Stanford economist Paul Romer suggests an overlooked strategy for helping Haitians – letting them move abroad to countries with better political and economic institutions:
Even if the motivation is humanitarian, letting a military intervention morph into a long-lasting occupation in some part of a country would risk the kind of violent opposition that colonialism generated in the past. There is no reason to take this risk. We should retain the current strategy. Military interventions should involve the shortest possible duration, should be used only to establish the necessary minimum of legitimate governance, and should not impose irreversible commitments on a nation.
However, we must recognize that this strategy, by itself, will not bring good governance or rapid economic growth anytime soon. It is the strategy that has been followed in Haiti for decades, to little good effect. It is the strategy that left Haitians in a position so precarious that an earthquake killed many tens of thousands.
There is a natural complementary approach that is a much better bet than giving colonialism another chance—letting Haitians migrate somewhere with better governance and rules. This is the surest answer to the question posed in the beginning. It can give them access to the urban infrastructure, buildings, equipment, and the know-how that can support jobs in areas like garment assembly.
Competitive pressure from emigration might also speed up progress toward better governance in Haiti. Demonstrated successes for Haitians who live together in other places with better rules might offer a model for reform that people in Haiti could follow. Even then, good governance may not emerge there. But if there were places where all Haitians could go, no one would have to be trapped by this failure.
As I have argued in my academic work and elsewhere, “voting with your feet” is a powerful tool for helping the poor and disadvantaged improve their lives and choose the government they wish to live under (e.g. here and here). Many Haitians have already transformed their lives by moving to the United States and other developed countries. Undoubtedly, many more would do so if given the chance. And, as Romer points out, migration puts competitive pressure on governments to improve their policies and promote economic growth at home; growth is also aided by the remittances emigrants send to relatives who remain at home. Haiti is one of the poorest and worst-governed nations in the world, so emigration from that country creates truly enormous gains for those who leave, as well as their relatives who may remain.
I’m sure some will argue that Haitians should be forced to stay in their country and work to improve their own government. However,as Romer points out, both Haitian reformers and numerous foreign interventions have tried to do just that for decades, with little or no success. Perhaps the present occupation by US and UN forces will work better than previous efforts along the same lines. I am not as pessimistic about the ability of intervention to improve governments as Romer is; however, Haiti is clearly an unusually difficult nut to crack. The success of this latest effort at good governance is far from guaranteed. If I were a Haitian, I certainly wouldn’t bet my life on it. Actual Haitians should not be forced to do so either. Obviously, not all Haitians can emigrate, and some who could may not want to. But that reality should not prevent us from allowing those who wish to leave to migrate freely. No one deserves to live in a hellhole of misgovernment through no fault of their own.
Finally, it’s worth noting that allowing free migration by Haitians need not even be considered a form of charity by the US and other Western nations. For reasons discussed in this excellent paper by philosopher Michael Huemer, it is merely getting out of the way of voluntary efforts by migrants to help themselves. Increased Haitian immigration might actually benefit current US residents. Anyone who lives in the Washington, DC area, as I do, can see the various ways in which Haitian immigrants benefit the economy by founding small businesses and doing many kinds of work.
We can argue about the merits of free international migration generally. But denying immigration rights to people living in conditions as horrendous as those in Haiti condemns them to a life of poverty and oppression, and often a very early death.
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal makes some similar points in an editorial endorsing President Obama’s decision to give temporary refuge to Haitians scheduled for deportation from the US:
The Obama Administration acted properly, and humanely, late yesterday in extending temporary amnesty to Haitians who were illegally inside the U.S. before this week’s catastrophic earthquake. Some 30,000 Haitians had been awaiting deportation but will now be allowed to stay in the U.S. and work for another 18 months.
You might even call this amnesty of a sort, if we can use that politically taboo word. But we hope even the most restrictionist voices on the right and in the labor movement will understand the humanitarian imperative. The suffering and chaos since the earthquake should make it obvious that Haiti is no place to return people whose only crime was coming to America to escape the island’s poverty and ill-governance.
For that matter, we don’t mind if they stay here permanently. Haitian immigrants as a group are among America’s most successful, which demonstrates that Haiti’s woes owe more to corruption, disdain for property rights and lack of public safety than to any flaw in its people. Their remittances to Haiti also help to sustain the impoverished population. Haitians received some $1.65 billion from overseas in 2006, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.
For reasons discussed above, the WSJ’s argument applies almost as strongly to Haitians still in Haiti, as to those already in the US illegally.
Mike McDougal says:
Isn’t it also a powerful tool for extracting benefits from current U.S. residents?
January 18, 2010, 5:13 pmlgm says:
The Republican party doesn’t stand for allowing unlimited immigration to the US from third world countries. Maybe you should become a Democrat?
January 18, 2010, 5:16 pmIlya Somin says:
Isn’t it also a powerful tool for extracting benefits from current U.S. residents?
No, the law denies most welfare benefits to recent immigrants. If immigration were to increase, there would be strong political pressure to deny even more.
January 18, 2010, 5:17 pmtroll_dc2 says:
I am skeptical about our ability to help massive numbers of effectively dispossessed people given our economic circumstances. Would you favor a tax increase to pay for their needs?
On the other hand, I am of the opinion that those who have come here have done pretty well (except for the ones who are brought in to work in the sugar cane farms in Florida). Maybe the ones who already are here are more upper class than the ones who would be coming. I don’t know.
January 18, 2010, 5:18 pmIlya Somin says:
The Republican party doesn’t stand for allowing unlimited immigration to the US from third world countries. Maybe you should become a Democrat?
To my knowledge, the Democrats, especially their labor union wing, don’t either. In any event, to the extent I sometimes support the Republicans, it is only as a lesser of two evils, not because I share all or even most of their views.
January 18, 2010, 5:18 pmIlya Somin says:
I am skeptical about our ability to help massive numbers of effectively dispossessed people given our economic circumstances. Would you favor a tax increase to pay for their needs?
I’m in favor of letting them work to supply their own needs, as most Haitian immigrants already do.
January 18, 2010, 5:20 pmStrict says:
“Haitians should be forced to stay in their country and work to improve their own government. However,as Romer points out, both Haitian reformers and numerous foreign interventions have tried to do just that for decades.”
Are you suggesting that the US “intervention” in 2004 (in which US forces kidnapped President Aristide and brought him to the godforsaken Central African Republic) was an attempt to improve the Haitian government? Installing psychokiller Guy Phillipe was an attempt to improve the Haitian government?
January 18, 2010, 5:21 pmtroll_dc2 says:
Where would they work? Doing what? I cannot think of a single place outside of, perhaps, North Dakota where we are suffering from a labor shortage.
January 18, 2010, 5:24 pmStrict says:
“Military interventions should involve the shortest possible duration, should be used only to establish the necessary minimum of legitimate governance, and should not impose irreversible commitments on a nation.”
I’m not so sure about Romer’s “rule of thumb.” Would Romer have disagreed with 1971 intervention by India in Bangladesh?
January 18, 2010, 5:25 pmStrict says:
“North Dakota where we are suffering from a labor shortage.”
