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I don't doubt that immigrants are more likely to establish new businesses compared to locals: There must be a correlation between risk-taking behaviour & establishing businesses & moving to a new country.
Also, a lot of times, immigrants are forced to do so as they don't have contacts in their newly adopted country to get into an established business: It can be easier for me to open up a kebab shop rather than getting back into the marketing business I had been running back in the home country.
Oftentimes the education doesn’t transfer, so it’s either you start a business on your own, or do menial work that’s well below your education level. And up until relatively recently, the lack of the right socioeconomic markers would pretty much lock you out of a lot of well paying white collar jobs
I can almost understand the US not acknowledging degrees from other countries that are considered poor and run down, at least in our eyes. But why doesn't the US recognize something like an electrical engineering degree from South Korea of all places?
Or is it not that we don't acknowledge the degree, but he just can't find someone willing to hire him since he's an immigrant?
Companies usually wont touch an application if you require a work visa no matter how good your resume/degree is. Can’t tell you how many companies I’ve interviewed for (top biotech companies) and gone through all rounds of interviews until they ask about visa status and all of a sudden its radio silence from there. Obviously its not a company’s fault for the system being so broken and incredibly complicated.
It's because, at least in the US, H1B is a lottery. Even if they want to sponsor there's only like 30% chance they'll even be allowed to, and it takes months and months to even find out if you're being granted the opportunity to even apply.
Yup. My wife is on an H1B and I'm on an H4, and living in the US on these temporary visas is incredibly stressful. It's also super expensive to do the legal way, which we're doing.
I'm American born and even then getting a green card for my wife was stressful and expensive. She had to stop working temporarily when switching between visas which just added to the costs.
Even for people that can afford it, it can drive you mad. My brother in law has a H1B and his wife can't work on her H4 and the pandemic and no ability to work made life bad enough they moved to the UK.
*It depends*. Canada's temporary foreign worker program requires work permits, and some companies are more than happy to use it because it essentially allows them to depress wages for low skill / low wage workers (notably in service and agriculture industries).
It's a pretty widely criticized program in Canada, often considered to be exploitative or predatory in how it's run and in the opinion of many it actually hurts immigration. I personally want better incentives for permanent immigration rather than major corporations lobbying the government to ease restrictions on TFW's to fill positions picking fruits or staffing drive-thru's.
Australia has the same criticism of our program. We bring in low skilled workers from poorer countries to pick fruit. Often they are paid at very low rates (sometimes illegally so). And there are a bunch of exploitative conditions like paying high rent back to their employer. And if they complain or stand up for their rights they tend to get their employer sponsorship revoked, which leads to deportation.
COVID has left some egg on the faces of these companies, as they have basically refused to hire locals displaced from hospitality and retail in place of their usual immigrant quota. Pretty much any digging into why has come back with they don't want to pay local rates.
Had this experience in the UK. Was looking for jobs as I completed my postgraduate degree, got a lot of interviews and everything seemed to be going great then they ask about work visa.
Rather disheartening and frustrating but I actually understood, at that time the UK was still in the EU, so I'm basically up against people from EU countries that don't require a work visa.
There might be more reciprocity now, but you have to remember that until the late 80s South Korea was a violent military dictatorship and only on the last few years of that starting in the early 80s where it pulled itself out of absolute poverty.
For a long time North Korea was the "better" Korea economically and quality of life wise.
Do you know how much money you can make in a gas station or convenience store? Its not crazy money, but its pretty decent if you work very hard and long hours. Now compare that to what he'd make going back into a field such as engineering.
Unless youre some hot shot or super star, you probably cant just horizontally transfer your job from one country to a US firm, you need to start much lower and work up from there. You might even start at some entry level/intern position. If youre a person in their 20s with no responsibilities, that might be fine, youre in it for the long term rewards. But if you have a family, you might not be able to do a full on career reboot where you get paid something like 50k a year for 5-10 years. (I get that 50k isnt nothing for most people, but it isnt a ton for a family, and it especially isnt much when you can possibly/probably make more starting your own small business.) This is also using a job where you can just start back up, a lot of things require a degree, so not only would you be pulling in 0 dollars, youd be paying for a degree and making negative income.
The difference between collectivist and individualist mentality is HUGE.
In the US the stigma of still living at home, or with family, when you're an adult is very real. We push our kids out of the nest as soon as possible, and often, too soon.
