Comment by JuniperMesos
3 hours ago
> By and large, if we move issues of 'culture and identity' aside, the US benefits enormously from immigrants.
Yeah, but issues of culture and identity are extremely important, so important that it's farcical to exclude them when evaluating to what degree the US benefits from immigrants or deciding what immigration policy ought to be.
> Because the numbers are small enough, there is almost zero downside for US citizens, and the companies that are created end up employing more Americans than they would otherwise. That said - locals can be priced out of these economic centres like the Bay and NYC, and that is arguably unfair.
I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants who work for tech companies basically characterizes the demographic trajectory of my hometown.
>and locals getting priced out by immigrants who work for tech companies basically characterizes the demographic trajectory of my hometown.
That's on the locals. They are being priced out because they don't want to build any housing (NIMBYism) nor do they want to pay taxes on property (Prop 13). Don't blame immigrants for the policy failures of the bay area. These failures extend to all of CA and predate tech immigrants.
It's not 'farcical' to move issues of identity aside because most people don't think there is anything whatsoever wrong with some degree of migration from other countries, and its pragmatically 'non issue'.
It only really becomes an uncomfortable issue around 'large scale undocumented migration' - but that's a whole other separate concern, it's not within the bounds of the law, and it's not related to tech at all.
If we remove that from the equation there is only a very, very narrow scope of 'Settler Nationalists' who could claim there's an issue if 'identity' - I'm being polite by allowing an escape valve there. Rates of regular immigration to the US are 'relatively' low on the aggregate.
But more crucially - the 'identity' issue is irrelevant at least from an economic perspective.
"I'm from the bay area as is my entire family; and locals getting priced out by immigrants" - yes, this is a reasonable and fair concern, but, on the aggregate it's 'next to nothing'.
So - yes, immigration will be felt acutely by some for sure - and that's unfair and it's a moral dilemma - but on the aggregate - 'High Tech Migrants' have zero effect on the landscape of US overall. It's a small cohort.
If we want to talk 'ludicrous' - it's this ridiculously ignorant idea that somehow tech is an American phenom - it's not. It's international.
Bay Area + Tech is nothing without immigrants.
Would not exist a hugely notable tech hub.
Immigrants are a critical ingredient in everything important from founders to capital, to research, to 'filling out the ranks'.
It's not just jobs - it's entire classes of 'essential ingredients' without which - the recipe cannot work.
And without that level of inernationalism, there is no >2/3 revenues from outside US either. It's a slightly separate, but related issue.
Without immigrants the Bay would be about like the 'Research Triangle' in N Carolina, not an gigantic powerhouse.