Well then, if North Dakota will take some Haitians, I’m sure some Haitians will take North Dakota! Sounds like a deal. Should I call up Barack? :)
January 18, 2010, 5:27 pmERH says:
Wouldn’t a better solution be to encourage them to do whatever it takes to fix their county. Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, et al. didn’t say “these colonies suck let’s vote with our feet” they did what was necessary to make a more perfect nation.
January 18, 2010, 5:31 pmTTC says:
This sounds like a crock of bullflop to me.
Vietnam suffered a mass migration when millions of Vietnamese voted with their feet when the North invaded. You can’t credit that population movement for the Doi Moi reforms.
What about all the Cubans who vote with their rafts? I don’t see reforms coming in Cuba. Castro even helped a bunch of Cubans “vote with their feet” with the mariel boat lift.
Voting with your feet as a concept only works when the static party wants the mobile party. The governments at issue have no need or love for dissidents in their society, and many of those countries suffer from excess population that they can’t support, like Mexico, so the threat of emigration isn’t much of one.
And there is also the negative impact of all the best human capital leaving the country…
Maybe the Haitians would be better off voting with their guns. It worked well for the American colonials, among many others. Though I suppose Washington et al could have just voted with their feet and moved to a French or Spanish colony.
January 18, 2010, 5:47 pmGreg says:
Let’s trade ‘em for Michigan, straight across.
January 18, 2010, 6:06 pmd-berg says:
No need to speculate, this has already happened. Vast immigration into California led to popular approval of Proposition 187 in 1994. People voted to deny most benefits to illegal immigrants and were overruled by the elites (governor conspiring with the court to kill the initiative). Look, in this real case people had 2 advantages over your hypothetical: scope limited to ILLEGAL immigrants and availability of Proposition process (endemic to a few states). What makes you think it will play out any better for the people in your case?
January 18, 2010, 6:06 pmjcm says:
They already tried and ended in Guantanamo
January 18, 2010, 6:07 pmNickM says:
Who will stay behind in Haiti at that point?
The only reason the joke “Will the last Haitian leaving please turn out the lights?” would even be a joke is that is presupposed the lights were on in the first place.
Nick
January 18, 2010, 6:21 pmKen Arromdee says:
This gets to my objection to the attitude that libertarians have to allow unlimited immigration.
– immigrants are attracted by, and use up, expensive social services. In a libertarian society, the government wouldn’t supply them, thus attracting fewer immigrants. Even if they can’t get welfare, everything that the government does down to the fire department and roads costs more the more people you apply it to.
– Libertarians argue that minimum wages and similar restrictions reduce employment–they don’t reduce employment for illegals (who can’t get their boss arrested), which means you have government intervention artificially giving the illegals advantages.
– the immigrants probably come from a non-libertarian government. If such a government mismanages its economy, that increases immigration, and gives the government a chance to get away with policies that could otherwise bring it down. Essentially, immigration lets the government causing the problems export them to other countries, where someone else will pay to fix them. The original post claims that this is a benefit, but that’s only if you ignore the effect that it has in propping up a corrupt government at home.
Which is not to say that we shouldn’t help the Haitians, but the justification given here for doing so is far too broad and reads like an attempt to justify unlimited immigration with a few “the Haitians” tacked on.
January 18, 2010, 6:36 pmPeteP says:
“letting them move abroad to countries with better political and economic institutions:”
“allowing free migration by Haitians need not even be considered a form of charity by the US ”
With all due respect, that’s the stupidest suggestion and pseudo-analysis I’ve ever seen posted here.
You’re actually suggesting that we change immigration policy, open the floodgates, and let ( or rather, pay for ) maybe a million or more ( a conservative estimate of how many Haitians would like to move here ) illiterate ( in any language, not just English ) people who don’t speak English, worship voodoo ( this are facts, not slurs – look up the illiteracy rates in Haiti – > 50 %. Look up the voodoo worship rate – > 80 % ).
You want to bring them here ( on our dime, because they don’t have a dime ) – and then what ? House them, feed them, find them jobs ( what jobs ? ), teach them things like modern Western standards of hygiene, behavior, laws, etc ?
You CAN’T be serioius ????
“I’m sure some will argue that Haitians should be forced to stay in their country”
I doubt you could find even on person, anywhere, to support that idea ! And your implication that ‘not opening the immigration floodgates for them’ is equivalent to ‘forcing them to stay in Haiti’ is utterly ludicrous.”
What, pray tell, would you have us do about the other billion-plus people in this world who could be described in the same way ? The billions of people in Africa, Latin America, India, Bangladesh, etc, who ‘would be better off in America’ ? You want us to fly them all in, too ?
Are you insane ????
January 18, 2010, 7:05 pmPeteP says:
“I’m in favor of letting them work to supply their own needs, as most Haitian immigrants already do.”
Where exactly do you think you’re going to find 1,000,000 + jobs for the flood ?
January 18, 2010, 7:07 pmFelix von Schwarzenberg says:
There is also a large and productive Haitian community in the Boston area.
January 18, 2010, 7:18 pmStrict says:
PeteP for the racism win.
As for TTC’s suggestion that Haitians should vote with their guns…well, that’s already the reality. From military dictatorships and coups, to democratic governments elected in the midst of massive election-related violence, one thing is constant: the rule of the gun. The “gun” can’t be the solution, because it’s been tried already. It’s not as though Haiti has a lack of guns or a lack of political violence.
January 18, 2010, 8:00 pmPeteP says:
“There is also a large and productive Haitian community in the Boston area.”
I don’t doubt it. How well is the local economy prepared for an overnight influx of 10,000 or 100,000 more ? ( your portion of the millions that would like to move here from Haiti, on our plane ticket ) ? You have free apartments for all of them ? Free food ? Free medical facilities ? Free schools to teach them to speak, read, and write English ?
YOU HAVE JOBS FOR THEM ????
January 18, 2010, 8:02 pmTTC says:
Hmm, let’s combine this thread with the ones about organ selling. How much a kidney would cost? 10k, a plane ticket, and a visa?
January 18, 2010, 8:03 pmPeteP says:
“PeteP for the racism win.”
Pretty predictable that someone would play that card. It helps you avoid the very simple question I asked. Here they are again, for you answering pleasure :
If even so little as 10 % of the residents of Port au Prince ( population 9,000,000 ) decide to avail themselves of the kind offer, that’s 900,000 new immigrants basically overnight …
Based on published statistics ( again, facts, not ‘slurs’ or ‘insults ), ~ 50 % of them will be illiterate ( meaning, ‘do not read or write in ANY language’ ), non English speakers, and ~ 80 will be voodoo worshipers ( couple with the dominant Roman Catholic – they do both at the same time ). I am not making these numbers up, they are published facts. Go look them up.
Who pays their transport here ? ( they can’t )
What housing do you put them in, and who pays for it ? ( they can’t ) .
Who feeds them ? ( they can’t )
Who provides their medical needs ?
Where do they work ? Learn English ? Learn ‘Western standards’ of behavior, hygiene ( indoor toilets are a new idea to them )
If you have no answers, just scream ‘racism’ again, and I’ll be suitably impressed.