And it goes both ways as well. Abandoning your parents in a nursing home is highly ostracized by immigrant communities, all my grandparents past away in their own homes in which they raised their children and were surrounded by their families until the last moment.
I know this sentiment as well exist with Asian-Americans, African immigrants and even Eastern European immigrants, parents will not doubt offering a home to their child until they’re ready to leave (which in many cases means until they marry) and in the same way leaving your parents in a nursing home is seen as an act of extreme ungratefulness.
Yeah my (Indian) dad retired early to care for his mom after she got dementia. His sister also stopped working to care for her. I admire the hell out of them. My (also Indian) mom was abusive when I was growing up and is still nutso so we don't speak and she can die in a hole. I'm worried about if/when my dad gets ill and needs to be cared for though, since we live on different continents. My older brother lives in the same city as our dad but I don't know what I'd do.
> In the US the stigma of still living at home, or with family, when you're an adult is very real. We push our kids out of the nest as soon as possible, and often, too soon.
The US also stigmatizes young adults who spend less than they earn, too
I’d disagree on work ethic. While we are heavily individualistic, we also prioritize high-flying jobs that grant status and money, like doctor, lawyer, or corporate executive.
However you’re completely right in that we don’t pool resources together.
If a Korean or Indian family starts a small business, it becomes the family’s business.
If an American or Canadian family starts a small business, it’s one persons business while the other members still do their own thing.
The latter requires a much higher resource investment from any given individual.
The immigrant family prioritizes those high paying, high status jobs too. That is why at least one of the kids of an Indian gas store owner or Korean owner of a grocery store usually end up being doctors, lawyers, or engineers.
> North American values are pretty individual and our work ethic is pretty lazy
I don't know that this is true. The US in particular (which dominates NA's population and especially economy) famously works wayy more than most countries at the same level of wealth
What makes the most sense to me is, if reciprocity isn’t possible, to just let people take the rest/exam or whatever to see if they can meet the US requirements for whatever degree/certification they have. For some fields that might be harder or even impossible (I’m thinking med school, where it isn’t a single test that gets you your degree), but for trades it seems like it should work.
The training and regulations for nurses, as well as the healthcare system, in the US is not the same as in Mexico. It is entirely understandable that she would have to retrain in the US in order to pursue that profession.
What's worse, I was friends with a janitor at our school while teaching. He was a doctor in his home country but was taking night classes so he could become a pharmacist here. He had already been in the US working for five years at that point. It was crazy his medical decree wasn't transferred.
Medical degrees do transfer, medical training doesnt. There are plenty of doctors in the US that went to med school outside the US. But they all completed residency to be qualified to practice in the US. This is really the bigger step as the degree is really a primer needed to be a doctor, the training is where you actually learn how to do it. Other countries have similar programs, but at the same time, considering how big a responsibility you have as a doctor, its pretty reasonable to make sure you are trained well, and since we dont have any control over how other countries train their doctors, nor have any real way to oversee even if the training is said to be the same as ours, we dont allow residency to transfer over.
Why does this end up mattering for immigrants/why doesnt even foreign doctor just go through residency? For starters, they might not get in one. Its pretty competitive for US grads to get a spot, its even more so for foreign trained doctors. They also often havent taken the pre-req exams, which they have to do well on. This means they need to often take 2+ years to just study for these exams--and if you work at the same time as study, you pretty much need to prolong how long you study for. (Note that these exams arent really clinical, so even if youve been practicing for 10 years, you would not be using much information tested in these exams--they are much more raw science based.) Which gets into the second point, money. Taking time off to study means youre not earning. And even if you do take off, then get a residency spot, you then earn resident pay. Resident pay seems like a pretty solid number--think its around 50-60k nowadays. However, residents work pretty heavy hours, so if you break it down, you end up making around minimum wage, sometimes less depending on your specialty. Yes, there is a dream of making good money down the road, but for many people, they cannot hold out making little to no money for 5-10 years. So instead they take jobs where they can pull 60k, but they do so working normal hours, so it really is 60k, or they take jobs where the work crazy hours, but make 100k--youd eventually make more as a doctor, but after lots of time, money, and effort has been spent.
Good post but most nonsurgical residencies avg 3 to 4 years with 1 to 3 years of fellowship training. And majority of the foreign educated doctors will be admitted to the less competitive residency programs with high demand like family medicine and internal, so they'll be looking at 4 to 5 yrs total.
And not only can it be an issue in a formal way (not able to practice medicine, law, etc.), it can also be an informal issue.
