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I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative, but I understand why it is controversial. I understand that the arguments against "letting eve

I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative, but I understand why it is controversial. I understand that the arguments against "letting everyone in" have some merit, though I ultimately disagree with them. What is a real head scratcher to me is the US policy on highly-skilled immigrants. There are certainly some political constituencies in favor of those, but I can't think of anyone against, at least not one with a modicum of political pull. One could imagine a regulatory capture scenario where large companies benefit from the regime, because they have an easier time obtaining visas than their smaller competitors, but in practice even those lobby for more, not less immigration. So who's lobbying against this exactly?

mcguire 11y ago
Those who don't want the wages for "highly-skilled" jobs depressed to sub-lower-middle-class levels?
kazinator 11y ago
Opening borders works for multicultural countries built on immigration. For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging.
- darkmighty 11y ago
  He's referring to america... and I have to disagree. What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs? Culture is probably worth preserving, but often culture is simply "the way it's always been" -- I'd argue the opposite, bringing different cultures together, if done right, will promote creating new culture that make more sense for today's reality, and not some 19th century status quo. Creation of culture is more important, imo, than maintaining culture -- as the latter can be done with history books while the former is a real policy that might enrich the lives of citizens.
  - fennecfoxen 11y ago
    While I agree with this in theory, I'm going to point you to this fascinating piece on some of the ongoing problems that the French tradition of republican laicity is facing from Muslim immigrants, as a general illustration of the conflicts involved: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/mar/05/france-on-fire/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/mar/05/france-... In summary: the very culture of tolerance and openness towards others itself is sometimes threatened by those it wishes to welcome, and that's a hard problem to solve.
  - Happydayz 11y ago
    So there is no value in a uniquely Norwegian culture? Or Korean? Or Japanese? One of the side effects of totally open borders is that human culture might homogenize, with strong bias toward the developing world where birthrates are exceptionally high. I think Indian and Bangladeshi culture are both wonderful, however I do not think they are necessary worth more than Norwegian, Japanese, etc.
    - ericdschmidt 11y ago
      Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
  - kazinator 11y ago
    > What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs? If you're from a country that has a great history and traditions, and you are ethnically related to that, then your DNA constitutes a cultural artifact, just like some carving in a museum in your capital city or a traditional folk song. Through ancestry, you are related to the people who made those things. It would be stupidly inconsistent to preserve those other artifacts, yet to deny that your living DNA has value in connection with them.
  - danielweber 11y ago
    Chesterson's fence. There is something about the US that makes it desirable for people to move to the US. When proposing changes to the US, you need to wonder about that that thing is, so you can figure out if/how it will be changed by your new policy.
- JoshTriplett 11y ago
  > For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging. Let's take those one at a time. Language: Sure, granted, there's a tendency to gravitate towards more common languages. Arguably that's a net benefit for people who would otherwise have grown up only speaking a less common language; learning a more common language grants access to a much larger set of speakers, information, and opportunities. That said, language doesn't tend to be lost, just not kept as an exclusive cultural barrier. Witness the massive efforts to internationalize information, to improve accessibility. And it's still common in many countries to look down upon anyone not speaking the native language, if that can be considered a feature. Ethnicity: What do you have in mind other than language and culture, here? Because I hope you're not suggesting "racial purity" as a property worth preserving. Finally, culture: Only if that culture is unable to propagate itself on its own merits, or in other words, if that culture has merits worth propagating. Some cultures have incredible history and traditions, and those have typically been preserved and spread further than they ever would have been otherwise. On the other hand, there are cultures built on oppression, indoctrination, suppression of dissent, lack of opportunity, and other undesirable properties; those cultures don't tend to survive exposure to broader information and the outside world (as well as the visibility of those cultures and their traditions to the outside world), which is all the more reason for such exposure. Not all traditions are worth preserving.
  - cousin_it 11y ago
    > propagate itself on its own merits You're right that not all traditions are worth preserving, but Darwinism isn't the best way to choose which traditions are worth preserving. The problem is that ability to propagate does not imply merit. If you put a bad guy and a good guy in a room together, sometimes the bad guy just beats up the good guy, and you realize that you shouldn't have put them together. This is the same kind of fallacy as "if a company went out of business, it must've been a bad company", and also "the invisible hand of gravity means it's good that the vase broke". For example, there's tons of cultures that think murder for personal grievances is okay and praise-worthy. I've seen first hand what happens when such a culture meets a gentle Western culture, when the latter doesn't have an overwhelming force advantage. It's not pretty.
- zzalpha 11y ago
  Damaging in what sense?
  - sigzero 11y ago
    A problem being, if you open the door, you don't control who comes through. I am totally against an open borders policy.
    - kazinator 11y ago
      Before you open the national border, you have to start small! First, get everyone not to lock their front door. Then, ban all fences and "no trespassing" signs. If that pilot program is successful, then think about opening the borders. It occurs to me that any country that opens its borders will be instantly flooded with every murderous scumbag that is fleeing from the law elsewhere. You will also be an instant transfer point for the trade of weapons, narcotics and so on. Not to mention human trafficking. I guess how you deal with that is that you open your border to foreign law enforcement and give them a carte blanche about to conduct their investigation how they see fit, and make arrests. Speaking of arrests, open borders means that someone can sneak into your country, kidnap someone, and sneak out.
      - ericdschmidt 11y ago
