Immigrants may reduce crime rates in the US, but they are overrepresented, sometimes heavily, in prisons in European countries. We're getting a bad deal all around.
As for selective immigration: yes it definitely helps, but I don't think it can simply trade off against volume. Aside from the roadblock that no one on the left or even centr…
Immigrants may reduce crime rates in the US, but they are overrepresented, sometimes heavily, in prisons in European countries. We're getting a bad deal all around.
As for selective immigration: yes it definitely helps, but I don't think it can simply trade off against volume. Aside from the roadblock that no one on the left or even centre is willing to discriminate based on cultural similarity, the most 'ideal' immigrants may not exist/be willing to come in sufficient numbers. The more you widen the pool, the more the quality drops. Plus the number of young people in the most culturally similar countries is far smaller than in less similar ones, and since they have comparatively better conditions at home, fewer will be eager to emigrate. As well, no matter who is immigrating, you get all the infrastructure problems of a rapidly rising population: you can't just send them off to the frontier, they need housing, schools, hospitals, roads and transport etc.
Depending on your idea of 'high immigration', this may or may not be a big problem.
Immigrants may reduce crime rates in the US, but they are overrepresented, sometimes heavily, in prisons in European countries. We're getting a bad deal all around.
As for selective immigration: yes it definitely helps, but I don't think it can simply trade off against volume. Aside from the roadblock that no one on the left or even centre is willing to discriminate based on cultural similarity, the most 'ideal' immigrants may not exist/be willing to come in sufficient numbers. The more you widen the pool, the more the quality drops. Plus the number of young people in the most culturally similar countries is far smaller than in less similar ones, and since they have comparatively better conditions at home, fewer will be eager to emigrate. As well, no matter who is immigrating, you get all the infrastructure problems of a rapidly rising population: you can't just send them off to the frontier, they need housing, schools, hospitals, roads and transport etc.
Depending on your idea of 'high immigration', this may or may not be a big problem.