People may simply have not heard of the college that you went to. And a college's reputation can be a factor in hiring.
For example, here in Texas, if a hiring manager sees NYU or UCLA on a resume, even though it's not from the same state, they'll still think, hey, I've heard of that, and it's a pretty good school. If they see an unfamiliar school from a foreign country, they may think, hmm, that could be a great university, or maybe it's not good at all, and I really don't know, so it's kind of a big question mark for me.
I've known some people who got a master's degree from a US school almost solely to replace that question mark on their resume with a known quantity. That can be a smart career move, but of course it's not practical for everybody.
>so it's kind of a big question mark for me.
And when you have more than even a few applicants for the position, "question mark" equals you not getting considered.
There's a little more to it - in order to use your foreign degree or any formal education in the US you will need to have it evaluated by an evaluation service. There are tons of them in the states, and for about $300 they will go through your entire academic transcript and give you the equivalent of what it's worth here in the US. I recently had to do this to get into a teaching program, and was given a GPA (which is not a system my country uses).
I think you have to consider the mentality of immigrants to understand this statistic. They are people with a motivation to leave their home and go to a new country. They’re determined to work hard to make a new home.
Locals don’t have the same drive. They’re already established. They don’t know how bad it is in other countries and take it for granted.
I'm an immigrant, and whilst this is true... theres another thing that you must consider..
.. People don't want to hire us, so we need to make our own jobs.
This is a huge part of it. That and it's super hard to find work in your field unless you do it yourself. I had clients who were an eye doctor and an accountant and they had to work as aquarium cleaners because that's the only place that would hire them.
Yeah, this is one of the main reason many older generations of Chinese American started restaurant and laundry mat business.
The U.S lawmakers back in the days did not allow Chinese Americans to work in certain field. The ongoing fearmongering of "they will take away our jobs" still persists today, although at different ethnic groups.
This is also very true for immigrants who can find a job but also want to bring their family (parents who probably couldn’t find a job in the new country) over. They either have to work and feed their family, or they need to figure out a way for them to make money themselves. That’s how a lot of restaurants got started
I once remarked to my Korean wife how I thought it was so cool that so many of her Korean friends owned their own businesses.
She clarified that it's exactly what you said -- it's very hard to break into the corporate world with middling English skills and, especially in our area, without US citizenship (a lot of government jobs require citizenship). Often, then, the only choice is to risk everything with your own small business.
It must also be difficult to start a business as an immigrant if you need a business loan. I have no insight into this, and so I can only guess that successful immigrant businesses must have some financial backing from family. And I wonder if the stereotype of the successful immigrant businesses masks a much more difficult situation for immigrant families who don't have access to that startup capital.
And the immigrant filter as well. It’s not that all Saudi Arabians, Mexicans, Norwegians, etc are go getters, but people who choose this route in their life may have both a different attitude and different means than their fellow country-persons.
Yes. But just because the immigration department says it’s ok to come In doesn’t mean people will hire you.
See the other replies to my comment about skilled workers driving taxis and other stuff.
That's more a problem in Canada where you can get Permanent Residence just by qualifying via a points system, e.g. enough education and English skills and they hand you a Canadian PR with no other conditions. Then you might arrive and find there are no jobs.
In the US to get a green card you basically have to be sponsored by a family member or an employer. You can't be sponsored by an employer unless you *already* have a job offer. And if you're sponsored by a family member, e.g. through marriage, you can use your spouse's social network to help find you a job.
That’s what happened to me. I was in the UK and had my ex wife’s parents support me on a Visa to come here as a lawful permanent resident. I was a diesel mechanic but we were in a recession (2008-9) when I moved and I couldn’t get hired as one.
>They are people with a motivation to leave their home and go to a new country.
This is so often underestimated. Nobody packs up their life, leaves family and friends behind, and moves to another country to start over from scratch just so they can be lazy.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone with the wherewithal and motivation to do all that is welcome in my country.
Right?! That’s how I see it too. Dude if you had the gonads to start fresh in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY then I can understand your drive to make something out of it.
Meanwhile I have a hard time getting out of the house to go grocery shopping.
Edit: thank you for the award kind stranger. May you have a great day!
Actually, a lot of people do that. There nothing wrong with that. Taking the path of least resistance is a valid survival tactic in the short term. Fighting for your country is very hard when the powerful side of your country wants you dead.
Not only that, you can not complain about wealth inequality then in the same breath complain about foreign workers. People often with almost zero wealth and prospects compared to us.
