Muslims on refugee boat throw Christians overboard for being non-Muslims

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Restrictive immigration policies literally kill people.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

It's more that policymakers (particularly at a European level) have decided that the best way to deter African refugees/immigrants is to make less of an effort to rescue them when (as so often happens) the rickety ships they are on sink.

The moral responsibility for their faith would still be on the human traffickers. No country is responsible for saving people in international waters.

You're mistaking proximate cause for ultimate cause: while it's true that human traffickers are responsible for these deaths, these deaths could easily be prevented in a number of different ways. Frankly, I don't care about the moral/ethical responsibility so much as I care about saving people from death. I'd also be willing to accept tight immigration restrictions so long as governments made an active effort to take care of refugees for at least 2-3 months + save them from drowning.

This isn't asking for much. Apparently, Europe is filled with deluded quasi-fascists who don't care about human life, which is why this is an issue. I find it ironic that the same people harping about "maintaining Europe's liberal values" make no attempt to treat all human life with dignity. What is the  purpose of liberalism if it does not respect human rights?

I've come to the conclusion that you're either a bigot or incredibly myopic. The idea that nations should have the right to restrict immigration from different parts of the world is quite dangerous. If this notion informs a normative stance, it would implicitly support democracies to discriminate against Jews or Gypsies or Blacks or non-Whites. I suggest that you re-evaluate you're notion of "liberal democracy" and "multiculturalism": multiculturalism is the only viable solution to the horrors of the early 20th century because it's the only value that does not tolerate any level of racial or ethnic discrimination. No nation should restrict immigration in order to maintain ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity. Obviously some nations will but the idea that you'd support this in principle is terrifying.

I don't expect much from Europeans, who clearly have a lot to learn from "the New World" about the issue of immigration. There's a reason why I have no desire to ever live in Europe: most of you are terrified of immigrants or despise immigrants. It's quite pathetic.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Restrictive immigration policies literally kill people.

No, a few crazies on a boat kill people. Not the greater immigration policy. Hopefully all onboard will be packed off back home to face trial for murder in their native country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Christmas_Island_boat_disaster

I'm going to assume that your position is predicated on ignorance rather than malice.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Restrictive immigration policies literally kill people.

No, a few crazies on a boat kill people. Not the greater immigration policy. Hopefully all onboard will be packed off back home to face trial for murder in their native country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_deaths_along_the_Mexico%E2%80%93United_States_border


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Christmas_Island_boat_disaster

I'm going to assume that your position is predicated on ignorance rather than malice.

First, I should note that my post was not completely finished; I meant "all onboard who were involved" but that somehow never made it into my post. So consider that part as "ignorance."

As for the deaths of migrants attempting to illegally enter any nation, I'd say the fault is entirely their own. It's illegal to jump onto trains and catch a ride for a reason, and when people get killed here in the states, the fault lies with the victim. Illegal immigrants are no different in that regard. If you take a risk to violate a nations laws, don't be surprised when you are injured or punished upon arrival-if they even make it.

I hold no malice for illegal immigrants, and I understand why they come in the face of the dangers, but I am not going to pin a medal on them for breaking immigration laws and risking their own life in the process.

I'm not trying to convince you otherwise but I'd certainly consider that to be a kind of malice. There's nothing inherently unethical or immoral about breaking the law: if a mother owned an illegal handgun in Europe or Latin America and used it to protect her children from an abusive father, I doubt you'd be proclaiming that her imprisonment "is the fault of her own". I could list of litany of examples. My claim is that laws create frameworks for behavior and action. Therefore, laws/statues and the enforcement of laws/statutes are indirectly responsible for a lot of death and misery throughout the world. This is why collective action matters.

So yes, I think you are filled with malice and hate towards undocumented immigrants. That or you're an amoral spergbot who cannot empathize with those who've experienced more suffering in a week than you'll experience in your entire life. It's one thing to suggest that immigration should be controlled and that undocumented immigrants should be deported. It's quite another thing to state that you have no sympathy for these people. That's bordering on sociopathy. I don't trust anyone who does not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for a person who has had their life ruined for reasons that are beyond that person's control.

