Category: Migration, Refugees, and Asylum

U.S. population has doubled and housing construction has remained constant

by philg

Happy National Construction Appreciation Week to those who celebrate.

We’re supposedly building roughly the same number of new houses and apartments that we did in 1960 when the U.S. population was 180 million, i.e., roughly half of what it is now. St. Louis Fed:

During the intervening years we had an influx of about 80 million immigrants (Pew for 1965-2015 then add for the extra years before and after) and we are also home now to the children of those immigrants. How is it possible that we haven’t been building more houses in the aggregate?

One possible answer is that families are much larger today and, therefore, we have more people in the typical house or apartment. But 1960 was prior to the age of no-fault (unilateral) divorce. ChatGPT:

Another possible answer is that we have people living in tents, California-style. But Brookings says “Our calculations show that the U.S. housing market was short 4.9 million housing units in 2023 relative to mid-2000s”. I.e., if we assume a household size of 2, at most 10 million Americans and migrants are living in tents. (Note that this 10 million number is roughly comparable to the number of undocumented migrants who came across the border during the the Biden-Harris administration.)

A final possible answer is that we are living in shabby old houses. I asked ChatGPT:

Maybe this is good because it shows that we did such a great job building homes circa 1960-1980 that they’re not wearing out? ChatGPT says it is not good:

I can’t figure out how this happened. We are informed that migrants are skilled eager construction workers. Labor is 30-50 percent of the cost of building a single-family house. We are richer in migrants than at any time in U.S. history. Why wouldn’t we have at least the same ratio of housing starts to population size that we had in 1960 before we began to be enriched by migrants?

In fact, the New York Times says it is more or less impossible for us to have built any houses without immigrants: “How Would We Build Homes Without Immigrant Labor and Foreign Materials?” (April 1, 2025)

Related:

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Cuban government much smarter than U.S. government?

by philg

“Motel beheading suspect’s criminal history reveals escalating path of violent crime” (NBC Dallas):

Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was previously arrested on charges of indecency with a child, carjacking, false imprisonment and grand theft of a motor vehicle. … Four months later, in June 2017, in South Lake Tahoe, California, a police report details a carjacking in which Cobos-Martinez, while naked, tried to force himself into a woman’s car while pulling her hair and clothes and sitting on her lap. … ICE says he was released on an order of supervision under the Biden administration and because Cuba would not accept him based on his criminal history.

What did this noble migrant do? “ICE calls for removal of man accused of beheading another man with machete at Dallas motel” (CNN):

Police say Cobos-Martinez was cleaning a room with an unnamed witness as the incident unfolded. The witness told police Cobos-Martinez became upset when the victim, Chandra Nagamallaiah, used the unidentified witness to translate his request to not use a broken washing machine instead of speaking to him directly, according to the affidavit.

Surveillance video shows Cobos-Martinez leaving the motel room, pulling out a machete and attacking Nagamallaiah. After the victim ran, the attack continued outside – in front of the victim’s wife and son – both of whom attempted to intervene, according to the affidavit. After beheading Nagamallaiah, Cobos-Martinez allegedly placed the victim’s head in a dumpster.

Should we give the Cuban government credit for being smarter than the U.S. government? Cuban officials protected their own citizens/residents by wisely giving Americans what Americans voted for (i.e., to collect a miscellaneous assortment of humans from all of the world’s most violent and dysfunctional societies with particular emphasis on collecting those directly embroiled in violence).

Separately, this latest beheading seems to be another example of Migrant A killing Migrant B on U.S. soil, similar to Indian enricher Harjinger Singh killing three Haitians in Florida (NY Post).

Related:

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What was our rationale for wanting to continue to host immigrants after they were convicted of crimes?

by philg

“Man Who’d Served His Time in U.S. Is Deported to an African Prison” (New York Times, September 1, 2025):

Mr. Etoria came to the United States [from Jamaica] on a green card in 1976 at age 12. He joined his mother, who had been sponsored by a family she worked for as a nanny, said Ms. McKen, his aunt. He had tough times early in life, she said. He saw his mother flee from his abusive father. In the United States, he struggled to adjust and was bullied in school, she said.

Mr. Etoria has a history of drug abuse, which he has blamed in part on head injuries he suffered as a child. He was also diagnosed with schizophrenia. Doctors noted that he has exhibited violent outbursts, hallucinations and paranoia, according to court records.

He was arrested in 1981 on charges of attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping. During a psychiatric evaluation, he said he could not remember exactly what happened, according to court records. He pleaded guilty and served three years in prison.

More than a decade later, Mr. Etoria walked into a leather goods shop and shot the victim three times in the head, according to Brooklyn court records. The motive was never determined, and there was no indication that he knew the victim or that the crime was gang-related.