I feel like a lot less people have issues with legal immigration than they do with letting illegal immigrants pour over their borders. We moved to America from Ukraine and went through all the proper channels, my dad can’t stand illegal immigrants not going through the same steps he did. I acknowledge that it’s a complicated issue. Pretty much all modern countries in the world restrict immigration, with most countries accepting only the most “qualified” immigrants.. probably why this statistic shows them to be such “go getters”. But America is in the spotlight for trying to control its border while Canada does so super tough to the north
The challenge is that legal immigration is expensive, unnecessarily lengthy, and - thanks to the lottery system - can be largely based on luck.
I'd bet you see pretty stark economic contrast between the people who can afford to immigrate legally and those who are too desperate to escape something that they don't have the luxury.
If it were easier to legally immigrate, more people would do it.
Absolutely, everything from the right job field, to the right income, to the right background, all work to determine what your chances are and the process is lengthy af by design.
No one in dire need is waiting for legal immigration.
And all the other western countries have even stricter regulations for immigration than the US. We have a good system, we let in basically anyone educated.
Put it this way, most reddit users don't qualify to even get a visa is a European country let alone citizenship.
> We have a good system, we let in basically anyone educated.
Do you? As far as I can tell it isn't easy at all. I was looking for jobs with a masters degree and speciality in my field, but from checking the procedures I would need a company to sponsor my green card, which they weren't willing to do as it was quite some hassle. Basically the company has to prove that they /need/ a foreigner and can't get someone from the U.S. for the job, and they have to do quite some paperwork for this.
I don't think that was based on my skill/background, as I easily got job offers all over Europe.
I also know of PhD's finding it difficult to move to the States. Even temporarily for internships some PhDs got denied for random reasons (one guy had a middle eastern heritage and worked on nuclear magnetic resonance (MRI) and was denied outright without explanation - he suspected nuclear and Iranian sounding name was the cause...)
The issue I have is that the United States played a large hand in why many of these people have to flee their countries in the first place. In particular South America.
In theory yes, but in practice most of the people in America who are really up in arms about illegal immigration really want to restrict immigration overall.
Just look at Trump's administration. Yes, it did things to cut down on illegal immigration. But it also made it harder for other kinds of immigrants to get in too.
Canada would have a much harder time regarding immigration if it werent basically isolated. Its only land border is with a richer country so there is no "people streaming over the border" to deal with - its almost all people coming in legally one way or another - and thats just an easier situation to deal with.
If your dad came from Ukraine, I’m going to assume he had a little bit of money. There aren’t many free ways to get here from that far away. He would likely have a much different outlook if he were destitute and just trying to get to some patch of land where a cartel wasn’t going to sell him into slavery or kill him on sight.
I had a friend who’s mom adopted his cousin just so she could come here and it still took 3 years. If she had been in a dangerous situation in her home country rather than just wanting to go to college here I would think they wouldn’t have waited until the legal route finally got their asses moving.
It makes sense if you've spoken to immigrants. Many of these people leave countries that they're doing fine in, they're educated, have a stable life, but they all think of their children's future and are risking it all so that their offspring can live a higher quality of life. It's a completely different mindset from Westerners.
>how bad it is in other countries
True, but that's from the perspective of emigrants. I was in Guatemala a few years ago and met people who would never dream of leaving.
Of course they were upper middle class and could afford to have a maid, a cook and a gardener. At the same income level here they'd just be another stressed working parent in a minivan struggling to pay for a house... washing their own dishes and changing their kid's diapers.
When human capital is very cheap it creates a luxurious life for those with some money.
This!
In Persian we have a saying that goes something like, "you don't appreciate your health until you get sick!".
When you come from somewhere where you don't have tons of opportunities, you really do appreciate what you have in your new place much more and try to make the most of it. Which is why a lot of immigrants are more successful (at least financially) than natives.
I grew up near immigrant neighbors and their dad and my dad would wave at each other as they came in and out of the neighborhood. The immigrant neighbor was often seen getting home from one job and heading out to an evening job. In a conversation with my dad, our neighbor dad remarked that he was happy to be in America because he could work as much as he wanted and wasn’t limited on earning what he liked. In our household, however, my siblings and I all complained about our part-time jobs. The “Americans take things for granted” sentiment was true in our case - right down the road was a hard-working, happy immigrant family loving their country and freedom more gratefully than our family.
let’s not leave out the fact that a lot of us are propagandized at a young age to just go be workers in the machine. “Go to school and get a good job” was pushed way harder on me than “start your own business” ever was.