Again, I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. You can believe what you want about this issue but don't expect me to respect your position.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'm not going to respond to your post because it's incredibly delusional and callous. I'm sorry to hear that you want to deport my cousin but it's not happening. Thanks, Obama!

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Opposing illegal immigration but supporting unlimited legal immigration frankly seems bizarre to me. I get it on some level, one is legal and the other is not. But still, it would be like calling the cops on a neighbor who smokes weed. Who cares about the law that much?

Massive legal immigration is just as harmful, if not more harmful than illegal immigration economically.

We do not have enough jobs in the country to provide a living for the people born here. It's crazy to import a bunch of people who will work for less, who will bring wages down, who generally tend to have a bunch of children and need to go on welfare because of it.

At least with illegal immigration (which I'm still against), the people aren't drawing welfare and they are generally doing "jobs Americans don't want to do" but with legal immigrants, they mostly go into customer service fields that would otherwise be forced to go with American born applicants and pay more.

If you oppose businesses using scab workers, you should really oppose immigration as well. Yes, I am comparing immigrant workers to scabs but I don't think scabs are bad people.  It's the employers who are bad people.

Are you economically illiterate? You're from New York and you're making the claim that immigrants engender economic misery for the average person: the economic basis of New York is provided by immigrants, who create small businesses, provide needed human capital to firms and have children, who often become academic or private sector researchers that allow for economic growth. Immigration has allowed the American economy to be one of the most dynamic economies in the world.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

If you support unlimited immigration to the US, there are only two realistic options:

1. Either you support a permanent underclass of sub-living wage workers.

2. You support giving a guaranteed income to foreign born workers who can't find a job because a) immigrant owned business can't afford to pay $15 an hour b) Chains aren't going to pay $15 to people who can't speak English

If you support option 2, why wouldn't the vast majority of people in third world seek to move to America. How would we afford to provide a guaranteed income to basically every poor Latin American? What becomes of the few who remain in depopulated Latin America?
 

Your assumption is utterly wrong. If you don't think immigrants would join labor unions or demand higher wages, you clearly don't understand Latin America. If you think that people in Latin America are a mooching horde, you clearly don't understand Latin America. There's no evidence to suggest that we'd be flooded with immigrants if we allowed for unlimited immigration. Certainly, more immigrants would come to the US than without unlimited immigration but you're reducing the motivations of immigrants to maximizing income, which is not really a priority.

There was a long period in which nearly unlimited numbers of Mexicans could migrate to the US legally. Did they stay in the US? No, the majority of these migrants came back and forth across the border in response to economic changes. Even without economic fluctuations, migrants would oscillate from the US to Mexico because their families remain in Mexico. This changed once we cracked down on migrant flows and militarized the border.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

If you support unlimited immigration to the US, there are only two realistic options:

1. Either you support a permanent underclass of sub-living wage workers.

2. You support giving a guaranteed income to foreign born workers who can't find a job because a) immigrant owned business can't afford to pay $15 an hour b) Chains aren't going to pay $15 to people who can't speak English

If you support option 2, why wouldn't the vast majority of people in third world seek to move to America. How would we afford to provide a guaranteed income to basically every poor Latin American? What becomes of the few who remain in depopulated Latin America?
 

Your assumption is utterly wrong. If you don't think immigrants would join labor unions or demand higher wages, you clearly don't understand Latin America. If you think that people in Latin America are a mooching horde, you clearly don't understand Latin America. There's no evidence to suggest that we'd be flooded with immigrants if we allowed for unlimited immigration. Certainly, more immigrants would come to the US than without unlimited immigration but you're reducing the motivations of immigrants to maximizing income, which is not really a priority.

There was a long period in which nearly unlimited numbers of Mexicans could migrate to the US legally. Did they stay in the US? No, the majority of these migrants came back and forth across the border in response to economic changes. Even without economic fluctuations, migrants would oscillate from the US to Mexico because their families remain in Mexico. This changed once we cracked down on migrant flows and militarized the border.

"but you're reducing the motivations of immigrants to maximizing income, which is not really a priority. "

No, it is the main priority.

"the majority of these migrants came back and forth across the border in response to economic changes"

As you admit a paragraph later yourself.

Wow sick burn dude!

