Category: Migration, Refugees, and Asylum

Have South and Central America become more conservative because the voters who wanted a massive welfare state all moved to the U.S.?

by philg

The idea of ever-larger-and-more-compassionate government seems to have fallen out of favor lately in Central and South America. Here’s a graphic attributing the shift to the dismantling of USAID (source):

What if the reason is the Biden-Harris administration’s open border policy? Suppose that everyone in Central and South America who wanted to live in a cradle-to-grave work-optional welfare state migrated to the U.S. in 2021-20244. The voters who are left behind are, therefore, the conservative ones.

Separately, how are people feeling about yesterday’s election in Brazil? If it didn’t take a few weeks to count the votes and include a last-minute reversal can it be considered in any way free or fair by California standards? Also, I thought that the U.S. was the only democracy in which an 80-year-old could win the demanding chief executive job but, per usual, was apparently wrong.

(It looks like Lula won using some of the same tactics that Democrats have used recently in the U.S. AP: “Legislation to reduce the country’s workweek from six days to five and weekly working hours from 44 to 40 without reducing pay was approved by Congress 10 days before the runoff. … In September, Lula announced a 15% increase in payments under Brazil’s main welfare program, Bolsa Família, which bases benefits on family size and the number of children. The increase took effect this week, days before the election, and will benefit nearly 50 million people. … Lula on Wednesday endorsed credit relief and tax incentives for small businesses, giving them access to low-interest government loans through public banks and allowing them to renegotiate some of their debt. … Lula also is sending to Congress a bill to establish zero-fare public transportation on weekends.” Question: How is Lula going to argue that Elon Musk will pay for it all? Also, maybe this could be a positive for the U.S.? Brazil right now has a much lower personal income tax rate than the U.S. does, about 27.5% vs. over 50% for Californians and successful New Yorkers. With all of the new state-administered transfers, Brazil might raise its top tax rates and, thus, become less of a competitive threat to the U.S. for certain kinds of enterprises. France is the only nation with a larger welfare state, as a percentage of GDP, than the U.S. and they’re not much of a competitor.)

Related to the human export angle, “Caracas Is Eerily Safe. State Death Squads Made Sure of It.” (New York Times) mostly attributes improved safety in Venezuela to Delcy Rodríguez and Nicolás Maduro killing suspected criminals, but the open borders may also have been critical:

It’s undeniable that security has improved in Caracas and much of the rest of the country, but criminologists expressed skepticism over that figure, which would give Venezuela one of the lowest murder rates in the Americas.

Mass migration also played a role, with gang members constituting a small percentage of the millions who fled Venezuela’s economic collapse.

And just where did Venezuela’s most criminally-adept citizens end up? The NYT doesn’t say, nor do they mention José Antonio Ibarra, the Venezuelan enricher who killed Laken Riley. U.S. taxpayers will be funding Mr. Ibarra’s room, board, health care, and security for approximately the next 60 years. Mr. Ibarra won’t be able to vote in any Venezuelan elections due to his residence-for-life here in the U.S. (source)

Loosely related, If the dark days don’t have you in a suicidal mood… (quoting a Michel Houellebecq novel):

Are you from Brittany?” he asked. “Yes—from Saint-Brieuc!” she replied happily. “But I really like Brazilian dance,” she added, obviously trying to absolve herself for her disinterest in African dance. Much more of this and Bruno would really get irritated. He was starting to get pissed off about the world’s stupid obsession with Brazil. What was so great about Brazil? As far as he knew, Brazil was a shithole full of morons obsessed with soccer and Formula One. It was the ne plus ultra of violence, corruption and misery. If ever a country were loathsome, that country, specifically, was Brazil. Sophie,” announced Bruno, “I could go on vacation to Brazil tomorrow. I’d look around a favela. The minibus would be armor-plated; so in the morning, safe, unafraid, I’d go sightseeing, check out eight-year-old murderers who dream of growing up to be gangsters; thirteen-year-old prostitutes dying of AIDS. I’d spend the afternoon at the beach surrounded by filthy-rich drug barons and pimps. I’m sure that in such a passionate, not to mention liberal, society I could shake off the malaise of Western civilization. You’re right, Sophie: I’ll go straight to a travel agent as soon as I get home.”