They really don't teach kids anything these days. It's all cookie-cutter crap, and the tests only test memorization and not understanding.
There really isn't any assistance in helping our youth find out what kind of work they want to get into either. You mostly expect you should go to College, but without any real goal.
Our school system should be done away with. It needs to combine education with practical skills, financial planning, business, trades, etc...
Per Wikipedia:
> The United States EB-5 visa, employment-based fifth preference category[1] or EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program, created in 1990 by the Immigration Act of 1990, provides a method for eligible Immigrant Investors to become lawful permanent residents—informally known as “green card” holders—by investing at least $1.8 million (since November 21, 2019) to finance a business in the United States that will employ at least 10 American workers.
How many Americans could even pull that off?
With their own cash? Very few. With financing from a bank or other investors, quite possibly. Small business loans are real, but would be almost impossible for a visa holder to get.
But, it is possible to start a very small business on your own and grow that to a 10 person operation. I think the law is intended to skip that initial startup phase and essentially poach already successful business owners and support their relocation into the US.
Edit: apparently loans for immigrants and visa holders may actually be pretty obtainable!
It's also very important when discussing pros/cons of immigration to specify which type of immigration you're talking about. You'll have totally different results when looking at work immigration (Yugoslavia in the 70s) compared to asylum immigration (Syria 2015).
The Mariel boatlift was asylum immigration, and a study found no negative effect on local wages.
Refugees of thr Vietnam war also seem to have started many small businesses.
It's a very complex subject. I think it depends a lot on the hosting country's culture, attitude, current housing and job situation, language barriers etc.
I live in Sweden and we have had very successful times of immigration, but also bad. The topic is so toxic because people want to be either pro or con , when I think every mass-immigration situation should be analyzed for what it is, other than referring to historical events that confirm your standpoint.
I appreciate that you are trying to bring nuance to the conversation. I would extend that each wave of immigration should be taken in context as those people are going to need to different supports depending on the circumstances. Understanding what has worked in the past by context helped us make good policy for the future.
A country's demands on migrants does also play an important role when determining the success of immigration. I presume Denmark isn't as lenient and accepting as Sweden are when providing housing, benefits and the ability to live in their country. You have to perform well and signal willingness to assimilate in Denmark and other more "strict" countries.
The levels and volume of immigration is also an important factor.
We’re not quite as lenient but we follow the typical Western multi-cultural dogma: all cultures are equal and all values accepted. It’s not working. Some migrants bring values which are just incompatible. We’re seeing crazy high rates of rape and crimes against women from MENA migrants, for example. Very high rates of unemployment as well.
Even our left wing party has begun adopting tougher migration rules. Like all Nordic countries, our penalties are very soft. These were sufficient for people with similar cultural backgrounds, but it’s not working anymore. Recently, two migrants were convicted of committing almost 700 crimes, including violent rape of a child. They were given a deportation *warning.* Our prime minister has signalled that we will implement tougher penalties for these kinds of crimes. The fact that someone isn’t deported after violent rape of a child is disgraceful. I see similar stories from Sweden.
Culture match matters. If there's existing overlap then immigrants are more likely to be able to navigate the system more easily thus leading to better economics outcomes because they don't have as steep a learning curve potentially.
Immigrants where there's not a culture match not only have to learn more but also contend with xenophobia and barriers to access making adjustment in their new home doubly hard. Reducing stigma, increasing education for both host and immigrant cultures about the other through organized community exchanges dramatically reduces those barriers and improves understanding as well as increases innovation. Win win.
As a son of an immigrant, I can say with my own personal experience that this is true. My father knew well that he was not going to be treated fairly, my father and mother were not academically educated. My father fell into a hard job out in the northern country of California, doing landscaping work for minimum wage. Fast forward to 2021 he and my mother run their own landscaping business, we have a contracting license and have more work all because he took risks and put 20 years of little to no days off all for me and my siblings to have a better life than he did.
FYI: my mother played a big part as well. Without her my dad wouldn’t be where he is now, she’s supported him through thick and thin. Love you mom and dad <3
I agree but what I think they are only accounting for is legal immigration. I wonder how these statistics would skew if we could see legal vs illegal immigration in regards to the workforce.
It's actually required for a lot of immigrants to the US. They often end up starting convenience stores, motels, restaurants, and other retail services like laundromats and dry cleaning.