Admittedly, that post was not worded in a manner that reflects my viewpoint: immigrants are motivated by a complex array of variables that influence their decision. While I'd argue that material/economic factors are the primary motivation for immigration, this drive is balanced against economic opportunity at home, the economic cost of migration, the desire for spiritual/cultural needs to be met and the desire to remain embedded within a community. Again, I think you're an ignoramus who doesn't understand American history. For decades, we allowed for nearly unlimited immigration with free "handouts" given to immigrants in the form of land grants in the Great Plains and the West. Did all of Europe flock to the US? No.

There are other examples: Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay etc. Your argument is inane and your claim is preposterous. Very of my relatives in Mexico have any desire to live in the US.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

and if immigrants under an open immigration system form unions, it doesn't matter.

They can demand higher wages from their immigrant employers but 1) it's usually their family members so they won't 2) their employers can't afford to pay and will just go out of business, as I said before.

and unions will never gain traction with chains like WalMart as long as their is a constant stream of low skilled non-English speakers coming in who are desperate for work, too desperate to risk their tenuous employment on forming a union.

1. That isn't true and there's no evidence to support this point.
2. I don't think you understand how collective bargaining works. Unions don't flippantly demand higher wages because "it's fair!" There's a bargaining process in which both parties reach an agreement.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_States

Apparently, your understanding of American history is so shallow that you're unaware of the fact that the American labor movement was driven by immigrants. The American labor movement became a powerful force in the US because of immigrants with "low skills", who often "couldn't speak English". This happened during the Great Depression.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

You're saying that because people from Europe didn't flock to America before the invention of the airplane, people who share a border with us wouldn't come today? I think anyone can see the flaw in that logic.

Also, yes, the United States did allow massive immigration in the past. That was at the turn of the previous century. The age of robber barons and working conditions as described in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Again, not an economic model to emulated.

When America became the richest country in the world, when we had the strongest middle class, the strongest unions, that was right after WWII when we basically didn't allow any immigration.

As I said, massive immigration necessitates a permanent sub-living wage underclass. The American history you love to point to proves that.

Are you a WASP? If not, your rhetoric is moronic because you're an example of the benefits of mass immigration. My point isn't that the benefits of mass immigration accrue immediately but rather that they accumulate over time. I don't deny that mass immigration resulted in a deprived working class but it also allowed for tremendous economic growth on a scale that was unmatched by any nation in the world, which created the conditions for American prosperity in the post-war era. Your argument is strange because it supposes that mass immigration is some kind of terrible calamity but it also seems to support the prosperity of immigrants once they're here. Do immigrants reduce living standards or don't they? The Americans who benefited from the compression of the income distribution were not necessarily born here and many of their parents certainly weren't.

This argument is moot because America will never accept "unlimited immigration" but we'll continue to receive substantial numbers of immigrants. Your children or grandchildren will marry immigrants or the children of immigrants and your descendants may very well be part Black or part "brown". It's best to accept these changes rather than cry about it like a petulant granny who has discovered that her grandchild smokes marijuana or whatever.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

"1. That isn't true and there's no evidence to support this point."

I'm using your beloved New York as an example. Do you really think the bodegas in the New York City that often have the owners underage children working the counter can provide living wage jobs to anyone? Most immigrant businesses here are a subsistence level, despite the fact that they overcharge and pay their workers under the table or,  in the case of family, not at all.

Is it the job of business owners to provide living wage jobs to anyone? No, of course not. I'm a leftist but I recognize that small businesses face budget constraints. I don't think that immigrant businesses being on a "subsistence level" is particularly harmful so long as they receive adequate necessities and services from the government. Bodegas aren't the only businesses opened up by recent immigrants: ethnic restaurants are a key contribution to the fabric of American existence.

Anyways, there's no evidence to support your claims. There's an ample economic literature that suggests that immigration contributes to economic prosperity. Although income distributions may be effected within nations, income distributions around on a global remain unaffected by immigration. Also, increases in income inequality need not necessarily be a by-product of immigration.

By the way, I haven't responded to your claim about airplanes because it's stupid.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

You're saying that because people from Europe didn't flock to America before the invention of the airplane, people who share a border with us wouldn't come today? I think anyone can see the flaw in that logic.