I’m trying to figure out what our rationale has been for wanting to keep an immigrant after he “served three years in prison” for “attempted murder, robbery and kidnapping.” Why didn’t we deport him back to Jamaica in the 1980s, before he had a chance to commit murder? The U.S. government had the right to deport him, I think, but a bureaucrat somewhere concluded that American citizens would somehow be better off keeping Mr. Etoria as a neighbor?

Here’s a good window into how the female humans of America are implementing Charles Darwin’s sexual selection:

Since leaving prison in 2021, Mr. Etoria, a father of three adult children, has spoken regularly with his aunt, she said.

I.e., the schizophrenic convicted criminal has enjoyed far greater reproductive success than the typical American male who works 50 hours per week, pays taxes, and has never been arrested. Maybe that actually was the rationale for keeping him around? American women want to breed with convicted criminals and there aren’t enough native-born criminals to meet the demand for genetic material?

Note that the subject of the above-referenced article is not about what happened in the 1980s, but rather about the cruel Trump administration that has deported Orville Etoria to Eswatini, formerly Swaziland.

What amazes me almost as much as the idea that Americans in the 1980s couldn’t live without being enriched by a convicted criminal’s continued residence is the ability of the U.S. economy to survive Mr. Etoria and millions of similarly situated enrichers. Taxpayers have been funding shelter, food, security, etc. for Mr. Etoria almost every year since at least 1981 when he was first arrested. Taxpayers are continuing to fund shelter, food, and security for Mr. Etoria now that he lives in Eswatini. U.S. taxpayers are also funding migrant-to-migrant interactions, e.g., “Three victims of Florida 18-wheeler U-turn crash ID’d as Haitian immigrants” (New York Post):

The three victims of the Indian immigrant truck driver who made an illegal U-turn across a Florida highway earlier this month have been identified as Haitian immigrants, according to officials.

The driver Herby Dufresne, 30, and passengers Faniola Joseph, 27, and Rodrigue Dor, 53, all Haitian immigrants, were in their minivan when it plowed into the side of an 18-wheeler driven by Harjinder Singh, an immigrant from India, on Aug. 12, the Miami Herald reported.

(I’m not sure what the argument for keeping the enricher Harjinder Singh here in the U.S. was. India is home to 1.45 billion humans, a number that grows every year, and also India is too dangerous for any human to occupy?)

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Immigrants reproduce faster, so their population can overwhelm food sources before natives have a chance to recover.

by philg

I was doing some research on termite prevention for a friend who recently moved from Maskachusetts to Florida (he and his successful hard-working wife have waved goodbye to the new progressive personal income tax rates in Massachusetts and all of the wonderful progressive programs that it supports). It turns out that the $2000-ish Sentricon system may be a reasonable insurance buy due to Formosan termites, which immigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s.

ChatGPT:

Formosan subterranean termites (Coptotermes formosanus) often outcompete native U.S. subterranean termites (Reticulitermes species) when they invade the same area. A Formosan colony can contain several million termites, whereas native subterranean termite colonies often have fewer than a million. They reproduce faster, so their population can overwhelm food sources before natives have a chance to recover.

Formosan termites have foraging territories up to 300 feet from the nest, much larger than that of native species. This gives them access to more food and nesting sites, putting pressure on native termite colonies.

They defend their territory aggressively, sometimes killing or driving out native termites. They consume wood more rapidly, reducing available resources for competing species.

Once they establish themselves, they tend to displace or severely reduce local native termite populations, especially in warm, humid climates like Florida, Hawaii, and the Gulf Coast.

ChatGPT provides a simple “yes” answer to “Would it be fair to say that Formosan termites are therefore replacing native termites?”

Yes — in areas where Coptotermes formosanus becomes well-established, it’s fair to say they are replacing native subterranean termites over time.

When asked “In Dayton, Ohio the total population of humans is decreasing but the immigrant human population is increasing. Would it be fair in that case to say that immigrants are replacing native-born Americans in Dayton?” however, the answer is long and nuanced! Here’s the end of the hemming and hawing:

It’s more accurate to say immigrants are increasing their share of the population as native-born numbers decline, without implying causation.

Loosely related, a restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan called “The Migrant Kitchen”:

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Washington, D.C. is safe and also people from places that are safer are entitled to asylum

by philg

The righteous recently have complained that Donald Trump is trying to reduce crime in Washington, D.C. where the murder rate is only about 27 per 100,000 in the most recent statistics, down from 40 per 100,000 in 2023. That’s almost perfect safety, we are told, and therefore Trump is plainly motivated by a combination of racism (AP, below) and a grand plan to transition to full dictatorship.

The same people who say that D.C. is perfectly safe tell us that people from Colombia, Guatemala, South Sudan, Venezuela, El Salvador, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan are entitled to asylum in the U.S. (and four generations of welfare if they want it) because their home countries aren’t safe. What do their home countries have in common? All have murder rates lower than Washington, D.C.’s (Wikipedia).