January 18, 2010, 8:16 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Strict for the false accusation of racism fail.
The reason I left the Libertarian Party is its utterly stupid fixation with open borders. Allowing unfettered immigration is the quickest path to becoming a third-world hellhole ever devised, whether the incomers are black, brown, white, or purple with pink polkadots.
January 18, 2010, 8:21 pmCrunchy Frog says:
As distasteful as the idea is to most everyone, I think we are in for a nice, long round of nation building in Haiti. There’s really no way around it – the infrastructure is just not there in any meaningful capacity for civilization to compete in the face of rampant political corruption and kleptocracy.
The potential is there for Haiti to be, if not the jewel of the Carribean, at least something other than the fettering cesspool it is today.
January 18, 2010, 8:31 pmStrict says:
“teach them things like modern Western standards of hygiene, behavior”
Your suggestion that we’ll have to teach voodoo-worshipping [btw they don't "worship" voodoo] filthy animals how to brush their teeth and wipe their asses and scrub their pits isn’t racist? lol
January 18, 2010, 8:40 pmMichael Masinter says:
No Haitians were ever brought in to work in the sugar cane farms in Florida. Before mechanization displaced hand harvesting, all the cane was harvested by workers from Jamaica and other English speaking countries in the Caribbean, supplied by the British West Indies Labor Company to U.S. Sugar, the various Fanjul companies, and others under the H2 program for temporary agricultural workers.
January 18, 2010, 8:46 pmnewrouter says:
stop russian immigration now
January 18, 2010, 8:57 pmPeteP says:
Strict – thank you for making my point for me, and putting all doubts about yourself and your posts to rest
“If you have no answers, just scream ‘racism’ again, and I’ll be suitably impressed.”
January 18, 2010, 8:59 pmRandy says:
If voting with your feet prompted governments to improve, then Buffalo would have the best governing in the country. They have, as they have had for the last 30 years at least, still the worst, at the same time the population has halved.
On the other hand, giving hundreds of millions to Haiti has merely propped up a worthless government. Who has benefited from the untold millions we have given them? Certainly not the people. Perhaps the better solution would have been to cut all aid to the government so that at least the usual suspects wouldn’t benefit from our largesse.
All that money we gave and all it did was prop up corruption. Is the better solution nation building? perhaps — so long as we don’t export our health care crisis.
January 18, 2010, 9:25 pmptt says:
Haiti, along with a lot of other places, has suffered as a pawn in our long struggle “against communism”. Our hands are dirty, but we don’t like to think about that.
January 18, 2010, 9:41 pmRicardo says:
What do you base this statement on? The government of Vietnam has taken in recent years to encouraging Vietnamese exiles to invest in their former country and reestablish business ties. Southern Vietnam is more developed in part because of investment and business relationships with the South Vietnamese expat community. These individuals don’t have to invest, of course: they do so because governance in Vietnam makes them optimistic for the future. So it’s in the government’s interest to continue to reform to attract more investment to encourage development.
In any case, the point isn’t that emigration makes reform more likely. It is that it doesn’t make reform less likely.
January 18, 2010, 10:14 pmTTC says:
Guns are just tools. A hammer can build gallows or a chair, likewise guns can give you America the free or Germany the Third Reich.
It’s a people issue. If there aren’t enough people interested in forming a liberal democracy, then one won’t form. Guns are beside the point. Once might as bemoan the “rule of sticks and rocks” or the “rule of fists and feet” or more fashionable in the VC, the “rule of tall bombastic blond pundits with big Adam’s apples”
January 18, 2010, 10:16 pmCB says:
Gosh, why stop at Haiti? We should let all of Africa move here also. And any other third world hellhole. Surely we need to turn into a third world banana republic much faster than we’re currently going.
We can only assimilate so many immigrants before the United States simply won’t be the United States anymore. We’ll be a writhing pit of competing tribes.
January 18, 2010, 10:19 pmStrict says:
“Guns are just tools. A hammer can build gallows or a chair, likewise guns can give you America the free or Germany the Third Reich.
It’s a people issue.”
I agree.
I disagree that “Maybe the Haitians would be better off voting with their guns.”
January 18, 2010, 10:19 pmRicardo says:
And there is little data to support the notion that this is harmful. Human capital is only worthwhile when you combine it with property rights, rule of law, physical capital, etc. In other words, it’s much more valuable in a country like the U.S. than a country like Haiti. Which is why the educated do so much better for themselves in the U.S. than in Haiti.
In India, for instance, brain drain does have a social cost to the extent that the government of India spends lots of money to educate people only to see them leave (on the other hand, many of those Indian expats either send money back or are starting to return themselves, start businesses and apply their skills to developing the country — but that’s a separate issue). But Haiti hardly has this same problem.
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January 18, 2010, 10:32 pmTTC says:
Ricardo says:TTC: You can’t credit that population movement for the Doi Moi reforms.
What do you base this statement on?
Doi Moi started in 1986, roughyl contemporaneous with Deng’s reforms in China, and Perestroika in the Soviet Union. The move toward more market sided economies was further informed by the poor results of the Vietnamese, Sino, and Soviet dalliances with command economies, and the stunning success of the Four Asian Tigers.
In any case, the point isn’t that emigration makes reform more likely. It is that it doesn’t make reform less likely.I’m not sure what to make of that standard. It doesn’t sound like a compelling basis for policy
Further, there were tensions in the region. The Sino-Soviet split is widely known because of Nixon’s and Kissenger’s success in exploiting it. Vietnam and China were in the middle of a cold war during the period of reform, following the Sino Vietnamese War of 1979. When one side develops an advantage, in this case economic, there is a tendency for the others to be pulled a long as they attempt to keep up.
There was a lot more going on then the quest for sweet expat dollars.
January 18, 2010, 10:52 pmRandy says:
CB: ” We should let all of Africa move here also. And any other third world hellhole.”
Just curious, CB. What hellhole did your ancestors come from, and why?
January 18, 2010, 11:25 pmMatthew Carberry says:
Maybe his ancestors came in at a time when the US needed masses of unskilled labor?
Maybe his ancestors, like mine, came in legally, in proportionately small numbers, in a controlled fashion, were screened under a variety of rational standards (including lack of disease)?
Gee, maybe, just maybe, there’s a difference between controlled, limited, conditioned on the actual needs and capabilities of the existing society to support it, immigration and simply opening the borders or ignoring illegals?
Nah, can’t be. That level of applied reason would utterly destroy the intended snark.
January 18, 2010, 11:39 pmyankee says:
How do you know your ancestors came in legally? Have you seen their immigration papers?
January 19, 2010, 12:08 amRicardo says:
That was pretty much the standard Ilya argued for above. But you don’t see any merit to making life less miserable for people who live in a hopeless situation? And to do so at a cost much less than just about any other form of foreign aid or assistance?