        Fallacy, fallacy, fallacy, fallacy. Oh, I lost count. Private property != public property. There are things called roads, parks, forests that are public - these spaces are designed for common use. Separately, there is private property. Like your house or your real estate. That's yours. Just for you. Open borders is about removing borders between our public spaces. Allowing one to drive from e.g. a US road to a Mexican road without a passport. Open borders isn't about letting someone stay in your house. It's about letting someone rent or buy a house in America and inhabit what would then be their private property. It's about letting them take a job in a foreign country or hire a foreigner to work in their business. See my other two comments for more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
- dataker 11y ago
  Unless the center of your argument is based on race, every country would have to ban Netflix, McDonalds and Hollywood movies.
  - kazinator 11y ago
    Not only is that false, but no country would have to ban tourism or immigration. (Not having "open borders" doesn't add up to such bans).
- threedaymonk 11y ago
  > For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging. Where are these places? Very few countries are based on a unique language, ethnicity, or culture, and those that are have generally only become so as a result of active suppression of minority cultures and languages. In fact, apart from a few microstates and isolated islands, I can't really think of any monocultural nations.
- ericdschmidt 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769826
- ericdschmidt 11y ago
  Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
Happydayz 11y ago
There are plenty of domestic groups opposed to open borders for high-skilled immigrants. Doctors, nurses, and others within the medical profession spring first to mind, and they are incredibly powerful politically. Ditto lawyers or really any other trade that controls its own barrier to entry via the certification process. And let's not forget software engineers - just see what happens whenever H1-B comes up.
- murbard2 11y ago
  Doctors and Lawyers are already protected by the licensing requirements, why would they fear immigrants?
  - Happydayz 11y ago
    No, you're right. Lawyers are protected by their licensing requirements. However the medical profession does protect itself and is opposed to bringing in many foreign born nurses, medical staff, etc. Lawyers have that nice shield that is the bar exam, but that is also de facto immigration since only ABA accredited schools qualify. So in one sense you're right, the legal profession does not need to lobby against high skilled immigration. However, the reason they don't need to isn't for any moral reason but rather because they can just lock out immigrants through non-legislative means.
    - thaumasiotes 11y ago
      Legal prohibitions on providing law-related services without officially qualifying as a lawyer aren't exactly non-legislative means.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I have never encountered any opposition to high-skill immigration among lawyers. There would be no point--entry into the profession is already gated by the JD/LLM/bar exam requirements. The problem is that getting a greencard requires your employer to prove that they can't find a qualified domestic candidate, which is difficult when large law firms take only 10-15% of the domestic JD graduating class each year and a third to half are unemployed.
worklogin 11y ago
Immigration is broken. But you cannot have open borders and a welfare system. It is completely unsustainable.
- murbard2 11y ago
  By that logic, you cannot have a welfare state without mandatory sterilization of the poor. Most will recoil in horror at this, and yet, the harm done by closed border is far greater (people are literally dying while eating dirt because they were born in the wrong country). But that's beside the point since I was specifically addressing highly skilled immigration.
  - surge 11y ago
    It's a major problem for Scandinavian countries right now, if you read the local news, its a big problem that many immigrants have a higher and satisfactory conditions of living on welfare compared to where they were from. They have little incentive to work when they are provided what they consider a high standard of living with no effort. It's caused quite a bit of backlash and "racism" in their otherwise progressive countries. So no, sterilization isn't really an issue because what is considered high standards for living by the second generation go up, but for those based on the old standard, they end up leeching off the system where there is an unspoken social contract for natives that you contribute or always try to do better than the bare minimum and improve one's self. You can't assume that cultural value is instilled in immigrants from other countries, especially when the society has an honor system more or less based on that principal. http://www.thelocal.se/20120907/43078 http://www.thelocal.se/20120907/43078 http://www.thelocal.se/20140829/reinfeldtrefugee-focus-puts-immigration http://www.thelocal.se/20140829/reinfeldtrefugee-focus-puts-... http://www.thelocal.se/20131224/13060 http://www.thelocal.se/20131224/13060
    - murbard2 11y ago
      The children of people on welfare are still more likely to end up on welfare. So why is not OK to let an immigrant in on the ground that he is likely to end up on welfare?
dba7dba 11y ago
Opening borders is not controversial. It's a dumb idea.
mc32 11y ago
While open borders is an ultimate goal, it would be a bit perilous to allow 'everyone who wanted to' to enter a given country, as things stand. First, I think we should seek bilateral treaties such that we can enter their country as much as they can enter ours and that both parties have reciprocal rights. This should allow all parties entering an agreement to slowly stabilize, or reach some kind of equilibrium. One of the downsides is that this adds to globalization and homogeneity of culture, language, etc. Although personally, I don't think that's a big problem --it's mostly an emotional issue rather than actual, but it's still an issue given how people cry 'globalization', 'imperialism', 'monoculture', 'mainstream', etc. From Europe, where people share some culture, they never the less still experience integration issues where locals resent foreign populations, example France and polish workers, or Germany and Serbs or Turks, or Spaniards. Maybe grant larger quotas based on population would be fairer and then harden the borders, else the closer neighbor has an unfair advantage. So say Italy booms, quotas would make living in Croatia no better than new Zealand or south Africa in terms of odds of getting into Italy (or Canada the US or Nigeria.) But politics would never allow a fair quota system to work.