In the Department of Election Predictions, it is the 10th anniversary of this tweet:

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France is rich in immigrants, but not rich enough to pay its sovereign debt?

by philg

The French, just like us, have been trying to cheat their way to greater wealth/consumption via government borrowing (WSJ):

And, just as with the U.S., investors are beginning to demand to be paid for the possibility of inflation/default.

We were informed that inflation was impossible because of the Eurozone rules regarding deficit spending (no more than 3% of GDP). How has France been able to avoid compliance? ChatGPT:

Another good excuse: coronapanic.

The EU suspended normal fiscal requirements during COVID. From 2020 through 2023, the EU activated its general escape clause, allowing governments considerable flexibility to run deficits in response to the pandemic and subsequent economic disruption.

They made an affirmative decision, in other words, to make the kids whose schools had been closed (nothing like the 18-month closures in Democrat-run U.S. cities, though) pay for it all.

We’re informed that low-skill immigrants make a country rich. France is roughly 25 percent immigrants and children of immigrants. Why isn’t France rich enough that tax revenues can fund current government spending and also pay down some debt?

Finally, with the “French” in the streets (they’re “protesting” according to the New York Times and BBC and “rioting” according to Fox), what rational investor would locate a factory there rather than in Poland, Hungary, or Switzerland? Who reads a “France’s violent protests involve ‘second- or third-generation’ immigrants” headline and decides that the long-term trend is positive?

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How was the immigration of Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze supposed to make Americans better off?

by philg

“Nonimmigrant” Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze has been in the news lately for stabbing a college student to death. “UMass Dartmouth football murder suspect overstayed tourist visa, received deferred action: federal sources” (Deplorables at Fox):

A Nigerian national accused of killing a UMass Dartmouth football player entered the U.S. on a tourist visa and overstayed it before receiving deferred action under both the Biden and Trump administrations, multiple federal law enforcement sources told Fox News.

Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze is charged with murder in connection with the stabbing death of UMass Dartmouth football player Marvins Antoine, 19, during an altercation in Providence, Rhode Island, over the weekend.

Sources told Fox News that Eze first entered the U.S. on a B-2 tourist visa in 2015. Eze received two extensions on his visa under the Obama administration before remaining in the country after his authorized stay expired, according to the sources. Sources said the Biden administration approved Eze’s request for deferred action in September 2022. He applied for deferred action again in February 2025 and October 2025, with the latter request approved under the Trump administration on Oct. 8, 2025, according to the sources. Deferred action is a discretionary decision by the federal government to temporarily delay an individual’s removal from the United States. It does not provide lawful immigration status.

Suppose that Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze had never stabbed anyone. How were Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze’s 11+ years in the U.S. supposed to make native-born Americans better off? In other words, what is the rationale for our immigration system? The answer can’t be “he was going to work hard, boost the economy, and prevent Social Security and Medicare from going bust” because it was illegal for him to work:

DHS said Eze applied for employment authorization in August 2023, but the request was rejected the following month.

Note that our immigration system can be strict at times:

If convicted of murder, Eze will lose his deferred action, according to DHS.

Related:

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Migrants whose TPS status has expired can stay and work for 10+ years via the asylum process

by philg

The New York Times today says that Key West wouldn’t have any tourists if not for Haitian migrants. Somalis built Boston and Minneapolis and Haitians created Florida tourism. “Haitian Workers Keep Key West Tourism Afloat. Now They’re Disappearing.”:

The Haitian hotel housekeepers, restaurant cooks and Uber drivers who quietly help power Key West’s tourism economy are disappearing.

Some have been detained by Border Patrol agents since late July, when the Trump administration ended a legal protection that had allowed 330,000 Haitians to live and work in the United States.

There is “violence and instability” in Haiti, but we can import 100% of Haitians and the same people won’t create any violence or instability here:

It’s a situation familiar to communities across Florida; the state has the nation’s largest Haitian population, including tens of thousands who have lost the legal safeguard known as Temporary Protected Status, which the United States had granted them because of the violence and instability in their home country.