Never said there wasn’t. I’m not sure whether emigration has had any positive impact on reform movements or not. But I do hope you realize that reform has not been uniform across Vietnam and that the most economically open and reformed areas are those in the south of the country. The northern provinces are still run by old-school Marxist bureaucrats who don’t seem to care all that much about encouraging business activity. There is a similar pattern in China where the most economically progressive areas with the least pernicious bureaucrats seem to be the coastal areas with lots of wealthy Chinese expats who call these areas home. That seems at least suggestive to me.
January 19, 2010, 12:23 amCB says:
“Just curious, CB. What hellhole did your ancestors come from, and why?”
My ancestors came from societies that were actually able to educate themselves and were quite resourceful and didn’t expect everyone else to provide them with everything to survive. And they didn’t resort to gang warfare with machetes or AK-47s if they weren’t given what they wanted. It was called Western Civilization.
There’s a reason there is a third world, and it has a lot to do with various cultures and their belief systems.
And all of Mathew Carberry’s comments are valid points also.
I am glad we are helping Haiti out, but allowing a whole third world country to immigrate here would be ridiculous.
January 19, 2010, 12:26 amRicardo says:
I agree but it’s a false choice between almost no legal immigration (aside from relatives of U.S. residents and citizens) and unrestricted immigration. Do you hold the same views about the U.S.’s policies towards Cuban immigration, though? David Card’s research on the Mariel Boatlift showed no long-term increase in unemployment in the Miami metro area following a sudden increase in the Cuban population there. One criticism of this is that it disguises people who may have moved due to the influx of Cubans. The U.S. is certainly a big enough country to accomodate, say, 100,000 Haitians who want to escape their hopeless situation, though.
January 19, 2010, 12:34 amRealist says:
Things in Haiti are bad. Very bad. But they were, by our standards, very bad before the earthquake.
I am reminded of an open lot across the street from a client’s office in Lagos some years ago. There were a couple of hundred people – families – living on an area smaller than a football field, more or less in the open, wiht a couple of water spigots.
There are several hundred million people, perhaps as many as a billion, who live under more or less similar conditions. They just haven’t been on cable 24/7 for the past week.
Given open borders, estimates are that something like 1-2 billion people would immigrate to the West (US and Europe).
One can hardly blame them for wanting to come – I would in their place. But one can also hardly blame the West for not wanting them. Current levels of immigration are probably already more than we can assimilate. While taking in a few thousand, or even a few tens of thousands, may make us feel good about ourselves, it does almost nothing to impact the lives of the billion or so who live in real poverty.
January 19, 2010, 12:55 amEvilDave says:
How fast can we get the Haitians up here to vote in the Massachusetts election?
January 19, 2010, 1:01 amEvilDave says:
You forget in this era of multiculturalism we are not allowed to assimilate them.
January 19, 2010, 1:05 amTheir cultures (which they are fleeing, but don’t mind that) are just as valid as ours. In fact they are better that ours created by those hypocritical raping lying white men.
Imposing our values upon them would surely be an act of racist imperialism.
Robert Ayers says:
Why not let them literally vote with their feet? You can walk from Haiti to the Dominican Republic.
January 19, 2010, 1:05 amYou worry: “But the Dominican Republic will become overcrowded!”. Part two: for every 1% of the Haitian population that walks to the Dominican Republic, the border is moved 1% into Haiti. And if Haiti completely disappeared, that would be a pleasant outcome.
If I was the Dominican Republic, I would not go for this — just as commentators aren’t going for it with respect to the USA. But money is a good sweetener, and goes a long ways in the Dominican Republic.
Ken Arromdee says:
Having ancestors who came here illegally is like having ancestors who stole from the Indians. You benefitted from it, and you’re not going to give those benefits back. But ultimately, it’s not something to be proud of, and it’s not something you should let other people do today, even if having your ancestors do it did help you.
It would be the height of foolishness to say “your ancestors stole from the Indians, so you should let others steal from the Indians today”. Likewise for “your ancestors entered the country illegally, so you should let other people enter illegally today”.
January 19, 2010, 1:14 amRandy says:
CB: “My ancestors came from societies that were actually able to educate themselves and were quite resourceful and didn’t expect everyone else to provide them with everything to survive.”
And so why do you assume that Haitians coming to America would expect ‘everyone else to provide them with everything to survive?”
And if you think that most immigrants who came to America from Ireland, Poland, Italy, Russia and other places were educated in any meaningful sense, you would be wrong. Most were farmers or peasants who had to leave due to harsh conditions at home, whether it was famine, political oppression or other reasons. Most people who came to America did so because they considered their homeland to be a place without a future for them — i.e, a hellhole.
“And they didn’t resort to gang warfare with machetes or AK-47s if they weren’t given what they wanted. It was called Western Civilization.”
Unlike, say the Italian mafia, or the Irish gangs, or other immigrant groups that used violence to keep people in order or get what they wanted?
I’m not necessarily in favor of opening the doors to all immigrants, but your comments are really way over the top.
Mathew: “Maybe his ancestors, like mine, came in legally, in proportionately small numbers, in a controlled fashion, were screened under a variety of rational standards (including lack of disease)?”
And who here has suggested anything else? Certainly not me.
January 19, 2010, 1:26 am"Irish Cottage" Dodd says:
IIRC, Charlie Rangel has a villa in the Dominican Republic that he’s probably not using. Perhaps he could volunteer to put a few people dozen up there.
January 19, 2010, 1:28 amCB says:
“And so why do you assume that Haitians coming to America would expect ‘everyone else to provide them with everything to survive?” ”
Not just the Haitians, that’s why most immigrants want into the USA these days. Free education, free emergency rooms, Medicaid, welfare, foodstamps, free school breakfasts and lunches, free public services, free police and military protection, free firefighting services, free prison stays….what’s not to like?
I’m sure with half of Haitians illiterate, they’ll be paying taxes very soon after arrival that more than makes up for all they receive.
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January 19, 2010, 2:19 amRicardo says:
As Milton Friedman rightly pointed out, illegal immigrants (which tend to be the focus of most immigration debates in general) certainly do not come to the U.S. for these reasons. They tend to avoid any interaction with officialdom as much as possible to avoid being deported. Free prison stays? See Butcher and Piehl’s research: the foreign-born in the U.S. are much less likely to be incarcerated than the native-born. Free police? You must be joking. Mexican day-laborers are routinely robbed of their cash pay by criminals in many places exactly because they are seen as being very unlikely to go to the police.
If people are willing to break the law to come to the U.S. and not avail of all the free public services offered, obviously there must be another reason why so many immigrants want to come to the U.S. I wonder what that could be?
January 19, 2010, 3:03 amRicardo says:
There must be some difference between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. One possibility is that compared to Haiti (Population: 9,035,536), the population numbers for D.R. and U.S. are:
DR: 9,650,054
U.S.: 307,212,123
In any case, the choice between almost no legal immigration and unlimited legal immigration is a false one.
January 19, 2010, 3:11 amMatthew Carberry says:
Yankee,
Yes, I’ve seen the papers and letters from back and forth to the old country.
Larger thread,
“Voting with their feet” as it is being described is, as far as I can tell, in fact unlimited, unrestricted legalized immigration.
