Thread by @Noahpinion

11/Why would "young enterprising people" coming to America be "a recipe for social discord"?

🤔🤔🤔

12/Ahh, here's a repeat of the old "robots are going to take our jobs so we don't have enough work for people who come"...

13/Interestingly, pro-immigration people often cite low native-born fertility as a reason for MORE immigration.

Frum cites it as a reason for LESS.

14/I see the idea that immigrants represent demographic "replacement" of working-class whites has made it out of alt-right message boards into the standard arguments of nativists!

15/Alt-righter: "You better stop immigration or we'll start a race war!"

Respectable nativist (pointing to alt-righter): "You better stop immigration or he'll start a race war!"

16/Next, Frum blames the rent crisis on immigration.

This sounds plausible, but it neglects the fact that the rent crisis came AFTER the Great Recession - after immigration had already slowed down massively.

17/Frum also says that even if immigration doesn't reduce employment, it could be driving native-born people out of the labor force.

As if immigration researchers don't look at employment-to-population rates as an outcome metric!

Seriously?!

18/Frum says that immigration increases inequality.

For low-skilled immigration, this is probably true!

19/Frum then claims that immigrants put a strain on public finances.

Again, for low-skilled immigrants, this is probably true!

21/BUT, Frum totally ignores the big changes that have happened to U.S. immigration since 2007.

Low-skilled immigration to the U.S. has basically collapsed. gps.ucsd.edu/_files/faculty…

22/And by Frum's own admission, future immigration from Africa and Asia is much more likely to be high-skilled than low-skilled!

It's another bait-and-switch.

23/In fact, immigration has already shifted decisively toward the skilled variety, without any changes in our system. And it's likely to stay that way, because Africa and Asia are across the oceans.

Frum understands this but chooses to ignore it completely.

24/Frum does note that immigrants are making America safer, which is true.

25/He says immigrants (by which I guess he now means "Asians and Hispanics") are improving public health in America, which is also probably true.

26/He says immigrants are lowering America's average skill level, which as I pointed out earlier, is no longer true.

pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018…

27/Frum claims immigration is allowing employers to lower labor standards. I don't know if that's true, but Frum certainly doesn't provide any evidence to support the argument.

28/This is one of the most breathtakingly ignorant historical claims I've ever seen! America has NEVER extended the franchise to all laborers, and in the early days of the republic it often explicitly DENIED the franchise to all workers without property...

29/Frum complains that immigrants are second-class citizens, but ignores the fact that it's *undocumented* immigrants who suffer this status, and they are second-class citizens precisely BECAUSE of the immigration restrictions Frum supports!

30/Frum suggests cutting legal immigration in half and shifting away from family reunification immigration.

The idea of shifting toward more skills-based immigration (as in Canada) is good, but why reduce the total number instead of increasing it?

Frum hasn't made a case.

31/Frum says he wants to curb immigration not to preserve white demographic dominance, but to ensure social equality and cultural cohesion.

But his prime example of a time we had low immigration was...1970!

Did we have "cultural cohesion" in 1970?? LOL NO.

32/I just can't believe anyone thinks the 60s and 70s were times of social cohesion.

It's nuts.

33/Frum ends with the "social cohesion" argument, but he hasn't really done anything to support this argument over the course of his very long piece.

34/All in all, Frum's article seems like a policy conclusion (immigration restriction) in search of a justification.

This is no way to think sensibly about immigration policy.

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