(the violence and instability are features of the terrain, not something in any way related to the people who inhabit the terrain)

The New York Times constantly reminds us that workers should be paid more (they’re “underpaid”). But in the context of making sure that we max out on immigrants, it is also bad if workers in the U.S. get paid more:

When Mayor Sam Kaufman visited Hispanic-owned restaurants last month, owners shared stories of line cooks, busboys and delivery drivers, some with valid work permits, getting detained and deported. Those who remained were being crushed with extra work, with some owners delivering food themselves.

Mr. Kaufman noted that Key West was too far from the mainland to bus in workers.

“The price of labor is going to shoot up,” he said. “There is going to be real competition to retain the work force.”

Or will the supply of workers be reduced? Here’s the most interesting part of the article:

One such person, a 41-year-old father of two, said he had fled gang violence in Haiti for Brazil, before joining relatives in Key West in 2022. The man, who did not want his name used for fear of attracting immigration authorities, works at a supermarket deli, earning $19 an hour.

He lost T.P.S. in July. He is still able to work because of a pending asylum claim, but that offers little guarantee against immigration detention. Inside their tiny trailer home, he and his wife anxiously monitor WhatsApp for immigration enforcement updates last month as they care for their young children.

Asylum is a 10-year bureaucratic process, at least (see Will any Salvadorans in the U.S. go home to El Salvador today?). So by saying “I request asylum” this guy should be able to get W-2 work until his anchor babies (multiple “young children”) are old enough to sponsor him for a green card under family unification (a U.S. citizen adult has the automatic right to bring parents here).

At what rate are migrants being detained by ICE? The NYT article says that 5,000 Haitians live in Key West and that 30 were detained in August. (I don’t think this 5,000 number counts children since they’re “American”, not “Haitian”, via the magic of birthright citizenship.)

Related, a web page regarding the La Concha, built by Haitians in 1925-6 as the first luxury hotel in Key West.

See also the Overseas Railroad Wikipedia page, regarding the railroad that prominent Haitian Henry Flagler opened in 1912 and that opened Key West to mass tourism.

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Islamophobiaphobia in the New York Times

by philg

Yesterday, we looked at our nation’s leading journalists in Investigative reporters at the New York Times uncover the real victims of the 9/11 attacks

Today, let’s consider another 9/11 anniversary article from the same paper: “Facing Islamophobia, Mamdani Keeps Focus on 9/11 Victims”.

Because he is afraid of Islamophobia, the NYT tells us, Mayor Mamdani isn’t doing the things that he actually wants to do and instead is occupied with considering the New Yorkers who were killed by his fellow Muslims. The NYT reminds us that it wasn’t only Mamdani’s aunt who was a victim of 9/11:

… for Mr. Mamdani, the dual identities of being a young mayor and a Muslim has brought an added layer of pressure and scrutiny. He was 9 years old when the attacks took place and had been living in the United States for two years after moving with his family from Uganda. He has called the day a horrific tragedy for all Americans and one where a Muslim like him was officially marked as an “other.”

Do we need a word that means “fear of Islamophobia”? How about Islamophobiaphobia? Then we could say, “Because of Islamophobiaphobia, Ayatollah Mamdani did not organize a River to the Sea #FreePalestine event at City Hall as he had hoped to.”

Example hater:

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Will any Salvadorans in the U.S. go home to El Salvador today?

by philg

Yesterday was supposedly when people from El Salvador, “temporarily” in the U.S. for 25.5 years, would begin to head home to the country that, for the past few years, has (1) had a lower murder rate than the U.S., and (2) is too dangerous for humans to occupy, especially Salvadorans such as Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Have any Salvadorans gone home? Or is “temporary” some period of time longer than 25.5 years? Gemini says that people with “temporary” status are actually permanent from any practical perspective:

The termination of TPS [for Hondurans, nearly all of whom are still here] did not grant Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the right to summarily deport people. To be removed from the country, individuals who do not leave voluntarily must be issued a Notice to Appear (NTA) and go through the formal immigration court system.

