A liberal dilemma on immigration is if a country can prefer immigrants from culturally similar countries. For instance, is it legitimate for a European country to welcome Ukrainian refugees but not refugees from other continents, whose culture is very different? Beyond differences in culture, can a country prefer "soft" cultural groups who do assimilate over "hard" immigrant groups that assimilate much less readily?
Interesting article. Of course, the one exception to this rule is Israel, which has been quite welcoming to low-skilled immigrants (Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews) in huge numbers in the past. But I guess that it’s an exception that proves the rule since it was founded as a safe haven for Jewish refugees. Not very egalitarian to admit smart and educated Jewish refugees but not dull and uneducated ones.
Israel still has open borders, but only for Jews and people of close Jewish descent (at least one halakhically Jewish grandparent). And even then, there has been some backlash in regards to this in Israel for allowing too many people who are not halakhically Jewish to immigrate to Israel, even though they actually do contribute to Israel, its economy, its budget, its society, and its military in a way that some other Israelis, such as the Haredim, do not.
Personally, I would prefer keeping liberal democracy while having more selective immigration in much higher numbers. We can also seek to make things fairer by using IQ testing for immigration purposes, not just educational credentials. At least that way we’ll be able to discover potential talent from Third World slums who didn’t have the opportunity or money to get fancy college degrees. But of course aiming for pro-natalism is also a good idea!
As a side note, in the past in the US, even some high-skilled immigrant groups, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Ashkenazi Jews, were not universally welcomed. But thankfully we appear to be a more tolerant society nowadays.
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.
In reality Canada is a hybrid approach. The is a large temporary worker and student population population from which the high skill system continues to draw the highest scoring applicants. Temporary residents are not entitled for most social benefits, can't vote, and get deported if they commit a crime. When they receive PR status from the high skill system they are then quasi citizens as you describe in Denmark.
It’s wrong to call Canada’s “low skill”. Its employment visa’s are pretty equiviliant to our h1bs. Its student program isn’t different then trumps promise to staple a green card to every diploma.
All that happened is they increase quantity and toon away the country cap. That meant getting a lot of mediocre Indians. The talent pool just isn’t that deep in India, they have an average iq of 76 for gods sake.
It’s useless to complain about diploma mills or people gaming the employment visas. The immigrants have a way bigger incentive to game the system than the people running it have to stop them.
And ultimately, family re-unification means that we basically have open borders in the long run due to chain migration.
Sorry, western countries can’t do “high skill” immigration.
And would that be a good thing? What is Indian elite culture exactly? Rock bottom TFR? Cram school resentment? Stagnant economies at way lower gdp/capita than us? Corruption and nepotism? Do you want to America Vivek tweeted about?
I note too that the pro immigrant crowd won’t propose the one thing that. Any be gamed. Paying cold hard cash for each visa. Because at the end of the day it’s all about la or arbitrage and importing quasi slaves with no rights that have to do whatever you say or get deported. Once the arbitrage is gone because you have to pay nobody is interested.
No, “high skill” immigration is a scam. An attempt to keep the immigrant gravy train rolling after everyone already caught on. We don’t need to repeat the mistakes of the rest of the anglosphere.
Canada has never had a country cap in its history. What actually happened comes down to three key factors:
Post-COVID labor demand – The economic rebound and inflation after COVID created the strongest labor demand in decades, making it easier than ever for immigrants to find jobs.
A surge in immigration interest – There was a significant, widespread increase in the desire to immigrate after COVID. This trend appeared across many Western countries, despite differing policies and demographics. While this could be linked to labor demand, I suspect the pandemic itself motivated many people to leave their home countries.
An open and uncapped system ready to meet demand – Canadian colleges and universities have long been free to accept as many international students as they want. Many institutions, facing stagnant budgets, saw this as a financial opportunity, as they can charge significantly higher tuition for international students.
So bottom line Canada doesn’t have a country cap. The people who want to increase h1b in America proposed doing away with the cap. If they achieve that we will get outcomes similar to Canada.
What’s the bottom line here. Canada imported a bunch of Indians and they turned out to be mediocre additions that were culturally incompatible. Despite “skill based” restrictions that are likely not all that different then we would come up with if we increased the quota.
India does not have a deep talent pool. Quantity up = quality down. You also have to deal with the fact that it’s an incredibly corrupt, nepotistic, and desperate culture.
Western culture is based on a rough equality at a high overall level. India is a caste system in which centuries took place without interbreeding (even breeds of dogs interbreed, but not Indian castes). Most of the population is worthless and the theoretically good ones have spent millennia hating most people of the people they share the sun continent with and trying to separate from them. How do you think someone like that is going to behave in America? I think Vivek gave us the answer.
I don't think that's true at all. Many CEOs or significant researchers at tech companies come from India. People from rural villages getting targeted by diploma mills are not exactly the same as IIT graduates. Ultimatly what matters more than ethnicity is IQ and earning potential. Of those are good most other differences get smoothed out.
