There’s a very sophisticated kind of pro-immigration argument that goes like, “immigrants to the United States perform very well on a number of important key metrics — they have high incomes and commit less crime than natives — because they are from a select group of people who have navigated the difficulties of our immigration process, which is why we need to make that process much easier and allow in many times more people, thereby destroying the very selection effect I’ve just used to argue that immigrants do well here”
This is sort of like noticing that an elite university is full of kids with high test scores, so you should let in a bunch of people with low test scores on that basis
To be clear, people also make earnest arguments for low-skilled immigration, but the arguments that appeal to statistics showing that immigrants do particularly well here are probably just arguing from selection effects.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
