Aside from racism. I mean economically/socially, what issues does too much immigration cause?
They eat people pets \s
It’s a complex and polarising issue. The main problem is that some, sometimes most, of immigrants don’t want to assimilate. They are creating ghettos, don’t respect local laws. Other issue is that governments prefer to spend tax payer money for accommodating immigrants instead of solving nation’s issues.
I wouldn’t limit immigration per se. I would limit unchecked illegal immigration and spend more money on assimilating immigrants that want to contribute to a country they moved into.
The main problem is that some, sometimes most, of immigrants don’t want to assimilate. They are creating ghettos, don’t respect local laws.
Generalisations like this are the very reason it’s a polarising issue. Opinions like yours generally derive from “observation” and “gut feeling”. Which by definition is completely anecdotal and harmful when it begins to be applied to millions of people all at once.
Betsy from insert town here sees an immigrant couple down the street in her home-town keeping to themselves and not really wanting to take part in the community. She’s talking on the phone to nosy-nessie the town busybody who says “oh…you know…my aunt said the same thing about her insert culture neighbours.” And then all of a sudden, that’s just “how those people are”…all of them…everywhere.
Maybe this couple is just a little embarrassed about their english skills and want to strengthen them more before going into public everywhere, which comes across as shy. Maybe they’re just private…who knows. But suddenly…“it’s just how (those people) are”, becomes the anecdotal “truth”.
It’s wrong, it’s dangerous, and the fact that you don’t even grasp the irony of your own comment is telling in a lot of ways.
No unfortunately. There is plenty of evidence of immigrants building their own justice systems and authorities under the radar of their new countries because it goes against the freedoms and expectations.
We shouldn’t ignore that and not talk about it.
Great. Then you shouldn’t have any problem coming up with three examples for us all.
Racism
Historically, US actually was quite welcoming of immigration, including from Mexico. It tends to ebb and flow. I was taught by an economist that typically you open the flood gates when you want the labor, while restricting it when you don’t. To him, labor works just like goods in supply/demand curves. Flooding a market can drive down value of labor, etc., which can be bad for local workers. Obviously it’s a little more complex, but that’s the jist.
The trouble is, with globalization, one must wonder if that S/D curve is still valid. I imagine it is in some sectors, but in others, those jobs have been outsourced. If this is a bigger strain on demand, then it’s better to keep immigration on lock. That would at least help explain why it’s so hostile currently, but I’m just thinking out loud. I don’t necessarily agree with the economist approach.
Flooding a market can drive down value of labor, etc., which can be bad for local workers.
That makes sense, but in the long run/bigger picture, having a bigger employable workforce results in more consumers, which means a growing economy.
I’m not well versed enough in macroeconomics to explain how to promote the economy without lowering wages, but surely it can be done. “They’re taking our jobs” just sounds way too reductive.
It actually has more to do with training and education. In developed nations, people get more education and the result is a larger void in the low skill labor force who are employed by them. Ironically, more education results in lower wages for white collar work and higher wages for blue collar work, haha. Unfortunately we rarely talk about education, economics and immigration in the same breath, so it’s rarely addressed in politics.
Automation also adds a wrinkle, as low skill labor has been automated with technology. It’s credited as one of the major contributions to the wage gap, as efficiency is a boon to the owning class, not the working class. But I digress…
In my opinion, country-based immigration paired with needs-based works really well.
Ultimately, many of the best parts of the culture of a place are because of what people brought with them years ago. Some of the best restaurants are because someone in India moved to the UK, and then moved to the US and brought the culture of Curry Mile or Brick Lane with them, or because a community of Greek railroad workers decided to set up bakeries using their known recipes that all the locals love.
The same often goes for business. Look at the rise of Aldi and Lidl, and how cheap produce and great workers rights will suddenly make local supermarkets look in bewilderment at how markets they once dominated are being torn away from them.
IMO, if you have skills to offer, you should be welcome. I’m currently in the process of moving to the US on a high-skilled visa, and it is mad how one country will require thousands in legal fees and 24+ month waits while a country next door will say “Shit, you can teach?! Come join us! If you want to stay permanently that’s fine!”