No controls for education, skills or anything else, just, “if they want to come, give them a stamp”. No potentially negative effects are admitted as even worth discussing, it is all sunshine and roses even though there’s no evidence provided that unrestricted immigration in this circumstance will work.
“Doing it and seeing what happens” is not an effective or rational test method. “Throwing wide the borders” will be an effectively irreversible act of entitlement.
What we know works is restricted immigration with the volume based on screening for what the US happens to need, which is no longer just warm bodies.
January 19, 2010, 4:34 amepluribus says:
When my ancestors came to the United States (and the last one was my grandmother), the only requirement was a ticket on a ship. I found her record in the National Archives. She landed in New York with $25 in her purse. Her nearest relative was in San Francisco. She had no train ticket, but made it there and found a job. We had free immigration then, and I am glad we did. Haiti is a near neighbor of the United States. If the house occupied by family across the street from me burned down and the people had no insurance and no means of rebuilding, my first impulse would be to try to help them, not to put up a strong fence to keep them off my property.
January 19, 2010, 7:07 amInstapundit » Blog Archive » LET HAITIANS vote with their feet?… says:
[...] LET HAITIANS vote with their feet? [...]
January 19, 2010, 8:01 amTomH says:
epluribus – Not to say you are too far off the mark, but I understand that while there were limited restrictions there were, in fact restrictions on immigration in the late 1800s to early 1900s. These would include a lack of disease, fitness to work or other means of support and a US resident relative or other contact to live with, and the resources to get to your relative or get picked up in NY/Boston, wherever. Hundreds of Thousands were sent back on steamers because they failed to meet these standards. There are some pretty tragic stories.
No, this is not the same level of restriction people are suggesting now. but then again we are not expanding into a huge, untouched economic zone (the American West), but rather suffer from a recession with no jobs for those already here.
January 19, 2010, 8:02 amSmitty says:
“migration puts competitive pressure on governments to improve their policies and promote economic growth at home”
By that logic, Mexico should e a model of good governance by now.
January 19, 2010, 8:24 amPeter Cunningham says:
Yes, we should let them in, to the UK (where I am) as well. We should go further and move towards “Free movement” as well as free trade – essentially it would be allowing free trade in the job market.
Would it harm the current inhabitants of the rich world? I suspect not. Besides estimating the possible costs and benefits of immigration, one can put forward a more general argument -
January 19, 2010, 8:30 amUnless you are breaking a mechanism (e.g. price controls preventing supply and demand equilibrating), then first order effects (improvements to the quality of life of the immigrants) are generally bigger than second order effects (harm to the quality of life of the exising inhabitants).
So we should let them in.
newscaper says:
Ilya, you have no idea what you are talking about vis a vis ‘welfare’ (in the broad sense, not a sngle specific program) and immigrants.
I take it you’ve never heard of anchor babies?
Or that in practice, whether out of ‘progressivism’ on the part of the people in the trenches, fatigue, fear of law suits or complaints, or auditing resources… fraud is rampant where not actively enabled.
My older sister is a social worker who left south Florida after 20 years down there in the shit, and she recently moved to another southern state to a V.A. job to get out of it.
January 19, 2010, 8:31 amC R Krieger says:
In Haiti we lack the civil society needed for development to take off. So, I am interested in innovative solutions. Thus I am for the vote with their feet idea as long as it includes forcing out those reluctant to leave. Keep the land records, but turn the territory over to the US military as a training area for the next 30 years, with the US Forest Service responsible for reforestation.
Then let those who wish to, return in 2040.
As for the comment on how soon can they be voting in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, they would be too late. While snow is falling lightly, we are out and voting. Including a lot of absentee ballots, which could delay the count. When I voted in my Ward and Precinct at 0800 I was vote 112. People are out.
Regards — Cliff
January 19, 2010, 8:39 amnewscaper says:
Not necessarily. Just because economic utility would (should) be maximized globally with completely free movement as well as free trade, that in no suggests a real win-win, that people in both groups A and B benefit. Yes, the benefit to A likely exceeds the cost(harm) to B (or subsets within B) — but that aggregate abstraction means zilch to those hurt in B.
I also note yours is the same fundamental argument as used by any ‘soak the “rich” tax looter.
The semi-’official’ blind allegiance to wide open immigration by libertarians is suicidal. You would think people comfortable with abstract thinking (as the ‘principled’ surely are) would realize that there are feedbacks and interaction between first-order policies implementing their principles.
WIde open immigration (or anything approaching it) can only work in the real world AFTER beating back the welfare state first.
January 19, 2010, 8:41 amlgm says:
Ilya Somin
says:
That may have been true in the seventies. There still are Democrats who feel this way (like balanced budget Republicans). But it’s not the party platform. You can look up the Obama and McCain stances on immigration. They are different.
Maybe it’s time to do a new accounting of Republican evils. Not some libertarian ideal of what Republicans might be, but what they actually have proven to be in the past decade: Fiscally irresponsible, incompetent, disrespectful of the law, unconcerned with the future (global warming, health care).
January 19, 2010, 9:02 amKen Arromdee says:
I’m a little puzzled by it too. As I point out above, immigration is encouraged by government interference in the market. Libertarians need not support unlimited immigration until this interference is removed (which in practice means not for a long while, and certainly not from non-libertarian countries). Unlimited immigration without eliminating the government interference that encourages immigration is like, oh, deregulating only one side of the energy market in California, which turned out to be worse than either deregulating the whole thing or not deregulating at all.
January 19, 2010, 9:28 amErik says:
I agree with the concept in general. Forcing people to stay in such deplorable conditions is cruel. But some of the points people are making here I also agree with. How, in our current economic situation, are we supposed to support a mass emigration? But who said we have to? Since French is one of the national languages of Haiti, wouldn’t assimilation be easier in a French-speaking country? America has the capability to move a lot of people fairly quickly. Couldn’t we work out a deal with France or Canada or Switzerland? Arguably the French have a great deal of responsibility for Haiti. Can’t Europeans make reparations for past evils too?
January 19, 2010, 9:54 ammemomachine says:
Hmmmm.
Sooooooo.
The approved solution for a bunch of loser people too stupid, corrupt or criminal to fix their own problems … is to import them into America where the rest of us can financially support them in their loserdom.
Joy.
January 19, 2010, 10:03 amPaul A'Barge says:
Oh please. If you let these folks in they’re never going back. We saw this in Houston after Katrina. And that was in a state with the cojones of Texas.
If these folks want an uncorrupt prosperous first-world country let them stay in their own country and fix it.
January 19, 2010, 10:05 ammemomachine says:
Hmmmm.
“As I point out above, immigration is encouraged by government interference in the market.”
It’s called “citizenship” and it’s supposed to convey a certain loyalty between country and citizen. If there are actually zero benefits to being a citizen in a country then why would anyone, citizen or not, have loyalty to that country and that country to that citizen?
Well then. Welcome to the Brave New World where being the citizen of a country is just a title and where governments devolve into the most common denominator:
Dictatorships.
Quasi-intellectuals. What would we do without them.