With immigration courts already facing massive multi-million case backlogs, processing thousands of long-term residents with clean criminal histories and significant family equities in the U.S. takes years, effectively leaving them in a prolonged state of legal limbo within the United States.

So… a Salvadoran might be here on a “temporary” basis and at the same time, under the laws that our elected politicians were wise enough to create, it isn’t possible to deport him or her “summarily”.

Here’s a video from a few months back about what youngsters in El Salvador are up to:

Compare to what happens in Los Angeles:

Finally, let’s hope that DHS will use the new cover sheet for any further TPS reports.

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Immigrant population down; total number of jobs up; how?

by philg

We’re informed that immigrants come to the United States to work, not to enjoy our cradle-to-grave welfare state for four generations.

We’re informed by the U.S. Census Bureau that the number of foreign-born residents of the U.S. (a.k.a. “immigrants”) is down by almost 3 million. “Census Bureau Survey Shows Total Foreign-Born Down 2.9 Million” (CIS, yesterday):

since January 2025 … the government’s monthly household survey, officially called the Current Population Survey (CPS), shows an unprecedented 2.9 million decline in the foreign-born population — naturalized citizens, lawful permanent residents, long-term temporary visitors, and illegal immigrants.

Latin American non-citizens who arrived in 1980 or later account for all of the decrease. This population overlaps significantly with illegal immigrants.

Only 44 percent of the decline in the foreign-born are workers; the rest are children, the elderly, and other non-workers. This fact, along with employment gains by the U.S.-born, mitigates the impact on the labor market and may help explain why the survey of businesses does not show a dramatic decline in workers.

The total number of people working in the United States is up (CBS, today):

Here’s a wider picture of steady-then-increased numbers of workers as immigrants departed:

The increase doesn’t seem to have been caused by an increase in the working-age population, which is down slightly over the same time period:

How can this apparent paradox be explained?

One possible explanation is that immigrants displace the native-born in the labor force. When an immigrant with a job leaves, his or her job is sometimes taken over by a native-born American who had been sitting on the couch playing Xbox. If that were true, though, we’d see an increase in the labor force participation rate and/or a decrease in unemployment rate over the same time period, but that hasn’t happened.

Another explanation is that immigrants were working off the books and, therefore, their jobs weren’t counted in most government surveys. If this were true, we’d see a divergence in CPS data, which asks people “did you work for pay?” vs. Current Employment Statistics (CES) data, which asks employers “did you pay someone to work in at least a quasi-legal fashion?” I ran out of brain power and asked ChatGPT to resolve this possibility:

And in the particular January 2025–August 2026 comparison we just calculated, the divergence isn’t enormous once you compare the CPS consistently: CPS total employment is roughly +0.3 million, while CES payroll employment is roughly +0.8 million. So the data could accommodate some loss of informal immigrant employment, but they don’t by themselves demonstrate it.

What’s left as an explanation, given that we can’t abandon the axiom that foreign-born residents of the U.S. are the hardest workers and, certainly, are never on what used to be called “welfare”? We’re living in the Age of Miracles?

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Did Spain prove via Ceuta that welfare is what pulls in low-skill migrants?

by philg

If the US and the EU shut down their respective cradle-to-grave welfare states, would there still be billions of humans (none of whom are “illegal”) seeking to enter?

“Spain ‘denies Ceuta migrants food and water’ to get them to leave” (The Times, August 3, 2026):

Many of the thousands who remain in the territory after crossing the border from Morocco say they have not been given aid or shelter

It is day five of Ceuta’s migrant crisis, and 60,000 people have crossed the border from Morocco, according to Spain’s interior ministry. Some 3,000 to 5,000 still remain, Ceuta’s leader Juan Jesús Vivas estimated, but many of those who have stayed claim they have not been given food, water or shelter.

The Times understands that Ceutan residents were actively discouraged from providing aid to migrants, in the hope that they would return to Morocco.

The only migrant accommodation in the territory is at capacity and has gone into lockdown. Staff prevented those inside from passing water or food to the hundreds outside the gates, lying on the dirt, including Dfalla Sliman, 21, from Sudan. They have slept here for days. Others are from Yemen, Syria and Eritrea, and they have travelled for months.

