Germans shutting down immigration because they are tired of getting wealthier and enjoying lower crime rates?
“Merkel, to Survive, Agrees to Border Camps for Migrants” (nytimes) is about the world’s smartest leader (she has a Ph.D. in physical chemistry!) substantially shutting down the pipeline of migrants into Germany’s welfare state.
The greatest American minds say that unskilled immigration makes a society better off. For example, “Immigrants Do Not Increase Crime, Research Shows” (Scientific American, from February 2017, just after the Trumpenfuhrer moved into the Reichskanzlei):
There are a number of ideas among scholars that explain why more immigration leads to less crime. The most common explanation is that immigration reduces levels of crime by revitalizing urban neighborhoods, creating vibrant communities and generating economic growth.
Several different Facebook friends recently posted this as a status. I responded with
If low-skill immigrants boost an economy and lower crime rates (as this article says), why isn’t there competition among countries to attract low-skill immigrants? Why would the U.S. have a big supply at the southern border, for example? Shouldn’t Mexico have snapped up Spanish-speaking migrants from Central and South America before they get a chance to cross the U.S. border?
The response was that wages were lower in Mexico.
If wages in Mexico are low and low-skill immigrants make an economy richer, shouldn’t Mexicans be even more eager than Americans to persuade migrants to settle? Why are Mexicans rejecting migrants? (see “Mexico fails to offer migrants asylum, Amnesty International reports”)
If you’re against inequality, which I hope that you are, shouldn’t you be upset that a lower-income country such as Mexico is being denied the opportunity to benefit from settling low-skill migrants? A rich country such as the U.S. getting yet richer by vacuuming up all of the low-skill migrants (and also enjoying a reduction in crime) is not a reasonable goal for anyone passionate about equality.
World Bank data show that Mexico has nearly the same labor force participation rate as the U.S. (61 percent versus 62 percent) so should be equally boosted by immigrant labor.
Ultimately the answer from the pro-immigration believers was that Mexicans are not intelligent enough to see the true value of unskilled immigrants and/or that Mexicans are racist. Somehow the topic switched to Europe. A low-skill immigration enthusiast wrote “For a while Merkel’s German govt seemed to be arguing that it was their answer to an aging population and growing need for workers. Sweden also. In the past year or so there has been a lot of pushback on that less for economic reasons than nativist.”
(i.e., it turns out that the people who disagree with him are nativist/racist)
My response:
so after several years of experiencing increased wealth and reduced crime due to low-skill immigration, Germans and Swedes have decided that it would be intolerable to keep getting wealthier and safer?
Apparently it is now official. Germans are so tired of getting wealthier and safer that they are building, well, concentration camps.
European readers: What happens now? Do all of the migrants who wanted to settle in Germany now go to some other European country? Do millions end up camped out at the German border indefinitely? Do fewer migrants show up because it is now tough to transition into the normal welfare lifestyle anywhere within Europe?
Related:
- unemployed = 21st century draft horse? (what happens to low-skill adults in the current U.S. economy)
- Revisiting the 21st Century Draft Horse posting