That is going to be explosive because there isn't a developed economy anywhere that can avoid major crises without maintaining or increasing immigration levels over the coming decades as the effects of fertility rates really start to bite.
In the UK we saw the Tories try to play the ball in two places at once: Enable lots of immigration while simultaneously pretending the country was under siege to appeal to the anti-immigrant crowd. It blew up in their faces in a spectacular way.
While I'd like that to be an accurate description of why the Tory party lost, my understanding is that the migration topic was basically the only thing the Tories did that continued to resonate with voters, and what actually lost them was a continuing series of incompetent leaders, starting with Cameron (who didn't realise the mic was still hot immediately after resigning). Nobody (of any party) liked May, Johnson got away with pleasing lies until Partygate, Truss was a forgettable joke, and Sunak was basically Jim Hacker.
IMO the only reason the Tories didn't lose sooner was that the Labour party was also stuck with Corbyn.
They lost the anti-immigration vote to Reform. That shows, to me, that the voters that cared about that topic could see the difference between their rhetoric and their actions.
Reform gutted the Tory party largely on anger over immigration the Tory party itself whipped up.
Their incredibly incompetent string of PMs didn't help, but without Reform spoiling, they'd at least still have had a shot.
Note how Labour didn't win this as much as the Tories lost it: Starmer got fewer votes than Corbyn. Starmer failed to attract more voters despite running against the most ridiculed government in modern British history. People didn't want Starmer, they wanted not-Tories, and on the right that meant voters fleeing to the anti immigrant Reform.
As a person who can be described that way: why would I want to migrate to any country whose leaders were elected on a platform of hating migrants?
"Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" - imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
>why would I want to migrate to any country whose leaders were elected on a platform of hating migrants?
Well, for one: cutting back on illegal immigrants and hating immigrants are not the same thing.
Two: stay where you are? I don't get what your expectations are here. Plenty of skilled immigrants love the US. If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine.
1. Illegal immigration is already illegal. Cutting back on it is tangential to every other statement about promoting, limiting, or targeting migration.
2. I'm responding to a comment that says "How about door 3: only allow immigration for skilled individuals capable of adding outsized value to our economy?"
And in my capacity as such a person: that attitude makes me not interested in anything else on the table. Hypothetically to demonstrate the point: You could offer me your entire GDP, even after accounting for a business plan where I somehow specifically help you double it, as pay… and I'd turn you down.
Remember that the current state of immigration in the USA is exactly what was being proposed to be changed: the previous desirability is specifically not going to remain.
> "Hating migrants" != "want only the migrants that pull their own weight"
"Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" - imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
> Why would you personally want to immigrate to a place where you are immediately expected to foot the bill for everyone else?
Because the only places that doesn't describe are those without a functioning government capable of collecting taxes.
You want me to migrate to ${your country} to boost the economy? Well, that's only useful to you to the extent it means I'm supporting all the people in your country that can't migrate elsewhere for exactly the same reason.
> "Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!"
I want to live with people who pull their weight and aren't an immediate financial burden on everyone else, yes.
If this is "one of the good ones" vs "one of the bad," so be it. If one is immediately looking to burden everyone else, I can see why one wouldn't want to "spend [their] time living with" folks who don't want to give them free shit.
> Because the only places that doesn't describe are those without a functioning government capable of collecting taxes.
We're not talking about tax collection, we're talking about how taxes are spent.
> You want me to migrate to ${your country} to boost the economy?
I don't care why or if you immigrate, but if you do, you will not have a net-negative financial impact on the population. Yes: there are freeloaders amongst the population as-is - this itself isn't a valid reason to import millions more.
We're already taking the cream of the crop - which is why H-1B and O-1s visas are a thing. People hiking across the Darién gap aren't magically going to become engineers and doctors.
> We're not talking about tax collection, we're talking about how taxes are spent.
You're doing both.
In every functioning nation, the rich subsidise the poor.
I as an above average income earner am necessarily always going to subside the poor no matter where I live — unless it's a place that's got no government.
That was true when I lived in the UK, true when I moved to Germany, and would have been true had I moved to the USA instead — all that changed for me was Joe Bloggs became Otto Normalverbraucher instead of Bubba Sixpack.
> I don't care why or if you immigrate, but if you do
Except you previously wrote "How about door 3: only allow immigration for skilled individuals capable of adding outsized value to our economy?"
If you "allow" something but nobody wants to take you up on it, it's not any different than forbidding it.
I'm allowing people to donate infinite money to me, but I'm not taking any steps to encourage this or give anyone a reason to.
> People hiking across the Darién gap aren't magically going to become engineers and doctors
Likewise a degree.
In both cases the capability is already a demonstration of being well above average.
>"Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" - imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
This entire thread is filled to the brim with people describing the voting majority of Republicans as low information idiots.
