Benhabib and Jovanovic: Optimal Migration

I like the set-up of this model because it gets at what I believe is a key element of the immigration debate - how we value the welfare of people outside our borders relative to the welfare of citizens within our borders. As Alan Krueger says:

There are no simple answers on immigration policy because different people can legitimately assign different weights to the welfare of new immigrants, recent immigrants, and various groups of natives.

Here's the introduction and conclusion to the paper:

Optimal Migration: A World Perspective, by Jess Benhabib and Boyan Jovanovic, NBER WP 12871, January 17, 2007 [open link]: 1 Introduction All rich industrialized countries severely restrict immigration.[1] While the extent of the restrictions varies by country and by period, they nevertheless are at odds with the basic tenets of free trade, and in deep contradiction with some of the most cherished values of liberal democracy: that there should be no job discrimination based on nationality, ethnicity, race or gender. While we deplore job discrimination directed at citizens, we also design immigration laws that exclude foreign nationals out of our countries and our job market.[2] It follows that there must be costs associated with immigrants that are borne by the citizens of a country, or otherwise the borders would be open.

Several reasons may be given to explain restrictive immigration policies in terms of the costs that immigrants impose on the citizens of a country. The most obvious is a distributional argument cast in terms of political economy. The median voter whose income derives mostly from wages will wish to keep out the unskilled immigrants who will depress his wage.[3] Others, more controversially, stress the cost of social services that low-skilled immigrants impose on the citizens, or adopt the communitarian view that shared values, customs and culture constitute a social good that would be diluted by immigration, an argument that has often been used to keep the undesirables out.[4] Finally, one can argue that positive output externalities emanating from the average level of human capital will be depressed by immigrants with low human capital stocks who cause congestion, disutility, and have a negative impact on output per capita. Since the goal of this paper is not to identify the nature and scope of the costs of immigration borne by citizens, we will model the latter explanation by externalities emanating from the average level of human capital, a framework which is quite simple, and which may be modified or reinterpreted to capture direct labor-market effects on wages, or negative cultural externalities from low skilled immigrants.

We study the welfare implications of restrictive immigration policies from the world perspective, while allowing for costs of migration to the host and source countries. We ask what the optimal immigration policy would be, given a social welfare function that parametrically weighs the citizens of the industrialized, human-capital rich countries and those of the third world. One might simply expect that as the welfare weight is continuously shifted from the citizens of the first to the third world, optimal immigration policy, in terms of the proportion of third world citizens allowed to emigrate, would increase continuously. Our results indicate that this is not so: if populations are homogeneous in the skills within a country but differ across countries, there is a threshold relative welfare weight assigned to the third world citizens at which optimal immigration policy shifts from zero immigration to maximal immigration. If populations are heterogenous in skill to labor ratios, then under egalitarian social welfare weights, or, a fortiori, with weights that favor natives of the low average skill country, the optimal policy is to let the least skilled emigrate, up to a threshold skill level, from the low to the high average skill country. A simple and quick calibration shows that this implies that optimally up to 3.2 billion low-skilled people should emigrate from the third world to the OECD.[5] If on the other hand, social welfare weights favor the natives of the high-skill country, optimal immigration policy may be no immigration at all, or an immigration policy that allows only the highly skilled to emigrate from the low- to the high-average-skill country.

With globalization, pressures to design redistributive and immigration policies that increasingly take a world rather than national perspective are likely to mount. Thus, if the political perspective shifts from a national to an international one, more consistent with values of liberal democracy applied globally, the optimal immigration policy will require a drastic change. Of course other factors, including political costs of policy transition, or political resistance in host countries, may imply a more gradual shift over time. This paper, while allowing for the costs of immigration, shows a basic thrust or tendency calling for a shift in immigration policy as we move towards a world democracy.

...