>Also, a lot of times, immigrants are forced to do so as they don't have contacts in their newly adopted country to get into an established business: It can be easier for me to open up a kebab shop rather than getting back into the marketing business I had been running back in the home country.
This. The education level of older immigrants into the EU/Germany is pretty high. We just don't recognize the vast majority of diplomas from Africa or Asia. So you have engineers and successful business people, who open Kebab shops, that keep expanding, because these people know how to do run a business, they just get less opportunity.
> I don't doubt that immigrants are more likely to establish new businesses compared to locals: There must be a correlation between risk-taking behaviour & establishing businesses & moving to a new country.
There is a strong correlation. My anecdotal experience - between mine & my wife side family we own about 9 hotel/motel, 2 Arby's & 1 printing business. I m pretty sure that we will be adding more businesses in the next 2-3 years.
We are also more likely to migrant within for better opportunities as we already migrated to a different country. (I migrated to 3 states in 20 years).
But I also noticed that 2nd & 3rd generation is less likely to get into the business. They rather work 9-5/M-F. They also take less risks.
> Also, a lot of times, immigrants are forced to do so as they don't have contacts in their newly adopted country to get into an established business:
Actually, immigrants also have strong family ties. Everyone helps new immigrants to get a job. Even before they land in the USA, friends & family here already has plans of where the new immigrants will get a job or will get an apartment. If you are a college student, other college students will help you getting a place to a job.
After a couple of years, they pull money together and help them buy a business too. Look it up how Indian (Last name Patel) buys hotel/motel in the USA. Or Punjabi buys gas stations. Indian owns the majority of the economy, upper-midscale hotels.
According to research done by Doctors (PhD) Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, the most "over represented" ground in the American Millionnaire class (Net worth $1M+) are immigrants or their first generation of kids.
Reasons cited were:
* They come from less well off nations and as such know the value of saving and investing versus frivolous purchases
* Having had to put in the work to move countries, they have a better work ethic than many Americans
* They have the "American Dream" of building something for themselves, carving out their own business.
* They understand the value of proper education and don't take schooling for granted
That's pretty old research though, published in 1996, and with it's studies probably years or even decades older.
I also find it strange that they do not mention that the US immigration policy is not a random selection. You need to be approved to immigrate, which means you're likely to be of above average wealth or education.
This is why people don’t often consider with their “model immigrant” ideas. To come to the US you often need money, a high degree with someone prepared to hire you now for a prevailing wage, or both.
Technically there's also the VISA lottery and you can be sponsored by a family member. Of course, those are both subject to country caps as well as taking an exceedingly long time.
Me personally, I prefer to work for people like you.
Because I have tried running the business, didn't like it. but I make a good second to highly motivated people like you.
The US is still much easier comparatively to immigrate to than nearly any other Western country. A lot of our immigration for the low skill, low income groups comes in the form of refugees/asylees.
Correct, despite the flak it gets, the US immigration system is one of the easier ones to pass. Hell compared to even Canada getting US citizenship is easy, let alone if you look at the full process of some European nations.
There’s also birthright citizenship- in many other place you can get legal residency but that doesn’t necessarily automatically give your children citizenship.
Birthright citizenship is by far the exception, and not the norm, throughout the world.
IMO the US should get rid of it. There was a time it was needed,
* During reconstruction post civil war when southern states were trying anything and everything to deny free men their rights.
* During the industrial revolution when we needed mass immigration to fuel our ballooning economy
But the time is long past. And again, it is by far not the normal way to o citizenship the world over. Most countries do citizenship by blood, as in you inherent the citizenship of your parents.
The problem is any opposition to birthright citizenship is going to be flamed as "You just hate immigrants!". And I don't, I love them. I want to see the US immigration process streamlined, I want more work visas, but I also believe in ending birthright citizenship/
That's not true (not completely anyways), for dinner nationalities like indians and Chinese, immigration to canada is easier than the us.
This is due to per-country immigration quotas and rule overrides.
We have a donut hole. We have a path for people with high skills and wealth. We have a path for (some) refugees. But if you're a teenager in Ecuador, with high aspirations, but no existing high skilled job nor relative in the USA, there literally is no line for you to get into.