Also, yes, the United States did allow massive immigration in the past. That was at the turn of the previous century. The age of robber barons and working conditions as described in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Again, not an economic model to emulated.

When America became the richest country in the world, when we had the strongest middle class, the strongest unions, that was right after WWII when we basically didn't allow any immigration.

As I said, massive immigration necessitates a permanent sub-living wage underclass. The American history you love to point to proves that.

Are you a WASP? If not, your rhetoric is moronic because you're an example of the benefits of mass immigration. My point isn't that the benefits of mass immigration accrue immediately but rather that they accumulate over time. I don't deny that mass immigration resulted in a deprived working class but it also allowed for tremendous economic growth on a scale that was unmatched by any nation in the world, which created the conditions for American prosperity in the post-war era. Your argument is strange because it supposes that mass immigration is some kind of terrible calamity but it also seems to support the prosperity of immigrants once they're here. Do immigrants reduce living standards or don't they? The Americans who benefited from the compression of the income distribution were not necessarily born here and many of their parents certainly weren't.

This argument is moot because America will never accept "unlimited immigration" but we'll continue to receive substantial numbers of immigrants. Your children or grandchildren will marry immigrants or the children of immigrants and your descendants may very well be part Black or part "brown". It's best to accept these changes rather than cry about it like a petulant granny who has discovered that her grandchild smokes marijuana or whatever.

As I already said, Non-WASP immigrants were only able to improve their social standing because between 1921 and 1965, we didn't allow very much immigrant.

If there is a constant, steady flow of desperate, unskilled workers, the desperate unskilled workers already here will never have a chance to seriously organize because they can always be replaced by new people coming in.

Also, I was going to stick to just facts but your tactic of calling people an idiot or stupid in every damn post is childish and not helping you.

Is there any evidence to suggest that any of this is the case? If necessary, I'll respond with a list of my sources but I don't trust anything that you're saying because it flies in the face of the data I've seen.

Anyways, your hatred of immigrants is childish and your bigotry is repulsive. I think ingemann and yourself are irritants that belong on Stormfront rather than this forum. Of course, you and ingemann also contribute to this forum, which is more than I can say for other posts, but I reserve the right to call you names and, in general, treat you with utmost disrespect. After all, you're implicitly attacking my mother's existence in the US. How is that any less disrespectful?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

"so long as they receive adequate necessities and services from the government."

Also, what does this mean? So now you're advocating for BOTH a permanent underclass AND some form of guaranteed income.

Again, what is to stop 100 million people from coming to claim these benefits, how do we afford this?

I'm advocating for a welfare state and what you've termed "unlimited" immigration. What is stopping 100 million people from claiming these benefits? I've already made my case. It's grounded in empirical evidence from every instance in which a nation has allowed for virtually "unlimited" immigration. It's also grounded in a pretty powerful model of variables that influence immigration. We can afford quite a bit of immigration because immigration contributes positively to economic growth, which has the ultimate effect of increasing tax revenue. It also solves the problem of paying for the "baby boom" generation. Without immigration, we'd face a much larger fiscal problem.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

There's lots of data that suggest immigration is good for the economy because it is good for the rich man's economy, the 1%, the sector of the economy which does studies the most.

That's why during the robber baron era, robber barons wanted free immigration. That's why pro-business leaders still want pretty much unrestricted immigration.

Rich people love immigrants because they are desperate and can get away with paying them less than a living wage/minimum wage.

Good for rich people = "good for the economy" that you see in all your studies.

I suggest that you take a few economic classes before you make bold statements about the totality of a large body of economic literature or anything about economics in general.

This conversation is going in circles. I'll wait until you actually gather evidence to refute my facts or demand evidence on my part, which will take me a while to gather if you desire it. I may or may not respond because I have a life outside of this forum.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Impressive

I'm going completely ignore basic supply and demand 101, use historical data from before USA had any real kind of "welfare state" to claim that of course poor people wouldn't immigrate for the benefits I suggest they get.

