized the rest of the world, imposing their own cultures on indigenous populations (and I say that as a Canadian... we spent 100 years trying to wipe out our own indigenous population).

> Now that the tables are turning and Europeans are struggling with immigration into their own countries, violent xenophobia is springing up like a vile weed.

> Ironic, really.

Why? Do you think the indigenous populations meekly surrendered to the Europeans? They fought and lost (some because of diseases, some because of inferior weaponry). The Europeans are now are superior in weaponry, they have working (in theory) immigration controls. Why is it wrong if they fight?

(note: I am not European. From a former European colony.).

I'm not suggesting darwinism here, just availability of information. Assuming information or communication is not being actively suppressed (e.g. the Great Firewall), then it's up to individuals what culture(s) and traditions they want to uphold.

Social pressure and influence. I could feel myself changing when moving between Norway and Germany. I have the same amount of information, but I involuntarily adjust to my environment. I don't like everything about Norwegian culture (it makes your life a bit boring), but I like a lot of it.

Damaging in what sense?

A problem being, if you open the door, you don't control who comes through. I am totally against an open borders policy.

Before you open the national border, you have to start small!

First, get everyone not to lock their front door. Then, ban all fences and "no trespassing" signs.

If that pilot program is successful, then think about opening the borders.

It occurs to me that any country that opens its borders will be instantly flooded with every murderous scumbag that is fleeing from the law elsewhere. You will also be an instant transfer point for the trade of weapons, narcotics and so on. Not to mention human trafficking.

I guess how you deal with that is that you open your border to foreign law enforcement and give them a carte blanche about to conduct their investigation how they see fit, and make arrests.

Speaking of arrests, open borders means that someone can sneak into your country, kidnap someone, and sneak out.

Fallacy, fallacy, fallacy, fallacy. Oh, I lost count.

Private property != public property. There are things called roads, parks, forests that are public - these spaces are designed for common use. Separately, there is private property. Like your house or your real estate. That's yours. Just for you.

Open borders is about removing borders between our public spaces. Allowing one to drive from e.g. a US road to a Mexican road without a passport. Open borders isn't about letting someone stay in your house. It's about letting someone rent or buy a house in America and inhabit what would then be their private property. It's about letting them take a job in a foreign country or hire a foreigner to work in their business.

See my other two comments for more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

You didn't answer the question.

The claim was "countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, [immigration] is damaging."

Again, I ask the question: damaging in what sense?

Just guessing here: instability, differing expectations, increased costs to everybody thru inefficiencies. It becomes hard to predict what folks will consider fair, adequate government services. Result is a lowering of standard of living for those in the dominant cultural group.

No, he actually answered the question elsewhere: cultural dilution. He's afraid these foreigners might somehow pollute or destroy his culture.

'course, when you get right down to it, it's just bald faced xenophobia, dressed up in nationalist rhetoric.

That's harsh. What if I proposed to destroy a culture, say Judaism, by dilution? Would that be ok? Why is it not OK that this guy wants to preserve his?

Your example specifically contradicts your point.

Judaism is alive and well as a minority group in many many parts of the world. "Dilution" has never threatened the existence of Judaism.

The one thing that did was actual genocide, as a result of racism and xenophobia because of fear that the Jews, the minority group, were destroying German culture. Go figure.

But a few immigrants? I think Judaism, or really any culture, is stronger than that.

Another interesting example is indigenous populations in Canada, Australia, and the US. Those cultures have remained strong with the exception of those where active attempts to extinguish them have occurred. The Canadian residential school system is a disgusting, shameful example of the latter.

Frankly, I'd be very interested to see an example where simple "dilution" has actually led to the destruction of a culture. I can't think of one.

I like that idea, that dilution strengthens rather that weakens. Comes down to what's really important to a culture, and what's incidental. And fear of change. A much healthier attitude than 'resist change at any cost'.

Question: why don't the immigrants just declare themselves Americans wherever in the world they are? Why do they need to cross the border?

If the person you are talking about is such a horrible person, and there are so many horrible people like him in America, why do you want more people to be subjected to them?

I don't understand your point.

I never once claimed folks with these extreme xenophobic views represent any kind of majority in any given nation. They're a vocal, often violent minority. Their voices are getting louder these days, but so it goes with squeaky wheels.

I also never once claimed he was American. In fact, if I had to make a guess, I'd say he's a right wing European. But that's just a guess and isn't terribly relevant.

If you accept that the language, ethnicity, and culture are valuable parts of that country-

Such a country can assimilate some number of immigrants each year while remaining mostly unchanged. The immigrants learn the language, the culture, and marry into native families.

But as you increase the number of immigrants, the country can no longer assimilate them. They don't all learn the language, they don't know the culture, they form social cliques with other immigrants from the same country. They begin to change the face of the host country.

Personally I've never been thrilled by immigrants who say "Elbonia sucks, let's go to another country that is better and make Little Elbonia".

So?