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  > From Europe, where people share some culture, they never the less still experience integration issues where locals resent foreign populations, example France and polish workers, or Germany and Serbs or Turks, or Spaniards. It's not really foreign populations per se. The resentment is really mostly socioeconomic. Nobody resents Persians in the Netherlands because the Persians who migrated here are mostly upper-class with a long tradition of higher education. Whereas the Turks you mentioned were considered guest laborers, Dutch companies literally drove busses to the poorest little villages in Turkey in the 60s and found the people with the least education, who couldn't read or write and had perhaps 2-3 years of primary education, then offered them a job working unskilled labour in a factory hoping they'd go back home after 10 years, basically the 1960s equivalent of off-shoring production to China at a pre-globalisation time when the factories were still back home. Knowing what we know of lower-socioeconomic classes (higher rates of crime, lower rates of education, higher pregnancy rates, more conflict with authority etc etc), it's no real surprise it turned out this way. The sad thing is that in Europe the debate about these problems acts as if it's a cultural issue (e.g. Turkish culture or Islamic culture), when it's really a socioeconomic problem (taking the least educated people from an already poor country, putting them in factory housing and not teaching them the local language, and expecting them to go back home or thrive), not a cultural one. And this debate has essentially created tons of animosity because it invites all this 'class of civilisations' bs rhetoric and turns it into what in the US is referred to as a 'racial' problem.
tlb 11y ago
There's no strong lobby against more high-skilled immigration. But as sometimes happens in US politics, the uncontroversial reform is held hostage to the controversial one. In particular, lobbying groups for and against having an official status for the millions of currently undocumented Mexicans in the US have opposed any immigration bill that doesn't include what they want. Lawmaking does not allow cherry-picking bugfixes.
- murbard2 11y ago
  Very interesting take, thanks! That is probably what's going on. I wonder what other examples there are of such policies.
- yellowapple 11y ago
  > Lawmaking does not allow cherry-picking bugfixes. It ought to.
geebee 11y ago
Any chance you'd be willing to write a bit more about your support for open borders? In particular, I'm interested in knowing whether you think this is a situation where it would be both moral and beneficial, or if you feel that it is simply wrong to limit where people can live and work based on where they were born (or even where their grandparents were born) even if the overall effect on current citizens of some regions would be negative. Interesting that the author of this piece comes from New Zealand, because NZ is the country that often springs to mind when I think of a nation that might could change dramatically with open borders. I haven't been there, but I understand New Zealand is a country about the geographical size of California and Oregon put together (a bit larger), with spectacular natural landscapes, and a very small population (much smaller than the island would be capable of supporting). What would happen to New Zealand if they unilaterally opened up their borders? To keep it simple, let's not worry about malicious people, I just mean honest, hard working immigrants who seek a better life. Should New Zealand open up borders to unlimited migration? Is there a moral imperative for them to do so?
- zerr 11y ago
  One would think, countries like USA, Australia or NZ might be afraid of immigration because they know what they did to native inhabitants... Generally, think about the situation where all (most) countries abolish borders, not just NZ or other small country. Moving is the basic human right, and the sooner we realize the better for mankind, assuming the culture of the host country is respected. Of course the culture needs adjustments to respect human rights as well.
  - talmand 11y ago
    Why would one be afraid of immigrants because of past treatment of original natives when chances are the immigrants are descended from people who did similar things to the original natives of their homeland? As an easy example, I'm fairly certain the original natives of the southern portions of the North American continent weren't speaking Spanish when the conquistadors showed up. I would disagree that is is for the better of mankind. In some cases, it could be, sure. In most cases, it eventually is not. How is it good for anyone to move from one stagnant area into a prosperous one to the point of dragging it down to be stagnant as well? Never mind the affect this has the people who are currently inhabiting the area. Plus, it would seem to be that once a level of immigration has happened in an area the newcomers no longer feel the need to respect or to assimilate into the local culture, so they maintain their own. Hopefully they are carrying over their bad habits that led to their homeland sucking enough to force them to move, because they'll eventually want to move again. In the long term, that eventually makes things worse for those that lived there before, much like you pointed out in your first statement. We have a long road to travel before mankind as a whole can, in masses, move about freely throughout the world without there being local consequences.
crimsonalucard 11y ago
Moral imperatives do not always correlate with survival imperatives. I'm not going to say whether or not I believe in immigration, but there are two things I will say: 1. Arguments against immigration stem not from moral imperatives, but from survival instinct. 2. If we open up immigration, America as we know it will change dramatically, in either a good or bad way. I think what we have now is already pretty good, so why change the status quo?
- Flimm 11y ago
  You seem to be talking exclusively about the survival of the American economy, rather than then the survival of humankind.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    You seem to be talking exclusively about the comfort of well-educated people who would prefer to live in the US and have the resources to emigrate, rather than the survival of humankind.
  - crimsonalucard 11y ago
    Let me make it utterly clear: I am absolutely talking only about the survival of the American economy. I'm a descendent of immigrants born to poor circumstances. I'm lucky to be here as a result of getting past strict immigration policies. But I gotta be real, If America tried to "save" every one on the face of the earth by letting everyone in need into this country, we'd probably triple our population, and change the state of everything.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Firstly, America as we know it has been changing dramatically and continuously since its inception. I don't see anyone mourning the loss of the Bourbon Democrats or tariff acts, but suffice to say they aren't here anymore. Secondly, what are you referring to by "what we have now"? Immigration law in particular, or U.S. policy on a macro level?
  - 11y ago
DenisM 11y ago
>So who's lobbying against this exactly? About a decade ago I attended an internal presentation at Microsoft, made by a person who was lobbying immigration changes on behalf of that company. He explained this phenomenon - in some parts of the country the voting public does not have the attention span to listen long enough to make the distinction between "immigrants" and "high-skill immigrants". For that reason many politicians who are privately supportive of high-skill immigration still prefer not to try the patience of the voters, and come out against all immigration in public. Especially when there is an opponent who is ready to yell "he's soft on immigrants!".
