Competition from non-natives

by philg

“Invasive Ecological Threat” (Florida Weekly, November 21, 2024):

A new invasive seagrass has been spotted off the waters of South Florida and scientists are working to see what danger it could pose for native seagrass and the plants, fish and marine animals they support.

The seagrass, called Halophila stipulacea, was discovered in a marina on Key Biscayne in Biscayne Bay. This is the first time it has been identified off the coast of the continental United States. The non-native species could be a threat, depending on whether or not the newcomer will compete with and displace our native seagrass species, said Justin Campbell, Florida International University marine scientist.

The invasive seagrass came from around the Red Sea and the Suez Canal area and is native to the Western Indian Ocean, Campbell said. It crossed the ocean, probably as part of boat passage from the Mediterranean, he said. It showed up in the Caribbean on the island of Granada around 2002. By 2017, it had spread to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. “And then now, very recently, it has showed up on our doorstep here in Florida,” Campbell said.

The invasive species doesn’t look like our native seagrass, which has long leaves and tall, grass-like canopies. The invasive species has short, tiny leaves, he said. Scientists believe it has been spreading through a process of fragmentation or asexual reproduction. The species fragments very easily, meaning that small pieces can break off, Campbell said. “Those small fragments have the capacity to float for a week, ten days, and then potentially resettle in a new area and start growing again.” It’s essentially a clone of the parent fragment, he said.

“It’s really hard to predict what the consequences of this is going to be,” said James Fourqurean, a co-author of the research paper and director of the Coastlines and Oceans Division in FIU’s Institute of Environment. “This is a species that can spread incredibly rapidly. The meadows that were just discovered this summer (in the bay) are too large to have grown in a single year. So we know that it’s been here for multiple years already,” he said. The invasive seagrass will eventually spread even to the Gulf of Mexico, though not directly from Biscayne Bay, he said. “There’s no biological reason that it won’t grow all around the Gulf of Mexico,” he said. “It’ll get there. It’s just a matter of time.”

Noted.

Related:

  • “Recent Immigration Surge Has Been Largest in U.S. History” (New York Times, Dec 11, 2024): Under President Biden, more than two million immigrants per year have entered, government data shows. The immigration surge of the past few years has been the largest in U.S. history, surpassing the great immigration boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s, according to a New York Times analysis of government data. Annual net migration — the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving — averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people. [There’s a chart showing that 190,000 net immigrants/year arrived in the 1850s compared to more than 2 million/year during Biden-Harris, but the bars are as a percentage of population so it doesn’t look like 10X the rate.]

23 thoughts on “Competition from non-natives”

  1. It’s been a week of blockbuster news regarding the H-1B visa.
    First, essential background:
    https://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

    Old news, showing how foreign-born (usually Indian) people have displaced natives by county as of 2018:
    https://econdataus.com/bp_sw_us18.htm
    How does one calculate the “prevailing wage” in a county where the overwhelming majority of existing workers are already foreign nationals on work visas?

    December 9, major Bloomberg article:
    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-cognizant-h1b-visas-discriminates-us-workers/
    https://archive.is/jaXNo

    December 15, The [Albany] Times Union reported on NY state government work visa fraud:
    https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/insiders-say-fraud-computer-programming-sector-19941411.php
    https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/feds-probing-migrant-ny-government-workers-19877732.php
    The articles probably fail to clearly state that the contracting market is controlled by a cartel of Indian-owned businesses, often based in New Jersey, which tend to hire exclusively from a single Indian state / ethnicity: i.e., the “competition” is likely between “Telegus only” vendor versus a “Gudjarati only” vendor: no Americans need apply.

    December 17, the outgoing “Biden”/Harris/Whoever Administration released a last-minute injury to the domestic workforce:
    https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/dhs-strengthens-h-1b-program-allowing-us-employers-to-more-quickly-fill-critical-jobs
    Full text:
    https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/18/2024-29354/modernizing-h-1b-requirements-providing-flexibility-in-the-f-1-program-and-program-improvements
    One change is to expand the employers which are allowed UNCAPPED H-1B visas.

    This during an era where Computer Science degrees have some of the highest unemployment rates:
    https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_sbc.pdf
    And against a backdrop of net loss of IT jobs:
    https://itmanager.substack.com/p/it-job-market-shrinking-will-that

  4. Calif* is back on top after the 2nd exodus since 2000. They say it’s manely immigrants rather than return to office mandates driving the increase. US still has an unlimited supply of immigrants willing to assume its debts.

  5. There’s an interesting anecdote from John Carreyrou’s book “Bad Blood:*”, which is about Theranos’ fraud. They used H1B to find hard-working employees who had enough incentive to keep their mouths shut. Related story:

    https://cis.org/North/Convicted-Theranos-CEO-Elizabeth-Holmes-Was-Also-H1B-User

    I guess Ramesh Balwani, who was the CEO of Theranos, might have found his Indian-subcontinent roots helpful in getting the insight on using H1B to his advantage.

    Another interesting anecdote to compare this against is about Ian Gibbons who committed suicide when he was about to be found guilty:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gibbons_(biochemist)

    • Ian Gibbons, with a PhD from Cambridge, likely would have qualified for an O-1 (“Extraordinary Ability”) visa, and probably had, or could easily obtain a green card because the per-country cap is not an issue for UK subjects. Per the Wiki, authored 23 patents while working at Theranos, so he seems like a very productive scientist caught in a corrupt environment.

      I think that his choice of paracetamol / acetaminophen for suicide is noteworthy. As a biochemist, he would have known that he would experience a slow and painful death, perhaps as a form of self-punishment, and possibly to make his death harder to “sweep under the rug.”

    • Indeed, what I trying to compare is H1B case with O1 (or whatever Ian was on). Of how differently people act when they have been recruited on an exceptional visa vs when they have been recruited for their weak immigration status.

    • Yes.

      But the power imbalance is not the only contributing factor: the culture of the homeland matters.

      The source country of 72% of the H-1Bs in FY 2023 was #2 globally in “share of people who report having bribed a public official in the past year.”
      https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-people-paying-bribes-vs-corruption-perception

      Additionally, in terms of better understanding the source of our New Human Capital:
      1) India ranked 72nd of 73 countries in the 2009 PISA testing and has not participated since.

      2) India is possibly the most polluted country in the world:
      https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/12/08/even-by-the-standards-of-poor-countries-india-is-alarmingly-filthy

    • Indeed, culture matters. However, I would argue that for many Indians who come to the U.S. at a young age, American culture tends to become more influential than Indian culture in their day-to-day professional lives. This influence extends beyond their own professional experiences and also affects their interactions with other professionals (e.g., police).

      For those who immigrate later in life, the strong influence of American capitalism often begins to erode old cultural patterns after a few years, at least in the professional sphere. This is supported by the fact that Indians, as a group, have low crime rates and are the highest-earning ethnic group per household in the U.S.
      (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income)

      That said, I agree that in the initial years after immigrating, the culture one comes from tends to play a significant role even professionally. I believe this is true for most cultures, not just Indian culture.

      It would also be interesting to examine the median income of Indians immigrating to the U.S. I suspect that studies like the one you mentioned represent average-income individuals in India, whereas most Indians I’ve observed immigrating to the U.S. tend to have significantly higher incomes than the average. In India, the strength of capitalistic forces creates noticeable cultural differences between average-income and wealthy populations.

      With my experience in Canada, I think that the new Indian immigrants in Canada might be closer to the average income Indians in India. That’s because in the States, as far as I know, there’s no stream for blue-collar immigration through which significant Indian immigrants come. But I haven’t looked for any studies in this direction.

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