We can't have unrestricted immigration, period. How do you propose we select?
I wrote both with the intention of inducing empathy, as in putting oneself in the shoes of others.
> We can't have unrestricted immigration, period.
False.
In many threads where the US is compared unfavourable to other nations, e.g. that the public transport isn't as good or as cheap as Germany's, or that internet is slower and more expensive than France, or whatever, the defence is "oh, America is just so big and empty".
You have the most part of a continent. You could, if you wanted to, fit in the whole world — about twice the population density of the Netherlands, which I've been to and isn't that crowded.
And it's not like everyone actually wants to live in any given country anyway — even if you did have the whole world suddenly teleport in and leave the rest of the planet empty like an xkcd what-if, I'd be surprised if less than 80% put in active effort to leave.
> "Oh but not like you, you're one of the good ones!" - imagine yourself being described that way, and ask if that's a crowd you care to spend your time living with.
That is how the left describe men, do you argue the left hates men?
I have yet to encounter anyone saying that, and I live in a country which (and come from another country which also) considers the US' Democrat Party to be suspiciously right-wing.
But hypothetically, if I met someone saying that, I would indeed say that specific person hated men.
They definitely would not be someone I would wish to constantly be treading egg-shells around for fear of getting deported.
> "Hating migrants" != "want only the migrants that pull their own weight"
As a foreigner, I honestly can't see the difference between "want only the migrants that pull their own weight" and "hate foreigners but refrain from saying it to their face if there's a financial incentive".
If your tolerance is predicated on me giving you money, I'll pass the opportunity.
Why can't I want to minimize the number of unskilled outsiders (with different values, etc.) because they may cost more while overlooking that fact for those with obvious economic power regardless of where they are from.
I know it hurts to hear: people with wealth are desirable guests and citizens.
A country's citizenry is much like children: some are going to be shitty, but we still support that limited group because of arbitrary moral obligation (perhaps inspired by the fact that we want our "own" to continue.) We're not obligated to extend this tradition to anyone else for any reason.
> you still won't get me spending the money I earn on your economy so you won't get rich from me.
Thankfully there are billions of people in the world and they're literally dying to get into the US. H-1Bs quotas are filled every year - there's no shortage of high-average earners wanting to come here, either.
Studies show you've got it backwards. If you let a nurse or programmer into the country, they're going to take a job that's otherwise filled by an American, depressing skilled wages.
If you let in an unskilled laborer, they're going to take a job that nobody wants. They spend those wages, boosting the economy.
In both cases, studies show that the number of jobs stays roughly the same; immigrants create about the same amount of jobs as they take. However skilled immigrants decrease average wages, and unskilled immigrants increase average wages.
It's the outliers that really tip the balance, though. If one of those immigrants turns out to be Jensen Huang or his parents, that's how you make America great.
> Studies show you've got it backwards. If you let a nurse or programmer into the country, they're going to take a job that's otherwise filled by an American, depressing skilled wages.
But at that same time they're contributing massive amounts to the tax base, furthering society.
Maybe they even start a company, employing more programmers.
They also spend their wages.
> If you let in an unskilled laborer, they're going to take a job that nobody wants.
The price for that work is artificially low because these folks don't have any legal protections of any kind.
Guess what else happens commonly to unskilled, under-the-table labor? Injuries! Which I have to pay an outsized amount for in the form of Medicaid and ER fees.
How much of their remaining income is remitted straight to their impoverished relatives back home?
> If one of those immigrants turns out to be Jensen Huang or his parents
Know how to easily filter out Jensen Huang from the crowd of people swimming across the Rio Grande? Marketable skills.
> How much of their remaining income is remitted straight to their impoverished relatives back home?
The skilled labourers do far more of that than unskilled ones.
> Guess what else happens commonly to unskilled, under-the-table labor? Injuries! Which I have to pay an outsized amount for in the form of Medicaid and ER fees.
The vast majority of the cost of health care is old people, and it's expensive because it's labor intensive. The way to bring health care costs down is to increase the ratio of young people to old people. Which in 2024 means immigration.
> Know how to easily filter out Jensen Huang from the crowd of people swimming across the Rio Grande? Marketable skills.
Marketable skills like shopkeeper? That's what Jensen Huang's parents were.
> The vast majority of the cost of health care is old people
Chronic costs, yes, costs borne out of tail risks - no.
> Marketable skills like shopkeeper? That's what Jensen Huang's parents were.
If you have the drive, economic ability, wherewithal in 2024 to keep a shop - operate a business - in the United States in 2024, yes, this is a desirable, marketable skill.
> Chronic costs, yes, costs borne out of tail risks - no.
Chronic costs are the vast majority of total costs
> If you have the drive, economic ability, wherewithal in 2024 to keep a shop - operate a business - in the United States in 2024, yes, this is a desirable, marketable skill.
