Category: Migration, Refugees, and Asylum

Prior to coronapanic, approximately 40 million Americans were suffering in poverty (HHS). To these unfortunates, 8 million were added via shutdowns, mask orders, and economic slowdowns (Bloomberg). Who is first in our thoughts when we’re looking to extend a helping hand? Afghan migrants, says the NYT. “Americans Stretch Across Political Divides to Welcome Afghan Refugees”:

In rural Minnesota, an agricultural specialist has been working on visa applications and providing temporary housing for the newcomers, and she has set up an area for halal meat processing on her farm. In California, a group of veterans has sent a welcoming committee to the Sacramento airport to greet every arriving family. In Arkansas, volunteers are signing up to buy groceries, do airport pickups and host families in their homes.

The moment stands in contrast to the last four years when the country, led by a president who restricted immigration and enacted a ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries, was split over whether to welcome or shun people seeking safe haven. And with much of the electorate still deeply divided over immigration, the durability of the present welcome mat remains unknown.

(How many Muslims immigrated or traveled to the U.S. during this purported “ban”?)

Uber thoughtfully interrupted my locked iPhone with a notification:

(The canine portion of this image is a friend’s Samoyed puppy.)

Where does the urgent notification lead?

What’s interesting to me about this is that Uber has never notified me regarding the need to help the homeless encamped within a few blocks of their headquarter. From Working in San Francisco today (January 2019):

[the meeting is] inside of WeWork Civic Center on Mission between 7th and 8th wedged between a homeless encampment and emergency heroin detox center. I would recommend picking a hotel in another part of town. … Due to the layout and direction of the one way streets and traffic I’ve found cabs/Uber to work fairly poorly and often take longer than BART. I stopped using cars when junkies started trying to open my door at stop lights.

The described location is literally 2 minutes away from the Uber HQ. As with other rich Californians, it’s not that Uber couldn’t help these people, e.g., by funding construction of an apartment building or the rental of one or more apartments … it is just that Uber doesn’t want to.

Maybe it is because we have more hope for Afghan migrants than we do for people who’ve already failed within U.S. society? (they couldn’t even get organized to collect welfare, which in some states is more lucrative than working at the median wage)

I talked to a Harvard graduate and lifelong Democrat about this. She said “It will probably take three generations before they are fully integrated into American society.” I thought it was interesting that she assumed that adopting our value system was inevitable and desirable. (See also Omar Mateen, the most famous second-generation Afghan-American, reared by “All-American” and “moderate Muslim” immigrant parents.) Is it fair to call the assumption that immigrants would want to assimilate a sign of white supremacy? The U.S. is plainly richer than Afghanistan (Afghans are close to being the world’s least economically successful people), but is the U.S. value and moral system superior to what prevails in Afghanistan? Other than white supremacy, what is our basis for saying that our rainbow flag religion is better than Islam, for example?

Related:

• Islam is more powerful than Rainbow Flagism?

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We started the war in Afghanistan in 2001. The country’s total population then was 21.6 million (Google). The estimated 2021 population is 40 million (source). If roughly half of Afghans don’t like the current government, i.e., a similar level of political division to what we have here in the U.S., that means the potential number of refugees seeking to leave could be more than than the total number of people in Afghanistan when we invaded.

If only 20 million want to leave for political reasons, how can the refugee pool expand to 21.6 million? Let’s assume at least a small percentage of people will seek to leave for economic reasons, on top of those who don’t support the Taliban; among nations, Afghanistan is ranked #213 out of 228 in income per person (CIA). Afghans are only 1/4 as successful economically as Guatemalans, for example, whom we are told are “fleeing” poverty when they show up at our open-to-anyone-claiming-abuse southern border. (Once in the U.S., Afghans are the least likely to work of any immigrant group. See “Challenges to the economic integration of Afghan refugees in the U.S.”:

Among adults ages 18–64, Afghans have the lowest rate of employment (59%) among the comparison groups. This is due primarily to the very low rate of employment of Afghan women (46%). The latter is low regardless of how long they have been in the U.S., but it is particularly low among recent arrivals (23% among those in the U.S. for 0–5 years) and those with the lowest and highest levels of education. Further, when controlling for education, Afghan men with a college degree or higher have the lowest levels of employment.

