My suggestion for an immigration reform
Speaking
as someone who immigrated from a semi-socialist country into a
semi-capitalist country in search of a better life, I can easily
understand the yearning that people in the poor Third World countries
have for the rich West. This yearning is so large that everyone
understands that if the national borders were completely opened, the
resulting torrent of immigrants would, by its sheer numbers, change
these countries in many ways that its current residents would find
completely unacceptable. For this reason, not even the most
enthusiastic open-borders advocates really want the borders to
completely open, despite all their posturing how the immigration
officials should not be allowed to look for and deport illegal
immigrants.
Every rich Western country has to somehow significantly restrict the number of people they take in as immigrants, since it is just not possible to take everybody in. For example, Canada uses a point system where points are awarded for education, language skills and work experience, and the applicant must score above a certain nontrivial threshold to get in. Other nations have their own schemes. But whatever these restrictions are and however they are implemented, they necessarily favour some groups of people and thus disfavour some others, since only a minority of people willing to immigrate to West can possibly get in. This, in turn, raises the question whether the current immigration policies are fair in the sense that they choose the right people to let in.
To the extent that immigration is allowed for economic reasons, the system should favour the people who are likely to generate wealth. The points system is good for that, although it would be simplest if an immigrant could simply buy his way in in some kind of auction. However, to the extent that immigration is allowed for humanitarian reasons, it should favour the most oppressed people in their home countries. This is just basic common sense: if you can't possibly help everyone, you help the ones who benefit the most of your help to maximize the total improvement of happiness.
I believe that the current immigration policies don't work too well for the humanitarian goals. The people who get in tend to be the most successful members of their home countries. This is especially true with the illegal immigration, where the people likely to succeed in sneaking in are not likely to be the oppressed ones but more likely to belong to the wealthier oppressor classes. (The people who a most likely engage in criminal activities tend to be... criminals.)
This disparity is most evident when we remember who the most oppressed people are everywhere in the world. Just like in the West, also in the Third World the young women are the single most oppressed group (the patriarchy doesn't wait or rest, but attacks women everywhere without ever taking a pause), and therefore they would be by far the best candidates for immigration for humanitarian reasons. I therefore propose that the immigration selection criteria currently used in the West, that is, in USA, Canada, the EU and Australia alike, is changed so that young women are to be massively favoured in selecting the immigrants that are taken in.
In practice, this policy could work simply so that all young women applicants are taken in the annual quota of immigrants, and any other immigrantion applicants would be considered only if there are not enough young women applicants to fill that year's immigration goal. Such policy would pay off immensely in terms of increasing happiness and eliminating oppression. This "ladies first" policy is so simple that I seriously have to wonder why nobody else has proposed it before. (At least, I have never read anyone else propose it in the mass media or the blogs that I read.)
More importantly, I can't see who could possibly oppose this policy. For example, the law-and-order conservatives would rejoice when the problems that statistically result from having an excess number of young men would gradually disappear. (In every ethnic group and culture, violent crime is the game of those young men who are alienated from the mainstream society, whereas young women are statistically more law-abiding and more in touch with the mainstream and tend to support themselves with honest work.)
On the other side of the political aisle, I expect that the leftists and especially the feminists would eagerly support this policy. (It would be so much fun to be on the same side with them at least once in my life!) I can vividly imagine the feminist public intellectuals such as Maureen Dowd welcoming the influx of these young women, liberated from the oppression that they had to endure back home. I can just imagine the feminist hearts overflowing with joy if something like a million diverse young women from countries such as e.g. India, Kenya, Thailand, the former Soviet Union and Philippines arrived each year to live in the Western freedom.
Implementing this policy would also be a very smart move demographically and politically for the Western leftists and feminists, since having more smart young women in the society would give them more political clout and this way help them to make their other goals to come true. For the conservatives who worry about the steep demographic decline of the West, this would also be a boon, since these women would integrate to the Western society and marry local men who would this way father more children than now.
The only group that I could see opposing this policy are the men in the Third World countries who could no longer keep these women under their evil thumbs of oppression. But they don't really get a vote on this. I also really don't expect the western Left to defend these men very much. After all, since the Western leftists happily proclaim someone who has slightly incorrect opinions (e.g. doesn't believe that gay marriage is be a 100% positive thing, or considers the traditional sex roles to be good) to be a subhuman bigot with whom they are ashamed to even live on the same planet, I can't even imagine what words they would use about some culture and its members in which the relevant question even today is not whether gays should be allowed to marry, but whether gays should be allowed to even live, or in which women have no political or economic power at all but are expected to marry whoever their family tells them to and become baby factories. (I must have missed all this condemnation in leftist blogs and their other publications, but pure logic and sense of fairness dictate that it has to be there, yes?)
One practical problem still remains. In many Third World cultures, few young women have the resources and freedom to immigrate to the West on their own, since they live strictly under the total control of their families. The few women that do cannot really be said to be "oppressed", but for the vast majority that is lucky to be allowed to leave the home without a male relative escorting them, some kind of humanitarian scheme is needed. Perhaps the Western countries could start a program in which any young woman who fits certain criteria could defect to their embassies (and isn't it time to put the word "defect" back to use?) where they could stay for a few days of background checking and other formalities. After that, she would be given immigrant status and a plane ticket here. Some other humanitarian program could house and feed these women while they are taught the basics of life in the West, and help them find employment and their first place to live independently. I would believe that such programs would quickly generate massive social returns.
