Category: Migration, Refugees, and Asylum

The Biden administration recently extended the “Temporary Protected Status” (i.e., “permanent”) for migrants from El Salvador. Starting in 2001 (State Department), Salvadorans have had an automatic right to stay in the U.S. because El Salvador is too dangerous for human habitation. Since the 2019 election of Nayib Bukele (age 42, so he won’t be qualified to serve as chief executive of a big nation for another four decades), however, it turns out that El Salvador has become safer than the U.S. overall and, certainly, far safer than the rough urban U.S. neighborhoods into which migrants tend to be dumped (e.g., a high-crime neighborhood in Maskachusetts: “Migrant overflow shelter in Roxbury is already reaching capacity”).

A Salvadoran could still stay in the U.S. forever by claiming that he/she/ze/they was threatened by a spouse, a golden retriever, or some other source of domestic violence (see “Biden administration reverses Trump-era asylum policies” (2021)), but why does he/she/ze/they get automatic legal residency simply because El Salvador overall is too dangerous?

(As it happens, the two guys who moved my mom’s stuff from independent living in Maryland to assisted living here in Abacoa (Jupiter, Florida) were immigrants from El Salvador. They both expressed huge enthusiasm for President Bukele (hated by the American Righteous) and said that, in their opinion, El Salvador was now safer than Washington, D.C. (Packing, moving, and unpacking cost 4,600 Bidies for some furniture and art that we would have had to pay to throw out in Maryland.))

An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford describes a vigorous debate about whether approximately 50,000 Vietnamese refugees should be admitted to the U.S. This was a non-representative group containing the professional and managerial elite of South Vietnam. Nonetheless, opposition was intense, including among liberal Democrats who today would be demanding more immigration. George McGovern, for example, and California governor Jerry Brown (he sought to make it illegal for private groups with California to help Vietnamese immigrants settle).

Other countries, such as the Philippines, were even more hostile to taking in these educated migrants.

Ultimately, closer to 125,000 refugees arrived in the immediate aftermath of the Vietnam War. That’s comparable to the number who walk across the southern border and introduce themselves to our border patrol agents every 12 days (300,000+ per month).

A Christmas tale from the Washington Post… “Young U.S. Muslims are rising up against Israel in unlikely places”:

As she watched the conflict in Israel and Gaza unfold this fall, 17-year-old Asmmaa Zaitar finally had enough. She decided to organize a protest in support of the Palestinian cause in a very unlikely place — a courthouse in Huntsville, Ala.

Initially, Zaitar, a second-generation Palestinian American, was terrified that no one would show up. Zaitar knew it was a conservative town better known for divisive debates over Confederate monuments than for protests against a war overseas.

But as the rally began, dozens of fellow Muslims, including women wearing headscarves, trickled into the town square in late October carrying signs decrying Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. Local media showed up, and Zaitar knew she had succeeded in connecting her city — and its growing Muslim population — to a conflict halfway around the globe.

… protests in support of the plight of Palestinians are springing up, showcasing the continued spread of the U.S. Muslim population into the country’s heartland. Children of refugees from Muslim nations organized many of the demonstrations, evidence of a political awakening among a new generation of young Americans who are helping to shape U.S. public opinion in support of a cease-fire in the Middle East.

How long has the Great Replacement not been happening?

The burst of activism — which Muslim scholars said would have been unthinkable just a decade or so ago — is rooted in the broad spread of Muslim families throughout the United States.

From the first major waves of migrants to the United States in the 1970s through the 1990s, Muslims tended to cluster in just a handful of states, including New York, California and Michigan.

Like many immigrant groups, over time some moved elsewhere in search of jobs and opportunities. More recently, many new refugees from Muslim-majority nations have settled directly into states in the South or Midwest in hopes of finding more affordable housing.

A 2017 analysis from Pew Research Center estimated that 3.45 million Americans are Muslim, three-quarters of whom are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Overall, the nation’s Muslim population is far younger than the overall U.S. population, with Pew finding 35 percent of Muslims were 18 to 29 that year, compared to 21 percent of the overall population.

Using data on religious institutions gathered by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, a Washington Post analysis found that 234 U.S. counties have seen an increase in the number of Muslim congregations since 2000, representing around 7 percent of counties nationwide. In 217 counties, mosque membership doubled between 2000 and 2020. And across the nation, the number of mosques has more than doubled since 2000, according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a research firm that studies Muslim communities.

Was it smart for Democrats to have passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, without which only Muslims with very high levels of education and earning power would have been admitted as immigrants?

Muslim voters overwhelmingly supported Biden, and helped the Democrat carry several states including Michigan and Virginia.

Ole Miss:

“How Italy’s far-right leader learned to stop worrying and love migration” (Politico, August 2023):

Giorgia Meloni is presiding over a sharp spike in regular and irregular arrivals.

While Meloni has continued to take a hard line on irregular arrivals, there’s little sign it’s being effective. The number of people arriving by boat after crossing the Mediterranean has more than doubled this year, to 106,000 so far this year, compared to 53,000 over the same period last year, according to government data.

“UK migration soars to record high despite Tory Brexit promises” (Politico, November 2023):

Net migration to the U.K. has hit a new record high of 672,000, four years after the Conservatives pledged to cut it to a third of that level.

The latest figures, published by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday morning, show a significant increase on what was already a record-high of 602,000 people back in May.

The latest release — covering the 12 months to June 2023 — piles further pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has promised to drastically decrease the numbers of people moving to the U.K. each year.

I can’t figure out these politicians’ strategy. They promise to reduce immigration, but then continue to offer asylum to any of 8 billion humans who choose to show up. Finally, they express surprise when some of those 8 billion humans actually do show up to claim the offer.

We are informed that Replacement Theory is a lie and also….

Meloni is presiding over a country that is economically stagnant and in demographic decline. Over the last decade, Italy has shrunk by some 1.5 million people (more than the population of Milan). In 39 of its 107 provinces, there are more retirees than workers.

It’s numbers like these that prompted Italy’s Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti to warn earlier this month that no reform of the pension system would “hold up in the medium-to-long term with the birth rate numbers we have today in this country.”

There will be no replacement of Italians in Italy. It is just that the number of Italians will be reduced while the number of non-Italians will increase.

Donald Trump, of course, famously failed to eliminate “irregular crossings” of our southern border. The Trump years did not feature the completely open border that Joe Biden runs, but the number of encounters weren’t reduced compared to the Obama administration’s record:

The European politicians can’t claim a lack of cooperation from parliament, as a U.S. president can say about Congress refusing to do his/her/zir/their bidding.

Going forward, should voters around the world simply ignore any politician who promises to reduce low-skill immigration unless the politician says “We will stop offering asylum”?