January 19, 2010, 10:06 amJ Miller says:
The best suggestion I have ever heard was to facilitate Haitian migration to French Guyana. It is underpopulated, speaks French and is nearby! Both countries would benefit. However, no one has ever accepted this as a viable solution, even after 40 years!
January 19, 2010, 10:17 amepluribus says:
TomH:
You are right, but these restrictions were imposed in the late 19th century and on a gradual basis. For most of the nearly 500 years that Europeans have been in North America there were no restrictions at all. We had free and open immigration. Government began to impose restrictions on a most discriminatory basis. Chinese immigration was almost totally banned in the early 20th century, and not out of concerns of disease or lack of education or inability to work, but because of race. I think it’s notable that so many conservatives, who despise “government programs,” are so happy to embrance one of the biggest and most restrictive government programs of them all–the Immigration and Naturalization Service–whose primary purpose is to impede the free movement of human beings in and out of the country. To these folks, it seems, government programs are bad unless they reinforce your private prejudices. In this case, the prejudice is that “foreigners” are no damn good and we should keep them out of “our country.” Never mind that we were all “foreigners” (American Indians, of course, excepted) when we came here to a country that belonged to others.
January 19, 2010, 10:19 amepluribus says:
Paul A’Barge says:
I think they said something like that about my ancestors back then. Of course, they were right. I went back to Europe a few years ago and visited a miserable, poor, squalid little town saw where some of my ancestors came from. My first thought was, I am so glad they left.
January 19, 2010, 10:23 amepluribus says:
J Miller says:
Could be. Why not work out an agreement under which all of the countries in the Western Hemisphere (they, after all, are Haiti’s neighbors) would open their doors to Haitians in proportion to their population? Haitians would not be required to emigrate, but they would be permitted to do so, on that basis. The US would not take them all, only its fair share, based on population. If other countries also wish to do this–France, for example, or the UK, or African countries–they could do the same.
January 19, 2010, 10:28 amRebelyell says:
The last thing this country needs is several hundred thousand more poor people. We can’t take care of the ones we have.
A society’s characteristics are those of its underlying citizenry. So in many suburbs, three or four Hispanic families are living in a single house with the front yard paved over. For the rest of us, this is a nightmare.
If we let a lot of illiterate, vodoo worshipers into the country, life will become less enjoyable for those of us already here. And they will end up burdening our system.
If we really want to help Haiti, why not send them all of our chronic welfare cases and keep sending the checks. Our poorest welfare cases will be ultra-rich in Haiti and they will have plenty of money to spend to boost the economy. We can agree to accept the Hatians with a college degree.
January 19, 2010, 10:35 amPeteP says:
Peter Cunningham: – “Yes, we should let them in, to the UK (where I am) as well. We should go further and move towards “Free movement” as well as free trade — essentially it would be allowing free trade in the job market.”
Insanity.
“Would it harm the current inhabitants of the rich world?”
Yes, in fact, it would DESTROY ‘the rich world’. Including you ,and your country.
For instance – you currently have ~ 64 million people. One of your current big political problems in the news is illegal immigrants sneaking in via Spain, from Nigeria. Well, guess what ? Nigeria has ~ 151 million people. At a guess, at least half of them would be better of living your ‘standard of living’ than what they have now. SO, guess what ? By your idea, they can simply move to England. How well do you think your country would handle maybe 50 million new immigrants, uneducated, without a dime to their name, looking to go on the dole ? GUess what ? Your country would implode, and be no more.
Great idea.
As to your nonsense about ‘first order effects’ – exactly what do you figure the effects on your ‘first order benefits’ would be when the UK collapses under the weight of unbridled immigration ?
And hwo do you figure that the current residents are somehow obligated to put ‘harm to the quality of life of the exising inhabitants’, IE themselves, secondary to ‘improvements to the quality of life of the immigrants’, IE ‘foreigners’ ?
Have you stopped to think abou the fact that literally BILLIONS of people in this world would like to live the standard of living of the UK ? Where exactly did you plan to put them all ?
January 19, 2010, 10:40 amKen Arromdee says:
I’m not sure you read my post.
I was unaware that governments mismanaging their country to the extent that people want to immigrate somewhere else, is considered a citizenship benefit granted by the government doing the mismanagement.
January 19, 2010, 10:42 amFloridan says:
If this was happening to Iceland, there would be no argument about letting them in.
I live in an area that is home to tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants. They are a resourceful, entrepreneurial and religous people. We’ll do just fine if we let some more come to our shores.
January 19, 2010, 10:48 amFloridan says:
Rebelyel: “The last thing this country needs is several hundred thousand more poor people. We can’t take care of the ones we have.”
Rather, we choose not to take care of the ones we have.
January 19, 2010, 10:50 amMirco says:
Caveat: I’m not an US citizen, I’m an Italian one.
You can call me racist, I don’t mind.
The problem of lettin unrestricted or simply massive immigration of haitians in the US is that the mean IQ of haitians is 75 (this is the value in Santo Domingo).
Now, the fraction of the population over IQ 100 is probably around 1% of the population of Haiti). The bigger part of the population have not enough ability to learn to write/read and count. What jobs do you think they could do in an advanced technological society like the US (or Europe)?
Open borders policy is about letting the people leave, not letting the people enter your home without control. The policy of open borders to exit can only exist with a policy to let enter only the people worth to add to the local popuation.
It is like adopting someone. They must be free to leave their original family, but but they can not choose, alone, who will adopt them.
January 19, 2010, 11:02 amepluribus says:
Mirco says:
You’re racist.
January 19, 2010, 11:42 amMark in Texas says:
The primary objection seems to be not that we don’t mind the Haitians voting with their feet, but we are not too enthusiastic about them coming here.
Perhaps we can focus our humanitarian impulses on transporting Haitians to Francophone countries where they will, at least, be able to communicate with the locals. I would be quite happy to see the US government transport hundreds of thousands of Haitians to Quebec, Martinique, Algeria or France. I’d even be happy to let the French experience what a US military occupation really means by taking over a few square miles of France, occupying it long enough to move in all the Haitians who want to move there and then leaving.
January 19, 2010, 11:52 amMark in Texas says:
Paul A’Barge — Oh please. If you let these folks in they’re never going back. We saw this in Houston after Katrina. And that was in a state with the cojones of Texas.
That is not entirely true. Many of the evacuees from New Orleans chose to remain in Texas because of the better schools, better economic opportunities and dramatically less corrupt government. However, a great many criminals were dismayed to discover that, unlike Louisiana, Texas does not have a 60 day rule and Texas does not treat murder as a misdemeanor crime. Most of those folks have gone back home to New Orleans.
January 19, 2010, 12:03 pm24AheadDotCom says:
Ilya Somin says: No, the law denies most welfare benefits to recent immigrants. If immigration were to increase, there would be strong political pressure to deny even more.
No one should trust what Somin has to say, for many reasons including:
1. The second sentence is obviously false. More imm. gives more power to the far-left and the Dems, and they use that power to push through spending for those they represent.
2. Some benefits might by law be prohibited, but there are other ways to get them. For instance, through their children, through gov’t workers looking the other way, and so on.