The righteous academics who wrote the above explain why Afghan-Americans don’t work: “we hypothesise that anti-Muslim discrimination is an important unmeasured explanatory factor” (citing white Americans’ support for Donald Trump). Maybe if an Afghan wore a rainbow flag burqa, he/she/ze/they could get a job in San Francisco, despite the postulated anti-Muslim discrimination?)

Is it fair to say that the U.S. will have created a second Afghanistan by invading the first? The second Afghanistan will have the same population as 2001 Afghanistan, but it will be a virtual and distributed country of Afghans in the U.S., Europe, etc.

Here’s the beginning of a design for the rainbow flag burqa, mentioned above:

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“As Greece installs ‘sound cannons’ on border, Denmark passes law allowing asylum seekers to be sent overseas” (Washington Post):

A law passed by Denmark’s Parliament on Thursday allows asylum seekers to be sent outside Europe to await the review of their applications.

In Greece, high-tech “sound cannons” are being used to deter migrants from crossing into the European Union from Turkey.

The sound cannons are part of a larger strategy to create a high-tech barrier that will prevent migrants from entering Greece in hopes of seeking asylum. Artificial intelligence will be used to analyze potentially suspicious movement captured by long-range cameras, and the country is also experimenting with using the technology to conduct lie detector tests during interviews with asylum seekers, according to the AP.

In Denmark, attempts to discourage migration have taken on a different form: A law that passed Thursday means asylum seekers can be sent to another country outside Europe while they wait for their cases to be reviewed.

“If you apply for asylum in Denmark, you know that you will be sent back to a country outside Europe, and therefore we hope that people will stop seeking asylum in Denmark,” Rasmus Stoklund, a spokesman for the Danish government, told broadcaster DR, according to Reuters.

Although it’s not yet clear what countries will take in refugees under such an arrangement, Denmark and Rwanda recently signed a memorandum of understanding that has led to speculation that migrants will probably be relocated to Africa.

Denmark, one of the wealthiest countries in Europe, has increasingly taken a hard-line stance on migration in recent years. The Danish Refugee Council said in a statement that sending refugees to a third country was analogous to Australia’s much-criticized policy of housing asylum seekers in offshore camps, and warned that the model has meant that migrants face “physical assault, slow asylum proceedings, lack of access to health care and lack of access to legal assistance.”

From joebiden.com:

Immigration is essential to who we are as a nation, our core values, and our aspirations for our future. … Trump’s policies are also bad for our economy. For generations, immigrants have fortified our most valuable competitive advantage–our spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship. Research suggests that “the total annual contribution of foreign-born workers is roughly $2 trillion.” Key sectors of the U.S. economy, from agriculture to technology, rely on immigration. Working-age immigrants keep our economy growing, our communities thriving, and country moving forward.

Coming the above two… Greeks and Danes don’t want to be rich. From Denmark, 2019 (“send them back”):

Americans, it seems, also are averse to becoming rich, even those who have faith in wealth-via-low-skill-migration. “U.S. Aid to Central America Hasn’t Slowed Migration. Can Kamala Harris?” (New York Times, June 6):

As vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr. led an enormous push to deter people from crossing into the United States by devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to Central America, hoping to make the region more tolerable for the poor — so that fewer would abandon it. Now, as President Biden, he is doubling down on that strategy once again and assigning his own vice president, Kamala Harris, the prickly challenge of carrying out his plan to commit $4 billion in a remarkably similar approach as she travels to the region Sunday. “When I was vice president, I focused on providing the help needed to address these root causes of migration,” Mr. Biden said in a recent speech to Congress. “It helped keep people in their own countries instead of being forced to leave. Our plan worked.” But the numbers tell a different story. After years of the United States flooding Central America with aid, migration from the region soared in 2019 and is on the upswing once more.