nickbauman 11y ago
Using a lottery system for skilled workers tends to select from the world's wealthiest people, too. So if you think inequality is a problem now... On the other hand opening borders would create a stampede. Pretty sure that would cause a completely different set of social problems.
- ericdschmidt 11y ago
  "open borders" doesn't have to mean you open them overnight. You can attenuate the flow to a rate that's manageable to keep up with, to give the various infrastructure a chance to grow/adapt to meet the influx. You've attacked a straw man. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
greggman 11y ago
I've spent about 8 years in Japan. I love parts of the culture (the good parts, not the bad parts). Things like the service ethic, politeness, safety, and the basic idea of "do whatever you want in your private life but don't put out anyone else while doing it." My guess is that a massive influx of foreigners would likely destroy that culture. Is there any way to open borders and still preserve a place's culture, at least the good parts, or is that just doomed?
- mahouse 11y ago
  No. Re: Sweden.
  - jotm 11y ago
    Lol, yeah, compare one of the most progressive countries in the world with Japan's nearly feudal traditions...
- ericdschmidt 11y ago
  It wouldn't be doomed. Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
  - greggman 11y ago
    Your comment is very thought provoking but I don't agree the culture wouldn't be ruined nor do I agree it's a minor concern. It's already visibly being ruined by the massive influx of rude Chinese tourists. Cultural enclaves don't say anything about crime like the fact that 19 times out of 20 if you lose your wallet in Japan you'll get it back with all the money in it. It's hard to imagine that would stay true with a much larger percent of non Japanese culture people.
    - ericdschmidt 11y ago
      The children of immigrants who grow up in the new culture learn it quickly and it becomes their own. American Chinese who grow up here behave just like white Americans. And BTW the Japanese thing you mentioned is likely almost entirely due to more efficient & convenient lost and found process: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/201405/japan-is-loser-s-paradise https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/20140...
winter_blue 11y ago
> So who's lobbying against this exactly? If you've ever come across any posts on HN regarding immigrant workers in technology (who are on the same visa, the H1B†, that the author of the Vox article was on), you will see a shockingly offensive amount contempt and hatred for highly-skilled immigrants. To answer your question more directly, despite high support for skilled immigration reform, there are currently 2 senators who are hell-bent on making life hard for highly-skilled immigrants. One of them is Chuck Grassley, chair of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and the other is Jeff Sessions, chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration. Both senators (esp. Sessions) thoroughly hate immigrants of all kinds, and have avowed to do everything in their power to block immigration reform from passing, and the committee and subcommittee they chair are key to immigration reform passing in the Senate. Jeff Sessions has even go so far as to write a document full of half-truths and lies, with the goal of convincing other Republicans that even the tiny trickle of high-skilled immigration now permitted is detestable, and must be put to an end. The Cato Institute has an excellent fact-based rebuttal of it: http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-immigration-oped http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-im... Opposition to immigration itself is pretty hard to believe in country like the U.S., but the opposition to economically beneficial high-skilled worker immigration, is even more shocking. † Note: there are really no other alternatives than getting a work visa, if someone wants to immigrate as high-skilled worker. I've read ill-informed people on HN say ridiculous things like, they do not have a problem with people "coming to the US normally", but they hate to their guts anyone on a work visa. Ridiculous.
- emodendroket 11y ago
  > If you've ever come across any posts on HN regarding immigrant workers in technology (who are on the same visa, the H1B†, that the author of the Vox article was on), you will see a shockingly offensive amount contempt and hatred for highly-skilled immigrants. Well, that's probably largely because the system is being abused to bring in questionable workers and drive down wages.
  - winter_blue 11y ago
    No, it's mostly because those commentors on HN can't code worth their salt, and can't find a job, in an industry with thousands of unfilled positions, and need a scapegoat to pile hatred on. Most of the points stated on those hateful comments are either factually wrong, or overstate something as being the norm, when it probably happens less than 10% of the time. For one, if you are even decently good at software development, and live in any major city in the US, you really have no excuse for not being able to find a job. (Apart from being really bad at interviews.) Demand far outstrips supply. Secondly, although work visas are used by outsourcing companies a lot, they are also used heavily by companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, a lot of tech startups, etc, and other companies that are looking talented engineers. Finally, the work visa requires the employee to be paid at least the prevailing wage for the position, and most of them get paid well above the prevailing wage, so the "driving down wages" point isn't valid either. Most of these commentors also fail to realize that there is really no other way to immigrate, besides a work visa, unless you want to go the family-based or refugeee route (not an option for most). They also show a total ignorance of the lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy When someone heaps abuse and hatred on highly-skilled immigrants (like those on HN), and call for an end to skilled immigration, they are really calling for an end to all immigration. It's noxious xenophobia and perhaps racially-motivated hatred, plain and simple.
gutnor 11y ago
> I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative Or close them. The moral imperative is to have a consistent and fair rules. You can't really be the US and let people live for decades in a grey state with all the obligations of a citizen but little of the rights. You take them in or not but that should a quick and permanent decision (i.e. no 3 year limit nonsense) That's by the way not a US-only problem. That is the same in the UK and most of Europe, even worse, I believe, in Japan.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
JesperRavn 11y ago
The problem with your question is that you assume that all policy is driven by lobbying by big business. Political ideology and voter sentiment are also drivers of policy. Other explanations are inertia (the system started out restrictive, and has been gradually loosened), or appeal to voters regarding either jobs or general dislike of immigration.

