President Obama made a major speech on the need for immigration reform a couple of days before the 4th of July that got a pretty good review from Paul Waldman in the Prospect. He it called Immigration Returns because it put us in the way back machine to 1921.
The American public was fed up with hordes of aliens pouring into the country, speaking foreign tongues and threatening to take jobs from native-born citizens. So Congress took decisive action, and passed the Emergency Quota Act.
It was 1921, and the new law, designed to solve the country's immigration problem, limited immigration from any one country to 3 percent of the population from that country counted in the 1910 census — so if there were 100,000 immigrants from a particular nation already here, then only 3,000 more could be admitted per year.
But countries in the Western Hemisphere were exempt — as many Canadians as wanted could immigrate, and the doors were wide open to Mexicans, Salvadorans, Brazilians, and everyone else from Latin America. At the time, the invaders that threatened to dilute the American character were thought to come from our east (especially southern Europe) and west (China) but not our north and south.
And then back to 1780 or so
Nevertheless, we can give Obama credit for speaking to us like adults. He noted that for all the admirable values underlying the country's founding, “the ink on our Constitution was barely dry when, amidst conflict, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which placed harsh restrictions on those suspected of having foreign allegiances.” And he discussed the problems with the legal immigration system, which is the most neglected aspect of this issue.
And finally
It's good to hear the president make a speech saying the right things about immigration. He not only discussed the legal immigration system, he spoke truthfully about our history of nativism, described the centrality of immigration to the American character and the American economy, detailed the complex but necessary task of moving undocumented immigrants toward citizenship, and even complimented George W. Bush for advocating comprehensive reform.
But without a little more courage in Congress — which means tackling the problem even though you'll be sure some people who would like to live behind walls will yell about it — reform will be put off to a more politically opportune moment. Which is another way of saying it will be put off indefinitely.
Meanwhile back home our own Governor Patrick is to be commended for never, never, never giving up on making sure that legal immigrants were included in our state’s commitment to universal health care by including a special section in his budget message asking the Legislature to protect the Commonwealth Bridge Program. Sample “Thank you letters” to the Governor and “Please support letters” to the Legislative leadership can be found here.
Finally over the 4th of July there seemed to be lots of celebration parties for new citizens, all of whom were breathing a large sigh of relief at surviving the process. This one from the Globe, and then there was this horror story from the Christian Science Monitor reminding us that some folks ain’t doing any partying.
and finally, finally a new twist on the jobs issue, check out these stoiries about a new take my job site fromCNN and the Huffington Post.
Cross posted at ONE Massachusetts
I suspect that lack of immigrants may hurt our economy in ways we may not appreciate, particularly with entrepreneurial activity.
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p>One tenet of life is that people like is the ability to do better, maybe better than their parents, or better than themselves in a former place. People like to move forward.
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p>I know how much I am capable of earning, and I know that I could never earn the same amount running various types of entrepreneurial businesses. For example, let’s say I wanted to open up a bookstore. Let’s say that I can make an average of $3 per book in profit (a made up number). That means in order to earn $100,000 a year, I have to sell 641 books per week, or 91 books per day.
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p>That would have to be one heck of a bookstore to sell 91 books a day, every single day. It does not sound feasible except in the largest of markets. But one way for such a store to exist is if someone is content making $33,000 per year. They could then sell 30 books per day. That opens up a lot more markets for them.
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p>Who is more content making $33,000 per year versus $100,000 a year? An immigrant who could maybe only make $15,000 a year in his home country.
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p>It’s all relative, and I think that certain things seem more like opportunities to immigrants than to people born here. And when immigrants are in our community, earning money and then spending it, it improves the economy for everyone.
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p>I don’t think it is going to be easy to move past the xenophobia though. The entire immigration discussion is enshrouded in that.
It would be better if the immigrant could make $30K in his home country. He would be more comfortable close to his friends, family, native religion, and in a place where his native language is spoken widely.
“He would be more comfortable close to his friends, family, native religion, and in a place where his native language is spoken widely.”
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p>Unless you’re a Native American, you’re descended from immigrants. What you just said could be construed as racist/prejudiced. I can’t believe anyone would let this stand on a so-called liberal/progressive blog.
I start with two premises:
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p>1) Everyone is entitled by birthright to political liberty and economic opportunity, or as Jefferson so eloquently put it: “We hold these truths to be self evident…”
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p>2) We can’t possibly accomodate everyone who seeks these things.
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p>This is why I argue that it is in our national interest to nudge other countries toward affording their citizens these things. As far as our own immigration is concerned we need to reform the legal side to the extent that nobody will find it necessary to come illegally. We should be flattered that so many want to come here, but if people are coming illegally to me that says more about our system then anything.
Immigrants suffer mental illness at a much higher rate than the native population. I think this is an indication that the process of going to a different country is extremely stressful and not one you choose just to better yourself. Maybe these people would be happier at home.
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p>As for my own forebears they came from a country where they were destined to be poor because there was no way for them to move up, the capital (in the form of land) all being locked into ownership by the nobility. For the most part, they would have been better off if they had America-sized opportunity back in the old country.