Infrastructure is a large issue. Border towns can become saturated, which will reduce living conditions, and when immigrants move to larger cities, they can often have trouble finding places to live. A lot of this can be because of a communication barrier. Sometimes that is because there are too few to translate, but there can also be educational issues. As much maligned as the US education system is, it is better than some others, and when your culture eschews school for an early start at earning a paycheck, communication in any language becomes a challenge.
Many issues can be overcome, or at least minimized, by compassionate workers, which many that work with immigrants are, but there isn’t enough funding to get compassionate people where they are most needed. Supporting increased budgets at the border isn’t always about putting guns on the border, it can be about improving the infrastructure that helps get people where they need to be in more efficient ways. I’m starting to ramble, though, and I think I’ve given a partial answer to your question.
From an economical standpoint, immigrants bring in more taxes and labor, which can go towards infrastructure and social infrastructure like education and housing
Just gotta make sure those taxes are going to the right place.
just have a look at the EU and also Germany with some crazies wanting shariah law…this is Germany we are talking about,with their histories and what not
Housing is already unsustainable, more people means more demand for it
Very good point. Having a local government that is willing to allow more housing to be built is absolutely necessary if you want to let immigrants in.
Building houses is probably generally allowed, but not an easy solution.
Someone who migrates to another country, to work there in a regular job, can get a regular apartment. But everyone wants to live where the living conditions are best. You can’t build infinite housing in those locations, and the increased demand drives prices.
Someone who seeks asylum is in an entirely different situation, and housing them is a different challenge. Building a house in a nice place costs 10x what it costs in a remote country region. But now people have nobody to integrate with and less social options.
Any house being built costs money. Building houses for people who are still in search of employment is a bad investment. Nobody wants to build those houses. They want to build the nice houses in the nice places that will gather lots of rent. If you want to have the houses anyway, because maybe the people are already here, you probably have to use taxes for it. Some citizens will never be able to accept that, creating conflict.
It’s the only non racist rationale I can think of, and potentially solvable if local governments and NIMBY laws didn’t suck so much
Housing in even semi-desirable locations is already unaffordable for most Americans. How would immigrants, considering the low wages they are limited to, make this worse?
Smaller partitions, roommates, families in single bedrooms, landlords exploiting ignorance to skirt rights and maintenance etc
It’s easier for most people to believe that different coloured or dressed folk, or those that look the same but speak differently, are the reason your life is difficult. It couldn’t possibly be the people that look and sound like you that are your problem. In the UK it’s been said before that a white British guy in a factory job has more in common with a Jamaican bricklayer or a Polish chamber maid than they do with Boris Johnson. I believe that position.
It depends a bit on how you define immigration. Is what the Spaniards and English did to the Americas immigration or something else?
If the influx of a different culture is so big that it displaces you and your children like it did to the Native Americans, then I understand that you’d want to stop it.
Is what the Spaniards and English did to the Americas immigration
Uhh
No.
Weird place for your mind to even go.
What would you call it instead?
Colonialism? Invasion?
I could be wrong, but to me those words describe the initial phase. Once established as a society, the rest involves people moving into this society, which I would call immigration.
More Englishmen moving to the 13 colonies, I would call immigration. More Americans pushing into Native land is imo more accurately an invasion.
That’s how I think about it too. I guess the original description was a bit vague, what they did to the americas. It includes both. First invasion, then immigration.
The thing is, invasion without immigration following it might kill a lot of the original people but doesn’t displace them as a whole.
In Canada it’s causing a huge housing crisis. Lots of newcomers do not have the finances for what rent is here either so end up in limbo.
Sounds like too many landlords, not too many immigrants.
Porque no los dos?
I’m not from Canada, but because I have the natural human instinct to help people
Yes but that’s a side effect of this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-family_zoning
Which is also screwing over regular people and also causes you to have shittier cities with suburban sprawl, oh and those zoning laws are also racist in origin
It isn’t just housing it’s infrastructure in general. Governments are happy to bring in more bodies to fill jobs and pay taxes but don’t bother to plan accordingly and infrastructure takes a long time to build leading to a lagging effect.
Hospitals, transit, housing, etc. It’s all being overwhelmed right now.
The irony of a nation of colonial land thieves complaining about immigration …
Canadians should settle their debts with First Nations and honour their treaties, like good immigrants before judging others.