“I’m very hungry. They say everything is finished,” said Sliman, who had unbandaged wounds on his arms and legs. “And no water; they say everything is finished. I’ll wait until everyone leaves.”

“We understood that selling them water and food was necessary. It was logical to sell them so [they would not] go hungry. But the police came and said it was better if we didn’t give them anything, no food, no drink, because that’s how they left. The effect of not eating or drinking meant … that voluntarily many left.”

Spain, of course, in its eagerness to deny migrants the asylum hearings to which they’re entitled, seems to have gone beyond a simple “no welfare” approach by also trying to prevent migrants from buying things at retail and trying to block charity.

Related:

  • “Joint statement on the humanitarian situation in Gaza” (official August 2025 Spanish government communication, translated by Google Chrome): “The humanitarian suffering in Gaza has reached unimaginable levels. Famine is spreading before our eyes. Urgent action is needed to halt and reverse this hunger. … We urge the Government of Israel to authorize all aid shipments from international NGOs … All border crossings and routes must be used to allow a massive influx of aid to Gaza, including food, nutritional supplements, shelter, fuel, drinking water, medicines, and medical equipment.”
  • “Speech by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, at the Rome Nutrition Week” (May 26, 2026, translated by Chrome): “Certainly in Gaza, where some intend to win a war by subjecting its people to starvation. These are, incidentally, the same people who last week humiliated, abused, and mistreated the members of a flotilla whose only intention was to deliver humanitarian aid.” (There was no “flotilla of aid” for the starving refugees in Ceuta? It’s a 12-mile trip from mainland Spain, less than one hour in a power boat.)
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Why didn’t Europe want to be enriched by the Ceuta migrants?

by philg

Europe is home to about 40 million non-European migrants and perhaps 25 million children of non-European migrants. The total is very close to the population of France and, due to the higher migrant fertility rate, will soon exceed France’s population of about 69 million.

Roughly 60,000 migrants entered Ceuta within the past week. Instead of giving each one a proper asylum hearing, the Spanish mostly pushed them out by denying them food and water (they left “voluntarily” rather than die of dehydration and hunger). This is now praised by pro-migrant European politicians, such as Ursula von der Leyen, who uses the hateful term “illegal migrants” (“no human is illegal” is now out the window?).

We can infer that Europe wants 65-70 million non-European migrants because the ones currently residing in Europe aren’t being sent home. Given that Europe considers these 65-70 million to be beneficial somehow (cultural, economic, and religious enrichment), why wouldn’t an additional 60,000 have also been considered beneficial? And if the 60,000 people who came to Ceuta recently aren’t beneficial, why wouldn’t Europe expel the 65-70 million current resident migrants as non-beneficial? Can this apparent inconsistency be turned into something vaguely logical?

(Note that if we were to add the Islamic Republic of Britain to the mix, that would be at least another 15 million and the non-European migrant+children population would be comparable to Germany’s population.)

It’s possible that “family separation” is bad when Donald Trump does it, but good when Spain does it? Those who claim to be under 18 may get whisked away to mainland Spain, while their parents are (illegally?) pushed back across the border:

Here’s a Spanish Member of European Parliament saying that refusing to accept asylum applications is an example of “dignity and respect” and “defend[ing] human rights”. (Also that Israel is the Great Satan (“genocides”) and the U.S. is the Little Satan.)

(Consistent with EU freedom of speech principles, the politician disabled comments on the above post.)

The Prime Minister, February 2026, in the New York Times, says that the migrants are “needed”:

Some additional excerpts:

Last month, my government issued a decree that makes up to half a million undocumented migrants living in Spain eligible for temporary residence permits, with certain conditions, which they will be able to renew after a year.

We have done this for two reasons. The first and most important is a moral one. Spain was once a nation of emigrants. … It is our duty to become the welcoming and tolerant society that our own relatives would have hoped to find on the other side of our borders.

This seems odd. Suppose that the dermatologist neighbor from Sheboygan invites you over for dinner on Saturday night. Do you then have an obligation to reciprocate by inviting someone from Sudan over on Sunday night? Maybe Spain could have a moral obligation to some of the countries that welcomed Spaniards in the past, but did any Spaniards emigrate to Sudan? Also, why make any economic arguments if something is a moral obligation? If one is obligated to do something does it matter whether doing it makes you better or worse off?