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p>The liberal/progressive didn’t create the world where 5/6 of the world is in grinding poverty, but they don’t do much to solve it either. At least I recognize that people here in the USA don’t much like getting swamped by illegal immigrants and yelling at them won’t change their minds.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu…
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p>Abstract
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p>BACKGROUND: Immigrants in Sweden have a higher rate of mental illness than the native Swedes. This study investigated to what extent the association between immigrant status and mental illness can be explained by a different distribution of known risk factors for impaired mental health between groups of immigrants and persons born in Sweden. METHODS: The study is based on data from the Swedish PART-study, designed to identify risk factors for, and social consequences of, mental illness. The study population consists of a random sample of 10,423 Swedish citizens, whereof 1,109 were immigrants. The data was collected in the year 2000. The immigrants were divided into three groups based on country of origin (Scandinavians born outside Sweden, Europeans born outside Scandinavia, non-Europeans). The occurrence of mental illness among immigrants and native Swedes were compared not adjusting and adjusting for indicators of socioeconomic advantage/disadvantage (education, income, labour market position, etc). Mental illness was approximated with the WHO (ten) wellbeing index scale and depressive symptoms were measured with the major depression inventory scale (MDI). RESULTS: Immigrants’ excess risk for low subjective wellbeing was completely accounted for by adjustment for known risk factors in all the immigrant groups. However, social-economic disadvantages could not account for the non-European immigrants’ higher prevalence of depression (MDI), although the increased relative risk found in univariate analyses was substantially reduced. CONCLUSIONS: The findings in this study suggest that the association between immigrant status and mental illness appears above all to be an effect of a higher prevalence of social and economic disadvantage.
Your first paragraph reminds me of the fundamentalists who insist on “curing” gays and lesbians. They point out that gays and lesbians suffer mental illness and depression at a much higher rate than straights, and say, therefore, that “curing” them is for the best.
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p>They never seem to quite get that maybe, just maybe, the reason is the intense amount of prejudice and bigotry they face (or conceal their sexual identity in order to avoid facing) every single day of their lives.
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p>Assuming you are correct – and I too would be interested in a cite… Tell me again, do you think immigrants suffer because moving is stressful, or because half the country here sees the color of their skin and starts getting suspicious of their legality, and that they are here to take jobs that “rightfully” belong to native-born citizens?
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p>Note that I’m not saying moving isn’t stressful. But which do you think is more stressful, and which do you think causes mental illness?
I poked around on google for this and wherever I heard it, there doesn’t seem to be good evidence to back it up.
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p>I still think the idea that immigrants would rather stay home is just common sense. If they could get rich in Mexico or Guatemala or Ghana or wherever, they probably wouldn’t be moving here, is that such a groundbreaking statement?
You’ve acknowledged that your earlier comments are unsupported by evidence — they were, basically, bigoted hate-speech. Now you follow with more idle speculation — your choice of examples reveals your racial prejudice.
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p>We live in a nation founded on the idea of individual liberty. We just celebrated the anniversary of a document that contains this paragraph:
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p>Nothing in that document says anything about national boundaries — those “unalienable rights” are explicitly asserted to be universal.
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p>I find the very premise of your speculation offensive. The motivation for why someone wants to live here is their business, not yours and not mine. All of us have an obligation to obey the law. Most of us feel that those who determine the law have an obligation to do so without regard to race, color, creed, religious belief, place of origin, and so on.
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p>As far as I’m concerned, the “illegal immigration problem” is created by misguided, xenophobic, racist, and bigoted immigration laws. When those laws are rewritten, so that people who want to live in and obey the laws of this nation have a reasonable expectation of being able to do so, then this “problem” will be solved.
So we’re all obligated to obey the law… at the same time illegal immigrants should be allowed to disobey the law. Do you believe that the immigration laws were enacted illegally? Have you ever examined the alien and immigration laws of the countries where our illegal immigrants come from?
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p>As for calling me a racist, my way would solve the problem and decrease misery in the world — your way lets you feel better about yourself by yelling at the whiteys.
but that isn’t possible, and that lack of opportunity to improve their lives in their home country, is what led them here, and has for the past few hundred years. This same story and complaining about immigrants repeats itself every generation, or so. Read the history of some of the established immigrant groups, considered successful Americans today, and you see the same pattern repeated again and again.
Their home countries are the way they are because of decisions, some taken here in the USA, such as the effort to make poor countries into export producers. People banging around our government have done things to make the poor world suffer more.
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p>Without any handy research to back me up, I would venture to say that, both in intent and action, that’s exactly what student and study visas do: they allow people to come to this country for the sole purpose of a quality education, which they can’t get ‘at home’ and then, once completed, they return home to a larger paycheck.
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p>But some people aren’t coming FOR anything, but rather FROM something, be it crushing poverty or political repression. Consider that, if you are correct, that Joe Q Immigrant would be ‘better’ in his/her home country than here… but that they still end up here? Why… Well, it’s because, all things being equal, they would be better at home, but all things are not equal. So if they willfully eschew what, on the surface, looks to be a better situation, then you should start questioning if it is, indeed, a better circumstance…
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p>
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p>The idea, however, of a ‘native language’ is a ridiculously American one. The vast majority of the world speaks more than one language. The human species has shown a remarkable ability to acquire languages and an ease with a polyglot existence.