mcguire 11y ago

Those who don't want the wages for "highly-skilled" jobs depressed to sub-lower-middle-class levels?

kazinator 11y ago

Opening borders works for multicultural countries built on immigration. For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging.

darkmighty 11y ago
He's referring to america... and I have to disagree. What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs? Culture is probably worth preserving, but often culture is simply "the way it's always been" -- I'd argue the opposite, bringing different cultures together, if done right, will promote creating new culture that make more sense for today's reality, and not some 19th century status quo. Creation of culture is more important, imo, than maintaining culture -- as the latter can be done with history books while the former is a real policy that might enrich the lives of citizens.
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  While I agree with this in theory, I'm going to point you to this fascinating piece on some of the ongoing problems that the French tradition of republican laicity is facing from Muslim immigrants, as a general illustration of the conflicts involved: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/mar/05/france-on-fire/ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/mar/05/france-... In summary: the very culture of tolerance and openness towards others itself is sometimes threatened by those it wishes to welcome, and that's a hard problem to solve.
- Happydayz 11y ago
  So there is no value in a uniquely Norwegian culture? Or Korean? Or Japanese? One of the side effects of totally open borders is that human culture might homogenize, with strong bias toward the developing world where birthrates are exceptionally high. I think Indian and Bangladeshi culture are both wonderful, however I do not think they are necessary worth more than Norwegian, Japanese, etc.
  - ericdschmidt 11y ago
    Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
- kazinator 11y ago
  > What's so important about an ethnicity that it has to be kept at all costs? If you're from a country that has a great history and traditions, and you are ethnically related to that, then your DNA constitutes a cultural artifact, just like some carving in a museum in your capital city or a traditional folk song. Through ancestry, you are related to the people who made those things. It would be stupidly inconsistent to preserve those other artifacts, yet to deny that your living DNA has value in connection with them.
- danielweber 11y ago
  Chesterson's fence. There is something about the US that makes it desirable for people to move to the US. When proposing changes to the US, you need to wonder about that that thing is, so you can figure out if/how it will be changed by your new policy.
JoshTriplett 11y ago
> For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging. Let's take those one at a time. Language: Sure, granted, there's a tendency to gravitate towards more common languages. Arguably that's a net benefit for people who would otherwise have grown up only speaking a less common language; learning a more common language grants access to a much larger set of speakers, information, and opportunities. That said, language doesn't tend to be lost, just not kept as an exclusive cultural barrier. Witness the massive efforts to internationalize information, to improve accessibility. And it's still common in many countries to look down upon anyone not speaking the native language, if that can be considered a feature. Ethnicity: What do you have in mind other than language and culture, here? Because I hope you're not suggesting "racial purity" as a property worth preserving. Finally, culture: Only if that culture is unable to propagate itself on its own merits, or in other words, if that culture has merits worth propagating. Some cultures have incredible history and traditions, and those have typically been preserved and spread further than they ever would have been otherwise. On the other hand, there are cultures built on oppression, indoctrination, suppression of dissent, lack of opportunity, and other undesirable properties; those cultures don't tend to survive exposure to broader information and the outside world (as well as the visibility of those cultures and their traditions to the outside world), which is all the more reason for such exposure. Not all traditions are worth preserving.
- cousin_it 11y ago
  > propagate itself on its own merits You're right that not all traditions are worth preserving, but Darwinism isn't the best way to choose which traditions are worth preserving. The problem is that ability to propagate does not imply merit. If you put a bad guy and a good guy in a room together, sometimes the bad guy just beats up the good guy, and you realize that you shouldn't have put them together. This is the same kind of fallacy as "if a company went out of business, it must've been a bad company", and also "the invisible hand of gravity means it's good that the vase broke". For example, there's tons of cultures that think murder for personal grievances is okay and praise-worthy. I've seen first hand what happens when such a culture meets a gentle Western culture, when the latter doesn't have an overwhelming force advantage. It's not pretty.
zzalpha 11y ago
Damaging in what sense?
- sigzero 11y ago
  A problem being, if you open the door, you don't control who comes through. I am totally against an open borders policy.
  - kazinator 11y ago
    Before you open the national border, you have to start small! First, get everyone not to lock their front door. Then, ban all fences and "no trespassing" signs. If that pilot program is successful, then think about opening the borders. It occurs to me that any country that opens its borders will be instantly flooded with every murderous scumbag that is fleeing from the law elsewhere. You will also be an instant transfer point for the trade of weapons, narcotics and so on. Not to mention human trafficking. I guess how you deal with that is that you open your border to foreign law enforcement and give them a carte blanche about to conduct their investigation how they see fit, and make arrests. Speaking of arrests, open borders means that someone can sneak into your country, kidnap someone, and sneak out.
    - ericdschmidt 11y ago
      Fallacy, fallacy, fallacy, fallacy. Oh, I lost count. Private property != public property. There are things called roads, parks, forests that are public - these spaces are designed for common use. Separately, there is private property. Like your house or your real estate. That's yours. Just for you. Open borders is about removing borders between our public spaces. Allowing one to drive from e.g. a US road to a Mexican road without a passport. Open borders isn't about letting someone stay in your house. It's about letting someone rent or buy a house in America and inhabit what would then be their private property. It's about letting them take a job in a foreign country or hire a foreigner to work in their business. See my other two comments for more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
dataker 11y ago
Unless the center of your argument is based on race, every country would have to ban Netflix, McDonalds and Hollywood movies.
- kazinator 11y ago
  Not only is that false, but no country would have to ban tourism or immigration. (Not having "open borders" doesn't add up to such bans).
threedaymonk 11y ago
> For countries that are based on a unique language, ethnicity and culture, it is damaging. Where are these places? Very few countries are based on a unique language, ethnicity, or culture, and those that are have generally only become so as a result of active suppression of minority cultures and languages. In fact, apart from a few microstates and isolated islands, I can't really think of any monocultural nations.
ericdschmidt 11y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769826
ericdschmidt 11y ago
Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