A liberal dilemma on immigration is if a country can prefer immigrants from culturally similar countries. For instance, is it legitimate for a European country to welcome Ukrainian refugees but not refugees from other continents, whose culture is very different? Beyond differences in culture, can a country prefer "soft" cultural groups who do assimilate over "hard" immigrant groups that assimilate much less readily?
Interesting article. Of course, the one exception to this rule is Israel, which has been quite welcoming to low-skilled immigrants (Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews) in huge numbers in the past. But I guess that it’s an exception that proves the rule since it was founded as a safe haven for Jewish refugees. Not very egalitarian to admit smart and educated Jewish refugees but not dull and uneducated ones.
Israel still has open borders, but only for Jews and people of close Jewish descent (at least one halakhically Jewish grandparent). And even then, there has been some backlash in regards to this in Israel for allowing too many people who are not halakhically Jewish to immigrate to Israel, even though they actually do contribute to Israel, its economy, its budget, its society, and its military in a way that some other Israelis, such as the Haredim, do not.
Personally, I would prefer keeping liberal democracy while having more selective immigration in much higher numbers. We can also seek to make things fairer by using IQ testing for immigration purposes, not just educational credentials. At least that way we’ll be able to discover potential talent from Third World slums who didn’t have the opportunity or money to get fancy college degrees. But of course aiming for pro-natalism is also a good idea!
As a side note, in the past in the US, even some high-skilled immigrant groups, such as Chinese, Japanese, and Ashkenazi Jews, were not universally welcomed. But thankfully we appear to be a more tolerant society nowadays.
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.
In reality Canada is a hybrid approach. The is a large temporary worker and student population population from which the high skill system continues to draw the highest scoring applicants. Temporary residents are not entitled for most social benefits, can't vote, and get deported if they commit a crime. When they receive PR status from the high skill system they are then quasi citizens as you describe in Denmark.
It’s wrong to call Canada’s “low skill”. Its employment visa’s are pretty equiviliant to our h1bs. Its student program isn’t different then trumps promise to staple a green card to every diploma.
All that happened is they increase quantity and toon away the country cap. That meant getting a lot of mediocre Indians. The talent pool just isn’t that deep in India, they have an average iq of 76 for gods sake.
It’s useless to complain about diploma mills or people gaming the employment visas. The immigrants have a way bigger incentive to game the system than the people running it have to stop them.
And ultimately, family re-unification means that we basically have open borders in the long run due to chain migration.
Sorry, western countries can’t do “high skill” immigration.
And would that be a good thing? What is Indian elite culture exactly? Rock bottom TFR? Cram school resentment? Stagnant economies at way lower gdp/capita than us? Corruption and nepotism? Do you want to America Vivek tweeted about?
I note too that the pro immigrant crowd won’t propose the one thing that. Any be gamed. Paying cold hard cash for each visa. Because at the end of the day it’s all about la or arbitrage and importing quasi slaves with no rights that have to do whatever you say or get deported. Once the arbitrage is gone because you have to pay nobody is interested.
No, “high skill” immigration is a scam. An attempt to keep the immigrant gravy train rolling after everyone already caught on. We don’t need to repeat the mistakes of the rest of the anglosphere.
Canada has never had a country cap in its history. What actually happened comes down to three key factors:
Post-COVID labor demand – The economic rebound and inflation after COVID created the strongest labor demand in decades, making it easier than ever for immigrants to find jobs.
A surge in immigration interest – There was a significant, widespread increase in the desire to immigrate after COVID. This trend appeared across many Western countries, despite differing policies and demographics. While this could be linked to labor demand, I suspect the pandemic itself motivated many people to leave their home countries.
An open and uncapped system ready to meet demand – Canadian colleges and universities have long been free to accept as many international students as they want. Many institutions, facing stagnant budgets, saw this as a financial opportunity, as they can charge significantly higher tuition for international students.
So bottom line Canada doesn’t have a country cap. The people who want to increase h1b in America proposed doing away with the cap. If they achieve that we will get outcomes similar to Canada.
What’s the bottom line here. Canada imported a bunch of Indians and they turned out to be mediocre additions that were culturally incompatible. Despite “skill based” restrictions that are likely not all that different then we would come up with if we increased the quota.
India does not have a deep talent pool. Quantity up = quality down. You also have to deal with the fact that it’s an incredibly corrupt, nepotistic, and desperate culture.
Western culture is based on a rough equality at a high overall level. India is a caste system in which centuries took place without interbreeding (even breeds of dogs interbreed, but not Indian castes). Most of the population is worthless and the theoretically good ones have spent millennia hating most people of the people they share the sun continent with and trying to separate from them. How do you think someone like that is going to behave in America? I think Vivek gave us the answer.
I don't think that's true at all. Many CEOs or significant researchers at tech companies come from India. People from rural villages getting targeted by diploma mills are not exactly the same as IIT graduates. Ultimatly what matters more than ethnicity is IQ and earning potential. Of those are good most other differences get smoothed out.