Tag: Immigration Policy

America’s PTSD

America has been in a defensive crouch since 9/11. The mere mention of domestic terrorists or a terrorist attack inside the US causes many of us to suspend rational thought, and beg our politicians to protect us, even though the risk of dying from a terrorist attack is very small.

How small? In 2014, there were four terrorism-related incidents in the US involving Muslim-Americans that killed seven people. The total number of fatalities in the US from terrorism by Muslim-Americans since 9/11 is 50 souls. Meanwhile, we have had more than 200,000 murders in the US since 9/11.

The ethical question we face is: Do Americans deserve peace of mind more than Syrians refugees deserve safety?

We look to our leaders to help answer that question, but they can be cowards. They should do everything they can to help the rest of us be brave, and do the right thing, even if it entails some measure of risk. That’s true if we’re talking about restrictions on how much privacy we’ll cede to the government, or if we’re thinking about allowing Syrian refugees on our soil.

But, it seems most politicians prefer to play to our PTSD, fanning our fears.

The Paris terrorist attacks were a tactical loss in the war against ISIS. But the only way it leads to a strategic defeat, as the blog Political Violence @ A Glance writes, is if we let this attack divide us along religious lines, provoking non-Muslims vs. Muslims.

ISIS is geographically contained. To the east, Iran and the weak but stable Iraqi government are not going anywhere. To the north, the Syrian Kurds, and behind them Turkey, block ISIS. To the west, the Assad regime plus Syrian rebels block ISIS progress, particularly with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. To the south, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are supported by the US and are not likely to fall. Lebanon is the weak link, but it is supported by Iran.

Here is a view of the current state of play in Syria:

Syrian Kurd Control

Source: New York Review of Books

The purple area is controlled by the Syrian Kurds. The remaining open border with Turkey shown above is the primary route that ISIS uses for trade, to add jihadists and deliver war supplies. Sealing it seems to be among Russia’s top priorities, and it is also a priority for the Syrian Kurdish YPG. However, it is not a priority of the US, or Turkey.

Given these facts on the ground, the Paris attacks are militarily insignificant. However, they could be significant if we make bad decisions.

America’s post 9/11 PTSD affliction makes us happily willing to abrogate parts of the US Constitution, like the damage already done to the 4th Amendment. Consider this week’s hand-wringing about our surveillance capabilities by CIA Director John Brennan, who wants to force companies to give the government encryption keys for their new applications.

He wants better domestic spying, and fewer domestic rights, to help fight ISIS.

It appears that the House will vote Thursday to change the screening process for refugees from Syria and Iraq. The bill requires the government to create a new process that “certifies” that refugees aren’t a security threat. Since the bill has no recommendations about the certification process, it acts to “pause” immigration while the bureaucrats work something out.

Or, consider the religious test that some Republicans want to impose on Syrian immigrants. If we allow Syrian Christians to migrate here while banning Muslims, we have created an unconstitutional religious test that violates part of the First Amendment.

And, the backlash against Syrian immigrants by US state governors sets up a possible Muslim vs. non-Muslim confrontation. It abrogates even more of the Constitution. It is a short step from saying no Muslims in a state, to saying that only Christians can live in a particular state.

But, Chris Cillizza at the WaPo says that Democrats need to be very careful about demonizing Republicans over Syrian immigration:

The political upside for Republican politicians pushing an immigration ban on Syrians and/or Muslims as a broader response to the threat posed by the Islamic State sure looks like a political winner.

This is backed up by Pew Research Center’s 2014 survey examining Americans’ view on Islamic extremism:

Pew Islam Concerns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So to most Americans, it doesn’t seem xenophobic, or crazy to call for an end to accepting Syrian refugees.

OTOH, Republicans say that Second Amendment still needs more protection. There are people all across America that are willing to weaken many Amendments, but not the one that lets them walk the streets with AR-15’s.

Yet, what the electorate will remember in 2016 is that Democrats wanted more foreigners to come here, while Republicans wanted to protect them from terrorists. Fear sells and motivates. Reasoned, nuanced discussion bores us, and is ignored.

So, don’t expect leadership to be brave.

At this point, while we may have some responsibility to help protect political refugees, it is probably not worth losing an election over.

See you on Sunday

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Corporations Want Europe to Add Refugees

According to The Guardian, the European Union ministers forced through a plan to relocate Middle Eastern asylum-seekers throughout the EU. The plan would distribute 120,000 souls across all EU countries.

