Consider the following. Earnings expectations for those without high school educations are bleak.
Without a high school diploma the odds are that you will be poor and remain poor. The odds are much greater that you will rely on public assistance. Or go to prison:
You are more likely to be unemployed and are at higher risk of losing your job in a recession:
Your children are more likely to be poor and education won’t help much:
Let me translate that graph for you. If you come from a really poor family, in all likelihood a college degree will boost you all the way up to becoming a member of the working poor while if you come from a middle income family, a college degree can make you upper middle class.
From the foregoing I conclude that the United States really doesn’t need to import people from other countries who can’t read and don’t speak English which impairs one’s prospects even more.
Haiti is a hard case but let’s consider it. Just about half of the population is illiterate and only a minority speak English. They speak Creole French.
Haiti has always been in terrible shape. It got off to a poor start. To the best of my knowledge it’s the only country in the world founded on a slave revolt.
Some of the Haitians’ problems were caused by the United States. In the early part of the 20th century we colonized Haiti. The Marines actually ruled Haiti in the late nineteen teens and early 20s. But Haiti was in terrible shape before our occupation and it has been in terrible shape since then.
Even the Haitians don’t want to stay in Haiti:
It’s even worse since the UN brought cholera to Haiti.
The best way to help people from poor, underdeveloped countries is not to bring them to the United States. It’s highly specific, targeted aid of the sort that Bill Gates has been championing, not the typical foreign aid programs, and I support that. Bringing poor people here where their prospects will be poor not only puts them into competition with our native-born poor, it’s a formula for resentment. An astonishing proportion of the Chechen immigrants to the United States either participated in the Boston Marathon Bombing, were accomplices to it, or knew about it before the fact. Far too high a proportion of the Americans who’ve joined DAESH have been Somali immigrants.
This is not the 19th century, during which the marginal product of labor and wages rose and would continue to rise for nearly a century.
I think that President Trump’s remarks the other day were injudicious, crude, coarse, offensive, and counter-productive—an “own goal”. He shouldn’t have said them.
Let’s not lose sight of the reasoned argument on immigration. If you have an argument for why we should be bringing more poor, illiterate, non-English speakers into the United States, please make it. No proof by anecdote, please. I believe there’s a moral argument in favor of more and better foreign aid. I don’t believe there’s a moral argument in favor of immigration.
I think we need an immigration policy more like Australia’s or Canada’s. I even think that we could increase the number of skilled workers we bring in, provided that we decrease illegal immigration. That will mean ending family reunification as an objective of our immigration policy, ending the diversity lottery, stiffening the requirements for immigration, and enforcing our immigration laws vigorously.
Demand creates supply. Enforce immigration laws at the workplace and demand goes down.
Steve
I agree with that but it’s a solution to illegal immigration. Legal immigration needs reform, too.
We have problems both with our policies and our laws.
I will say; this post is one of the few that looks into the assumption that immigration is automatically good for immigrants. The posts speaks about economic outcomes, there is also the social isolation, cultural shock, career reset, etc.
My running assumption is that no real negotiations will occur on DACA as long as the judiciary keep the program alive (where is the incentive to actually compromise instead of demogauging?). Everything else is just theatrics and jockeying for position when negotiations start.
Haiti is the only country founded on a slave revolt that I know of, but the revolt was followed by genocide of the white French and the creation of a Constitution that forbid the ownership of property by white men.
The country became a cautionary tale of the horrors of even talking about abolition.
“I think that President Trump’s remarks the other day were injudicious, crude, coarse, offensive, and counter-productive—an “own goalâ€. He shouldn’t have said them.”
Yes.
“No proof by anecdote, please.”
Which is all I’ve heard for several days. Posturing.
“I believe there’s a moral argument in favor of more and better foreign aid.”
Yes, but the better part seems awfully elusive.
“I even think that we could increase the number of skilled workers we bring in, provided that we decrease illegal immigration.”
Which I believe was what Trump was really getting at, however crude or offensively put. He is what he is. So few seem to get past the veneer.
There’s also the question of the impact of emigration on the countries of origin, a subject I’ve written about at some length here. The economic impact is good for the migrants and good for the countries of origin as long as the remittances keep coming. But frequently they don’t come forever or even at all and there are social and psychological repercussions. Tyler Cowen speaks glowingly of Africa sending its “best and brightest” to the United States (actually their best and brightest are probably going to UK, France, and Germany but that’s another story) but that means they’re not staying home and those left behind are less able to cope with those countries’ manifest problems.
I think that President Trump’s remarks the other day were injudicious, crude, coarse, offensive, and counter-productive—an “own goalâ€. He shouldn’t have said them.
The problem is that he has likely not been to any of the shitholes, or if so, he has been shielded from the shittiness (Potemkin Villages). If you have been in one of these shitholes, you do not forget it. The foreign ones are not much different than the domestic ones.
As to supply and demand, it is not necessarily economic based. In many shitholes, the citizens want safety, and the US has a large supply. Enforcing workplace laws will not necessarily work.
As to President Trump’s crude words – too bad, so sad.
The wrongness of the conventional wisdom cannot be removed with a jeweler’s hammer and sandpaper. The job requires a jackhammer and sandblaster, and if a few naughty words offend some, so be it.
Again, I propose chain-exportation. All the relatives eligible under chain-migration will be exported with no regard to their legal status, and the family will be saved.
“Third World Shithole” is a term I’ve used over the years – too many times to count or remember. It’s one of those phrases that most military people use as a crude and perhaps insensitive, but accurate description of many places Uncle Sam sent us to. Polling other retired military friends and relatives it’s been in the lexicon for a long, long time.
