Comments on: And then they came for me

By: mc

mc — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:01:58 +0000

Some commenters on this thread have expressed or implied a belief in ‘open borders’. In some cases, judging by the comments some of the same people have made on other threads, this strikes me as the mirror image of the confused/obtuse/hypocritical position of the UK Conservative Party on immigration. (The Tories believe in unrestricted movement of capital + highly restricted movement of people. You lot, by contrast, believe in reining in the evils of global capitalism but letting global people movements rip…) But assuming you can make your position cohere – and I know you can, I just worry that some of you aren’t prepared to put in the intellectual yards to do so – that still leaves the following questions: (1) What proportion of people in France, or the UK, share your belief in completely open borders? (2) If the answer to (1) is, as I believe it to be, considerably less than 10%, does this operate as a democratic constraint on policy? (This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one – I’m up for a discussion on it, but let’s have no comparisons with, say, popular support for the death penalty; immigration policy is more obviously something which should be up for democratic debate and decision, and the fact of having a not-completely-open-border policy, as opposed to how open, how operated, etc. is not, unlike the death penalty, a human rights issue in itself.) (3) If (1) does operate as a democratic constraint on policy – i.e., if we agree that we have to continue maintaining some immigration restrictions UNTIL we can persuade enough people to support a completely open-border policy – then, granting that anything short of a completely open-border policy implies a classification of migrants into legal and illegal, how in the meantime should we enforce this classification? Is it generally desirable, or indeed fair, to enforce a law but let anyone off if they refuse to comply – or escalate their non-compliance beyond a certain point? (I can already see people reacting to this colourless use of language – ‘non-compliance’ – when compared with the human details in the Statewatch story, by marking me down as some statist monster. But truly – I’m not condoning the particular actions of the French police in this area – I’m just more interested in the general question: first because it’s a real question, and one not always best illuminated by particular details; and second because it’s a better question for a forum like this, where inevitably there will be incomplete/asymmetric information about any particular case.)

By: jet

jet — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:42:13 +0000

clone12, I was just picking a data point we could agree was emblematic of a high density industrial center. I’m sure we can find another. HP, And just because this was the way it was, means there was a more optimum policy? Using your logic we get: India’s a thriving Democracy, I guess the British occupation was the best way to get there. Or how about Japan? Japan is a thriving Democracy, I guess nuking them was the best solution. Or how about, the US is the richest, most powerful nation in the world. Letting in everyone who wanted to come and letting them fight it out between themselves for scarce resources, living in cramped TB infection housing, horrible murder rates, and jobs that barely paid anything at all, had to have been the optimum solution. Hell, now I’m all for open borders. What’s a hundred years of human hell when we have the Glorious Balance to look forward to in the future.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:42:12 +0000

“In this continuum, the United States became the greatest economic and political powerhouse the world has ever known, completely dominating the global stage for nearly a century. The city of New York is considered a world city, one of the jewels of civilization.” Yes, but unlike say the country in question for this purposes of this post—France—the 19th century US actually assimilated its immigrants into the American culture.

By: HP

HP — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:19:15 +0000

Anyone who thinks their country’s infrastructure could magically build new housing, add new jobs, and assimilate new cultures at a rate fast enough for open borders to be feasible, need only look at 19th century USA. Exactly. Because as we all know, the USA failed to survive its horrid experiment with immigration, the constitution was dissolved in 1908, and North America reverted to a patchwork of petty fiefdoms, city-states, and warlordism. In fact, it wasn’t until the New Corn Month in the Year of the Jaguar, 23rd cycle, that the armies of the Restored Mayan Emperor, 17 Rabbit, were able to unite the green-eyed mongrel hordes of the north under His glorious dominion. All hail 17 Rabbit! Oh, wait. I though we were playing “alternate history.” In this continuum, the United States became the greatest economic and political powerhouse the world has ever known, completely dominating the global stage for nearly a century. The city of New York is considered a world city, one of the jewels of civilization. So never mind.

By: clone12

clone12 — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:16:29 +0000

Jet, Antebellum era goes all the way up to 1861, which contains more than half of 19th century. Secondly, if you’re going to ramp down foreign immigration to NYC because it might reduce the quality of life there, why don’t you also shut off internal migration to NYC as well? Should there be laws restricting someone from West Virginia to move to NYC?

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:15:24 +0000

If P is “50% of the population are immigrants” and Q is “there are few restrictions on immigration” then P simply does not imply Q, and all your bluster isn’t going to change that. As Montaigne used to say, before asking what a fact means, you should ask if it’s actually a fact. And in this case, it ain’t. The foreign-born population of the US has never been anywhere close to 50 percent. The highest it ever reached was about 15 percent at the turn of the century. And that was, in fact, a period of near-unrestricted immigration.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 18:08:36 +0000