8 Conclusion

Egalitarian optimal immigration policy from the world perspective, taking into account the economic costs of immigration to the host and source countries, may still require a significant and abrupt relaxation of the restrictive immigration policies currently imposed by the rich countries. With increasing globalization, the third world countries are likely to acquire a greater voice and request greater access to world labor markets. It will probably become harder for richer countries to justify their non-discriminatory and redistributive welfare policies at home, while denying access to their labor markets to citizens of poorer countries, basing the exclusion simply on ethnicity and nationality.[14] While the deep contradictions between the democratic values of the West and the limitations on free access to world labor markets based on nationality have only recently began to surface, they are likely to become increasingly apparent in the future, and enter political discourse through international organizations like the UN or the World Bank. Political negotiations and compromises, however, may at best yield a gradual relaxation of restrictions on labor mobility, as in the case of a slowly expanding EU or the phased legalization of illegal immigrants in the US, rather than an abrupt switch to free immigration that an egalitarian parametrization of our model suggests.

---

We thank the NSF for support and Matthias Kredler for doing all the calibrations and producing the associated plots.

[1] Freedberg and Hunt (1995) report that all but 100 million of the world’s 6 billion people live in the country of their birth.

[2] Protectionist arguments have recently been made against the mobility of capital, on the grounds that some multinational corporations do not pay a “living wage” in third world countries. Yet none of the pundits against outsourcing has advocated opening up of the borders to immigrants in order to improve their lot.

[3] See for example Borjas(2003), and Borjas and Katz (2005). For the opposing view see Card (2005). For a more recent reconsideration of this debate, see Peri and Ottaviano (2006).

[4] See the edited volume by Warren F. Schwartz (1995), and in particular the essays in the volume by Jules Coleman and Sarah Harding, and by Michael Trebilcock. For studies suggesting that immigrants do not impose large negative social externalities see National Research Council (1997) and Butcher and Piehl (1998).

[5] The International Organization for Migration estimates that currently there are 191 million transnational migrants worldwide comprising 3% of the global population. See http://www.iom.int/jahia/page254.html

[14] By contrast, however, the French Interior Minister Sarkozy recently declared “It is the right of our country, like all the great democracies of the world, to choose which foreigners it allows to reside on our territory.” See http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Backgrounder2_France.php

Comments

[Romain Wacziarg]

The idea that:
With globalization, pressures to design redistributive and immigration policies that increasingly take a world rather than national perspective are likely to mount.
is highly dubious. Actually with globalization separatist pressures seem to have mounted. With globalizatioon, income convergence will also reduce pressures for populations to seek migration.

[dissent]

This paper, while allowing for the costs of immigration, shows a basic thrust or tendency calling for a shift in immigration policy as we move towards a world democracy.

As "we" move towards a world democracy?
That's a hoot. That's how the free-traders deal with the fact that globalization is undermining democracy in the nation-state: they invent an utterly hypothetical 'world democracy' that 'we' are moving towards.

What is really happening is that global speculators and global capital flows are running into democratic resistance.

This paper is so wrong it signals that the opposite of what it argues is what is happening: for example there is increasing resistance to immigration, not less.

[Peter Schaeffer]

As Dissent points out, there is a lot wrong with the paper. “World Democracy”? What exactly does that mean? That the 6.2 billion people outside the U.S. get to tell the American people what immigration laws we will have? That’s tyranny and foreign oppression, not democracy.

Of course, the idea that “liberal democracy” requires no discrimination based on nationality is absurd. The foremost responsibility of any government is to its own citizens. Foreigners don’t count. Howver, the authors do get one point correct

“If on the other hand, social welfare weights favor the natives of the high-skill country, optimal immigration policy may be no immigration at all, or an immigration policy that allows only the highly skilled to emigrate from the low- to the high-average-skill country.”

Exactly. The national interest calls for zero or extremely limited, high skill immigration. A few other notes:

1. Of course, the opponents of outsourcing don’t advocate immigration as an alternative. They are concerned with the well being of their own citizens, not foreigners. If you oppose outsourcing because you believe its hurts your own people, why would you support another policy detrimental to your country’s interests?