3. See this for more.
Ilya Somin has no clue about these issues and he’s no doubt isolated himself from the impacts of what he promotes. He doesn’t have the U.S.’s best interests at heart, and you can’t trust his advice.
January 19, 2010, 12:09 pmCracker Barrel Philosopher says:
Milton Friedman: “In principle, you ought to have completely open immigration. But with the welfare state it’s really not possible to do that”
January 19, 2010, 12:34 pmNickM says:
Iceland has a population of roughly 320,000. Haiti’s population is roughly 9 million. Saying we could “let some more come” is a nice way of hiding that major difference. You can’t just drop a population the size of New Jersey into the country without it causing substantial problems for people already here.
Nick
January 19, 2010, 12:37 pmKen Arromdee says:
They seem to speak a different kind of French creole than Haiti, according to Wikipedia. I don’t know if the languages are close enough that a speaker of one can understand the other. Standard French should be the same in both places, however, and it’s near the Caribbean and probably has more similarities in culture than Haiti/USA. Wikipedia also lists several figures which together seem to imply 20% of the residents are Haitians already. (60-70% mixed ancestry, Haitians being a third of that).
January 19, 2010, 1:22 pmBill says:
Before the earthquake, there were over 10,000 charities operating in Haiti…that is part of their problem. Just as our old welfare program participated in extending poverty in the US.
AND, with this job situation etc ongoing, you think the American public will stand for millions of 4th world people brought in to create even larger slumlord areas in the US….someone is smoking it again.
Im guessing with this economy that Schumer and Grahams secret plan for AMNESTY will go down in flames.
January 19, 2010, 3:15 pmMichael says:
This reminds me of my most frustrating nonpayment episode. My office was called for an appointment which was given. Two parents brought in a very disabled child; they were from the Sudan. They need a diagnosis to be able to get special needs care through the school system; every child is guaranteed that through Federal Title aa; but they needed a diagnosis. This person is going to be permanently disabled and a ward of the state. I gave them a diagnosis and submitted a bill to Medicaid. It was denied. I personally called to appeal, something I have done a handful of times. The bill was appealed and denied, the reason was that the encounter was for ‘diagnosis’ and not for ‘treatment.’ I think about this denial every time I hear of ‘evil insurance companies denying payment.’ It was only this last week that I understood how they likely got in the country. Sudan is one of a few countries from which there is perhaps automatic emigration on account of political persecution. Anyway if someone on Volokh conspiracy wouldn’t mind looking me up and covering my fee for the evaluation so that justice would be served, I’d be impressed and thankful.
January 19, 2010, 4:16 pmathEIst says:
Some Haitians(prior to 1937) voted with their feet to the Dominican Republic(near the border). Trujillo and his army killed >50,000.
January 19, 2010, 4:33 pmkeypusher64 says:
I am too. But is Mirco wrong (average Haitian IQ = 75)? If he is right, would that affect your view of Haitian immigration? Professor Sonim, same question to you, if you are around.
January 19, 2010, 5:02 pmMirco says:
For data about IQ and nations:
IQ and the Wealth of Nations
IQ and Global Inequality
Down there is a list of PISA score and the computed IQ for a large number of nations and for some the numbers of groups and regions.
Haiti IQ: 72 (Lynn and Vanhanen (2002)); 57 (Rindermann (2007))
Modern IQ ranges for various occupations
Mainstream Projections of World IQ Trends Here a graph with the distribution of the IQ in a population with a 100 IQ mean and the IQ ranges for jobs types.
If the IQ of 72 is right, half of the population of Haiti would be unfit to be a sexton or janitor. The population of Italy or the US have around 5% of the population with less of 75 and the same with more than 125.
I’m sure that with good nurturing (teaching, eating, stimulation, good parenting) it would be possible to raise the IQ of the next generation of Haitians population to 80, but not more. You can not the genetic make up.
The people controlling Haiti after the French were the mulatto, that have a mean IQ higher than blacks.
Can I bet that, if checked, the most successful US immigrants from Haiti are mainly mulatto or light skinned blacks?
I agree that you can have open borders, if you want totally destroy Social Security (a good idea anyway). In this way, you let the people unable to earn a living to starve, jail the criminals and prevent them to multiply as happen now (a child is responsibility of his/her parents, not the government – and leave money in the hands of productive people that could think about reproduce more.
January 19, 2010, 6:21 pmThe selection is colorblind, so it would not be racist.
No more than a running competition, where the blacks have better genes and usually are better runner than whites and east Asians.
Floridan says:
Mico: “Can I bet that, if checked, the most successful US immigrants from Haiti are mainly mulatto or light skinned blacks?”
I don’t know how this can be proved or disproved, but I see plenty of Haitians in South Florida who have worked their way up to middle class status (without the help of parents covering their first 21 years) who are not “light-skinned.”
NickM: “You can’t just drop a population the size of New Jersey into the country without it causing substantial problems for people already here.”
OK, if not Iceland, how about Canada?
In any case, these are the same tired arguments that were used to oppose immigration from Ireland, China, Italy and other poor countries. There’s a reason the anti-immigration party was known as the “No Nothings.”
January 19, 2010, 8:33 pmv says:
前列腺光波治疗仪
January 19, 2010, 9:59 pmNickM says:
Now you talk of adding 34 million people (almost the size of California)? Do you find 95 too empty?
Nick
January 19, 2010, 10:50 pmshorter says:
shorter comment thread: Screw’em, I’ve got mine.
January 20, 2010, 2:11 amGNZ says:
If you start a system of voting with your feet – then countries will start trying to push undesirables out to other countries (even if this was just subtle and unstated) – people will become like some sort of waste product that can be traded for disposal and you will get the exact opposite of what you want as you would if we started trading freely in human organs.
January 20, 2010, 2:29 amFloridan says:
NickM: “Now you talk of adding 34 million people (almost the size of California)? Do you find 95 too empty?”
Are you assuming that every man, woman and child in Haiti will come to America? I don’t think that’s a serious concern. My point is that we can accept more Haitians without any danger to financial or social well-being.
Despite some bizzare claims (“The bigger part of the population have not enough ability to learn to write/read and count.”) Haitians can be every bit as productive citizens as the Irish, Poles, Chinese, Italians, Russians, Filipinos and Nicaraguans have proved to be.
January 20, 2010, 8:28 amMirco says:
@Floridan
It is a guess. And I could be wrong. I have not the “truth” in my hand.
But if a population have some mean IQ of 75 or lower, whatever be the reason, genetic or other, you have probelm to integrate it inside a technological advanced society that need more technicians and engineers than paesants.
Or you put them on welfare, or you find them enough low skilled jobs that let them earn a living, or they turn to crime or they starve. Do I forgot some other options?
The current immigrants in the US, I believe, are not a rapresentative sample of the Haitian population, they are probably from the most skilled part of the population in large part. If a family want one of their children to go in the US, usually they help the best of them to go there, because he have the best chances to succeed. In Italy is not different, so many Nigerians and other Africanas immigrants have university degree and work in low skilled jobs. The skilled are over-represented in the emigrants than in the original population.