Here’s another book to make my point: Keyssar, Alexander. “Poverty.” The Reader’s Companion to American History. 1991. Start reading about page 850 and hit the groovy stuff on 860-861. The majority of the poor were definitely immigrants, especially in the higher populated industrialized areas. If anyone disagreeing with me does actually pick up a history book and read about US immigration in the 19th century, please don’t feel stupid about what you said here. It really isn’t your fault that you didn’t know. I mean, how could you have known there were books out there by people who had studied primary sources, aggregated data, made conclusions, had their work peer reviewed, and then put it all down for you and I to read? Oh, and clone12, in 1823, poverty (paupery) wasn’t really a subject studied. You’ll find the primary sources a bit ambiguous for your uses, regardless of the good Brad Delong’s usage. Those numbers are probably only slightly more accurate than Michael A. Bellesiles mystery county records. As far as investigation into poverty levels and causation, that didn’t really begin in earnest the US for a couple more decades.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:53:08 +0000

clone12, 1823 aggregated data? Hardly a data set anyone would accept as indicative of 19th century US immigration. Let’s move forward 41 more years into that policy and see how it effected NYC’s crime rate and poverty level. It isn’t the areas of virtually unlimited arable land to the West that was the problem. It was the rapid population growth in urbanized industrial centers where the quality of life dropped to inhumane lows, that contain the lesson to be learned. Now is as good a time as any to state that I am for generally increasing immigration rates to all industrailized nations. But open borders fly in the face of history.

By: clone12

clone12 — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:17:36 +0000

“measured by crime rates, poverty, and unemployment, cities with lower levels of immigration were much better off in 19th century US. ” Which must explain why immigration rate had zero effect in antebellum Northeastern towns, as measured by extent of pauperism. http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/Econ_113/PS1.pdf

By: Maria

Maria — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:05:47 +0000

Likewise – in retrospect I think some more detail about the particulars of the objections are needed. I’ll have a dig around in the French press and post what I find tomorrow.

By: jet

jet — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 17:03:22 +0000

Des you left out the “near”, an important qualifier. Matt, you are absolutely right. I wasn’t even close with those numbers and mixed up NYC immigrant population with overall US. Scott, besides being racist, you are wrong. Some of the bloodiest immigration (multi-cultural intra-national) conflicts have occurred in non-Anglo-Saxon cultures. For starters, how about Black September in Jordan (at least as deadly as the 1860’s NYC riots)? But, anyways, measured by crime rates, poverty, and unemployment, cities with lower levels of immigration were much better off in 19th century US. Anyone who thinks their country’s infrastructure could magically build new housing, add new jobs, and assimilate new cultures at a rate fast enough for open borders to be feasible, need only look at 19th century USA. ISBN 1560252758 is the best place to start if you want to see the results of 19th century US immigration policy. Don’t worry, the movie only encompasses about 3 pages of the book.

By: Andrew Boucher

Andrew Boucher — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:54:06 +0000

“Andrew, I think what the four objected to was not the inconvenience or distress of sharing an airplane with the man being forcibly deported, but in being made complicit to some pretty appalling treatment and, above all, being faced with the reality of deportation.” How do you infer that? Call me a cynic, but unless proven otherwise, the most natural motive is that the four just wanted a peaceful flight – just like some people on a plane ask to be moved so they don’t have to sit next to a baby, who might scream. I myself might (probably?) have the same reaction, so I’m not disparaging them; I jsut don’t think they should be made into heroes, unless of course they are really resisting because of the mistreatment. I think we agree that there is a policy and its implementation. If there is more wrong implementing the policy than there is right in the policy, then the policy should change. My guess (is this a Larry Summers’ guess?) is that there is more right in the policy, but I freely admit I could be wrong, and that I don’t know enough about the particulars to judge.

By: m

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:39:25 +0000

Andrew – sorry – overstatement in my last para. I just re-read your comment and paid proper attention to your statement of ‘more power to the four’ if there is a narrowing of rights.

By: maria

maria — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:34:38 +0000

Andrew, I think what the four objected to was not the inconvenience or distress of sharing an airplane with the man being forcibly deported, but in being made complicit to some pretty appalling treatment and, above all, being faced with the reality of deportation. But that’s certainly debatable as there is some ambiguity in the various accounts. The four men – and the pilot – don’t make a policy argument against forced deportation. Their objections seemed more in the character of a visceral human reaction to the wrongness of the man’s treatment and fate. What strikes me most about this incident is how far removed most discussion on immigration and asylum policy is from the ugly details of its implementation. But as to a narrowing of rights (and leaving aside those of the Congolese man which have been systematically reduced by the European Council of Justice Ministers in the past 5 years), do you not think it is a narrowing of rights that people who objected to being on that flight – and did so in a civilised and peaceful fashion – are now the subject of a criminal prosecution…?

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 16:24:53 +0000

Jet, You’re right- I glossed over the “nearly”. I suppose that’s becuase, by the time period you’re looking at, there was a complete restriction on immigrants from Asia, and this seems to make the “nearly” inappropriate to me. It might have been “nearly unrestricted” for white immigrants, but that’s another story. And, I’m curious about what you mean by 50% immigrant. Do you mean 50% foreign born? I ask because the census dept. says that at the highest, only 14.8% of the US population was foreign born (in 1890). That’s a lot, but a lot short of 50%. So, what do you mean? Are you counting the children of immigrants, or just counting NY city or what? (I believe the percentage of foreign born in NY city now is about 38 percent, though I’m far from sure that’s accurate.) But, on any plausible reading of ‘immigrant’, there was no time since 1850 at least (earliest date I have stats for- google % of US population foreign born to get the census dept. stats) more than 14.8%, so I just have no idea what you are talking about. And, if one is born in the US, one isn’t an immigrant, even if one’s parents were. Micha- you’re right that anarchists often support few restrictions on movement, but thankfully there are not many anarchists! (I had in mind people like Joseph Carens, Howard Chang, or Robert Goodin, who support eliminating many barriers to movement, but do not call for totally open boarders.)