Comment by bayesianhorse
10 years ago
Stop all restrictions on immigration in the developed world! Not out of kindness, or even basic human decency, but because these restrictions don't work any more.
Look at the US: 18 billion dollars are spent each year for enforcing immigration laws. The result? anywhere between 7 and 30 Million illegal immigrants, which are essential to the country's economy, but unable to work, seek the best medical attention or raise their socioeconomic status.
In Germany, we have a new kind of "dynamic". Our constitution grants a right to asylum. Because of that right, every application has to be reviewed, even though two thirds of them are rejected. The first problem is that the bureaucracy is completely overwhelmed by the applications. Second problem is that even the rejected Applicants can't be deported, for sheer impracticality of scaling the "deportation" machinery by several magnitudes.
Of course, this state of affairs has drawn the attention of even more people smugglers and potential immigrants, raising the burden on our immigration enforcement. It didn't have to be Germany, who was stuck in that cycle first. It could have been France. Italy and Greece aren't stuck because they essentially tell the immigrants to go to Germany or risk being mistreated.
In Germany, these asylum seekers are not allowed to work ever. Which means they have to be paid some form of social support. In my belief, paying social support is cheaper than dealing with the consequences of about a million human beings prohibited from earning a living in a legal way. But even cheaper would be to allow them to work, like they actually want to do.
But alas, the majority of citizens in the developed countries have fear of immigrants, so they will have to learn what I just described the hard way.
>The result? anywhere between 7 and 30 Million illegal >immigrants, which are essential to the country's economy, >but unable to work, seek the best medical attention or raise >their socioeconomic status.
The reason is because the gov't doesn't enforce the law. If they did punish employers for hiring illegal immigrants then there would be a lot less. The employers skirt the law to increase the bottom line while pushing the cost off on the taxpayer. Cut of the work then a lot less will come. Wages will rise for the lowest earning Americans.
You think anyone in the world should be able to come to Germany? Get ready for a couple million people in the first 6 months. People who don't speak German and may not share your values.
This is exactly the flawed reasoning I am criticizing. Of course, if you "cut off the labor", they wouldn't come. But experience has shown, that this is impossible. Especially not since a large proportion of the US economy absolutely depends on these workers. And a large part of the $18 billion dollars every year is spent on trying to police immigrant laborers. And no, wages will not rise, because wide-scale disruptions would lead to the worst recession since the 1930s. But that's hard to speculate because, to reiterate, "cutting off" the labor in any reasonable timescale is completely infeasible.
What I envision for the future is stopping immigration controls in the entire developed world. Preferably happening all at once. The burden for Germany would likely even decrease. Because just as it is, Germany has been selected for the first breaking point, and the situation is such that pretty much anybody can immigrate to Germany already and not be deported anyway...