But you're a ignoramus

See you later Loser

 

Supply and demand is the basis of my point. I don't really understand what you're trying to say because your English is pretty terrible but I suggest that you read the paper I've attached blow to understand my claim. It isn't very complex: liberalized immigration flows do not lead to "unlimited immigration" because the supply of labor responds to the demand of firms. Recent arrivals who become unemployed tend to leave their nation of choice because their primary objective is to earn money to send remittances abroad. In this case, welfare is quite irrelevant because the amount of money earned from welfare is  only sufficient for the purpose of basic subsistence. I'm not referencing some hypothetical model or theory: I'm referencing the experience of nations, from a wide variety of eras, that allowed for liberalized immigration flows. There's no absolutely evidence to suggest that migrants come to the developed world in pursuit of welfare benefits: there is an ample, incredibly broad literature that suggests that remittances are the primary objective of immigrants. This literature can be found indirectly by reading about the contributions of remittances to the developing or directly by reading sociological explorations of remittances.

I'm not only referencing academic publications. I'm also referencing my personal understanding of immigration, which is quite intimate. In my experience, I've never met a recent immigrant who was unemployed for long periods of time. Contrary to claims made by Willips, immigrants often make a little above the minimum wage and sometimes receive substantial amounts of overtime pay. The money earned from working more then 50 hours a week for a year is far more substantial than money received from welfare, which only covers very basic necessities. Although I'd like welfare to be expanded and support instituting a guaranteed minimum income, I'd also support instituting a waiting period for immigrants of at least one year and also support a gradual scale in which immigrants receive a proportion of this income, which approaches 100% as they're in the country for x amount of years.

As far as the labor market is concerned, I don't care if native-born Americans are unemployed while immigrants are employed. Unlike you and your prejudiced friend, I care equally about those from developing nations and those from developed nations. From an economic perspective, the potential dislocation caused by immigration could easily be remedied by creating a stronger social safety net or a framework that allows for full employment. At the very least, native-born Americans would have the opportunity to get a job.

I understand that Europe faces different conditions. I think there's a decent case to be made that immigration should be kept at current levels in Europe rather than further liberalizing flows. At this point, I don't really trust Europe to handle large flows of migrants. The only country that has done a good job at maintaining an open immigration system is Spain, which is peculiar. In principle, I support "open borders" or whatever but I recognize that most European nations have done a terrible job at promoting integration while maintaining tolerance for ethnic "others". Nevertheless, I think Spain proves my point: liberalized immigration flows do not imply that that every Latin American will flock to the US or that all of Syria will be living in Stockholm or Berlin. That's preposterous...
 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/exceptional-europe-spains-experience-immigration-and-integration

edit: this was longer than I intended it to be. Whatever, the ball is in your court, hater. First thing first: I don't care all that much about the welfare of native born nationalities vis a v foreigners. Therefore, I think it would be acceptable if Bolivians or Nigerians escaped poverty if Americans had lower living standards. I don't think the hypothetical claim that I've raised above is true but it's worth making. Don't assume that I care about your ethnic nationalism: I don't. Frankly, I hope that Europe becomes a post-racial kaleidoscope of cultures that are far removed from tradition. Obviously, I have no say in what Europe will become but I don't think an effortpost that is along more conservative/traditional lines means much on this forum.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Here from the UK is a study which shows that between 1995 and 2010 migrants to the UK gave a 'positive fiscal contribution' to the UK treasury. That is, they gave more in taxes than received in benefits. This is just one of a large academic literature.

Thanks Gully. For whatever reason, I opted to respond with words rather than links, which was short-sighted because I have a lot of links.

As demonstrate by Figure 1, the descendants of immigrants are not consigned to an economic underclass. Although second generation Latin Americans have low educational attainment by American standards, they significant outperform their parents. Because of the correlation between parental educational attainment and the educational attainment of children, I think this finding is important: it proves that immigrants do not form the basis of an "economic underclass".

Figure 2 is quite important. It demonstrates that the economic benefits of immigration do not only flow to the wealthy. Although scholars disagree about the distributional effect of immigration, it's quite clear that most native-born people benefit from it.

Figure 3 demonstrates that immigrants drive economic growth, in large part, due to their contributions to human capital. Although many immigrant bashers like to point out that they're in favor of doctors, engineers and the like migrating, this contradicts policy proposals, which tend to limit the flow of foreign post-grads to the labor market and pose prohibitive restrictions to the highly educated.

Figure 1.


Figure 2.