2. The Peri and Ottaviano paper made a number of erroneous assumptions. For example, the authors claimed that 90% of U.S. workers are high school graduates (70% is more like it). They also claim that unaffordable housing is a benefit of immigration.

3. The opinion expressed by Sarkozy no doubt reflects the opinion of virtually all non-elite Frenchman and 90% of the American people as well. It is one of the misfortunes of our time, that the new class of cosmopolitans (as defined by Shiller) no longer have any allegiance to the country that has nurtured them so nicely… And that they have material influence over its policies.

I have a practical suggestion. Let’s raise taxes on Wall Street, corporations, high income individuals, etc. to reimburse ordinary Americans for the costs of immigration. Can’t afford a house because of Open Borders? The government will compensate you. Your wages decline because of uncontrolled immigration? The government provides offsetting tax credits until you retire. Public schools don’t work because of an influx of ESL kids? Vouchers for the school of your choice.

My guess is that if the elites that profit from Open Borders had to pay the bills (versus simply collecting the profits), we would have a 100 foot fence along our southern border in 3 months or less.

[dale]

the "values of liberal democracy" are of fundamental importance. And not only the values of liberal democracy- but also the values of social democracy. And both sets of values are not just abstract priniciples in need of expansion due to the systemic needs of the current economic globalization regimes. They are hard fought for values and rights that only have grounding in the structures of a constitiutional nation state.

So those nation based sorts of social solidarity- that sense that we are a community writ large in some fundamentally important ways must take precendence over the economic needs of the global trade regimes.

we have neo-liberals posing as universalists- when up till now it has usually been socialialists and utopian thinkers who have urged us to look past the nation state toward a broader moral community. but both the utopians on the left and the cheap labor neo-liberals who are looking more to system maintainace that to a world moral community, tend to overlook the real, concrete grounding of the values of liberal democracy and social democratic redistribution in that unique form of social solidarity we call a nation state.

I resist efforts to grant "free" traders any moral high ground in the search for a universal social solidarity.
Think of Duncan Foley's notion of Adam's Fallacy here.
thinking that the neo-liberal social order can be a guide to universal moral prinicples is putting the amoral forces of the invisible hand in charge of political policy. First protect the nation-based sources of real human and political rights. Then seek to expand those rights to others via the only medium we have- their various nation states.

Now, if the people of a nation choose to loosen their immigration policy on political and humanitarian grounds- that's one thing. To accomodate the needs of the neo-liberals unrelenting search for cheap and mobile labor is another think all together.

[Peter Schaeffer]

dale,

I would only add that the people who call themselves neoconservatives are almost all advocates of Open Borders. Ben Stein, William Kristol, and Max Boot being typical "Invade the world, invite the world, in debt to the world" examples.

[Movie Guy]

Benhabib, Jovanovic - "A simple and quick calibration shows that this implies that optimally up to 3.2 billion low-skilled people should emigrate from the third world to the OECD."

I needed a good laugh and this paper provided it.

Benhabib, Jovanovic, Kruger... have loyalties to which nation(s)?

It is unfortunate that we have people who haven't the slightest idea what it means to be a citizen of a nation with the full appreciation that the leaders of the nation have primary responsibility to its citizens first.

What part of this is not understood? In the United States of American, it is so stipulated in governing law. Is that not clear enough?

John Konop, you commented on the Krueger post mentioned above, hopefully you will on this one if you're reading this.

Can California, Oregon, and Washington handle 1 billion immigrants in say five, ten or fifteen years? What about New York and Massassachusetts? Perhaps we bring the world democracy to those open-minded states absent any additional supporting federal funds.

[DRR]

Excellent paper. Really cuts to the core of the reactionary & racist immigration policies certain first world countries pursue. Fortunately, as immigrant groups settle & prosper, their political leadership brings a sharp indictment against these reactionary, xenophobic policies. Just as the immigrants from Europe eventually won over the nativist anglo-americans, so to will thriving immigrant communities across the Southwest in California, Arizona, New Mexico & Texas continue to press their indictment against racist anglos, desperately trying to maintain a rigged system that priveleges them over others with darker skin.