The headline yesterday was that Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic voted against the proposal, but could be forced to take immigrants anyway. These Eastern European governments have been among the most vocal opponents of plans to relocate refugees across the EU. But, according to The Economist, this position ignores economic logic:

A survey by Manpower Group, a consultancy, found that two out of five firms in Poland struggle to fill vacancies. In Hungary, almost half could not get the staff they need. In the Czech Republic and Slovakia fewer employers report difficulties (18% and 28%) but the share has been climbing steadily over the past few years.

Here is their chart showing the difficulty in filling jobs in the EU:

Where immigrants are needed

The argument in the countries that need to fill jobs but do not want migrants is that they can fill skill gaps by drawing in labor from neighboring countries with more similar cultures. This may fill some positions, but wages are much lower in the countries needing labor. The Economist reports that wages in Germany are 150% higher than in Hungary. And Germany’s social safety net is superior.

These statistics point to serious problems in the EU’s local economies. But the real issue isn’t under population in the EU. We have been told for years that the unemployment rate among young Europeans is very high. Trading Economics reports that the overall jobless rate in the Eurozone fell to 10.9% in July, from 11.1% in the previous three months. That means 17.4 million EU citizens are unemployed. But, youth unemployment averages 21.9%. Here are some depressing Youth Unemployment statistics from summer, 2015: (Source: Statista.com)

  • Greece:     53.7%
  • Spain:       49.2%
  • Italy:          44.2%
  • France:     23.6%
  • Germany:   7.1%

So, even if people in certain EU countries understand that there might be an economic upside to allowing immigrants into their country, their opening position is: “why aren’t we hiring our own kids?”

Then there is the anti-immigrant issue that transcends economic concerns, the ethnic makeup of one’s own country, and what migrants may do to impact these old European cultures. No argument about the economic merits of increased immigration will likely sway voters if they believe their way of life will be compromised. The fear of a “mob at the gates” drives anti-immigrant feeling throughout the world.

So, who says Europe needs all of this migrant labor? Much like in the US, it is the corporations who say they can’t fill jobs with the requisite talent. What they really mean is, talent at a price.

Why can’t German firms import Italian or Spanish kids to do the work?

This sounds remarkably similar to tech firms in the US saying that they cannot find STEM workers, and so ask the government to add more H-1B visas so that migrants from India can fill jobs in Silicon Valley.

The global picture is clear: Many jobs now done by humans are being taken over by machines. Computers will ease our transition to declining populations. Even many low-skilled jobs in manufacturing and agriculture can be handled by robots, requiring a large jump in the skills humans need to learn in order to get the fewer, better paying jobs that remain.

A partial solution may be to import some migrants to fill a few low skilled jobs, but adoption of new technologies rather than population growth, is a better way to go about raising the living standards in Europe.

And we must shut off global population growth sometime soon. The Wrongologist has reported before on “The Coming Jobs War” by Jim Clifton, in which Clifton says that globally, some 3 billion people are looking for work right now, and nearly all of them are willing to work for less than the average American or European.

Every society will be more secure economically if they can promote a high resource-to-population ratio. Those countries who can become close to self-sufficient in food, water, energy, and renewable resources will be the only ones with middle-class living conditions.

Middle Eastern migrants understand this. Some may be fleeing for their lives, but the vast majority are simply economic migrants. The EU is being led by the nose to focus on asylum-seekers, when even they are economic migrants.

Although the poorer parts of the world experience very high population growth, and the developed world does not, it is a safe guess that not a single country today has a population that is low enough to guarantee success in the future world economic order.

Think about what Agent Smith said in The Matrix:

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.

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The Scourge of Anchor Babies

No time for in-depth blogging today, but because Wrongo lived in Southern California for 10 years, he often heard stories about pregnant Chinese women traveling to the US so that their children could be born here. Orange County was often rumored to be the (forgive the pun) hotbed of Chinese births. According to the LA Times, the correct term for this is “maternity tourism.” Whatever.

The LA Times reported:

The website of one birthing center suggested that 4,000 Chinese women had been served since 1999. The crackdown included one birthing center in Irvine. According to an affidavit, more than 400 women associated with the Irvine location have given birth at one Orange County hospital since 2013.

So, we really have no overall handle on the numbers of Chinese tourist births. Of course, these tourist births have the added benefit of making those kids American citizens.