Happydayz 11y ago

There are plenty of domestic groups opposed to open borders for high-skilled immigrants. Doctors, nurses, and others within the medical profession spring first to mind, and they are incredibly powerful politically. Ditto lawyers or really any other trade that controls its own barrier to entry via the certification process. And let's not forget software engineers - just see what happens whenever H1-B comes up.

murbard2 11y ago
Doctors and Lawyers are already protected by the licensing requirements, why would they fear immigrants?
- Happydayz 11y ago
  No, you're right. Lawyers are protected by their licensing requirements. However the medical profession does protect itself and is opposed to bringing in many foreign born nurses, medical staff, etc. Lawyers have that nice shield that is the bar exam, but that is also de facto immigration since only ABA accredited schools qualify. So in one sense you're right, the legal profession does not need to lobby against high skilled immigration. However, the reason they don't need to isn't for any moral reason but rather because they can just lock out immigrants through non-legislative means.
  - thaumasiotes 11y ago
    Legal prohibitions on providing law-related services without officially qualifying as a lawyer aren't exactly non-legislative means.
rayiner 11y ago
I have never encountered any opposition to high-skill immigration among lawyers. There would be no point--entry into the profession is already gated by the JD/LLM/bar exam requirements. The problem is that getting a greencard requires your employer to prove that they can't find a qualified domestic candidate, which is difficult when large law firms take only 10-15% of the domestic JD graduating class each year and a third to half are unemployed.

worklogin 11y ago

Immigration is broken. But you cannot have open borders and a welfare system. It is completely unsustainable.

murbard2 11y ago
By that logic, you cannot have a welfare state without mandatory sterilization of the poor. Most will recoil in horror at this, and yet, the harm done by closed border is far greater (people are literally dying while eating dirt because they were born in the wrong country). But that's beside the point since I was specifically addressing highly skilled immigration.
- surge 11y ago
  It's a major problem for Scandinavian countries right now, if you read the local news, its a big problem that many immigrants have a higher and satisfactory conditions of living on welfare compared to where they were from. They have little incentive to work when they are provided what they consider a high standard of living with no effort. It's caused quite a bit of backlash and "racism" in their otherwise progressive countries. So no, sterilization isn't really an issue because what is considered high standards for living by the second generation go up, but for those based on the old standard, they end up leeching off the system where there is an unspoken social contract for natives that you contribute or always try to do better than the bare minimum and improve one's self. You can't assume that cultural value is instilled in immigrants from other countries, especially when the society has an honor system more or less based on that principal. http://www.thelocal.se/20120907/43078 http://www.thelocal.se/20120907/43078 http://www.thelocal.se/20140829/reinfeldtrefugee-focus-puts-immigration http://www.thelocal.se/20140829/reinfeldtrefugee-focus-puts-... http://www.thelocal.se/20131224/13060 http://www.thelocal.se/20131224/13060
  - murbard2 11y ago
    The children of people on welfare are still more likely to end up on welfare. So why is not OK to let an immigrant in on the ground that he is likely to end up on welfare?

dba7dba 11y ago

Opening borders is not controversial. It's a dumb idea.

mc32 11y ago

While open borders is an ultimate goal, it would be a bit perilous to allow 'everyone who wanted to' to enter a given country, as things stand. First, I think we should seek bilateral treaties such that we can enter their country as much as they can enter ours and that both parties have reciprocal rights. This should allow all parties entering an agreement to slowly stabilize, or reach some kind of equilibrium. One of the downsides is that this adds to globalization and homogeneity of culture, language, etc. Although personally, I don't think that's a big problem --it's mostly an emotional issue rather than actual, but it's still an issue given how people cry 'globalization', 'imperialism', 'monoculture', 'mainstream', etc. From Europe, where people share some culture, they never the less still experience integration issues where locals resent foreign populations, example France and polish workers, or Germany and Serbs or Turks, or Spaniards. Maybe grant larger quotas based on population would be fairer and then harden the borders, else the closer neighbor has an unfair advantage. So say Italy booms, quotas would make living in Croatia no better than new Zealand or south Africa in terms of odds of getting into Italy (or Canada the US or Nigeria.) But politics would never allow a fair quota system to work.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
> From Europe, where people share some culture, they never the less still experience integration issues where locals resent foreign populations, example France and polish workers, or Germany and Serbs or Turks, or Spaniards. It's not really foreign populations per se. The resentment is really mostly socioeconomic. Nobody resents Persians in the Netherlands because the Persians who migrated here are mostly upper-class with a long tradition of higher education. Whereas the Turks you mentioned were considered guest laborers, Dutch companies literally drove busses to the poorest little villages in Turkey in the 60s and found the people with the least education, who couldn't read or write and had perhaps 2-3 years of primary education, then offered them a job working unskilled labour in a factory hoping they'd go back home after 10 years, basically the 1960s equivalent of off-shoring production to China at a pre-globalisation time when the factories were still back home. Knowing what we know of lower-socioeconomic classes (higher rates of crime, lower rates of education, higher pregnancy rates, more conflict with authority etc etc), it's no real surprise it turned out this way. The sad thing is that in Europe the debate about these problems acts as if it's a cultural issue (e.g. Turkish culture or Islamic culture), when it's really a socioeconomic problem (taking the least educated people from an already poor country, putting them in factory housing and not teaching them the local language, and expecting them to go back home or thrive), not a cultural one. And this debate has essentially created tons of animosity because it invites all this 'class of civilisations' bs rhetoric and turns it into what in the US is referred to as a 'racial' problem.