[ken melvin]

DRR, what is it you have against working class Americans?

[anne]

Again the lunacy of what has never been, what is not now, and what will never be, open borders, or OPEN BORDERS, or Open Borders or OpEn BoRdErS, always lunacy all the time, past, present and future. Be afraid, be very afraid of such deceiving lunacy.

[save_the_rustbelt]

My ancestors worked for at least 8 generations to build this country and keep it safe (some longer but the native part of the family tree is hard to trace).

So who should benefit, my children and grandchildren or a billion immigrants who are tired of being poor?

Orderly, legal immigration is good. Chaos is not.

DRR hits every cliche of the Kum-bau-ah left - wow.

[anne]

"Can California, Oregon, and Washington handle 1 billion immigrants in say five, ten or fifteen years?"

Always fear-mongering lunacy, all the time, past, present and future. We will have, say, 1 billion immigrants, say, living in, say, San Francisco, say, in, say, 5 years. Notice how afraid I am; happy open borders, forgive me for not capitalizing, to yawl. Say what?

[anne]

Why by the way will the billion decide on San Francisco, when San Diego has, say, Sea World? Me, I'll take Sea World. Happy open borders, yawl.

[anne]

Me, I sort of like the thought of 1 billion people in San Francisco. My family has been is America by the way for at least 22 generations, though Grand-Dad once visited Dublin and had a devil of a time getting back, but because we had been building America for 22, count-em, 22 generations, they made an exception for Grand-Dad. Sing it, folks, "I've been working on the railway." Imagine building 22 generations fo railways, or was that Chinese-Americans? I forgets. Say what?

[anne]

Will the billion immigrants also be "working on the railway?" All billion. Golly, San Francisco will be covered in railway tracks. OPEN BORDERS, yawl. Say what? Imagine 22 generations of railway buiilding, and now the Chinese are going to be pushed aside as though they had never been; never been what?

[ken melvin]

Mexico, China, ... are poor and overcrowded. We should be poor and overcrowded? Yes, there was a time when America had lots of space and needed people, but its long past. Immigration doesn't solve China's or Mexico's problem. Won't even help solve their problems. China's poverty rate is some 80%, and she has at least 300 million unemployed. We already provide much of Mexico's income via illegal immigrants and things not getting better in Mexico or here because of it.

says...

Before the day workers, there were 'rat' carpenters, painters, electricians, etc. By charging below scale, they got enough work to make pretty good livings. Whether to appease union hating employers or from conviction, they tended to cuss unions. None would admit that their very subsistence depended on the unions. One of those things that doesn't extend; because too many 'rats' and the unions die and follows lower wages. Cheap immigrant labor is the same as 'rat' labor. Attracted by the relatively high scale, they , too, cause wages to go down. Soon, they are working for next to nothing and you have Americans who have lost their jobs and illegals who are working for nothing. Hiring day labor, sweat shops in SF, LA, ... lead to condition just like those fled in China, Mexico, ... What's the net?

[ken melvin]

'Twas I.

[DRR]

DRR, what is it you have against working class Americans?

Ken Melvin, what is it you have against brown skinned immigrants?

-----------

My ancestors worked for at least 8 generations to build this country and keep it safe (some longer but the native part of the family tree is hard to trace).

So who should benefit, my children and grandchildren or a billion immigrants who are tired of being poor?

I.E. "My Ancestors" (presumably poor immigrants trying to better their lives) "Came to this country, helped build it, and make it propser. Therefor I refuse to let other immigrants 'tired of being poor' have that same opportunity."

I'm not a "Kum-bau-ah leftist" You're just a bigot.