One underreported part of this story is that the one child policy in China may be behind many of these births. An illegal second child would be stateless in China, with little hope of education or good employment, so for wealthy Chinese families in this situation, a few month’s visit to the US on a tourist visa gets the baby citizenship, and a place to go to school when the time comes. Still, aren’t the Chinese exploiting a loophole to get their kids citizenship?

No, it isn’t a loophole. It’s right there in the Constitution.

Tom Toles in the WaPo linked Asian anchor babies to the Panda births in DC:

COW Anchor babies

 

 

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An Easy Path To A Green Card

Over the weekend, the NYT reported on a federal visa program that allows up to 10,000 immigrant investors to qualify for a green card. The program is called EB-5. From the Times:

Under the federal program, a foreigner who invests $500,000…in a project that will create at least 10 jobs can apply for a green card.

In FY 2010, 1,885 EB-5 visas were issued. But by 2014, the entire annual allotment of 10,000 visas had been claimed by August, 4 months before the end of the fiscal year. This year, the quota was reached on May 1. More from the NYT:

Under the program, the family of the investor, including any dependent under 21, can apply for a green card, and each family member is counted toward the quota.

Critics have called the program a “scam” that essentially sells green cards to the affluent and their families. More than 80% of those in the program are from China. Critics clearly have sympathy with the vast amount of people who desperately read each and every Visa Bulletin in the hope that the results will bring them one step closer to permanent residency in the United States.

The EB-5 program was canceled in 1998 for three years because it was seen as corrupt. With $500k as the cost of entry, the US is one of the cheapest developed countries in which to get an investor visa. And the Department of Homeland Security isn’t coordinating with Immigration and Naturalization on these green cards, so there is opportunity for fraud and there are security concerns, it’s also unfair to those that have to legitimately renew green card dates that don’t have to luxury of being able to basically buy it.

Finally, one of our more anti-immigration Republican presidential candidates, Scott Walker (R-WI), makes an exception for the EB-5 visa. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (JS) reports that Walker is prominently featured on the website of FirstPathway Partners, a Milwaukee firm that helps foreigners find EB-5 opportunities. The JS reported that Our American Revival, a Walker for president organization said:

The Governor is a proponent of immigration that is supportive of the nation’s economic needs, our working families, and wages. But the system is broken and we need to review the current immigration system to ensure we are achieving those goals

Let’s see that check. OK, now move to the head of the line, sir. Why not make the cost of entry $5 million, and sell green cards to 100,000 a year?

We could begin to put a dent in the deficit.

Today’s Links:

FBI claims hacker took control of plane. They say a hacker admitted that he used his laptop to gain access to the in-flight entertainment system on a United 737, and then overwrote the code on the airplane’s Thrust Management Computer. He and the company he works for, One World Labs, have for some time nagged Airbus and Boeing about how easy it is to connect a laptop to a box beneath an airline seat and access the plane’s systems. The thought that someone could be on a plane and hack in and control it, should make airplane manufacturers panic. But apparently, they are not panicked enough to hire One World Labs!

The FBI spent two years trying to learn the lyrics to “Louie, Louie”. You know the song. You probably think the lyrics are indecipherable. After Robert Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover received letters saying that the song was “dirty”, the FBI tried to figure out whether the recording included vulgar variations on the published lyrics. The FBI played the record repeatedly, but concluded what everyone else already knew: the lyrics are indecipherable. It took nearly two years for someone at the FBI to think: Isn’t this song registered at the Copyright Office? Maybe we could send someone over there to find out what they think it says? This is one bizarre story of moralism, FBI and governmental overreach, plus, an attack on the First Amendment.

B.B. King: Generations of guitarists used B.B’s “Box”, a fingering technique to learn how to play. With virtually no knowledge of musical theory, guitarists can use the B.B. Box position to pluck out a solo that will work for most blues and rock chord progressions. To change keys, you simply move the position up or down the neck. No need for effects pedals for B.B. He came out of the Mississippi Delta, where guitarists learned their craft by watching other players, so no music theory, maybe not even knowledge of scales: just go on and make the guitar sound as sad as the blues they wanted to sing. RIP Mr. King!

Here is a spectacular National Geographic video of Mobula Rays off the coast in the Sea of Cortez. They breech the water and seem to fly:

They congregate once a year. Maybe it’s Spring Break for Rays. For those who read the Wrongologist in email, you can view the video here.

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