No Offense, But Immigration Isn't All Good
Trump tried to build a wall. Biden tried to tear it down. Ron Desantis send immigrants to Massachusetts as a statement to left-leaning states to stop inviting immigrants to the US. Why do some people love immigration and others hate it? I’m Kris and this is the Think Report. Let’s dive in.
Immigration has been a hot topic over the past 10 years. Canada and the US have some of the highest immigration populations in the world with 21% of the Canadian population being foreign-born and 14% of Americans. If immigration policy is polarizing, why are we accepting so many immigrants? There are strong arguments both for and against strong generous immigration policies, including two supporting reasons, good economic policy and providing opportunities for foreigners, and two of opposing reasons like the strain on healthcare and the tribalism and racism it creates.
Good economic policy is the strongest reason for immigration policy
Ever since the 1960s, The population has been declining
In spite of the decrease in children and people per household, the US population hasn’t shrunk. It’s actually grown
The reason for the growth is due to the Us welcoming an increasing number of immigrants into the country
This is important because, without a younger population to replace and support the aging population, we’d see shrinkage in the economy because we wouldn’t have the workforce to maintain our GDP
Providing opportunities for foreigners
If you're a globalist, you believe that people in all countries have an equal opportunity in any country they decide to move to. This has been the heart of the controversy over immigration policy in the US. The Trump wall was the culmination of this with the far left saying that everyone should be welcome and most people not on the far right saying that we need to protect our borders.
Kindness is generally a good thing, but it doesn’t make good policy, and there is a way to welcome people into the US and Canada without threatening our country.
What I mean by this is there are two components to a country: It must have a nationality and it must be sovereign . In essence, if the US can’t control its border, it ceases to be a country.
Strain on public services like healthcare, welfare, and policing
According to the Centre of Immigration Studies “63% of Non-Citizen Households Access Welfare Programs, compared to 35% of native households”
This is the cost of immigration
Assuming that immigrants will come to Canada and the US and immediately be independent is unreasonable and non-sense, realistically
When immigrants arrive they need help:
Language
Housing
Getting a job
Immigration creates tribalism and fosters racism
Unfortunately, this is true
If you ask someone to think of the top 5 things that describe them, almost everyone who belongs to a minority will say their race or religion. It is something they are aware of.
In addition, we tend to socialize with people who are like us. If you are 30 years old you are likely to marry a 30-year-old
So, if race is something that we are aware of (especially minorities) and people hang around people who are like them, then naturally you’ll find that racial and ethnic groups will spend most of their time with their own groups.
In addition, we are told that assimilation is bad. “We need to celebrate the differences”
The top 3 countries that immigrate to the US are Mexico, China, and India.
As you can see there are non-trivial differences in the values that each of these groups of people have
More un-assimilated cultures will mean tribalism
This is how countries are formed in the first place: different cultures, values, and nations
In the US we are already seeing this with:
Ibram X Kendi - anti-racism
Ontario school board anti-racism bill
In this episode we covered
Good economic policy is the strongest reason for immigration policy
Providing opportunities for foreigners
Strain on public services like healthcare, welfare, and policing
Immigration creates tribalism and fosters racism
Whether you’re someone who is in favor or against immigration, we need it to remaining competitive in the world. The question shouldn’t be whether we should have immigration or not, it should be how to best accommodate it.
Our our country and political systems were built hundreds of years ago with the goal of providing freedom. It seems like we’ve changed and we are no longer starved for freedom. What should the goal of our country be today?