Sunday, November 21, 2010 IMMIGRATION

Transcription

1 IMMIGRATION

2 THE SECOND GREAT WAVE

3 RECENT TRENDS

4 ABSOLUTE & RELATIVE NUMBERS

5 FOREIGN-BORN

6 RECENT TRENDS

7 TRENDS: UK

8 IMMIGRATION PATTERNS

9 IMMIGRATION PATTERNS

10 IMMIGRATION PATTERNS

11 IMMIGRATION EXPLORER

12 IMMIGRATION RATE

13 POPULATION

14 ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF IMMIGRATION Deontological: The state has a duty to noncitizens as well as citizens Consequentialist: Immigration promotes the welfare of native and nonnative populations

15 DEONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS

16 PURPOSE OF THE STATE To protect its citizens (Locke: life, health, liberty, property) To promote their welfare (Rousseau: general will; Bentham, Mill: utility) To represent them to the world (Dummett)

17 COLLECTIVE OBLIGATIONS Citizens of a state may have, collectively, obligations to citizens of other countries Collective selfishness is no more admirable a quality than individual selfishness.

18 COLLECTIVE OBLIGATIONS Actions of one country may have effects on others Foreign policy actions: war, boycotts, trade policies, immigration policies Internal, domestic decisions: energy use, consumption patterns

19 SOVEREIGNTY National sovereignty: countries should not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries Can we interfere in the internal affairs of other families? Other individuals?

20 HUMAN RIGHTS Foundation of state s obligations to noncitizens: they are human beings We can t restrict our obligations to ourselves, our friends, our families, our fellow citizens

21 ASYLUM States have a duty to the persecuted They may not refuse them entry But if so, countries do not have a right to keep others out

22 RIGHT TO EMIGRATE Everyone has a right to emigrate to leave their country Social contract: legitimacy depends on consent If people have a right to emigrate, then we can assume consent; they have stayed voluntarily So, we can legitimately subject them to the law

23 RIGHT TO IMMIGRATE Right to emigrate > right to immigrate If people have a right to leave, someone must have an obligation to take them in (at least in a world in which there is no more frontier)

24 CONSEQUENTIALIST ARGUMENTS

25 FREE MARKET ARGUMENT Free economic exchanges maximize well-being This requires freedom of economic decision-making It requires free trade across borders It requires free movement of people across borders

26 IMPROVEMENT You had a flood of immigrants, millions of them, coming to this country. What brought them here? It was the hope for a better life for them and their children. And, in the main, they succeeded. It is hard to find any century in history, in which so large a number of people experience so great an improvement in the conditions of their life, in the opportunities open to them, as in the period of the 19th and early 20th century.

27 MUTUAL BENEFITS If you have free immigration, in the way we had it before 1914, everybody benefited. The people who were here benefited. The people who came benefited. Because nobody would come unless he, or his family, thought he would do better here than he would elsewhere. And, the new immigrants provided additional resources, provided additional possibilities for the people already here. So everybody can mutually benefit.

28 IMMIGRATION Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today? Well, there is a sense in which that answer is right. There s a sense in which free immigration, in the same sense as we had it before 1914 is not possible today. Why not?

29 IMMIGRATION & WELFARE Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both. If you have a welfare state, if you have a state in which every resident is promised a certain minimal level of income, or a minimum level of subsistence, regardless of whether he works or not, produces it or not. Then it really is an impossible thing.

30 ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION...Mexican immigration, over the border, is a good thing. It s a good thing for the illegal immigrants. It s a good thing for the United States. It s a good thing for the citizens of the country. But, it s only good so long as its illegal.

31 ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION That s an interesting paradox to think about. Make it legal and it s no good. Why? Because as long as it s illegal the people who come in do not qualify for welfare, they don t qualify for social security, they don t qualify for the other myriad of benefits that we pour out from our left pocket to our right pocket. So long as they don t qualify they migrate to jobs. They take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take. They provide employers with the kind of workers that they cannot get. They re hard workers, they re good workers, and they are clearly better off.

32 IMMIGRATION FACTS Skills of successive waves of immigrants gave gradually declined Economic assimilation doesn t occur rapidly Immigrants tend to earn less than natives throughout their entire lives Those patterns persist in later generations

33 IMMIGRATION FACTS Immigration of less-skilled workers probably reduces the opportunities of lessskilled natives New immigrants have relatively high rates of welfare use (50% higher than natives)

34 IMMIGRATION FACTS Immigration brings economic benefits Those benefits are relatively small (.1% GDP?) Redistribute wealth: from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants services

35 STATE S OBLIGATIONS The state s primary obligation is to protect the welfare of its citizens It may have other obligations, but obligations to its citizens come first What kind of immigration policy would do protect citizens welfare?

36 SKILLED IMMIGRANTS This suggests an argument against admitting lowskilled workers, but in favor of those with higher levels of skill

37 SKILLED IMMIGRANTS Skilled immigrants earn more, pay higher taxes, require fewer social services than less-skilled immigrants Skilled immigration increases the after-tax income of natives Skilled immigration is a good investment

38 SKILLED IMMIGRANTS Many industries (especially high-tech industries) depend heavily on getting the world s best talent International competition makes it more important than ever to recruit people from all across the globe

39 PRODUCTIVITY Economic gains depend on improvements in productivity High-skilled workers raise the average level of productivity They bring in skills, knowledge, experience, abilities that natives lack

40 DIVERSITY Immigrants benefit when they mix with native population They lag behind when they remain in ethnic enclaves Diversity in immigration: diverse mix of national origins No nation should dominate the immigrant flow