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Update on the Islamic Republic of Twin Falls, Idaho

by philg

Nine years ago in the Washington Post, “In Twin Falls, Idaho, co-dependency of whites and immigrants faces a test” (paywall-free-version):

Twin Falls is now a testing ground for whether the bitter cultural divisions intensified by this year’s presidential campaign [Good Hillary vs. Evil Trump] can recede in favor of the co-dependency that marks many communities with large white and immigrant populations. In this southern Idaho city of 45,000, the question surrounds a growing Muslim population.

The rancor in Twin Falls began to surface only over the past year and a half as concerns about domestic terrorism awakened a fierce and sudden debate about whether the local Muslim population represented a point of pride or a potential danger — an anxiety that Trump amplified during his campaign. For decades before, the refu­gee resettlement program run by a local community college had flourished with little opposition, with refugees filling open jobs on dairy farms and in cheese factories.

The headline reminds white readers that they’re “dependent” on the “local Muslim” immigrants and also that Muslims aren’t “white”. But the body of the article reveals that it is local business owners seeking cheap labor who are dependent on the imports. There is, apparently, no need to explain how a working-class native-born resident of Twin Falls is better off as a result of the new arrivals or how he/she/ze/they would suffer if the immigrants on which he/she/ze/they “depends” departed. The “local community college” is getting most of the federal cash, it seems, in exchange for facilitating the importation of humans (which is not “human trafficking”?).

The article goes on to remind readers that non-coastal Americans are stupid because they can’t distinguish among the various species of migrants:

A sexual assault took place in a local apartment complex, and rumors spread that the suspects were Syrian teens. “Syrian Refugees Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho,” read a headline on the Drudge Report. The case was sealed because it involved juveniles, including the victim, a 5-year-old girl. Still, Twin Falls police corrected a few facts, saying the suspects were from Sudan and Iraq.

The real issue with the sexual assault of a 5-year-old, according to the Washington Post, is that some natives of Twin Falls can’t tell the difference between a Syrian and an Iraqi.

What’s happening in Twin Falls circa 2025? As tourists wandering/biking around for three days we encountered Islamically covered women at least 4 or 5 times a day. No burqas with full face coverings, but always more than a hijab. The clothing was sharply at odds with the prevailing shorts and T-shirt fashion for the typical female out in the 80-90-degree dry heat. The elites live in a Muslim-free environment. We didn’t see any covered women at an upscale restaurant overlooking the canyon, on the trails leading to waterfalls, or in expensive neighborhoods (“expensive” = $600,000+ for a house). The Twin Falls Mosque is in a neighborhood of shabby $200,000+ houses.

We talked to some local high-school- and college-aged native-born kids. They expressed pride that their high school was “diverse”, but also noted that the Muslim immigrants formed an entirely separate society within the high school and that they themselves had never been friends with a Muslim student.

The local science museum explains that non-natives lead to environmental, ecological, economic, social, and human health impacts.

On our way out of town we were reminded that ecosystems can be destroyed by newcomers who “end up where they shouldn’t be”…

Note that all of Twin Falls is apparently considered a dumping ground by the elites of Boise, some of whom we met in Sun Valley. They all advised us to avoid even a brief stay in Twin Falls. The density of hijabs is lower in Boise, at least in the expensive downtown areas where we spent most of our time. That said, Google Maps shows a variety of mosques:

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If Zohran Mamdani were Ugandan would that have made his claim to be “Black or African-American” more fair?

by philg

The New York Times, which said that anything negative about the Biden family was Russian disinformation, jumped immediately on a story regarding the progressive on track to be New York City’s next mayor: “Mamdani Identified as Asian and African American on College Application”.

The implication of the article is that it would have been righteous for Zohran Mamdani to check the “I am Black” box for a race-based preference if he had actually been Ugandan rather than part of an immigrant population from India.

Today’s question is why it would have been fair for a recent immigrant from Uganda, even one with the correct skin color, to receive preference in college admissions or hiring. America’s race-based college admissions and jobs allocation systems were advertised as reparations for past discrimination and slavery. If someone who shows up in the U.S. five minutes ago scoops up these preferences doesn’t that prevent the preferences from going to the people for whom they were intended? What discrimination could an actual Black Ugandan who arrived in the U.S. yesterday, for example, have suffered at the hands of the bad people (i.e., white Americans)?

The idea of affirmative action (race-based discrimination by do-gooders or white-/Asian-haters, depending on your perspective) was started by President Lyndon Johnson via Executive Order 11246 in 1965. This was, coincidentally, at a point when immigrants weren’t a significant percentage of the U.S. population (Pew):

(Note that the open borders of the Biden-Harris administration made the above 2015 forecast inaccurate. The U.S. became 15.8 percent foreign-born in 2025 (CIS).)

