Immigration Nation

Immigration Nation

Not unlike many weeks over the past three years, this week seems to be all about immigration in the national news.  This week it’s about Trump firing everybody from the Secretary on down at the Department of Homeland Security.  He wants a tougher stance it seems.  DHS was established as a cabinet-level agency within a month of the 9/11 attacks, specifically with the mission to “develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks.”  Naturally, this sort of mission has morphed over time and based on politics and now seems aimed squarely at the President’s agenda on restricting (nay, eliminating) immigration.

I wish everyone would step back and think about immigration in the context of world history.  The greatest achievements of mankind have come about because of immigration, or more aptly stated, man’s ability to migrate and refresh his life with new resources, perspectives and motivation.  With few exceptions, we are all products of immigration and we all have benefited from immigration.  I would strongly argue that in a world where life expectancy is lengthening thanks to medical science and birth rates are falling as a result of cultural attitudes about child-rearing and the absolute costs of having children, immigration is an absolutely necessary component of growth.  Growth is what makes all good things possible for human beings.  Without growth we are stagnant and there is general insufficiency.  Insufficiency leads to squabbling over resources and we all know that leads to nowhere good.

But why is immigration so critical to growth?  The guy in the low-paying job thinks the immigrants are going to undercut him and take away his livelihood (even though most often those are jobs few nationalists really want).  There is a simple economic equation that has never been contradicted that says that without population growth there can be no economic growth.  In theory, you can have economic growth without population growth if productivity is extremely high, but then that means stuff like automation and more low-end jobs are lost to automation than have ever been taken away by immigrants.  The truth is that productivity gains only cover a fraction of what lowering population trends take away.  In addition, look at what intelligent businesses do when labor costs overseas are far lower than in the US, they export the jobs via outsourcing.  If you restrict that through regulation, all you are doing is making foreign manufacturers more profitable and healthier than US manufacturing.  In other words, there is no way to beat the advance of progress by building walls around us.

We need immigration.  The countries that need it more than the rest are Japan and European countries like Germany and France, where declining population is really impacting the economies already and is expected to stifle them altogether in a few years if they don’t import more labor.  Everyone wants high quality immigrants.  That’s all well and good, but educated and prime working-age immigrants are like hen’s teeth, wonderful if you can find them, but hard to find.  So along with immigration comes a logical need for good screening and good follow-on settlement programs and acculturation/education programs.  They can’t all be Uber drivers in New York City until they get their footing.

We are strong as a country because we have been an immigration nation.  I am thoroughly convinced of this and have seen enough economic and demographic proof to make me a believer.  As the demographics of the Baby Boom generation have created the currently growing global pension crisis, this need for immigration only grows greater.  And yet we are faced with a growing tide of xenophobia, both here and all over the world.  It’s like that line in A River Runs Through It when Norman McLean asks the rhetorical question about people who most need help refuse to accept it?

It does not take a particularly kind or wise man to see that we need immigrants.  I think our Republican friends somehow think that anyone who favors sensible immigration standards and encouragement is soft-hearted or not thinking intelligently.  At very least they are not being careful with regard to their own resources, which will somehow be frittered away on socialistic benefits to immigrants who want to get on the gravy train.  I would argue the exact opposite.  The wise and flinty-eyed man should favor immigration.  He gets lower indigenous labor costs.  He gets people to work his mills where others have graduated on in their expectations.  He gets a whole new raft of indigenous and increasingly prosperous consumers who are a natural market for his goods.  This is only more so in a retirement-focused world where healthcare costs and senior care needs are exploding.

I am left to conclude that anti-immigrationists are simply short-sighted and are thinking politically.  The demographic charts have scared the Beejesus out of Republicans because they can see the browning of America coming at them and whites becoming a clear minority.  But they need to remember that this was the argument against every ethnicity (Irish, Italian, German, Russian, etc.) that came over in the various immigrant waves over the centuries.  They must change their way of thinking to embrace these new citizens and recognize that the most conservative people around are those that suddenly have something to lose that was very hard-fought to get in the first place.  That generational memory is a strong incentive for politicians to feel that they have a logical base to appeal to in recent immigrants if they can get past the color of their skin or the nation of their origin.

After Vietnam there was a wave of Vietnamese that come to this country.  They have prospered and built vibrant businesses in the U.S. and raised and educated children that represent, for the most part, strong additions to our society.  We had more reasons, in my very generation, to be anti-Vietnamese, and yet we got past it and all is now well with that cohort.  The same has and will happen to Mexican and Central American immigrants.

So I would like to change the rhetoric.  It is not un-American to have open borders, it is un-American to have closed borders.  It is not economically imprudent to promote immigration, it may be the smartest economic thing we can do in our demographic stage of life.  And one last thing that I must declare.  It is decidedly not-Christian (I am a Christian and the US opposition to immigration is often held by those who are Christians) to close our doors to those in need, especially when it is unclear who needs it the most, them or us.