In Italy and other states in the EU, when the Romania entered in the EU and the romanians were able to travel freely, we saw a mass emigration of criminals, Roma, beggars and much other in the West. They saw the laws of Italy, Sweden, Britain, etc, as weak on crime, so they moved there to work in a safer place for them and with richer preys. The migration was so massive that the crime rate in Bucarest plummetted and a joke in Romania was that all criminals were emigrated in the West Europe. The solution would be to crack on criminals hard and force them to leave.
To create a not receptive habitat so they would go back or in jail. Currently we have 0.1% of the population in jail and 60% of the are immigrants and the jail system is overcrowded. We don’t want to become like the US with the 2-3% of the population in jail.
If you open the border with Haiti you would see something like this. The criminals would jump on the chance to enter in a rich and less harsh habitat. And many that are not criminals would turn to petty crime to earn the minimum to survive. And a large group of people would find the way to the jail system. Given the laws in the US I bet you would have easily the 10% of them in jail (the most dull and expendable 10% – by the POV of a criminal organization).
So, open borders imply a reduction or demolition of the welfare, more jails, more harsh laws, to show to indesiderables and criminals that they are not welcome.
Doing different would damage the locals.
Are you willing to play “natural” selection with them, to filter out the unfits and misfits from the free and reproducing population?
It is easy to someone that is upper mid class or better tobe for free immigration.
January 20, 2010, 9:00 pmYou will not be forced to live near the immigrants, the low wage people will be force to live near them and be culturally enriched.
I would like to see a Roma, or Haitians, or Nigerian or Somali group of 100-200 people (random selected) placed to live in some places like Martha’s Vineyard, Bel Air, or some other place where rich bleeding heart liberal people live. I would count the days, at best weeks, before they start to call for their removal on the ground of crime, security or other and have them removed by their politicians without many recriminations. Hush, hush.
ChrisTS says:
Phew.
That said, I will share some of the comments I heard from my grandparents about the Irish (usually referred to as ‘those people’- or ‘those poor people’ by the gentler souls). They were and could not help but be dirty, lazy, drunkards. They were all inclined to criminality of one sort or another.
At best, they were simply uncivilized. At worst, they were mentally deficient as a ‘race’ and could not be educated.
Oh, and they had bizarre religious beliefs.
January 21, 2010, 12:34 amMirco says:
ChrisTS, you are misunderstanding my points.
I, probably, would agree with many remarks of your grandparents about immigrants.
In many ways, the italians and irish were not well adapted to living in the US at the time. The potential was there, but the culture was not right.
So, your grandparents were right to act so the immigrants were forced to integrate and adapt to the new lifestyle and cultural norms (like not killing a wife having an extra-marital affair for example or working hard because people in power will not take what you earned from you with impunity or that personal connections will not help avoiding the law).
The point is, if you take immigrants, the best you take the less you need to hammer them to shape them to good citizens. If they lack only cultural understanding, the job will be difficult, but you can succeed in with the majority, if you do the right things. If their lacking is more fundamental, the job will be much more hard, and the success rate will be much more lower.
You will be forced to land many of them in jail or have them living in slums or downtown. Or you will let your place become like Detroit.
Intelligence is, indeed, genetic. And more we understand about genetics and the brain and more we find genes linked to intelligence is some way. And just the great number of gene we find confirm the tendency of a gaussian distribution of intelligence in homogeneus populations.
January 23, 2010, 11:55 amEast Asians and Europeans have, in the past, breed out the majority of the misfits. Now they have started to import or support them with the welfare, because some elite find it useful. But it is not useful for the majority of the hard working population making possible a technologically advanced civilization..
If you import the haitians or other third worlders in large numbers, you will be forced, before or after, to resume the breeding out of indesiderables from your society. Having 2% of your population in jail is just this, and the fact they are mainly blacks and hispanics is telling. Now, if you want go to 4% of the population, your choices, not mine.
Lesacre says:
“But denying immigration rights to people living in conditions as horrendous as those in Haiti condemns them to a life of poverty and oppression, and often a very early death.”
Ah, yes, good old trans-nationalism. So we will have a functional nation my letting in any of the 6.5 Billion people who live outside the US. Maybe that would work if our society was actually Libertarian. But since we have all sorts of redistribution and welfare policies, how will that not tax the system and everyone in it? Is this working in California?
Or do we expect those new often poor immigrants to support Libertarian policies?
January 28, 2010, 3:41 pmMirco says:
“But denying immigration rights to people living in conditions as horrendous as those in Haiti condemns them to a life of poverty and oppression, and often a very early death.”
There is not such a thing called “immigration rights”.
January 30, 2010, 3:48 amDo I have a right to enter in your home if I have no home or someone oppress me there?
Atabey says:
The people of Haiti need to be re-settled in French Guiana, South America. Recently the President of Senegal offered land and housing for some Haitian refugees and even a large region if many more wished to partake of his country’s offer. While re-settlement does not have a nice ring to our ears, history serves notice that on certain occasions re-settlement to more hospitable environments might be just what the doctor ordered. Of course, finding places to re-settle possibly 10 million people is a very difficult proposition at any time in history and more so now with our close to 7 billion world population (2010). But I would suggest that we not be pessimistic on this score, however, and believe that if people are creative and think out-side-the-box, options could be established that would greatly alleviate the conditions under which Haitians have long endured. First, we must recognize the facts on the ground in Haiti:
Population: approximately 10 million people. Under 18 years old 4.2 million
Under 5 years old 1.25 million. (2007)
3.6 Total fertility rate 2007
Land Mass:
GNI per capita (US$), 560 2007
The statistics above are indicators that point to the incredible, indeed severe, difficulties faced by any group of organizations/governments to address Haiti’s current constitution. Population pressures will continue to drain Haiti’s capacity to expand and deliver goods and services to their domestic population. Taken together the pent-up population growth statistics suggest a latent population expansion that could protean to an oncoming mass starvation situation akin to what the world witnessed in the 1980s in East Africa. With more than half its total population under 18 in 2007, Haiti is on the threshold of a large demographic explosion that will make her population heavily dependent on massive food delivery from the international community, and could also destabilize her neighboring republic The Dominican Republic. Thus a situation could arise in the next ten years where the Western Hemisphere and the world will witness an island divided by two republics having between them some 25 million people and ever growing starvation and massive fleeing of its people throughout the region. These and other statistics measure or reflect handicaps that suggest a serious degree of consideration for a re-settlement plan be undertaken by the responsible governments and agencies involved in Haiti’s restoration as a Nation and State.
The population profiles an expansionary propensity and other statistics measure reflect handicaps that suggest that Haiti, as currently constituted, is not a viable entity; and that the International Community along with the Haitian people need to undertake a serious consideration for a re-settlement plan. While the Senegalese proposal is a start, a more lasting consideration needs to be considered. Perhaps France and the French government will finally step up and come to the benefaction of her historical creation Haiti. With enough creative minds and financial clout, the International Community, for a fraction of what the current Global Recession has cost, could restore and give hope to the millions of Haitians, and undertaken Haiti’s restoration as a Nation and State.
February 6, 2010, 10:59 am