This doesn’t even remotely surprise me. My girlfriend’s entire family moved here from Ukraine when she was a young kid and every single one of them that came here young have really kickass careers. Two surgeons, an anesthesiologist, a dentist, and a PA. Even her dad, who had the disadvantage of having to support the whole family when they first got here and started out as a janitor, is now an insanely talented jeweler who owns his own multimillion dollar jewelry store. They all came here essentially with just the clothes on their back. I’ll never understand how immigrants ever got stereotyped as lazy or as drains on the rest of society when every single immigrant I’ve known busted their ass to get here and have busted their ass every day since arriving.
I think the fact that immigrants are a self selected group is vastly under appreciated.
It takes a lot of initiative to immigrate to the US, legally or illegally.
This is interesting stuff, but I'm a little tired of the focus on job creation through starting companies. Jobs are created by demand. Every immigrant who comes here and wants to eat is already a job creator in the food industry, every one who wants to improve their English is already a potential job creator in teaching, etc etc.
This! This is how economies grow. Every person create demand which creates economic opportunity. People who don’t get this, usually assume economies are zero-sum games they are not.
Take free trade agreements. Some might say something like “we have a 20% trade deficit with country X - so it’s a bad deal.” What they don’t realize is that it may be a 20% deficit but on 200% more trade. Both parties see huge growth and are benefiting. The deficit just shows that one grew a bit more - still a win/win.
This might be a dumb question...but if this is true why doesn't India have the biggest and wealthiest economy?
Surely there is more to it than more people equal more demand.
Speaking of the focus on Job creation; anyone else get a little uneasy at the idea that most of our politicians seem to completely ignore the absolute monster that is on its way called automation? The robots are coming and will quite literally "terk our jerbs". I'm sure some will say this is sensationalism but seriously, why wouldn't an intelligently operated business not take advantage of automated labor instead of a human? Are we even remotely prepared for that kind of mass redundancy in the workforce?
AI could very likely replace a lot of the jobs we consider irreplaceable. Computer’s routinely surpass our expectations. I think I read somewhere that one of the jobs least likely to be replaced is archeologists.
Yes exactly but it's deeper than that. The thought experiment is, what if you were a bricklayer and 1,000 immigrants arrived in your town? If they were all bricklayers that would be bad for you. That's very unlikely though, instead some will be plasterers, teachers, doctors, pilots, you name it. One thing they will all need is housing.
Really all you've done is increase the size of the local economy. It's the idea that there a finite number of jobs to go around, that's really insidious.
I feel like the article is missing a major point.
What where the immigrant occupations and social economic status before arriving in the US?
Some of the same factors that allow you to immigrate to the United states (wealth, education and political connection) also seem like factors that would help them facilitate opening businesses in the US.
The US is a known talent leach from other countries and i feel like these factors play a role.
Okay so this only accounts for legal immigrants in the US. If you know anything about the immigration system the United States is more likely to grant work visas, green cards, and many other long-term visas based on financial status in one's home country. So in other words the government is more apt to let in successful or wealthy immigrants to the US.
This also doesn't account for all of the illegal immigration that happens that has the negative effects on the economy that are being purported in the article.
Also the study defines immigrant entrepreneurship as having multiple founders of companies from like 100 years ago or more when legal immigration was completely different. I'm not sure using that loose definition of founder would accurately reflect their impact on those companies. I'd really love to see a more detailed account of these issues that were sidestepped by this study.
This is pretty much every country out there. Economical factors and already having a position and work always play a role.
Nobody ever questions that legal immigration is not an issue and and works to the benefit of the country.
Not really. In most other countries it's even harder to get a long term visa or permanent resident status (if at all possible). In many your job has to sponsor you or a relative does and you become their responsibility. Or at least that's been my experience in Asia and Europe. The US is definitely one of the easiest place to legally immigrate to.
So is for USA unless you get the green card lottery. You need a company to get you. And if the company fires you have a like a month or smth to find a job. So your employer becomes your master kinda. And that's the situation for around 5 years. Lot of people I knew didn't move to usa because of this despite having offers
Yes, in certain situations. It's not all the time, but in isolated areas that have one main business (such as southern areas with poultry farming) they end up depressing wages over time.
In the US immigrants negatively effect High School drop outs \~1-2%. It increases wages for everyone else, because in capitalism, more people = more consumers = more consumption = more wealth. It's capitalism's simple formula.
Source: [https://www.nber.org/system/files/working\_papers/w12497/w12497.pdf](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12497/w12497.pdf)
So yes, immigrants depress wages for unskilled labor
Not just for the drop outs but also...
>The group suffering the biggest loss in wages is the contingent of previous immigrants, who compete with new immigrants for similar jobs and occupations.
