We are informed that low-skill migrants make the native-born richer and that, therefore, a country’s borders should be mostly open (albeit never described as “open borders” because that is hate speech/conspiracy theory). We also informed that Europeans don’t want to be rich… ”Europe Grasps for Ways to Stop the Migrant Surge” (WSJ):
The biggest swing in sentiment has been in Germany, long a proponent of generous policies toward refugees. Pressure has been building in recent years as the nation absorbed millions of immigrants, weighing on the welfare system and municipal services. Migration was a key theme in Sunday’s closely watched regional election in Brandenburg, where the governing Social Democrats narrowly beat the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD.
Last week, the coalition government in Berlin reintroduced limited border checks to all neighboring countries, after a knife attack in late August by a failed asylum seeker killed three people in the city of Solingen during a festival to celebrate its 650th anniversary. The attacker was a 26-year-old Syrian with links to Islamic State who had evaded deportation for more than a year after losing his asylum case.
Since the pandemic ended, governments across the continent have struggled to cope with rising numbers of asylum seekers and are grasping for ways to stem the flow, from curbing taxpayer-funded benefits to asylum seekers to striking deals with non-EU countries to temporarily or permanently house would-be refugees.
Last year, a near-record 1.14 million people filed asylum claims in Europe, the highest number since the height of the 2015 migration crisis in Europe, when more than a million Syrians fleeing that country’s civil war entered the bloc.
An extra 1.14 million/ asylum seekers per year would moderately enrich the United States, both culturally and economically. In the pre-Biden years, we were enriched by approximately 22 million undocumented immigrants (Yale 2018) and at least another 10 million have come across the border during the Dr. Jill Biden-Kamala Harris administration.
For nearly everything else that has value in this world there is some kind of market. There is “a bid”, in other words, as the Wall Streeters say. Why hasn’t the U.S. bid to take all of the migrants that Europeans don’t want? We are told that migrants are precious. Why aren’t we offering, for example, to pay Germany $100,000 per migrant and also to pay each migrant $100,000 as a “welcome to America bonus” (on top of the means-tested public housing, means-tested health insurance, SNAP/EBT (“food stamps”), and Obamaphone to which migrants will be entitled)? And if we did offer $200,000 (total) per migrant, wouldn’t we expect to face competition from other countries that seek to be enriched?
Separately, here’s a Reuters story on a beachhead in Africa that Spain continues to hold (why?). My favorite line is “Moroccan nationals detained during the crossings are immediately sent back to Morocco unless they are underage or seeking asylum, [Cristina Perez, the Spanish government’s representative in Ceuta] said.” Unless the migrants are remarkably unintelligent, why wouldn’t they all claim to fall into one of these categories? Like the U.S. system, the European immigration system seems to be premised on the assumption that humans never lie.
I think your 10 Million number is exagerated by about 5 Million roughly.
I think we did have an efficient market for human capital at one point – I think Lincoln and the civil war put an end to it though. Maybe your thought experiment will lead to a reboot.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that the illegal immigrants do provide benefits over the long term but the spoils go to the corporations (or maybe that homeowner that gets a great price on their gardening) due to the upfront costs being passed to taxpayers.
At least prior to the end of the civil war we knew what to pay for cheap labor.
The widely reported 10 million undocumented enrichers during the Biden-Harris administration is not “my number”. It is from federal CBP “encounters” reports.
Well it’s “your number” since you don’t provide the same degree of effort to “do your own research” as you do for most of the other parts of your posts. You are implying that encounters equals new brown illegal immigrants consuming benefits, but:
The 10 million includes encounters at the northern border.
The 10 million includes the same crossers trying to enter multiple times ( 27% recidivism rate).
The 10 million doesn’t include those that are immediatly refused entry and turned away.
The encounters rate has decreased in significantly in the latter half of 2024.
Accounting for all of the above leaves new immigrants at about 5 million roughly. Even at that lower number it’s unacceptable, and should be brought way down.
@Craig, you have listed various factors that could reduce the number, but there is one big factor that could increase it:
This, by definition, does not include people who get past the border without being encountered by CBP, and that number could be large since it is a large open border.