Even though Donald Trump has gotten the federal government out of the race-based discrimination business we still have private corporations and universities engaging in it. The question for today: Why are race-based preferences available to immigrants?

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Bridge the divides in American society by giving immigrants more free stuff

by philg

American Haters falsely assert that native-born Americans are being replaced by migrants and that migrants are enjoying taxpayer-funded housing, health care, education, food, and smartphones.

The progressives behind the Boise Art Museum came up with a plan to silence these haters. Membership is $60 for native-born Americans and free for immigrants. Dividing patrons into a group that must pay and a group that need not pay will “bridge perceived divides across cultures”.

What else goes on at the art museum? The sculpture park is nice! Note that admission is also free via reciprocity for those who are members of Florida’s Ringling museum.

We also checked into the Basque Museum, which explains how Basque men came to Idaho to raise sheep on free federal land. Fifteen of them would share a modest-size house (i.e., they did not receive the “dignity” that is a migrant’s right today in the form of a 1BR or 2BR apartment). According to the museum, as soon as the Feds shut down the offer of free land, the Basques stopped coming to the U.S.

One of the restaurants in the Warehouse Food Hall combines Basque and Vietnamese. I can’t figure out why. (We had some great food, conviviality, and Basque language instruction at Ansots (shared a table with a lady who runs the local Basque immersion preschool for 20 kids; two teachers come over every year for 13 months from the Basque part of Spain).)

It looks as though Boise has had at least one immigrant from San Francisco…

Also, Elizabeth Warren was visiting at the same time that we did:

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Kilmar’s Pupusa and Margarita Café

by philg

A chain idea to appeal to roughly half of Americans: a Kilmar Armando Ábrego García-themed restaurant. The name: “Kilmar’s”. What should a restaurant named after this hero serve? CNN:

Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national, entered the US illegally sometime around 2011, but an immigration judge in 2019, after reviewing evidence, withheld his removal. That meant he could not be deported to El Salvador but could be deported to another country. A gang in his native country, the immigration judge found, had been “targeting him and threatening him with death because of his family’s pupusa business.”

Obviously the menu must include the pupusas that Kilmar’s mom was making at home and that U.S. government employees had no trouble believing were a source of gang interest. The restaurant should offer margaritas just like the ones that Kilmar enjoyed with Maryland Senator Van Hollen and there should be a table with a fiberglass replica of Sen. Van Hollen so that customers can get pictures of themselves like the one below.

There should be a Chevy Suburban inside the restaurant that has been cut away to function as a table. The Suburban should be the same model year as the one that Kilmar was driving when pulled over in Tennessee.

Photos from a celebration of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García that we had in Sun Valley, Idaho last month:

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The largest youth generation ever and human population collapse

by philg

The head of the UN points out that there are more young humans on Planet Earth than at any time in history.

At the same time, we are informed by the followers of Science that everyone must do his/her/zir/their share to avert population collapse, e.g., “Population Growth Isn’t a Progressive Issue. It Should Be” (New York Times, last year):

When populations decline, the average age of people in the population increases. This has several harmful consequences. Eventually, there are not enough young people to care for older people and to economically support them through contributions to social programs; to fuel economic growth, technological innovation and cultural progress; and to fund government services. … Fertility rates in the United States are below the level necessary for population replacement, and they are declining almost everywhere else. Contrary to the alarmism you sometimes hear about exponential population growth, experts say that the number of humans on Earth will peak before the end of this century and fall afterward.

It might seem that humans are inflicting so much harm through climate change that everyone and everything on Earth would be better off with fewer inhabitants. But climate change will remain a problem even if we allow the population to decline. We have to change our patterns of consumption and reduce carbon dioxide emissions — no matter how big or small our population.

There are some great ideas in the above. First, “experts” can predict how many children humans will choose to have in the year 2100. Second, humans cause climate change, but the scale of the damage is unrelated to the number of humans.

Pew offers some projections/guesses and calls them “facts”. “5 facts about how the world’s population is expected to change by 2100”:

  • don’t worry if you’re not getting enough phone calls about solar panels, home improvement, final expense insurance, Medicare benefits, etc.: “India is expected to continue growing until it peaks at 1.7 billion people in 2061.”
  • “Five countries are expected to contribute more than 60% of the world’s population growth by 2100: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Tanzania.”
  • don’t worry if you’re concerned that the “affordable housing crisis” in the U.S. will subside: “the U.S. population is expected to grow slowly and steadily to 421 million by 2100.”

The last projection/guess confuses me. U.S. immigration levels are determined by presidential whim, not by any law. As demonstrated by Joe Biden and Donald Trump, a president can open or close the border. If Americans elect Democrats we could have at least 2.5 million new neighbors per year from 2029 through 2100, which would work out to a boost in population of 177 million (and perhaps quite a few more if asylum and welfare eligibility are expanded).

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