Things change. That's called life. To assume all nations and all cultures remain static over time is absurd. Hell, the nations as they are defined today are a very recent phenomenon. Some have only existed for a few decades!

The host country will become a new, different, more diverse country. That doesn't mean the culture of the host country is completely destroyed. Altered, yes. Destroyed? Almost certainly not.

And the detrimental effects can be mitigated if the host country works to actively integrate (note, integrate, not necessarily assimilate) immigrant populations, rather than isolating them through xenophobic policy and politics. It's the very fear of change that exacerbates the challenges of immigration.

As an aside, your characterization of immigrants as from "Elbonia" coming to make a "little Elbonia" is precisely the kind of xenophobic tendency I'm talking about. I'm sure folks said the same thing when Little Italy or China Town showed up in New York City, and yet today those areas are considered cultural jewels, contributions to society rather than infections that must be dealt with, components that have been integrated into a modern American identity.

Maybe don't assume immigrants are foreign invaders and they'll be more likely to integrate rather than isolate...

So your argument seems to be "that damage is part of life, deal with it". That's fine, I was just trying to answer your question:

damaging in what sense?

I don't assume all immigrants are foreign invaders, thank you very much. On the other hand, I have known some immigrants who expressly wanted to get rid of the people in the town they had just moved to and import their old country's people, culture, and government. That's not my characterization, that's what was said.

China Town et al are great because they are integrated. You don't have to be from China to go there. But not every immigrant wants to integrate. Does that mean we repel all immigrants? No! Does that mean we embrace every immigrant no matter what? Also no. I see no reason to welcome people who want me gone, and say as much to my face.

It is possible to understand both these realities at the same time. We don't need to get all black-and-white, "all immigrants are evil" or "all immigrants are God's gift".

I have known some immigrants who expressly wanted to get rid of the people in the town they had just moved to and import their old country's people, culture, and government

And what percentage of immigrants do you suppose those folks actually represent?

Are they really such a large group of people that they could actively "damage" a culture? Are they really so large a group that they could actually "dilute" the culture of the host country?

Again, I already concede, dealing with unintegrated immigrant groups is unquestionably a challenge (though it's notable those same challenges occur with local minority populations and the poor). You'd be a fool to believe otherwise.

But this narrative, that small, homogeneous countries are in danger of being overrun by an immigrant horde hell bent on reinventing their home country within the borders of the host nation strikes me as nothing more than rhetoric, a caricature, and nothing more.

Ultimately, I agree, immigrants are neither evil nor "God's gift". They're just people. Some of them are good. Some of them not so much. But I'm willing to bet the vast majority don't have cultural occupation on the top of their list of personal ambitions. Like all people they have more important things on their minds... jobs, family, food, a roof over their heads, those basic things that we all have in common.

"There's not enough of those types for them to cause damage" is not an unreasonable line of argument. One could argue it's OK to admit them because they will get nowhere.

The "immigrant horde hell bent on reinventing their home country" is not the narrative I was trying to present. I was mostly talking about the simple fact that a small homogeneous country that admits a very large number of immigrants (of any type, wanting to integrate or not) will be unable to integrate them all without experiencing significant change, which is concerning to some people. (You have already shared you believe it is a real effect but 'too bad'. I am clear there)

Uh, you can get smuggled into the US via the Mexican borders for like a couple thousand bucks. There's a whole industry around this. The people who do the smuggling are called 'coyotes". Any serious terrorist is already here, via that border.

Also, so what if anyone can come and go. You live in a town or city, right? So the adjacent towns, they let you just waltz in and out of them right? They "don't control who comes through." Is that so terrible? Do you think your town should have a big wall around it and strict security cause you're worried about a potential fugitive slipping in? No, that's stupid. It's just a really inefficient/cumbersome way to deal with the problem of criminals. Instead, you leave society open and free, and when a criminal pops up, you track him down, arrest him, stick him in jail or whatever. You don't wrap everything up with giant walls and security just cause sometimes there are criminals.

"I'm totally against an open borders policy." That's cause you're severely underinformed. Please see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

So under open-borders policies, how do you control the spread of epidemic diseases? How are quarantines imposed?

Unless the center of your argument is based on race, every country would have to ban Netflix, McDonalds and Hollywood movies.

Not only is that false, but no country would have to ban tourism or immigration. (Not having "open borders" doesn't add up to such bans).

> For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging.

Where are these places? Very few countries are based on a unique language, ethnicity, or culture, and those that are have generally only become so as a result of active suppression of minority cultures and languages.

In fact, apart from a few microstates and isolated islands, I can't really think of any monocultural nations.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769826

Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

Opening borders is not controversial. It's a dumb idea.

The problem with your question is that you assume that all policy is driven by lobbying by big business. Political ideology and voter sentiment are also drivers of policy.

Other explanations are inertia (the system started out restrictive, and has been gradually loosened), or appeal to voters regarding either jobs or general dislike of immigration.

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