(Corrected for typos and grammar)
Every rich Western country has to somehow significantly restrict the number of people they take in as immigrants, since it is just not possible to take everybody in. For example, Canada uses a point system where points are awarded for education, language skills and work experience, and the applicant must score above a certain nontrivial threshold to get in. Other nations have their own schemes. But whatever these restrictions are and however they are implemented, they necessarily favour some groups of people and thus disfavour some others, since only a minority of people willing to immigrate to West can possibly get in. This, in turn, raises the question whether the current immigration policies are fair in the sense that they choose the right people to let in.
To the extent that immigration is allowed for economic reasons, the system should favour the people who are likely to generate wealth. The points system is good for that, although it would be simplest if an immigrant could simply buy his way in in some kind of auction. However, to the extent that immigration is allowed for humanitarian reasons, it should favour the most oppressed people in their home countries. This is just basic common sense: if you can't possibly help everyone, you help the ones who benefit the most of your help to maximize the total improvement of happiness.
I believe that the current immigration policies don't work too well for the humanitarian goals. The people who get in tend to be the most successful members of their home countries. This is especially true with the illegal immigration, where the people likely to succeed in sneaking in are not likely to be the oppressed ones but more likely to belong to the wealthier oppressor classes. (The people who a most likely engage in criminal activities tend to be... criminals.)
This disparity is most evident when we remember who the most oppressed people are everywhere in the world. Just like in the West, also in the Third World the young women are the single most oppressed group (the patriarchy doesn't wait or rest, but attacks women everywhere without ever taking a pause), and therefore they would be by far the best candidates for immigration for humanitarian reasons. I therefore propose that the immigration selection criteria currently used in the West, that is, in USA, Canada, the EU and Australia alike, is changed so that young women are to be massively favoured in selecting the immigrants that are taken in.
In practice, this policy could work simply so that all young women applicants are taken in the annual quota of immigrants, and any other immigrantion applicants would be considered only if there are not enough young women applicants to fill that year's immigration goal. Such policy would pay off immensely in terms of increasing happiness and eliminating oppression. This "ladies first" policy is so simple that I seriously have to wonder why nobody else has proposed it before. (At least, I have never read anyone else propose it in the mass media or the blogs that I read.)
More importantly, I can't see who could possibly oppose this policy. For example, the law-and-order conservatives would rejoice when the problems that statistically result from having an excess number of young men would gradually disappear. (In every ethnic group and culture, violent crime is the game of those young men who are alienated from the mainstream society, whereas young women are statistically more law-abiding and more in touch with the mainstream and tend to support themselves with honest work.)
On the other side of the political aisle, I expect that the leftists and especially the feminists would eagerly support this policy. (It would be so much fun to be on the same side with them at least once in my life!) I can vividly imagine the feminist public intellectuals such as Maureen Dowd welcoming the influx of these young women, liberated from the oppression that they had to endure back home. I can just imagine the feminist hearts overflowing with joy if something like a million diverse young women from countries such as e.g. India, Kenya, Thailand, the former Soviet Union and Philippines arrived each year to live in the Western freedom.
Implementing this policy would also be a very smart move demographically and politically for the Western leftists and feminists, since having more smart young women in the society would give them more political clout and this way help them to make their other goals to come true. For the conservatives who worry about the steep demographic decline of the West, this would also be a boon, since these women would integrate to the Western society and marry local men who would this way father more children than now.
The only group that I could see opposing this policy are the men in the Third World countries who could no longer keep these women under their evil thumbs of oppression. But they don't really get a vote on this. I also really don't expect the western Left to defend these men very much. After all, since the Western leftists happily proclaim someone who has slightly incorrect opinions (e.g. doesn't believe that gay marriage is be a 100% positive thing, or considers the traditional sex roles to be good) to be a subhuman bigot with whom they are ashamed to even live on the same planet, I can't even imagine what words they would use about some culture and its members in which the relevant question even today is not whether gays should be allowed to marry, but whether gays should be allowed to even live, or in which women have no political or economic power at all but are expected to marry whoever their family tells them to and become baby factories. (I must have missed all this condemnation in leftist blogs and their other publications, but pure logic and sense of fairness dictate that it has to be there, yes?)
One practical problem still remains. In many Third World cultures, few young women have the resources and freedom to immigrate to the West on their own, since they live strictly under the total control of their families. The few women that do cannot really be said to be "oppressed", but for the vast majority that is lucky to be allowed to leave the home without a male relative escorting them, some kind of humanitarian scheme is needed. Perhaps the Western countries could start a program in which any young woman who fits certain criteria could defect to their embassies (and isn't it time to put the word "defect" back to use?) where they could stay for a few days of background checking and other formalities. After that, she would be given immigrant status and a plane ticket here. Some other humanitarian program could house and feed these women while they are taught the basics of life in the West, and help them find employment and their first place to live independently. I would believe that such programs would quickly generate massive social returns.
(Corrected for typos and grammar)
Great proposal! I just read a really good book called _Embracing the Infidel_ about Moslem immigrants trying to enter Europe. My conclusion from the case studies was that if the women in the book could have been admitted before their families arranged marriages for them, they would have been the best candidates in the book for the West to accept.
Posted by Anonymous | 3:40 AM
Here's my suggestion: admit people as much like those already here as possible. That will keep the population on the same ethnic path as it is now and will reduce the unease due to change.
See "Happiness" by Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, Penguin, 2005. He points out that improved GDP/person does not result in greater happiness. And on page 179 in the section entitled "Community" he strongly argues that Western Immigration policy is decreasing happiness of Western citizens.
Posted by Robert Hume | 12:58 PM