But like I said earlier, this issue has already been decided. White birth rates are declining while immigrant communities continue to reproduce, already California & Texas are majority minority states, with New Mexico & Arizona not far behind. The attempts of white Americans to "stand athwart history yelling 'stop!'" in order to maintain their skin priveleges will be just as futile as those of the know-nothings to keep the Irish & Europeans out. You've lost. You just don't know it yet.

[richard]

In a curious way, this article and the debate it's created reminds me a bit of Hannah Arednt, where in 'On Totalitarianism' she discusses human rights. In England at the time between the Wars, such a discussion was inseperable from 'the rights of the Englishman', and she noted that stateless persons (largely, though not exclusively, Jewish) pouring from the Balkans at that time, though abstractly granted human rights were given almost no rights at all, and were shifted from one unwelcome state to the next. The comments here seem similar: the rights of persons are their rights as citizens; to accord rights more abstractly is to paradoxically debase those rights and not to safeguard those rights.

As for those comments which list a person's beliefs and then the number of generations of ancestors who have lived here, this strikes me as a distinctly unfortunate. For more than most countries, the U.S. is a country of immigrants; suggesting that three or thirteen or twenty-three generations guarantees authenticity is a rather shaky premise for declaring one's own authenticity. It seems more reminiscent of those dubious pedigrees established by monarchists and aristocrats than anything else.

[ken melvin]

Race is not the issue, not an issue. It's about what happens to America. If the Chinese had the answers, they would fix China. If the Mexicans had the answers, they would fix Mexico. The population problem can not be solved by over populating. Any entitle to America is to her citizens.

[dale]

I don't think its lunacy anne. I think the conflict, the tensions between the needs of system maintainance and social integration are real and important. The fact that neo-liberals are now taking the lead in calling for something like open borders as an expression of "free" trade speaks volumes. I believe the tendency of the economic system to overpower or colonize our political system is real and important.

Now if the call for something more like open borders was, at the same time, accompanied by a social democratic guarrantee of health care, good retirement, extensive paid vacation, maybe a guarranteed living wage, etc.- then- we would know that the intention was not to provide the system with plentiful, mobile, and cheap labor- to avoid the potentials of rising wages due to a stable US populaton.

I favor something like Jeff Faux's idea of a North Amercian Marshall type plan to equalize the North American economies and eventually lead to a EU type integration. Provide the structures that maintain and strenghen the liberal political basis of our rights and at the same time build new structures to enhance our social democratic, redistributive, rights.

Without some liberal, social demoratic guarrantees I feel that the neo-liberal call for expanded immigration is little more than a call for cheap labor. So I ask for a more comprehensive plan of action.

[Peter Schaeffer]

DRR,

I don’t presume to speak for Kevin Melvin… However, I don’t see any evidence of race based opposition to immigration in his posts. You, by contrast, appear to be advocating immigration rights based on skin color. Racist, if you ask me.

You may not know it, but immigrants have always been in the forefront of the immigration restriction movement. Samuel Gompers, himself a Jewish immigrant from the UK wrote the following more 80 years ago.

"America must not be overwhelmed.

"Every effort to enact immigration legislation must expect to meet a number of hostile forces and, in particular, two hostile forces of considerable strength.

"One of these is composed of corporation employers who desire to employ physical strength (broad backs) at the lowest possible wage and who prefer a rapidly revolving labor supply at low wages to a regular supply of American wage earners at fair wages.

"The other is composed of racial groups in the United States who oppose all restrictive legislation because they want the doors left open for an influx of their countrymen regardless of the menace to the people of their adopted country.'

Which are you? A “corporation employer” or a racial/ethnic identity activist?

Fortunately, most immigrants have sane, restrictionist attitudes towards immigration. For example, a poll of Hispanics found that 0% think immigration is too low. By contrast, 1% of whites and 3% of blacks thought like you. See New Poll: Americans Prefer House Approach on Immigration for the detailed data.