tlb 11y ago

There's no strong lobby against more high-skilled immigration. But as sometimes happens in US politics, the uncontroversial reform is held hostage to the controversial one. In particular, lobbying groups for and against having an official status for the millions of currently undocumented Mexicans in the US have opposed any immigration bill that doesn't include what they want. Lawmaking does not allow cherry-picking bugfixes.

murbard2 11y ago
Very interesting take, thanks! That is probably what's going on. I wonder what other examples there are of such policies.
yellowapple 11y ago
> Lawmaking does not allow cherry-picking bugfixes. It ought to.

geebee 11y ago

Any chance you'd be willing to write a bit more about your support for open borders? In particular, I'm interested in knowing whether you think this is a situation where it would be both moral and beneficial, or if you feel that it is simply wrong to limit where people can live and work based on where they were born (or even where their grandparents were born) even if the overall effect on current citizens of some regions would be negative. Interesting that the author of this piece comes from New Zealand, because NZ is the country that often springs to mind when I think of a nation that might could change dramatically with open borders. I haven't been there, but I understand New Zealand is a country about the geographical size of California and Oregon put together (a bit larger), with spectacular natural landscapes, and a very small population (much smaller than the island would be capable of supporting). What would happen to New Zealand if they unilaterally opened up their borders? To keep it simple, let's not worry about malicious people, I just mean honest, hard working immigrants who seek a better life. Should New Zealand open up borders to unlimited migration? Is there a moral imperative for them to do so?

zerr 11y ago
One would think, countries like USA, Australia or NZ might be afraid of immigration because they know what they did to native inhabitants... Generally, think about the situation where all (most) countries abolish borders, not just NZ or other small country. Moving is the basic human right, and the sooner we realize the better for mankind, assuming the culture of the host country is respected. Of course the culture needs adjustments to respect human rights as well.
- talmand 11y ago
  Why would one be afraid of immigrants because of past treatment of original natives when chances are the immigrants are descended from people who did similar things to the original natives of their homeland? As an easy example, I'm fairly certain the original natives of the southern portions of the North American continent weren't speaking Spanish when the conquistadors showed up. I would disagree that is is for the better of mankind. In some cases, it could be, sure. In most cases, it eventually is not. How is it good for anyone to move from one stagnant area into a prosperous one to the point of dragging it down to be stagnant as well? Never mind the affect this has the people who are currently inhabiting the area. Plus, it would seem to be that once a level of immigration has happened in an area the newcomers no longer feel the need to respect or to assimilate into the local culture, so they maintain their own. Hopefully they are carrying over their bad habits that led to their homeland sucking enough to force them to move, because they'll eventually want to move again. In the long term, that eventually makes things worse for those that lived there before, much like you pointed out in your first statement. We have a long road to travel before mankind as a whole can, in masses, move about freely throughout the world without there being local consequences.

crimsonalucard 11y ago

Moral imperatives do not always correlate with survival imperatives. I'm not going to say whether or not I believe in immigration, but there are two things I will say: 1. Arguments against immigration stem not from moral imperatives, but from survival instinct. 2. If we open up immigration, America as we know it will change dramatically, in either a good or bad way. I think what we have now is already pretty good, so why change the status quo?

Flimm 11y ago
You seem to be talking exclusively about the survival of the American economy, rather than then the survival of humankind.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  You seem to be talking exclusively about the comfort of well-educated people who would prefer to live in the US and have the resources to emigrate, rather than the survival of humankind.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  Let me make it utterly clear: I am absolutely talking only about the survival of the American economy. I'm a descendent of immigrants born to poor circumstances. I'm lucky to be here as a result of getting past strict immigration policies. But I gotta be real, If America tried to "save" every one on the face of the earth by letting everyone in need into this country, we'd probably triple our population, and change the state of everything.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Firstly, America as we know it has been changing dramatically and continuously since its inception. I don't see anyone mourning the loss of the Bourbon Democrats or tariff acts, but suffice to say they aren't here anymore. Secondly, what are you referring to by "what we have now"? Immigration law in particular, or U.S. policy on a macro level?
- 11y ago

DenisM 11y ago

>So who's lobbying against this exactly? About a decade ago I attended an internal presentation at Microsoft, made by a person who was lobbying immigration changes on behalf of that company. He explained this phenomenon - in some parts of the country the voting public does not have the attention span to listen long enough to make the distinction between "immigrants" and "high-skill immigrants". For that reason many politicians who are privately supportive of high-skill immigration still prefer not to try the patience of the voters, and come out against all immigration in public. Especially when there is an opponent who is ready to yell "he's soft on immigrants!".

nickbauman 11y ago

Using a lottery system for skilled workers tends to select from the world's wealthiest people, too. So if you think inequality is a problem now... On the other hand opening borders would create a stampede. Pretty sure that would cause a completely different set of social problems.

