Comment by phs318u
1 month ago
It has occurred to me that one of the key drivers of the tensions around migration, stems from the undignified arbitrage of human beings resulting from the discrimination to free movement across borders.
Global corporations are permitted free movement[0].
Global capital is permitted free movement[0].
Global elites are permitted free movemen[0].
The overwhelming mass of humanity is constrained to very limited movement.
The ability of enterprises to benefit from pools of constrained humans without those benefits being similarly constrained to flow in that pool, but instead freely exfiltrate those benefits - is the source of most of the world's inequality, and consequently stokes the demand to migrate (legally or illegally).
[0] - not quite completely, but near enough as makes little difference.
EDITED to fix formatting.
This is incorrect. This constraint both profits off of and provides some benefit to the constrained population but it is not the source of inequality. The source of inequality is country/region level policies causing growth differences over time. The labour price spread caused by that drives the secondary arbitrage you identify above that profits the wealthy but also benefits the people living under crap government policy that caused lower produxtivity because their low wage factory job pays better than their alternatives.
constraining the labour is just a smart move when the majority of your population is a net cost to tax payers.
What you describe is part of, but not the entire reason why tensions arise around migration. There are at least two main drivers for tension which are missing, very broadly defined those related to cultures and social security systems where the latter is often related to the former. Taking the recent revelations about fraud in Minnesota as an example - which encompass both mentioned factors - it becomes clear that the tension is not so much about the fact that about 80.000 people from Somalia moved to this region but that these people:
(culture) by and large did not integrate into local Minnesotan culture but remain focused on their Somalian culture and traditions including clan culture which now has a marked influence on the local political climate with people voting along clan lines
(social security) for a large part are and remain dependent on the social security systems: 81% of Somali immigrants are dependent on some of the welfare systems, 78% of those who have lived for more than 10 years in the area remain dependent on these systems [1]
Combine this with the practice of calling out any criticism of these facts as 'racist' and tensions quickly arise.
[1] https://cis.org/Report/Somali-Immigrants-Minnesota
The rhetorical and alarmist tone of your comment and the absurd sounding statistics you quote were what prompted me to check the background and bias of the resource you cited: CIS (Center for Immigration Studies) [1]. And oh boy! Isn't that an interesting and fun find!
Here is what Wikipedia says [2]:
> The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an American anti-immigration think tank . It favors far lower immigration numbers and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham alongside eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
> CIS has been involved in the creation of Project 2025
> Reports published by CIS have been disputed by scholars on immigration, fact-checkers and news outlets, and immigration-research organizations. The organization had significant influence within the Trump administration, which cited the group's work to defend its immigration policies . The Southern Poverty Law Center designated CIS as a hate group with ties to the American nativist movement .
All emphasis are mine. So to explain the reason behind a problem, you chose a resource that caused the problem in the first place. Hilarious! That too, an organization with a known history of hatred and bigotry against the population you're 'criticizing', and of producing fake research.
At this point, that resource alone is enough to suspect that everything you argued is false - especially the statistics. There is no better way to discredit yourself than to choose such a pathologically biased source.
Media Bias/Fact Check service [3] rates them with 'low' factuality (7.0), 'extreme right wing' bias (8.9) and an overall 'low credibility' rating. Here are some quotes:
> Overall, we rate CIS a questionable source based on publishing misleading information (propaganda) regarding immigration and ties either directly or indirectly to the John Tanton Network, a known White Nationalist.
> A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing of credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news.
Whenever we look for sources to quote for some facts, we try to find well known publications or at least something that turns higher up in the web search, so that nobody will outright reject our claims for lack of credibility. How do you all instead find such obscure sources on such specific topics? Do you refer some resource list or similar?
> Combine this with the practice of calling out any criticism of these facts as 'racist' and tensions quickly arise.
This really is the cherry on the top! You might as well just say "I'm going to say some racist nonsense, but don't you dare call me a racist!" Preemption by gaslighting?
> ... tensions quickly arise.
The tensions due to hateful behavior are already so high that the minor inconveniences caused by calling it out are well worth it.
[1] https://cis.org/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Immigration_Studies
[3] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/center-for-immigration-studie...
If I or some neutral party were to go to the effort to learn how to pull up the information they used from the American Community Survey [1] and it matched what CIS published would you be open to changing your mind on either the absurd sounding statistics of the rate of Somalians using welfare or the reputation of CIS in general?
[1] https://www.census.gov/data/developers/data-sets/acs-5year.h...
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>> Combine this with the practice of calling out any criticism of these facts as 'racist' and tensions quickly arise.
> You might as well just say "I'm going to say some racist nonsense, but don't you dare call me a racist!" Preemption by gaslighting?
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
Instead of hyperventilating the usual 'racist, racist, racist' mantra and shooting messengers - '...Project 2025! ...Fact Check!' - it would be enlightening to hear your reaction on the facts presented by those maligned sources.
Are they wrong? Not so much according to you but according to the cited sources - the Census bureau et al, see the end notes in the article. Show where they are wrong, don't just act like so many others who join in the chorus when prompted by their leaders.
If you can not show they are wrong you should really retract the above diatribe. Facts, after all, don't care about anyone's feelings?
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