They sure should.
To add to your point…every nation stole or was stolen from someone else at some point. I always laugh at this argument. No one’s giving anything back that they were born into and didn’t literally take themselves. Are we going to find Henry the Viiis ancestors and make them answer for his barbaric ways? No. Egyptian pharaohs who enslaved countless people and god knows what else? No.
You can only laugh from a place of privilege. Please educated yourself on the Indian Act and progress with existing treaties. Your comment is at odds with the reality in Canada.
My comment just speaks the hard truth. You talking to me on the Internet is on the blood sweat and tears of someone else. Nothing is nice about anything when you go into the history of it all.
Oh dear. I’ve just seen your comment history. I don’t think we’ll be agreeing on much. Good luck.
Oh dear. I’ve just seen your comment history and I don’t care.
Who do you think the Inuit stole their land from? The seals?
Other tribes? What you think they were all just nice to each other?
Regarding potential societal issues:
When multiple cultures mix together, one of two things can happen:
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The cultures mesh well and either coexist or mutually mix into something new
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The cultures do not mesh well and this leads to all sorts of problems, especially increased crime
The second usually happens when both cultures place opposite value in something. For example, one culture places a high value on self and the other places a high value on being in a group, this can lead to a divide between cultures. Eventually, the resentment each group has for each other will lead to violence and other sorts of crime. One culture may think “I made the money for myself,” while the other thinks ,“we should all share the money.” If people don’t learn how to get along, you can probably see how that would increase criminal activity. In most cases, it is usually the expectation that the immigrant adapt to the culture of the new place they have moved to, rather than the new place’s home residents being expected to adapt to every immigrants different country cultures.
It also isn’t good when immigrants enter a new country and do not know the laws of the country they have entered. They may commit crimes that could have been legal wherever they came from, but now someone may be a victim to a crime and the immigrant did not know. Now, usually immigrants that legally enter a country do learn about the basic laws of the country and the basic culture, but ones that enter a country illegally may know nothing about the place they are in. They may continue to act the same as they did in their previous home, which may have very different laws, leading to further divide.
It’s a racist lie that increased immigration leads to increased crime.
The mythical tie between immigration and crime - a Stanford Study
In most cases, it is usually the expectation that the immigrant adapt to the culture of the new place they have moved to, rather than the new place’s home residents being expected to adapt to every immigrants different country cultures.
Yeah this topic is really showing my American bias. Or rather Californian. I’m used to a fluid, adaptable culture.
I would be really hesitant to trust the answers here. How many people responding on Lemmy actually have an educated position on how these systems work? Because I can tell you that there are some fields where Lemmy users are just plain ignorant, while displaying all the confidence of certainty. Especially when you include Europeans on the topic of race… what a shitshow.
The safe reading of this thread is to assume every response is an ignorant, bitter xenophobe who gets all their info from a Fox news equivalent. You can still hear their point, but don’t be fooled into thinking they aren’t missing something that completely flips the story.
In general, I assume everyone on lemmy is some form of absolute moron, and I’m more often right than wrong.
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The “shot in the foot” effect when you accept immigrants from conservative/racist countries and they and - most likely - the next generation will vote right wing which more accurately mirrors those conservative/racist beliefs.
If immigration leads to more unemployment, then that is an economic problem, especially in the hypothetical case where the social benefits system is getting more and more strained by an influx of unemployed people. But generally, I think that you can expect that the immigrants will soon find employment. Besides that, there’s the cultural aspect that @[email protected] mentioned. You could also make the point that the country’s infrastructure is more and more stressed as the population grows, but that is fixable and potentially counteracted by the labour potential of the immigrants themselves (i.e., qualified immigrant work forces can make a large-scale infrastructure overhaul possible that will lead to greater national capacities and a net benefit for the entire population).
Aside from these things, I would argue that most of the other reasons boil down to xenophobia or racism.
but that is fixable and potentially counteracted by the labour potential of the immigrants themselves
That’s how I would deal with immigration in my power fantasies. I’m sure in reality it’s much more complicated than that, but the basic idea of bringing in immigrants and using their labor to build more infrastructure (and paying them a fair wage for it) seems sound. Coupled with pro-housing policies and free education - not necessarily college but trade school and language classes.
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