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I think you have the concept right, the real dispute comes down to your numbers. I think that the united states could absorb the entire population of Haiti wit
by geebee 17y ago
I think you have the concept right, the real dispute comes down to your numbers.
I think that the united states could absorb the entire population of Haiti without much impact (ie., from 81 to 80), and eventually we'd probably benefit. But how about all the desperately poor people everywhere else in the world? At some point, I think we're going a lot further down than just one point on the scale.
Right now, this reality is reflected in our (remarkably badly run) immigration system, where the United States takes about 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year, by far the most in absolutes and high up there in percentage of population, but still faces a surprising amount of criticism for being anti-immigrant because we don't take in even more. Much of this criticism comes from people who live in countries that are remarkably stingy with their immigration systems.
- ajkirwin 17y agoCite this, because it sounds like BS.
- geebee 17y agoWould you let me know what I need to cite? Immigration stats, along with national policies, are readily available on the web.
- eru 17y agoI guess he's talking about "At some point, I think we're going a lot further down than just one point on the scale." I doubt that statement, too.
- geebee 17y agoFair enough to disagree... I'm just confused that someone would ask for a citation, since it's clearly just a projection or opinion. Maybe he just wanted me to defend it, rather than just claim it... That said, do you really think that "unrestricted" immigration (excluding border cases of known criminals, etc...) in the US (or Canada, Australia, etc) would not have a substantial negative impact on quality of life? It seems obvious to me that it would, but if you have any good arguments, studies, links to the contrary, feel free to post - I will read them.
- eru 17y agoThanks for taking out the obvious straw man with "(excluding border cases of known criminals, etc...)". Yes, a defence preferably with some data would have been good. Yes, I do believe that unrestricted immigration would not have a substantial negative impact on quality of life for the resident population. And would have an enormous positive impact on the migrant population. People from the poorer parts of the US are already allowed to migrate to the richer parts. Why stop there? Also as poorer nations joined the Schengen-Area (related to the EU) there have not been qualitify-of-life-decreasing mass-migrations. You may argue that there can be quality-of-life degradations when the immigrants are not properly integrated. But the US seems to do a pretty good job in this respect. (My home country, Germany, much less so.) Sorry, I do not have enough time to write down a real argument, but if you are really interested, I can perhaps prepare a blog post or so.