Here in Guatemala, which has received more than $1.6 billion in American aid over the last decade, poverty rates have risen, malnutrition has become a national crisis, corruption is unbridled and the country is sending more unaccompanied children to the United States than anywhere else in the world.

One, called the Rural Value Chains Project, spent part of its $20 million in American aid building outhouses for potato farmers — many of which were quickly abandoned or torn apart for scrap metal.

Uncle Joe wouldn’t lie to us (unlike you know who!). Thus, since every person from Guatemala who arrives in the U.S. makes us richer, happier (“our core values”), and more hopeful (“our aspirations for the future”), it is odd that we would want to spend $1.6 billion of our hard-earned wages to discourage Guatemalans from coming here.

Related:

• Low skill migrants make the U.S. richer, but will impoverish Spain
• from Harvard: “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers”

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Lately there has been a rash of American victimhood groups demanding that others stop hating them. I wondered how a strategy that would never be tried within a family (“if your brother hates you for breaking his LEGO, just tell him to stop hating you”) could work on a national scale. See “OC Jewish Leaders Speak Out Against Antisemitism After Rise in Hate Crimes”, for example:

Jewish community leaders across the U.S. are speaking out against what they say has been a recent surge in antisemitic attacks. … A Thursday virtual rally saw a host of national Jewish advocacy groups, like the Anti-Defamation League talking about the issue and demanding Congress curb the threat of antisemitism through meaningful policy.

Now it seems that our next president is working this strategy on a global scale… “Harris tells migrants: ‘Do not come, do not come'” (The Hill):

Vice President Harris on Monday pleaded with migrants from Central American countries to stay home in a speech in Guatemala during her first foreign trip.

The vice president was blunt in her message to Central Americans, repeating the line, “Do not come.”

“I want to emphasize that the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans find hope at home. At the same time I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States Mexico border: Do not come, do not come,” Harris said.

She said that the U.S. would invest in agricultural businesses and affordable housing and help support entrepreneurs in Guatemala. The White House said that it plans to invest $48 million over four years to boost economic opportunity in Guatemala, according to a fact sheet.

(the country that has an affordable housing shortage of 7 million units will teach the Guatemalans how it is done!)

Given that a migrant is entitled to free housing (“means-tested” public housing), free health care for life (Medicaid), free food (SNAP/EBT), and a free smartphone (Obamaphone), President Harris’s statement could be compared to a party disinvitation of the following form:

Don’t come to our party

Sting is performing by the pool

We ordered a mountain of “essential” marijuana from the finest dispensary in Massachusetts

We also ordered a briefcase full of cocaine, which we expect to similarly transition from “illegal” to “essential” soon.

There will be Château Margaux to drink, mostly 1995 and 2003 vintages

Robert Downey, Jr. and Will Smith should be here by 9:30

We’re not checking for invitations at the door, which will be wide open

But definitely don’t come

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Proud 5-year-old: “I was chasing Canada geese on my bike.”

Me: “Why?”

5-year-old: “I want them to go back to Canada.”

Related: Government experts in Everglades National Park remind us that immigrants from Africa, Central America, and South America are “unwelcome” and “crowd out their native neighbors”…

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“‘Come On In, Boys’: A Wave of the Hand Sets Off Spain-Morocco Migrant Fight” (New York Times):

Spanish officials say Morocco increasingly sees migrants as currency for financial and political gains after it let up to 12,000 flood into a Spanish enclave in North Africa over two days.

Normally, Morocco tightly controls the fenced borders around Ceuta, a six-mile-long peninsula on Morocco’s northern coast that Spain has governed since the 1600s. But now its military was allowing migrants into this toehold of Europe. Over the next two days, as many as 12,000 people flowed over the border to Ceuta in hopes of reaching mainland Spain, engulfing the city of 80,000.