@Anonymous – I didn’t enumerate it but the 5 million estimate includes CBP’s estimate of 1.6 million “gotaways.”
@Craig, they start with actual number 10 million of encounters that they themselves counted, then reduce it by 50% for various vague factors.
Then they estimate a low number of only 1.6 million as people that got through without being encountered (how could they know what they by definition do not know?), and on top of that say that even that low missed encounter number is already included in now remaining estimates of total 5 million?
And all of this is the absolute truth that no one should even question?
@Craig, I understand that philg is not proposing to bring back horrible practices from two centuries ago, but bringing these migrants to here to give them free housing, healthcare, food and phones – and the right to vote.
Similar to DeSantis sending people to Martha’s Vineyard, but the US would have to send the planes to pick them up, and possibly pay the current hosts because, unlike DeSantis, they may not wish to part with them.
Conceptually similar to T-mobile offering to pay contract termination fees to AT&T for your existing contract if you move to them (and nothing like the horrible trade you mention from 1800s).
If Craig is correct and we have only 27 million undocumented enrichers in our midst then we should be even more eager to pay the Europeans to facilitate sending migrants our way. Yet we don’t.
Anon: my proposal is to give new low-skill migrants additional cash on top of all of the welfare benefits to which they would normally be entitled. And compensate the Europeans with cash for giving them up.
@philg – Just like you I have noticed the horrible impact those 27 million undocumented have caused. Why just yesterday I was looking at my 401k and felt horrible because it was only up 20% or so this year. We must stop this immigration insanity!
Also – I think my dog is missing!
If you own publicly trade securities and real estate you’re likely one of the Americans who benefits financially from low-skill immigration. The Harvard economists: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/trump-clinton-immigration-economy-unemployment-jobs-214216/
(Separately, compared to 2019 I think stocks are slightly down in real terms when adjusted for inflation for the things that people who own stocks actually buy, e.g., houses with mortgage interest, cars with a lease payment, trips to Disney World including hotel and airfare, etc.)
Yep – that report supports my contention in my first post – that the benefits/disadvantages of excessive low-skilled immigration are distributed unequally.
While you discuss the economic impact, I believe that most people are concerned about change to or losing neighborhoods/towns/cities to foreign cultures. For example, it’s difficult to see whole New England towns turn to majority Portugese speaking demographics (and not talking about Lisbon Portugese).
I try to rationalize it by remembering that no matter what I think I’m trying to “conserve,” in a long enough timeline it won’t matter. I’m sure that no amount of shaking my fist will have any impact on what the US or the rest of the world looks like in 200 years. We will all be brown and speaking some other language, with 200 or so “sexes” to choose from. That’s if the robots don’t wipe us out first.
The claim by liberals and Democrats that low-skill immigrants enrich a country is both misguided and laughable.
I know firsthand, both from my own experience and from friends at my church — many of whom are legal, skilled immigrants, including real doctors — that it often takes a decade or more for an immigrant to become self-sustaining and contribute meaningfully to the economy.
I also know firsthand that many low-skilled immigrants, both legal and illegal, continue to rely on government support even into the second generation.
You don’t need “science” or “research” to see what’s happening. Just take a look at any recent bill, legal notice, or public posting, and you’ll notice an ever-growing list of supplemental non-English text alongside the English. This was never the case in the ’80s, ’90s, or even the early 2000s. By doing this, we’re giving low-skilled legal and illegal immigrants yet another reason not to integrate and fully contribute.
George: The above-cited Harvard study shows that low-skill immigrants are more or less neutral for the economy but dramatically enriching for the elite and dramatically impoverishing for the working class. (The study was done in pre-Biden times and in pre-Biden dollars, but the main effect was a transfer of $500 billion/year from the working class to the elite.) So even if there is no positive effect on “the economy”, 5-10 million undocumented migrants can great for hotel and apartment building owners (as indeed we are seeing in NYC where 20 percent of hotel rooms are occupied by migrants whose tabs are paid by taxpayers (“the chumps”)).