ericdschmidt 11y ago
"open borders" doesn't have to mean you open them overnight. You can attenuate the flow to a rate that's manageable to keep up with, to give the various infrastructure a chance to grow/adapt to meet the influx. You've attacked a straw man. Please see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632

greggman 11y ago

I've spent about 8 years in Japan. I love parts of the culture (the good parts, not the bad parts). Things like the service ethic, politeness, safety, and the basic idea of "do whatever you want in your private life but don't put out anyone else while doing it." My guess is that a massive influx of foreigners would likely destroy that culture. Is there any way to open borders and still preserve a place's culture, at least the good parts, or is that just doomed?

mahouse 11y ago
No. Re: Sweden.
- jotm 11y ago
  Lol, yeah, compare one of the most progressive countries in the world with Japan's nearly feudal traditions...
ericdschmidt 11y ago
It wouldn't be doomed. Foreigners could have their cultural enclaves and Japanese theirs. Anyway, this is an extremely minor concern relative to the astronomic benefits of open borders. See my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9769632
- greggman 11y ago
  Your comment is very thought provoking but I don't agree the culture wouldn't be ruined nor do I agree it's a minor concern. It's already visibly being ruined by the massive influx of rude Chinese tourists. Cultural enclaves don't say anything about crime like the fact that 19 times out of 20 if you lose your wallet in Japan you'll get it back with all the money in it. It's hard to imagine that would stay true with a much larger percent of non Japanese culture people.
  - ericdschmidt 11y ago
    The children of immigrants who grow up in the new culture learn it quickly and it becomes their own. American Chinese who grow up here behave just like white Americans. And BTW the Japanese thing you mentioned is likely almost entirely due to more efficient & convenient lost and found process: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/201405/japan-is-loser-s-paradise https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/20140...

winter_blue 11y ago

> So who's lobbying against this exactly? If you've ever come across any posts on HN regarding immigrant workers in technology (who are on the same visa, the H1B†, that the author of the Vox article was on), you will see a shockingly offensive amount contempt and hatred for highly-skilled immigrants. To answer your question more directly, despite high support for skilled immigration reform, there are currently 2 senators who are hell-bent on making life hard for highly-skilled immigrants. One of them is Chuck Grassley, chair of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and the other is Jeff Sessions, chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration. Both senators (esp. Sessions) thoroughly hate immigrants of all kinds, and have avowed to do everything in their power to block immigration reform from passing, and the committee and subcommittee they chair are key to immigration reform passing in the Senate. Jeff Sessions has even go so far as to write a document full of half-truths and lies, with the goal of convincing other Republicans that even the tiny trickle of high-skilled immigration now permitted is detestable, and must be put to an end. The Cato Institute has an excellent fact-based rebuttal of it: http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-immigration-oped http://www.cato.org/blog/rebuttal-sen-sessions-anti-legal-im... Opposition to immigration itself is pretty hard to believe in country like the U.S., but the opposition to economically beneficial high-skilled worker immigration, is even more shocking. † Note: there are really no other alternatives than getting a work visa, if someone wants to immigrate as high-skilled worker. I've read ill-informed people on HN say ridiculous things like, they do not have a problem with people "coming to the US normally", but they hate to their guts anyone on a work visa. Ridiculous.

emodendroket 11y ago
> If you've ever come across any posts on HN regarding immigrant workers in technology (who are on the same visa, the H1B†, that the author of the Vox article was on), you will see a shockingly offensive amount contempt and hatred for highly-skilled immigrants. Well, that's probably largely because the system is being abused to bring in questionable workers and drive down wages.
- winter_blue 11y ago
  No, it's mostly because those commentors on HN can't code worth their salt, and can't find a job, in an industry with thousands of unfilled positions, and need a scapegoat to pile hatred on. Most of the points stated on those hateful comments are either factually wrong, or overstate something as being the norm, when it probably happens less than 10% of the time. For one, if you are even decently good at software development, and live in any major city in the US, you really have no excuse for not being able to find a job. (Apart from being really bad at interviews.) Demand far outstrips supply. Secondly, although work visas are used by outsourcing companies a lot, they are also used heavily by companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, a lot of tech startups, etc, and other companies that are looking talented engineers. Finally, the work visa requires the employee to be paid at least the prevailing wage for the position, and most of them get paid well above the prevailing wage, so the "driving down wages" point isn't valid either. Most of these commentors also fail to realize that there is really no other way to immigrate, besides a work visa, unless you want to go the family-based or refugeee route (not an option for most). They also show a total ignorance of the lump of labor fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy When someone heaps abuse and hatred on highly-skilled immigrants (like those on HN), and call for an end to skilled immigration, they are really calling for an end to all immigration. It's noxious xenophobia and perhaps racially-motivated hatred, plain and simple.

gutnor 11y ago

> I personally consider that opening borders is a moral imperative Or close them. The moral imperative is to have a consistent and fair rules. You can't really be the US and let people live for decades in a grey state with all the obligations of a citizen but little of the rights. You take them in or not but that should a quick and permanent decision (i.e. no 3 year limit nonsense) That's by the way not a US-only problem. That is the same in the UK and most of Europe, even worse, I believe, in Japan.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

JesperRavn 11y ago

The problem with your question is that you assume that all policy is driven by lobbying by big business. Political ideology and voter sentiment are also drivers of policy. Other explanations are inertia (the system started out restrictive, and has been gradually loosened), or appeal to voters regarding either jobs or general dislike of immigration.