I had the realization the other day that it is incredibly strange that everyone takes for granted the idea that people are not allowed to live wherever they want. We all, to some degree, have this expectation that of course you can’t just fly to a country you’re not from and live there for years. Of course you have to be employed and get a visa to not be deported. Of course you have to live there for over a decade to be considered a citizen. Of course the government has to check on you every couple of years to renew your ability to live in the country.
I think all of this is, frankly, stupid.
I’ve found that almost every argument for limiting immigration and exacerbating the bureaucracies involved falls apart pretty quickly under scrutiny. When you get to the core of the issue, it becomes increasingly obvious that the entire modern conception of what immigration should look like is fundamentally xenophobic and silly. Nevertheless, immigration is still one of the most discussed topics in politics, repeating the same talking points over and over again.
I first made this discovery while watching the 2024 presidential debates. I found it shocking that even the Democratic party – associated with a progressive ideology and tolerance – operated on the platform that immigration in the United States was an “issue.” And I should clarify, not an “issue” because of the overtaxed immigration system weighed down by bureaucracies and inefficiencies, but instead because there’s too many immigrants. I watched in astonishment as Donald Trump and Kamala Harris argued over who would stop immigration better. Or rather, I would have watched in astonishment if I still had any expectations for the competence and integrity of the political establishment.
The question is: how did we get here? Why does the sentiment that there’s such a thing as too much immigration cross the political divide seemingly even more effectively than hatred for United Healthcare?
This analysis is mostly going to be based in the United States because it’s a country historically defined by immigration, but most of the development of laws relating to immigration on a global scale reflect the United States.
Initially, on its foundation, the US operated on an entirely open borders policy. Of course racial discrimination existed, with citizenship only being reserved for “White persons,” but visas and passports were unnecessary. Gradually, immigration and naturalization became a focus on the national level, moving from local courts to country-wide legislation. Interestingly, the first piece of immigration legislation passed by Congress in the United States was a law excluding Chinese laborers from entering the country. This set a precedent for what the majority of immigration laws will be based on going forward – that is, racism.
This pattern of limiting immigration continued throughout the 20th century, until a major shake-up in the 21st century that you may have heard of before. It has to do with towers, planes, My Chemical Romance, and Twilight.
With the creation of the department of Homeland Security, immigration was even more heavily restricted. This had cascading effects on the rest of the world due to the United States’ hegemonic role in global politics.
And that pretty much brings us to the modern day. With that historical context, I want to go over some of the arguments that are used by proponents of limiting immigration.
We’ll start off with the easiest idea to debunk: immigrants increase crime.
Before even getting into the data, it’s important to address that this idea is mostly manufactured by the media. Because of the decrease in sales of traditional newspapers and the migration away from main-stream media as a mode of consumption, the media has increasingly relied on sensationalism to maintain sales. Well, it’s either that, or creating a bunch of web-based word games.
This means a greater amount of focus on violent crime in the media than was already present, instilling a feeling of some sort of Purge-like crime wave across the world. In most of the world, this isn’t really the case at all. Global homicide rates are at an all time low. Nonviolent crime is down in the United States in almost every region. For all intents and purposes, we’re living in the era with the least amount of crime ever documented.
Speaking of documented, the myth that undocumented immigrants cause more crime is just that – a myth. Not only is this just not the case, but actually the opposite: immigrants decrease crime rates.
A study conducted in the Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice found that between the years of 1970 and 2010, areas with the greatest number of immigrants saw the greatest declines in violent crime and property theft. This was divorced from economic factors like low-income versus high-income areas, meaning this decrease in crime is entirely tied to the presence of immigrants.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say immigrants actually did increase crime because they tended to reside in poorer neighbourhoods, resulting in economic disenfranchisement. Even in that scenario, it would be ridiculous to limit immigration on that basis. The solution would not be to kick immigrants out of the country, but rather to support their economic integration to a greater degree so as to reduce the likelihood of them turning to crime as a last resort.
The next argument that is often used to defend strict border control is the cultural divide. People say that there are just certain irreconcilable differences between cultures of different places that means a significant population of immigrants would result in social upheaval and discontent.
Let’s just follow this train of logic for a second.
There are fundamental differences between cultures. Therefore, they will conflict with one another if they live in the same area. Therefore, they cannot coexist. Therefore, distinct cultures should be separated from each other to prevent conflict. And oh whoops, we invented apartheid again.
This entire line of thinking is archaic and unrealistic. It operates on an absolutist perspective of human behavior when it has been demonstrated many times that there are far more similarities between cultures than differences. Integration is not only possible, but natural for humans. The current dominant cultures that exist in our countries today are not the result of one distinct group of people perpetuating their society for centuries, they’re the amalgamation of thousands of unique cultures mixed together. A hundred years ago Irish people in the United States were considered radically foreign and incompatible with American culture. Now, Chicago dyes the river green on Saint Patrick’s day.
The only cultural conflict caused by immigration is initiated by a xenophobic populace terrified of some existential threat of an immigrant invasion like some sort of racist self-fulfilling prophecy.
And this brings us to the most significant anti-immigration argument: the “stealing” of jobs.
Yes, of course immigrants get employed and participate in the workforce. Sometimes they will take the place of a naturalized citizen. But you want to know a secret? Non-immigrants take jobs too. There’s nothing special about an immigrant that makes them more likely to find employment. If anything, it’s the opposite. The reason why people experience job shortages is because of failures in the job market. The majority of workers taking up jobs that other prospective laborers would desire are themselves naturalized citizens because of simple demographics. Only 19% of workers in the US are immigrants. While this is higher than the percentage of the population that are immigrants (about 15%), it’s higher by a percentage accounted for by the fact that a greater number of immigrants are in the working class relative to native-born citizens.
If you’re upset that people are taking your jobs, either vote for policies that create more jobs, or get less people to have children. It’s an issue of nonequivalence between population size and employment opportunities.
I hope that by this time you have realized, along with me, that when you actually break down the talking points used against immigration, and get at the juicy Tootsie-pop center, it’s just racism and xenophobia all swirled together. All of these ideas are based on a fundamental fear of others, a fear that does not have any kind of substantial foundation.
This is all compounded by the relative ease with which “White” immigrants traverse the world. Suddenly immigrants stealing jobs become skilled workers contributing to the economy. People even have a different name for them: “expatriates.” There is absolutely no functional difference between these two arbitrary groups except for the color of their skin, and yet the premise that there is some meaningful distinction is readily accepted.
Just like the very first kinds of immigration laws passed, modern day immigration legislation is irrevocably entangled with racist and xenophobic sentiments divorced from reality.