Immigration is good for us

The Mexicans had a joke about ex-President Donald Trump’s planned wall along its border with the US.

“It’s not being built to keep Mexicans out of the US; it’s built to keep Trump out of Mexico!”

 If this be so, then President Joe Biden can relax. No longer is there the need to dismantle the Trump wall.

Today in the US media reports say that Mexico has to deal with another migrant “caravan” of fleeing Central Americans pouring into the south of the country, hoping to somehow crash their way into the US.

However, the Mexicans have reacted sensibly and humanely to the caravan. They are encouraging the “caravaners” to go no further and find work in Mexico’s underdeveloped southern states.

Those applying for asylum have been offered temporary work permits with immediate effect. (Colombia has recently implanted the same policy and found it effective- to deal with its large influx from neighboring Venezuela, reports yesterday’s Financial Times.)

The Mexicans know from their history that development is the cure for migration. Thanks to economic growth the Mexican exodus to America has been reduced to a trickle.

Trump didn’t talk about this. He used the Mexicans as a crowd-pleasing scapegoat for a phenomenon that no longer exists. He said that, “they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” 

The press has an unfortunate tendency to avoid the good news. For example, the increase in immigration globally is largely in line with the growth in world population. It was 3 percent in 1990 and in 2020 was 3.5 percent.

 It needn’t be so divisive, given good political, religious and media leadership. In New York where 36 per- cent are foreign born the city provides ID cards for illegal migrants. There’s free health insurance for the children of illegals.

 Public universities provide tuition subsidies for illegals as happens in 22 other states. How many people are aware that in the presidential election when Hilary Clinton ran against Trump the counties bordering Mexico and most affected by Mexican immigration voted for Clinton?

The fact is Immigration can be good for us- if we have a positive attitude. Muslim Turkey is one of the most hospitable of all countries. It demonstrates what human kindness combined with self-economic interest can do.

A survey carried out at the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis five years ago found that 73 per cent of respondents believed that accepting and supporting refugees was a humanitarian mission. Mainly Christian Canada likewise welcomes immigrants and refugees, both skilled and unskilled and they settle in. 

There are many things we don’t understand about the public reaction to and the cost/benefits of immigration, but some important aspects have been researched in depth:

• Three-fourths of Americans believe immigration increases crime.

In fact, first generation immigrants are less criminally inclined than local populations and the crime rate for both locals and immigrants has been decreasing almost every- where for a decade now.

 During 1992-2016 the violent crime rate almost halved, although in some countries the corona virus appears to have pushed the crime rate back up. Presumably this is because of the sharp rise in unemployment.

 Because over the last five years refugees have been coming mainly from the Middle East there’s a wide- spread assumption in the US and Europe that would-be terrorists are hiding among them.

But not a single known terrorist has entered the US from the Mexican border. 75 percent of American terrorist incidents have been carried out by locally born whites.

In 2015 there were 211 terror attacks in Europe but 65 percent were by separatists and 17 percent by jihadists. 

The costs of a restrictive immigration policy are high. Low skilled immigrants have contributed significantly to economic growth.

 They gravitate to growth areas. Without them growth would be markedly less.

  Although East European countries are finding they are seriously short of labor they won’t open their doors to Syrians and Afghanis.

(To be fair one should point out that Poland has accepted one million Ukrainian refugees.) Japan, facing a serious population decline, at last has announced a partial and limited opening to immigrants, despite popular unwillingness.

Unless countries open up they may well end up con- fronting the question where will the money come from to look after an ageing population which no longer pays much tax?

Job-seeking, “so-called economic”, immigrants (not refugees) only come to a country if there are large numbers of job vacancies.

The grapevine keeps them informed. When job opportunities dry up most stop coming.

 There’s a vigorous debate among economists whether immigration hurts the wages of locals, particularly less educated, less skilled, natives. 

One respected study by George Borjas of Harvard University suggested that a 10% increase in immigration lowers the wage of the native worker by 3 percent.