But now Trump has said it and people are up in arms about racism. Now I have to wonder if, prior to Trump’s use, this term was commonly seen as racist outside the military cultural bubble where it is used with regularity? Or, did it suddenly became racist because Trump said it? I don’t know for certain, but I suspect it’s the latter.
“…but that means they’re not staying home and those left behind are less able to cope with those countries’ manifest problems.”
Yes! If you have previously pointed that out, forgive me. But it’s the obvious point that the political hacks and virtue signaling critics miss. Oh, they are so quick to criticize the United States for stealing resources from poor countries. Think commodities. But the most valuable resource, human, they seem fine with appropriating. Even though, heh, those are a minority of all immigrants, especially illegal ones.
What does it tell you? Most immigration proponents are full of it.
@Andy, I kind of thought ****hole was a term you’d used, but a non-scientific google of the Glittering Eye shows only three users, in order of frequency: Tasty, Ellipses and Reynolds. I believe Tasty served, Reynolds is a military brat and Ellipses lives in Haiti. I’m not offended by the term.
Dave skirts the issue, but I’ll be blunt. The U.S. doesn’t owe Haiti anything. France brought, often with direct subsidy from the monarchy who was dependent on this crown jewel to finance its debt-ridden regime, about 910,000 slaves to Haiti, roughly twice the number Anglo-Americans brought to the North American mainland. France was the only Western country to violently reinstitute slavery after abolition.
All tropical slave plantation colonies became ****holes when slavery was abolished because the entire economy and basis for the population being there was premised on slavery. Adam Smith was wrong, free people are not necessarily most productive than slaves.
And France made things worse by not agreeing to recognize Haiti’s independence until 1825, and only on the condition that the impoverished nation compensate France for the lost slaves. A debt that Haiti was still paying through 1947. (Compensated emancipation can help transition to a non-slave-based economy, but in Haiti, the slaveowners were dead or gone, the money went to France)
Where are Haiti migrants today?
U.S.: 676,000
Dominican Republic: 329,000
Canada: 93,000
France: 74,000
Bahamas: 28,000
PD,
I try to keep my language here a bit more civil than is typical, though I’m surprised I haven’t used the term here before.
I think that what evoked the charges of racism was the conjoining of the term with Haiti and Africa (presumably, mostly black) and in opposition to Norway (presumably very white).
I’ve mentioned this before but I never heard my dad use a profane, coarse, or vulgar word. Ever. My mother reported that she hadn’t either. My language is much, er, saltier than his but I rarely use profane, coarse, or vulgar language. When very upset he’d use circumlocutions, e.g. “gosh dog it”.
It doesn’t shock me or upset me. I’ve heard lots and lots of it. I just think it’s déclassé, the sign of a limited vocabulary.
PD:
Presumably, the Haitian immigrants in France are the wealthy. Most present French immigrants are from French colonies that gained their independence after WWII. Many of those in France we might think of as immigrants technically aren’t. They’re from Overseas France. France’s immigration laws are tougher than ours.
Algeria was a French département; its people are French citizens, the same as metropolitan France. So are people from Senegal, now part of Mali. People from the former French Union (most of France’s African colonies) have some citizenship rights.
@PD Shaw
To my knowledge, Ellipsis (@Icepick) has never lived in Haiti, but in his area of Florida, there are Haitian gangs. He can tell his story better.
My references to shitholes includes both domestic and foreign, but the domestic ones are usually better than their foreign counterparts. The entire country, county, or city may not be shitty, but the non-shitty parts are small enclaves. Areas outside the major city are unpleasant, but the major city has much unpleasantness, as well.
I have been in both domestic & foreign, and I have compared ‘notes’ with other people in other places. There are good people, but there is usually a lot of bad ones, also.
My guess is that most of the people offended by the “shithole” designation have never been to one, or if so, they have been to the pleasant areas, only. I am going to ‘go out on a limb’ and venture a guess: The offended are mostly progressives.
You might be in a shithole if:
1) Rubber flip-flops are worn by the vast majority.
2) These rubber flip-flops are their dress shoes, also.
3) A moped is the family car.
4) A family of six can comfortably fit on their moped.
5) There is a stench that you will never forget.
6) The people appreciate small kindnesses that you take for granted.
7) Children are the same.
8) Mothers are the same.
9) …
I’m more offended that none of our other recent Presidents have noticed that some foreign countries ARE shitholes than I am that Trump may have used the term in private conversation. It is a useful shorthand for describing the worst of the worst.
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TB, PD was having a laugh at me with the Haiti remark. At least that’s how I took it and I laughed. I live in Pine Hills Florida which was turned into Little Haiti in the Clinton and W years. They’re LESS concentrated in my neck of the woods now than they used to be, but there is still a large population here.
More notable is that Spanish is rapidly becoming the number one language in Central Florida. Puerto Ricans had been migrating here in large numbers from both the NYC area and PR for some time, and the recent hurricane has greatly intensified it. I went to Sea World a couple of weeks back and about two thirds of the people there were speaking Spanish. (Interestingly, Arab was number two, with English being spoken by maybe on in ten people there.) Anyone betting on a Republican ever winning the state in a Presidential election year again is crazy. I was surprised Trump won Florida in 2016. I’d be stunned if any Republican ever wins it again. In fact, IO’m, expecting a few hundred thousand new voters from PR to swing the governor’s election blue later this year. We’ll see.
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Oh well, I’ve got to go to a Girl Scout rally now. One last little bit of Americana before it fades.
@Dave, perhaps the most telling point from the number of Haiti refuguees in France versus the U.S. is not that the any country is acting based upon a sense of responsibility, but of proximity. The fear of a Haitian refuguee crisis is to the U.S., as a fear of an African-Middle East refugee crisis is to France.