That's a priori data. Jensen's parents weren't shopkeepers in Taiwan, so how would you know this?
Lord help your soul though if you are a citizen and do not have the ability to work a high level job.
There are an enormous number of unskilled workers in the US. And they get a vote. And they will vote to kill off competition from migrant workers. Like what trump is promising.
> that skilled citizen can no doubt find some other work.
at a much lower salary, sure.
> But the unskilled citizen labor that gets pushed aside by unskilled immigration - they have a much harder time finding work.
No they don't, not according to studies. Studies show that immigration increases the number of total jobs available. There are fewer available jobs for janitors, but more available jobs where just being a local is a marketable skill. A local has language and cultural skills that immigrants don't have.
So they're less likely to find work as a janitor but more likely to find one as a waiter or retail manager, both higher paying positions.
You can't get native Americans to do farm work for any amount of money, because they'd have to live in the middle of nowhere near the farm and that's no fun.
(That is, you'd have to pay them so much they could buy the farm and then hire someone else to work it. But you're not going to do that.)
No, it's called a famine and wouldn't happen. Recession would imply that the market was completely incapable of adjusting to allocate resources correctly.
Promoting a second-tier, legally-disenfranchised workforce isn't the win you seem to think it is.
> Recession would imply that the market was completely incapable of adjusting to allocate resources correctly.
It doesn't have to be "complete", just a shortfall in demand, and of course eventually it ends. But if the market doesn't clear for a while, that's still people having to eat less for a while.
> Promoting a second-tier, legally-disenfranchised workforce isn't the win you seem to think it is.
Almost everything is better than farm work, which is why everyone ditches it as fast as they can. Even being a sweatshop worker is better. Nevertheless, the migrant farmworkers are doing it because it's better than their alternatives, presumably because they get paid better than doing it in their own country.
Btw, I'm not even thinking of especially poor countries here. Japan is a respectable first-world country but has surprisingly low wages and a bad exchange rate, and there are recent cases of Japanese people leaving for Australia to do work like this and making 2-3x what they can at home.
And of course back in Japan it feels like every convenience store worker these days is an immigrant from China, India or elsewhere.
This is fine, really. Productivity will increase over time, they'll save money over time, and their kids will have better jobs.
You missed what's actually happening, which is that cheap workers don't need to migrate to you to get unskilled work done for you.
The jobs move to distant factories filled with alien staff paying taxes to far away governments and who then spend their wages where they live (which isn't where you live).
Even with tariffs, that's still cheaper for many things. And the work you're incentivising to bring to you with tariffs, that's often automated precisely because it's unskilled. Food has been increasingly automated at least since the 1750s — to the extent that cows milk themselves (into machines not just into calves) these days.
It works until it doesn't — wherever the jobs go gets a rising economic spiral, and a generation later their middle class is corresponding richer and say to each other much what you say now: "why do we need them?", only now you are a "them" in that discussion.
It's a weird thing, migration. The short term incentives absolutely favour it for everyone, but it's bad for the place of origin in the long-term.
But note that I didn't say international migration: the arguments are the same between San Francisco and Sacremento, or between Lampeter and Cardiff, or between Marzahn and Zehlendorf.
Japan is way ahead of the west in falling birthrates, but in spite of very little immigration there hasn't been any major crisis, just gradually declining standards of living.
"Just" a slow collapse of society in other words. How many places do you see people putting up with that without electing increasingly extreme politicians? And even Japan is nowhere near experiencing the worst of it - their population size is still near its peak.
> coming decades as the effects of fertility rates really start to bite.
I mean one solution is to promote policies that encourage people to have more children, but we "can't afford it", expecting we'll be able to afford the incoming social care crisis.
Collapsing healthcare and pension systems, and massively rising taxes to account for a reclining tax base as the proportion of people working drops. Critical positions becoming harder and harder to fill, and industries fleeing to places they can hire labor.
Less Taxes: So we would have a smaller government? That's good. Government already gets so much money and waste it.
Pensions: Maybe instead of relying on a pyramid scheme, people would need to manage their investments or have kids and raise them well so they take care of them later. Sounds like a win.
Less tax revenue. Higher tax rates to try to compensate to prevent collapse.
As for pensions, arguing about what should be is not going to help the growing proportion of your population that don't have enough or that will end up having to try to help their parents and grandparents avoid destitution.
Even if people "managed their investments", with fewer and fewer working age people relative to the total population, if everyone reduced their spending to invest for their pensions, yields will drop as demand gets taken away for people to save instead of spend.
In the UK we saw the Tories try to play the ball in two places at once: Enable lots of immigration while simultaneously pretending the country was under siege to appeal to the anti-immigrant crowd. It blew up in their faces in a spectacular way.