[calmo]

Shades of James McLean with the ref to Hannah, richard, that wouldn't be you I suppose? Just my wishing...not that I don't think you as richard are perfectly entitled to all due consideration and authenticity...and be accorded rights (from me no less!).
I (with the inalienable rights I possess) can get to this matter (no matter how convoluted and disreputable my past, my performance, my mind-poundingly bad grammar...):

For more than most countries, the U.S. is a country of immigrants

I'm sure is exactly the way the Indians see it. [You figure "First Nations People" would have accorded these Red-skins more or less rights?]

My joy continues (and surely I owe you Big Time...I am willing to part with some of my rights in due recognition of a working brain):

suggesting that three or thirteen or twenty-three generations guarantees authenticity is a rather shaky premise for declaring one's own authenticity.

So remember that the next time you are pulled over: "But officer I come from a long line of Policemen."
Ok, that wasn't it: "Nice work Officer. For that performance, I'm going to award you the esteemed Richard Petty Roundup Trophy for fastest commuter detention."
Nothing like the conferring of rights upon others.

[Peter Schaeffer]

dale,

Don't waste your breath. "Anne" thinks that its OK (very OK actually) for Pelosi to pay $9 hour to illegal aliens in Marin country. Presumably her mutual funds provide a sufficient income so that she doesn't have to worry about supporting her family while earning less than the minimum wage in 1968.

[Peter Schaeffer]

DRR,

You should read a bit of immigration history before you post. The 1921 and 1924 immigration reform laws were highly successful in stopping mass migration from Europe. At some point, the U.S. will build a real fence along its southern border. It will be highly successful as well.

[dale]

Peter,
I value anne's comments. I love her style and we agree about most everything I've seen her comment on.

But I do see some problems with economic globalization being the driving force for political policy. I believe it should be the other way around. And I do take the interests and welfare of everyone, not just Americans, seriously.

I know it sometimes seems like concern about the political-economic effects of immigration is racist or uncaring towards the sufferings of this world. And I am willing to listen to criticisms from that POV. But again, I'll respond with my suspicions that much of what passes for liberal immigration policy is a cover for neo-liberal demands for plentiful cheap labor.

[john c. halasz]

"...the tendency for the economic system to overpower or colonize our political system is real and important".- Dale, that horse left the barn a long time ago...

[pinus]

My ancestors worked for at least 8 generations to build this country and keep it safe (some longer but the native part of the family tree is hard to trace).

So who should benefit, my children and grandchildren or a billion immigrants who are tired of being poor?

Orderly, legal immigration is good. Chaos is not.

save_the_rustbelt, I bet that EXACTLY this was the opinion of many people living already here when your ancestors came to America. Your ancestors must have loved it.

I am surprised that you claim that "legal immigration" is good. What is legal immigration? U.S. authorities picking the best skilled people from the third world, thus creating shortage of skills there? I wonder how this goes with your notion of humanity, equality, and helping the poor.

This opinion of yours is very hypocratic. I am ongoingly suprised that in America (a country where 99% percent of people are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants, who were mostly fleeing bad economic conditions, or descendants of slaves, who were forcefully brought to America), you still have some people with so little understanding for people, who want to do the same today. I am thankful that not everybody thinks the same way.

[save_the_rustbelt]

pinus:

Apparently in your world there is only black, and no place for nuanced thinking.

DRR:

Are you a person of color, or a white liberal who feels guilty about being white?

More importantly, why do there have to be losers?

Apparently you have no regard for nuanced thinking either.

[Peter Schaeffer]

pinus,

Every place on earth is inhabited by people who came from somewhere else. So is the United States. The United States bears no special responsibility to commit suicide as a nation via Open Borders.

My ancestors, like everyone else’s came from another country to the USA. So what? Are you really trying to claim that my obligations to them (now dead), are more important than to my children whose lives will be blighted by a lack of immigration control? What is the moral logic of that idea?

Or are we really talking about some racial/ethnic loyalty point’s scheme? In other words, I am obligated to support Open Borders to help “my people”. Anyone who puts the color of their skin ahead of their country’s interests is a bigot with no place in legitimate discourse.