These images were pulled from a Brookings report.
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2010/9/immigration-greenstone-looney/09_immigration.pdf

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'm am not a nationalist. I also do not mind if immigrants get a job over a native born American because they are more qualified. That's fair (and there's the additional benefit that the skilled immigrant is probably more assimilated). That's not why most immigrants get jobs in the United States though. Most immigrants are less qualified than native born Americans but they get the jobs because they are willing to work for less. That's unacceptable. They are coming into this country and bringing down wages, they are coming into the country and making the economic situation worse than it was before they got here for everyone.

There's the slightest bit of evidence that supports that claim. You could claim that immigrants reduce living standards for the least educated Americans or for the poorest Americans, especially in the service industry or in manufacturing. There's no evidence to suggest that immigration reduces GDP or living standards for everyone. Even the most fatalistic arguments assert that the upper middle class and the wealthy benefit from immigration...

Do you really mean to suggest that a high school education is far superior than an eighth grade education? Educational attainment does not improve the productivity of custodians, burger flippers, construction workers and farmhands. Mexicans are far more qualified than Americans to pick crops: many of them were farmers. Mexicans are more qualified than Americans to work in restaurants: the vast majority of Mexican women cook. In fact, the informal sector of Mexico has a huge food-service component. Do you honestly mean to suggest that these people less qualified to flip burgers or fry food? Of course not! You're implying that immigrants have lower IQs or that they're beastly.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

By the way, this didn't get enough attention when you first posted it, direct quote:

"Is it the job of business owners to provide living wage jobs to anyone? No, of course not."

My very left-wing/Marxist-tinged response to this is that I don't care for business owners. I don't expect anything from them because the incentive structure of our flawed economic system necessitates exploitative practices. I expect the state to create a strong regulatory framework, a strong safety net and a policy of full employment to meet material needs. In short, I expect nothing from the private sector because I have no faith in them. As a good democratic socialist, I have faith in democracy.

That being said, I don't see why I should care about working class bodega or food truck owners paying their family members sub-minimum wages: it's quite typical for business owners who employ family members to share profits with the family. This is a standard practice in cultures with strong filial bonds.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Poorer Americans and people in the service industry are most Americans.

and if minimum wage was raised to $15 an hour (unlikely with unlimited cheap immigrant labor) it would likely cause people making above the current minimum wage but below 15 to get a raise too and that really would be the vast majority of Americans.

and being able to communicate with the customers makes people more qualified.

By service industry, I meant "jobs requiring menial tasks", not "white collar jobs". That's far from most people. I'd estimate that roughly 30-35% of Americans' wages could be adversely effected by immigration. "Unskilled" immigrants compete for some blue collar jobs and some jobs in the service industry. There aren't many immigrant receptionists or immigrant clerical workers or immigrant librarians or immigrant bureaucrats or immigrant teachers, which fall into the "service industry", which is a strange category.

Immigrants can't speak English? That's certainly news to me. There aren't many immigrants in the US who can't speak passable English after 2-3 years of being in the country. The ones who can't are out of the labor market.

edit: this post makes it seem like I've conceded that the poor and working class are adversely effect by immigration, which is supported by no empirical evidence. I think that it's pretty difficult to measure the effects of immigration on the poor and working class. It would be a plausible claim that immigrants drove wages down for those with a high school education but it's equally plausible that they'd raise them, as demonstrated by these studies.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w14188

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w12956

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

ag, why don't you support something closer to a "open borders" policy rather than a guest worker program? Frankly, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of millions of Africans living in Europe for 7-10 years without the ability to vote or organize themselves for the purpose of collective action. Your proposal strikes me as being a bit too potentially Gulf Arab for my tastes.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I agree with your positive analysis of migration flows and I think that your assessment of the preferences of the European public are accurate. I just can't help but think that we live in a bleak world when guest worker programs embody humane migration policy and liberals demand that refugees, whether economic or war-torn, simply be deported rather than left to drown in the ocean.

The German experience with immigration in the 1960s and 1970s provides a solid rationale for a guest worker program in the vein of what you've outlined. I shudder to think why anyone would look up to Germany as a model of immigration policy but, from the perspective of xenophobes, they've done a good job of limiting migration while allowing for large labor flows.