The crisis has laid bare the unique pressure point Morocco has over Spain on migration. Spanish government officials and other experts say Morocco increasingly sees the migrants as a kind of currency and is leveraging its control over them to extract financial and political prizes from Spain.

“It’s not acceptable that a government allows for attacks on their borders” because of disagreements over foreign policy, Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, said on Monday.

Hours after the migrants began pouring into Ceuta, Spain approved 30 million euros, about $37 million, in aid to Morocco for border policing. The transaction was reminiscent of Turkey’s deal with the European Union under which it was paid to stem the flood of migrants onto European shores after the Arab Spring and decades of turmoil in Afghanistan.

The same newspaper has informed us for more than five years that low skill migrants make existing Americans vastly wealthier. Yet it runs an article without expert analysis questioning the assumption that Spain will become poorer with every additional low skill migrant (to the point that it is worth paying Morocco and Turkey to keep migrants away). And, if the brightest minds of American academia and politics are correct about the high value of low skill migrants to a modern economy, why isn’t there a bidding war among EU nations for the 6,000 migrants per day coming into Ceuta?

From 2017 Agadir, a beach resort on the Atlantic coast of Morocco (Ceuta is just inside the Mediterranean).

A map for context, which the NYT does not provide:

Separately, if American economists and Democrats are wrong about the value of low skill migrants, would it be smart for Spain to give up this little corner of Africa? If migrants cross at the rate of 6,000 per day and each migrant costs 1 million EUR in lifetime welfare, the Spanish are getting poorer at the rate of $7.3 billion per day because of their ownership of this city of 80,000 people (i.e., the residents of Ceuta would have to pay taxes at the rate of $91,250 per day each in order to make ownership of the chunk of land financially rational). For comparison, the $4 trillion in coronapanic “stimulus” spending by the U.S. government works out to about $10 billion per day.

Related:

• “Yes, Immigration Hurts American Workers” (Harvard econ prof shows that low skill migrants actually do make Americans richer… but only those who are already relatively rich, e.g., apartment building owners, restaurant chain owners, government employees, non-profit refugee-industrial complex workers, etc.)

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From our Census Bureau:

• U.S. population on April 1, 2010: 308,745,538
• U.S. population on April 1, 2020: 331,449,281

That’s an increase of 22,703,743 people (unclear how many of the new undocumented Americans are included in this count by friendly government agents; see “Yale Study Finds Twice as Many Undocumented Immigrants as Previous Estimates”).

22.7 million is roughly the population of Illinois and Michigan combined. Those two states have 563,237 lane-miles of road (source). Were 563,237 lane-miles added between 2010 and 2020 nationwide? Here’s a chart from the U.S. Department of Transporation:

In case you’re wondering why you’re always stuck in traffic, the above chart shows that lane-miles have barely budged since 1980 while vehicle-miles actually traveled have grown by roughly 50 percent. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics offers finer-grained data: 8,542,163 lane-miles in 2009 and 8,785,398 lane-miles in 2019 (243,235 new lane-miles over 10 years, but essentially flat since 2014; the growth over 10 years was only 2.8 percent, less than half the 7.4 percent growth in population).

It is more difficult to get statistics on other elements of infrastructure, e.g., square footage of school buildings, capacity in water and sewer systems, capacity of the electricity grid, etc. But my sense is that none of these are being expanded at the same rate as population.

If roads, schools, water/sewer, electric grid, etc. remain constant while the population grows, doesn’t that mean we’re turning the U.S. circa 2030 into India circa 1990?

Related:

• “Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change Through 2065” (Pew, 2015)
• “Why California Stopped Building Freeways” (Access): “The principal reason California and most other states stopped building freeways was that the freeway program began running out of money in the 1960s. … The principal cause of declining freeway development was the dramatic rise in construction and maintenance costs during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Freeway development costs nationwide grew much faster than the general rate of inflation during those three decades.”

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