[ken melvin]

I have a dream, actually it's a nightmare, about day workers being found shot to death along side rural southern roads.

[pinus]

save_the_rustbelt:

I would like to know what you understand under nuanced thinking. For instance, "billion immigrants who are tired of being poor?" surely is a clear example of nuanced thinking, right? And this is exactly what I was reacting to.

Peter:

No, I am not claiming that America is obliged to the world and should pay the plane tickets for anybody who wants to get in. But I am really disgusted with reaction like save_the_rustbelt's that people who want to get into the developed world are just so "tired of being poor".

It's like save_the_rustbelt's world and his understanding for people's fate ends at the border of the United States. Does he also think that poor or even homeless Americans should be denied help or at least understanding simply because they want better living standards just due to being "tired of being poor"? I bet not. So where does his lack of understanding for the fate of the people in the third world comes from?

Note that I have not said a word about whether America should or should not open the borders. I only wrote about save_the_rustbelt's bigot and blind view. It is sad that both of you implied something that I have not claimed.

Also, it is even more sad that you are trying to imply something about racial reasons. I am a white European, by the way.

[anne]

Though lunatics write about open borders as though there were open borders or though there were 2 people in america who other than the open borders lunatics who think there are open borders, the borders of America closed borders and not open borders, but open borders lunatics must spread fear and loathing to make otherwise sane Americans think what is unthinkable. The intent of the open borders lunatics is to spread fear and loathing and nothing else. Fear of conservatives, fear of liberals, fear for fear sake. This is the lunatic open borders conspiracy.

[anne]

Remember, we will have a billion, yes, a billion, at least, a billion, possibly 2 billion immigrants living in San Francisco in 5 years because of borders that are open even though they are closed borders. A billion people in San Francisco, all because of, say, fog. Such is lunacy.

[anne]

Me, and my family have been here for 22 generations, mind you, but even if we had come yesterday, which we did not, we would be locking the borders with the very key we used to open them, because we would have a devil of a time finding a place to live in San Francisco if anyone else ever came. Closed borders forever, because they are open, open, I say. Lunacy runs riot.

[anne]

Imagine we are busily occupying Iraq, from which we have taken fewer refugees than Sweden, but lunatics are worried about our open borders which are closed.

[Movie Guy]

anne,

Mark obviously isn't applying his poster policy to your repeated remarks.

Your name calling and general slander is out of hand.

It is a bit ridiculous to observe you calling anyone a lunatic.

Mark said knock it off. What part of that do you not understand?

[anne]

Imagine a billion people moving to San Francisco, and where will I find a hotel room? I am being disciplined you see because a billion people are moving to San Francisco and I will find no room at the inn. Oh dear, the open borders people are coming for me. Where will I ever rest? No room at the inn. A manger? There's a thought. A manger. Hmmm....

[DRR]

And why would they all decide to settle in San Francisco? this is a big country after all. Already, mexican american immigrants are populating southern states & the mountain west. Immigrants would be a wonderful addition to sparse areas like New England & the Mountain West where you can barely find 5 people congregated at once.

[dissent]

anne I don't appreciate the (repeated and repeated) mockery. If you have a point to make, make it - once or twice. But 10 times for a mocking post that makes the same point is rude. Please control yourself, for the sake of the cordiality of this board.

[anne]

My oh my oh my. Imagine that were I able to understand that our borders are open when they are really closed closed closed I would be appreciated appreciated appreciated by the closed borders people, which would make me a closed borders person too and how popular I might be then too just like the closed borders people I have always wihed to be like. Tra la, tra lo.

[anne]

"And why would they all decide to settle in San Francisco? This is a big country after all."

Me, I would take Wyoming, yes, I would. There was a summer night during a thunder storm when we drove for 2 hours east of Yellowstone along the Interstate never seeing so much as a light other than the flashes of light along the sky. Wow. That's just me, though.

says...

dissent - anne I don't appreciate the (repeated and repeated) mockery. If you have a point to make, make it - once or twice. But 10 times for a mocking post that makes the same point is rude. Please control yourself, for the sake of the cordiality of this board.