Things don’t need to be equal here and there, they just need to have some hope of achieving and succeeding back in Mexico, and then most of them would probably stay home. The ones who did come here would have lots more money and would be accepted and welcomed, like Canadians.
It may just be a tactic of the foes who support illegal immigration to say those opposed to illegals are against ALL immigration but I haven’t spoken to anyone who doesn’t want the US to continue our generous immigration system and maybe even expand it.
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p>So… any talk of the downside of not having immigrants in our economy or becoming entrepreneurs seems wasted.
I have never heard anyone who vehemently opposes illegal immigration suggest that we should significantly increase the number of immigrants legally allowed to move here. It seems to me that this would solve a lot of problems — if the “illegality” is what people oppose, then raise the caps and make more people “legal”. Problem solved.
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p>I tried to find out what the quota on immigration is. This seems to be a reasonable source, and it appears as though there are 226,000 family-based green cards and 140,000 employment-based green cards allowed per year. There are some temporary work visas too, plus about 150,000 permanent refugee, lottery, and spcial visas allowed.
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p>That’s not much — we have almost 300 million people in this country yet we are restricting immigration to 500,000 people a year? Why?
This whole attitude that they’re not people because they broke a law is absurd. Would the Minuteman types condone a group that went around shooting anyone caught speeding? Why aren’t Republican Congresscritters campaigning against the evils of speeding? The harms to society are about equal, and speeding is breaking the law.
While I agree with your premise, the quotas you cite don’t tell the whole story. In particular, according to the link you cite, there are no quotas for “Immediate Relatives” — spouses, (recent) widows/widowers, parents (if the citizen child is over 21), children, step-children. I’m reasonably sure that’s a fairly large total.
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p>I suggest that the “illegal immigration” issue can be solved by making a Green Card approximately as easy to get as a driver’s license.
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p>The bottom line, that the immigrant-bashers refuse to admit, is that the real impetus for all uproar is plain old-fashioned bigotry and racism, with a dash of xenophobia tossed in.
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p>Ah thank you for writing that.
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p>I have said almost the same words out loud, with a dismissive wave of my hand, to throw cold water on a discussion at a family reunion of sorts that was certain to get heated. (These events are always punctuated by a big argument about something or other usually current public policy debates.)
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p>And it stopped everyone cold.
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p>Everyone. The proponents for asylum on demand, the proponents for armed militia man standing shoulder to shoulder along the border with Mexico (take away our jobs) AND Canada (all Monarchist descended from Royalist who fled during the Revolution).
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p>And so they decided to argue about an appropriate deadline for getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
close to the protective gene I bet.
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p>But what do I know, no expert scientist here. I just know we all have it and must struggle to process our automatic distrust and caution to acceptance and appreciation of differences in the human race.
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p>Good Lord, that was soapy for a beautiful Saturday morning. Off to the breach chair races.
Whether you are a Tea Party protester, against illegal aliens, Obama’s agenda, Social Security reform, longer prison sentences/crime, education reform/vouchers… it just seems easy for people to blame racism.
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p>Enjoy your day a the races, I’m heading for the beach in Brewster.
Whether you are a Tea Party protester, against illegal aliens, (President) Obama’s agenda, Social Reform reform, longer prison sentences/crime, education reform/vouchers — if your speech, complaints, and proposed remedies are racist, then blaming racism is exactly the right thing to do.
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p>There is nothing “easy” about naming racism, especially in the mainstream media treatment of so many of the issues you cite. The rightwing acts fearful of the actual demographics that drive our society today — and it should be fearful.
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p>For far too long, rampant racism has been easily obscured under euphemisms like “illegal immigration”, “undesirable elements”, “electability” (of Hispanic, Latino, African-American, and women candidates), “states rights” and similar code-phrases.
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p>That time is over, and rightwing crazies are squawking more and more shrilly because even they now see the handwriting on the wall.
If I don’t want illegal immigrants from another country using our healthcare system… or if I am in favor of longer prison sentences (regardless of the race of the prisoner…) why do these views define the person as a racist? Or if you believe Obama is wrong about something such his pick for a SCOTUS Judge…
People don’t like people not like them. This has been a fact of human existence for 99.99999% of the species experience.
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p>The real surprise is what makes it possible for contemporary Americans can take as many immigrants as they have.
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p>As I alluded above: if the Spanish-speaking immigrant came from a country where he could just as easily make an American-sized income, I believe you would see anti-Spanish-speaking bigotry come to an end.
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p>I think you need to take into consideration the cost of living. to compare how far 33,000 would go in a depressed country with how far it would go in Massachusetts isn’t apples to apples. Provided we’re talking about the entire family coming over and making this their new home – that 33,000 may not get them much more than what they have back home (especially after housing and health care costs). Heck, there’s a big difference even between Massachusetts and Alabama as far as 33,000/yr would go.