The West needs people. Currently, few of its countries have a rising population growth rate. Unless they embrace migration, they will experience a sharp demographic decline that will prevent them from keeping their economies and public services afloat. Their gross domestic products will stagnate. … The only option to avoid decline is to integrate migrants in the most orderly and effective way possible.

This is objectively false. See Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan as examples of GDP growth with working population shrinkage. (the Asian countries mentioned exhibit the following combination: shrinking population; more rapidly shrinking working age population; growing aggregate GDP; more rapidly growing per-worker GDP).

Here Pedro Sánchez turns out to be a prophet:

Neither A.I. nor robots will be able to prevent this outcome, at least not in the short or medium term.

How did someone with no technical education come to be more of an expert on the likely trajectory of AI and robotics than all of the AI and robot nerds in California and China?

MAGA-style leaders may say that our country can’t handle taking in so many migrants—that this is a suicidal move, the desperate act of a collapsing country. But don’t let them fool you. Spain is booming. For three years running, we have had the fastest-growing economy among Europe’s largest countries. We have created nearly one in every three new jobs across the European Union, and our unemployment rate has fallen below 10 percent for the first time in nearly two decades.

Spain is a dwarf among midgets, in other words?

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Ceuta migrant question: Why are some Africans entitled to live in Europe, but not all?

by philg

“After Most Migrants Leave Ceuta, Exhausted Holdouts Find Shelter on Beach” (New York Times):

Sitting on a beach on Saturday in Ceuta, Spain, a Senegalese man called Djibril Mboup … despite his hunger, Mr. Mboup, 30, said he was not going to return across the border to Morocco.

Mr. Mboup was among roughly 400 men, most of them from sub-Saharan Africa, who were gathered on this beach on Saturday. Many of them lay on ragged sheets of cardboard, their feet blistered from crossing the border and roaming Ceuta’s streets.

The fate of some of the holdouts “is not the same as that of the Moroccans,” Mr. Mohamed, 26, said. Unlike Moroccans who had joined the exodus to Ceuta on a last-minute whim, some of the sub-Saharan migrants are from war-torn regions and had journeyed for months to get to Europe. “They genuinely have the right to request international protection,” Mr. Mohamed said.

For those on the beach, the best possible outcome as they navigated the complexities of the European Union’s asylum system was to be transferred to the city’s official migrant reception center.

Mr. Mboup grew up in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, earning a diploma in logistics, he said. After struggling to find work in his early 20s, he decided to leave the country in 2018 and made his way to Morocco by navigating the deadly smuggling routes through the Sahara. He settled in Casablanca, a coastal city, where he scraped by working illegally as a taxi driver at the airport.

What makes this enricher more entitled to live in Europe than the 19+ million Senegalese who stayed in Senegal? It can’t be superior knowledge of geography:

Hoping to avoid the police’s attention, Mr. Mboup joined a group of Moroccans swimming toward Ceuta, he said. He reached the Spanish shore after roughly 30 minutes, he said, though he did not feel that he was in Spain until he saw the cars — the “Spanish cars.”

His happiness quickly gave way to disappointment, he said.

“I kept looking for signs toward Madrid and Barcelona,” he said, only to realize that he was still “on an island” and that mainland Europe was far away.

I can understand a policy under which everyone from Senegal is entitled to move to Europe. A policy under which nobody from Senegal is entitled to move to Europe would also make sense. But I can’t figure out why the Europeans run a system in which a person from Senegal is entitled to move to Europe, or at least spend 10 years there waiting for an asylum case to be heard by a court or for an amnesty to be declared by a politician, conditioned on first swimming to Ceuta or arriving on a beach in Lampedusa.

(Same question about the U.S. We are home to about 25 percent of the world’s Mexicans and 10 percent of the world’s Haitians. Why aren’t the other 75 percent of Mexicans and 90 percent of Haitians entitled to move to the U.S.? What did they do wrong?)

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