…. but 1+ million migrants per year is good for the U.S.?
“Hillary Clinton: Europe must curb immigration to stop rightwing populists” (Guardian):
“I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton said, speaking as part of a series of interviews with senior centrist political figures about the rise of populists, particularly on the right, in Europe and the Americas.
“I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like Angela Merkel, but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message – ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ – because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”
Clinton’s remarks are likely to prove controversial across Europe, which has struggled to form a unified position ever since more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in the EU in 2015.
The EU population is 508 million. So 1 million migrants since 2015 is a much lower percentage of the total population than the roughly 1 million immigrants per year into the U.S. (population 330 million).
The apparent contradiction between Hillary’s opposition to Donald Trump in the U.S. and her opposition to migrants in Europe was addressed a day later. “Hillary Clinton calls for reform, ‘not open borders,’ in explaining European migration remarks” (NBC):
“Maybe Hillary has understood the lesson,” Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, told The New York Times. “If you don’t control migration it will affect mostly poor people, people living on the outskirts, working classes.”
The “EU needs a more comprehensive policy that builds societies that are both secure and welcoming,” she continued.
“On both sides of the Atlantic, we need reform. Not open borders, but immigration laws enforced with fairness and respect for human rights. We can’t let fear or bias force us to give up the values that have made our democracies both great and good,” she wrote.
“Can’t just keep doing the same things.”
“There are solutions to migration that do not require clamping down on the press, on your political opponents and trying to suborn the judiciary, or seeking financial and political help from Russia to support your political parties and movements.”
But what are the solutions? Hillary is keeping them secret until she is elected President?
I thought about this during a recent trip to Montgomery County, Maryland (DC suburb). All of my Uber drivers were immigrants. None spoke English fluently. One driver had immigrated from El Salvador 13 years ago and didn’t speak English well enough to qualify for legal immigration to Canada, for example. It looks as though a family of four is entitled to welfare (e.g., housing subsidies) if earning less than $89,850 per year (table). If you consider subsidized health insurance to be welfare, the income number for a family of 4 in Maryland is $100,400 per year (March 1, 2018). How are people who don’t speak English going to earn enough to get off welfare? And, if they can’t get off welfare, why will existing taxpayers in Maryland welcome more immigrants at the same skill level?
What is the grand theory supporting the current policy? That the children of someone who couldn’t learn English in 13 years are going to be above-median learners and earners?
Or maybe this is just adverse selection? Immigrants who are really bad at learning languages differentially choose to drive Ubers? The rest of the El Salvadorans who came 13 years ago are executives now?
Where are these mythical “immigrant family of 4” you speak of? An apartment building near my home was converted into a “new immigrant resettlement center” (more profitable than renting apartments?), so I constantly see newly arrived immigrant families with no less than 4-6 children + 2 parents (and often 4 grandparents). It seems like madness that millennials increasingly can’t afford to buy a house and start a family – because they are paying to subsidize housing + education for large immigrant families (who likely won’t work because it pays less).
In Charles Mann’s The Wizard and the Prophet, Mann describes Borlaug, the wizard, as coming from a Norwegian family in a small midwestern town. Apparently, his parents, born in America in a tight knit Norwegian community, still spoke English with thick Norwegian accents that were surely unintelligible to standard issue Americans from Boston enclaves. And yet Borlaug is presented as overcoming this to the point of becoming a techno wizard who may have saved a billion lives. I’ve come across many middle eastern Uber drivers with poor English. I don’t suppose you’re saying that Nordic learning potential is greater than that of Semitic uber drivers’ progeny?
Phil’s point is that IQ is largely inherited and the inability to learn a foreign language well over a substantial period of time is indicative of low IQ. Accent is not an IQ issue but rather is perhaps reflective of the ability to mimic sound.
None of these Uber drivers spoke English nearly as well as the average Norwegian living in Norway.
It appears that Norwegian kids are taught English starting in the second grade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Norway#Primary_school_(Barneskole,_Grades_1%E2%80%937,_ages_6%E2%80%9312)
The more interesting point has to do with what might be the policy preferences indicated by this analysis. If the goal is to restrict immigration to the point at which Uber drivers all earn above $100,400 annually, Uber rides could get quite expensive.
That information is not correct. Norwegian kids are taught English from first grade, and have done so for more than 20 years (see https://www.utdanningsnytt.no/bedre-skole/debatt/2018/januar/20-ar-med-engelskundervisning-pa-1.-trinn-har-vi-grunn-til-a-feire/)
I agree with Phil that our current policy is not good for the US long term.
Having said that, this post makes me feel better about lyft drivers in the Bay Area. All but one driver I have had in the last year spoke pretty good English. A sizable fraction did not appear to be immigrants. Many of them either enjoyed working as a lyft driver more than the job they were doing before or were using it as a way to make extra cash between other jobs. Most of them seemed to be on an upward trajectory. There is a lot to dislike about the state of the SF Bay Area today but this post helps me to realize that it could be worse.
Yz: Since immigrants make a country better, the fact that you encountered more native-born people in any context should make you feel worse about the Bay Area.
Vince: I think that your posting perfectly illustrates the tension between Americans who benefit from immigration (upper-income folks with a lot of credentials and secure jobs; folks who are purchasing Uber rides) and Americans who are injured by immigration (lower-income lower-skill folks who would like to get paid more when driving for Uber). Would it be bad if Uber drivers earned $100,400/year? It would be bad for me, as an Uber customer (but maybe I can recover some of that in reduced taxes to pay for welfare programs to support Uber drivers at the current wage levels). It wouldn’t be bad for any existing resident of the U.S. who wanted to drive for Uber.