Well said.

[anne]

Me, I am still trying to solve the problem of why all those billion immigrants are intent on having San Francisco. Strange how these mysteries present. Could it be Tony Bennett? "I left my heart in San Francisco." Say what?

[anne]

http://www.calvorn.com/gallery/photo.php?photo=450&exhibition=84&u=11554|6|...

Northern Mockingbird
Jones Beach, New York.

Sing on Dear Mockingbird, for mocking is sorely needed in this most mockable time. Think there are a billion mockinbirds in San Francisco, she asks?

[dissent]

14 out of 45 (mocking and repetitive) posts by 'anne'.

I am wondering, Prof Thoma, if this is in line with your sense of what this blog is about.

[anne]

We must all be for open borders or is it closed, I forget, or we do not belong, or do we belong, but one or the other. We must all be for 1 billion people living happily or not so happily, I forget, living or not living in San Francisco. We must all be free to be as 1, or as 1 billion, I forget, and I am freer than all. Repeat after me, we are all free to live in San Francisco or not, I forget.

[anne]

What is interesting about dissent, of course, as Tom Paine understood full well, is that dissent is welcome when it is really agreement but then it is not dissent but who remembers Tom Paine anyway, and Molly Ivins has died. Farewell Sweet Molly.

[Peter Schaeffer]

Pinus,

My remarks were directed towards anyone who puts racial identity politics ahead of the well being of our nation. If that doesn’t include you, good. Sadly there are plenty of bad examples. Take for example, the mayor of Cactus, Texas who said "These are my people" after an immigration raid removed illegal aliens from his town. Of course, the mayor was also a former illegal alien… And profited personally (landlord, grocery stored, etc.) from illegal aliens…

[pjgoober]

We seriously need to focus on helping the hispanics we already have before we import millions more. They NEED help. But money to help the less fortunate is finite (progressive policies do not change that fundamental finiteness). We can choose to have a big hispanic population that we have at least half a chance in hell of uplifting, or a gigantic hispanic population with far less of a chance of ever getting out of the underclass:

“Longest, Largest” study of the children of immigrants yet conducted, by Alejandro Portes of Princeton and Ruben Rumbaut of UC Irvine:

http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1529

excerpts:
“Differences in arrest and incarceration rates are also noteworthy, particularly among second-generation, U.S.-born, males. While only 10 percent of second-generation immigrant males in the survey had been incarcerated, that figure jumped to 20 percent among West Indian and Mexican American youths.”

“The researchers found that children of Laotian and Cambodian Americans as well as Haitian Americans had the lowest median annual household income at just over $25,000. They were followed closely by Mexican American families, which had a median annual household income of about $30,000. On the other end of the spectrum, children of upper-middle-class Cuban exiles in Southern Florida reported a household income of more than $70,000, and Filipino Americans in Southern California had more than $64,000, followed by Chinese immigrants.”

Also, see this:
“Coming US Challenge: A Less Literate Workforce”
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0206/p02s01-legn.htm

excerts:
"The three factors identified are: a shifting labor market increasingly rewarding education and skills, a changing demographic that include a rapid-growing Hispanic population, and a yawning achievement gap, particularly along racial and socioeconomic lines, when it comes to reading and math.

The individual trends have been identified before, but this study makes an effort to examine their combined effects, and to project a disturbing future, including a sharply declining middle class in addition to the lost ground in literacy.

"We have the possibility of transforming the American dream into the American tragedy," says Irwin Kirsch, a senior research director at ETS and the lead author of the study."

Remember how we went through that struggle with integrating schools? I can assure you that that will not happen again, since whites are now only 55% of births. In a little over 20 years, it will be mathematically impossible for the average student to go to a majority white school (which was the goal of court ordered integration for blacks).