Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Browns not welcome!

First it was my father. Then another day it was a cousin of his. And more from other people. Finally, the day I was flying out, an uncle who called to wish me also asked the same thing as all the rest asked.

They all wanted to know why trump is against immigration.  They were even more curious about why he wanted to end the rule that allowed spouses of those on work visas to also work here in the US.

I wished I could editorialize to them that this is what one got for playing along with the devil, instead of fighting it.  India's proto-trump--narendra modi--sold to the Indian public that he and trump are best friends.  People, therefore, assumed that trump would grant India a whole lot of favors.  Instead, they were being slammed with immigration tightening and harsher approaches to outsourcing, which are India's important economic assets.

What they did not want to acknowledge was that modi and trump were, and are, pals regarding one and only one thing: Their shared hatred of Muslims.

But, I didn't editorialize.

I told them that trump had always made this very clear.  There was nothing new.  He hates the brown-skinned.  His party hates the brown-skinned. And a good chunk of his party hates immigration, especially of the brown-skinned.

The uncle, whose daughter is the CEO of a large telecommunication company in the old country, was not convinced.  He wanted an explanation for why trump and the GOP would adopt such a stand when it was so clear that America benefits from immigrants.

It was the old "cut the nose off to spite the face" madness, I told him.

Cato updates us about Republican bills in Congress that "would have far-reaching negative effects on economic and labor force growth in the United States, instituting the most severe restriction on legal immigrants since the 1920s."
These cuts lack any reasonable justification. Labor force growth is an essential component of economic growth. Immigrants already increase U.S. Gross Domestic Product by roughly $2 trillion annually. For the United States to remain competitive internationally, it needs an expanding workforce. These proposals will harm domestic growth and make it more difficult for U.S. businesses to out-produce their competitors around the world.
Like I said, it is a cut the nose to spite the face approach.  The same approach that, incidentally, the Bernie Sanders people also mostly favor, even though they might use more polite language when speaking of the brown-skinned!
U.S. immigrants who primarily enter under the family sponsorship and diversity categories are the most highly educated in American history. True “merit-based” immigration reform would give these immigrants more opportunities to immigrate, not fewer. In any case, America needs workers at both ends of the skills spectrum to grow job opportunities for all Americans. There is simply no economic justification for banning so many legal immigrants.
Of course, recently trump upped his game by telling his 63 million supporters, and the rest of the world too, what he thinks of the brown-skinned.

The modi-toadies are slowly waking up to the devil's ways. modi himself is beginning to realize that trump might not be india's friend!  Maybe trump will respond to modi in Davos by speaking with an Indian accent, eh!



2 comments:

Ramesh said...

Leave aside the nonsense from the idiot, and let us take a more nuanced view on immigration.

Immigration is complex. There is a certain quantum and speed with which immigration is capable of being welcomed and then absorbed by resident societies. In some societies (eg America) it is more. In others (eg Japan) its less. Policies have to be tailored to the prevailing culture and time is an important dimension in handling this sensibly. Too much or too fast and it will provoke a backlash.

This therefore has to be handled with great care. Its not just skin colour, although that is a big factor. Remember, Brexit happened because of an anti immigration backlash against white East Europeans.

Each society has to judge for itself how much, at what rate, and what type of immigrants it will allow. Its not for me to judge what each society sets as a criteria. In pure self interest, merit seems to be an acceptable criteria. Family is always a contentious issue, especially since it has been grossly misused (Indians are a master at this). I would not be critical of America having a purely merit based criteria.

Almost all migration is economic (true refugees simply cross the border and camp in the neighbouring country ). As long as there are hugely wealthy countries (eg America) next to hugely poor ones (Mexico of the old), this will always be a pressure point. The only way this will stop is if economic development happens in the poorer place - this is one reason why migration from Mexico to the US has slowed down drastically.

I have little sympathy for Indians complaining about immigration policies in the US. We should first look at ourselves on how we integrate Africans for example. Why even go to the other nations - how we integrate people from our own country ; from the North East.

Sriram Khé said...

"As long as there are hugely wealthy countries (eg America) next to hugely poor ones (Mexico of the old), this will always be a pressure point. The only way this will stop is if economic development happens in the poorer place - this is one reason why migration from Mexico to the US has slowed down drastically."

That is only one half of the story. A far more important part is this: The fertility rate in Mexico dropped dramatically. From more than an average of six per woman fifty years ago, it is now down to just about replacement rate. Most people do not want to go far away from the environments in which they were born and raised. And when there are only two kids in the family, there is all the more the reason for people to stay back in the old familiar environs.

"I have little sympathy for Indians complaining about immigration policies in the US."
I am with you. Indians need to look the mirror back in India. The lack of integration across caste, religion, ethnicity, ... is simply awful. What are **you guys** going to do about it? Note that I wrote "you guys"? hehe

I don't care much for the merit-based immigration alone. We have enough and more evidence, including in the excerpt in the blog-post, that irrespective of the shithole country that the "lack of merit" person comes from, they do remarkably well here in the US

Tightening up family-based immigration is essentially a racist policy. How many Norwegian-Americans are sponsoring their white Norwegian folks? The GOP used euphemisms in the past in order to reach these same goals; now, trump has made it easier for them to openly state their racism.