5 ms·

The United States welcomes more immigrants than any other country in the world with fewer restrictions on who can immigrate than any other country in the world.

by abduhl 6y ago

The United States welcomes more immigrants than any other country in the world with fewer restrictions on who can immigrate than any other country in the world. What more can America do?

grey-area 6y ago
That's not true any more. The US is now actively hostile to immigrants - travel bans (prior to covid19), border walls, detention camps, separating young children from parents, denying visas for students with online courses (the government wanted this, the courts stopped it). That may change, but the current US administration is very hostile to immigration.
- rbecker 6y ago
  But none of that hostility made much of a dent in any immigration statistics I was able to find. In fact, legal immigration under Trump even increased by a few percent compared to under Obama: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2018/table1 https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2018/tab... (latest year for which data is available)
  - grey-area 6y ago
    It would take a while, but if sustained, I think these policies would lead to a significant drop in skilled immigration.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The US has always been hostile to low skill immigrants. Reading the civil laws in any "progressive" northeast state is basically a big game of "were they trying to screw the Irish or the Italians back when they wrote this."
  - adventured 6y ago
    The US is among the least hostile developed nations when it comes to low skill immigrants. Few other nations allow them in, much less in such massive numbers. Half of all US immigration is low skill chain migration. The US is one of the few developed nations not operating primarily on a merit-style immigration system. See: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Austria, Japan, South Korea, Germany, etc. Just try immigrating into those countries and becoming a citizen if you can't support yourself and or are low skill. Good luck, you'll need it.
- adventured 6y ago
  All except for one of your examples are entirely bogus in support of your "any more" premise. Border walls? Nope. Close to zero new miles of border wall has been constructed under Trump. Almost exclusively what they've done is repair existing border wall that was built under prior administrations. Detention camps? What is your suggestion for what should be done with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that are caught illegally crossing the border into the US every year? Every developed nation on the planet has some form of detention centers for illegal immigrants that are caught, including our neighbor to the north. Canada doesn't just let you freely wander into their country and become a citizen, they have a strict process; they must be super xenophobic and racist eh. Detention centers for illegal immigrants have existed for decades in the US. Calling them "camps" is language stretching at best, it's obvious what that's meant to bring to mind. Are they camps in Sweden, Italy, Greece, France and Canada too? Want to discuss Canada's low skill immigrant policies and why they're only 1.5% Hispanic (the Americas are ~73% Hispanic)? Somehow people think they're very immigrant friendly, it's fascinating, double-standards abound in judging US immigration policies. Travel bans? Every country implements travel bans when it's convenient. Check out the travel bans going on right now. The US has routinely implemented travel bans, including against Muslim majority nations, in decades past. Separating young children? That shouldn't have happened, that's a super fair point. It's no longer a policy; it ended two years ago and only existed for a very brief period of time.
syllogism 6y ago
> fewer restrictions on who can immigrate than any other country in the world Citation needed? This seems obviously false if you include non-OECD countries, and even within the OECD, it's surely untrue? For instance, immigrating to Germany is much easier than immigrating to the U.S., especially if you include the fact that anyone who has a European grandparent can usually get a passport.
arethuza 6y ago
The US does have a lot of immigrants in absolute terms - but its a huge country. Per capita relative to the size of the existing population immigration to the US isn't that large: https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359963625/dozens-of-countries-take-in-more-immigrants-per-capita-than-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359963625/dozens-of-countries... And looking at per capita net migration it's quite a bit less than the likes of Germany, Italy and the UK (and many more): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...
newacct583 6y ago
> fewer restrictions on who can immigrate That's just laughably wrong. In fact the US issues near-zero green cards for the jobs immigrants are actually doing, and not near enough for the "prestige" employees we claim we want. > What more can America do? Fix its regulatory setup so that the immigrants arriving to do real work are doing it legally, like everyone else in the world does.

by abduhl 6y ago

The United States welcomes more immigrants than any other country in the world with fewer restrictions on who can immigrate than any other country in the world. What more can America do?

grey-area 6y ago

That's not true any more. The US is now actively hostile to immigrants - travel bans (prior to covid19), border walls, detention camps, separating young children from parents, denying visas for students with online courses (the government wanted this, the courts stopped it). That may change, but the current US administration is very hostile to immigration.

rbecker 6y ago
But none of that hostility made much of a dent in any immigration statistics I was able to find. In fact, legal immigration under Trump even increased by a few percent compared to under Obama: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2018/table1 https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2018/tab... (latest year for which data is available)
- grey-area 6y ago
  It would take a while, but if sustained, I think these policies would lead to a significant drop in skilled immigration.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
The US has always been hostile to low skill immigrants. Reading the civil laws in any "progressive" northeast state is basically a big game of "were they trying to screw the Irish or the Italians back when they wrote this."
- adventured 6y ago
  The US is among the least hostile developed nations when it comes to low skill immigrants. Few other nations allow them in, much less in such massive numbers. Half of all US immigration is low skill chain migration. The US is one of the few developed nations not operating primarily on a merit-style immigration system. See: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Austria, Japan, South Korea, Germany, etc. Just try immigrating into those countries and becoming a citizen if you can't support yourself and or are low skill. Good luck, you'll need it.
adventured 6y ago
All except for one of your examples are entirely bogus in support of your "any more" premise. Border walls? Nope. Close to zero new miles of border wall has been constructed under Trump. Almost exclusively what they've done is repair existing border wall that was built under prior administrations. Detention camps? What is your suggestion for what should be done with the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that are caught illegally crossing the border into the US every year? Every developed nation on the planet has some form of detention centers for illegal immigrants that are caught, including our neighbor to the north. Canada doesn't just let you freely wander into their country and become a citizen, they have a strict process; they must be super xenophobic and racist eh. Detention centers for illegal immigrants have existed for decades in the US. Calling them "camps" is language stretching at best, it's obvious what that's meant to bring to mind. Are they camps in Sweden, Italy, Greece, France and Canada too? Want to discuss Canada's low skill immigrant policies and why they're only 1.5% Hispanic (the Americas are ~73% Hispanic)? Somehow people think they're very immigrant friendly, it's fascinating, double-standards abound in judging US immigration policies. Travel bans? Every country implements travel bans when it's convenient. Check out the travel bans going on right now. The US has routinely implemented travel bans, including against Muslim majority nations, in decades past. Separating young children? That shouldn't have happened, that's a super fair point. It's no longer a policy; it ended two years ago and only existed for a very brief period of time.

syllogism 6y ago

> fewer restrictions on who can immigrate than any other country in the world Citation needed? This seems obviously false if you include non-OECD countries, and even within the OECD, it's surely untrue? For instance, immigrating to Germany is much easier than immigrating to the U.S., especially if you include the fact that anyone who has a European grandparent can usually get a passport.

arethuza 6y ago

The US does have a lot of immigrants in absolute terms - but its a huge country. Per capita relative to the size of the existing population immigration to the US isn't that large: https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359963625/dozens-of-countries-take-in-more-immigrants-per-capita-than-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/2014/10/29/359963625/dozens-of-countries... And looking at per capita net migration it's quite a bit less than the likes of Germany, Italy and the UK (and many more): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migra...

newacct583 6y ago

> fewer restrictions on who can immigrate That's just laughably wrong. In fact the US issues near-zero green cards for the jobs immigrants are actually doing, and not near enough for the "prestige" employees we claim we want. > What more can America do? Fix its regulatory setup so that the immigrants arriving to do real work are doing it legally, like everyone else in the world does.