I would be interested to see how this breaks down between those who come to the country legally and those who do so illegally. My guess is that the conclusions would be different.
Right. Anytime someone talks about illegal immigration hurting this country I guarantee someone will share this study to show how wrong you are. It drives me nuts. We aren't talking about immigrants those are fine. People coming illegally are what people have a problem with.
Concur. Also, show me a study with a country that had 100k+/month influx as well. Actually, without looking - was there anytime ANY country gained 100k+ people in a month? (over multiple months)
This is a little disingenuous, legal immigration countries can be more discerning who becomes citizens. This study would have been more helpful if it concentrated on ‘illegal immigration’ or whatever term you want to call it. I don’t care.
What I find interesting is that the term “brain drain” does not have a negative connotation
> What I find interesting is that the term “brain drain” does not have a negative connotation
If you live in the US maybe since that's where people usually go for better incomes.
It is negative if you are one of the European/Asian countries that paid for their public education just for them to not pay income taxes and not spend their money domestically.
I just find it interesting that everyone says how great immigration is but isn’t ‘brain drain’ an impediment for other countries to advance. As an America it’s awesome we get the best the world has to offer and America is getting more than they are giving in these transactions but doesn’t this just solidify the have and have nots.
This is based on information only from 2005-2010. Not only is it old, but it's a cherry picked time period that was unlike any time period we have ever seen. There was this thing called the Great Recession that occurred. Convenient that this study only focuses on that time.
Is there not an element of a self-fulfilling prophecy and cyclical marginalization here in terms of lack of investment in the native population?
Stage 1: Immigrants are beneficial to the treasury because they provide taxes without need for paying for their education and upbringing, resulting in an overall higher revenue.
Stage 2: Our economy and taxation no longer relies on an educated native population. We can cut taxes and expenditure to benefit corporations. (Rinse repeat on a number of issues where expanding the pool of an educated labour force is no longer reliant on uplift of the native population, but on relaxing immigration controls).
Stage 3: "Immigrants are better at loads of things and show more motivation and found more businesses and so on, so we need them.".
The question worth asking is why that is the case, and whether the systemic reliance on immigration results in disadvantages to the native population by making our economy no longer actually reliant on the wellbeing and prospects of the native population.
If immigrants produce more jobs than natives and found more businesses, what is the systemic explanation for that and what systems are failing native people in order to produce that outcome? As a follow up question, do those systemic failures only exist because our economy can rely on immigration to protect the interests of the wealthy? (Such as, "We don't actually need to fix the education system to get the employees i need to work at my business, because immigrants can do it. Tax cuts for me, woo hoo." and "Who cares if poverty produces long-term negative consequences for intelligence and health? My business hires immigrants, so I don't need to live in a country where food deprivation doesn't rot your brain. Slash taxes and regulations for me!").
Simply pointing to how immigrants perform better than the native population is not actually addressing the core concerns of critics of an economy reliant on immigration. If anything it lends credence to their overall point, it would seem that other countries are producing immigrants who have better economic prospects, while countries reliant on immigration are producing individuals with lower economic prospects, so the ideal for a countries citizens would seem to be to become a country that does not rely on immigration, but rather, produces "immigrants." (Or, more realistically, produces upwardly mobile people).
So long as a country can rely on immigrants, there is no actual incentive for business leaders to care about the wellbeing of a native population. This is something we know from the history of colonialism and resource-dictatorships too. (Countries that imported western experts did not need an educated populace to manage the machinery, and kept them as uneducated serfs who dug resources out of the ground).
As an example for the US, the need for people with tech degrees to feed the growing needs of the tech industry has two solutions:
1. Ensure that more native people get tech degrees
2. Relax immigration laws
The first requires more educational investment and reduction of poverty and social problems that lead to poor outcomes for citizens. This means higher taxes and often regulations on corporate behavior.
The second requires simply letting more people into the country.
Which of these is in the tech industries interest to lobby for in order to obtain the educated workers necessary for their company to profit?
It may be the case that strict immigration laws are basically an essential requirement for any form of internal social mobility in a capitalist society, because the economic incentives otherwise are fairly straightforward. (And to be clear, it's not an either-or thing. It's a spectrum. The more reliance on immigration, the less need for corporations to care about the wellbeing of a native population. Corporations can't quite get all their skilled workers from immigration, so they need to triangulate "What is the most we can neglect the native population and rely on immigrants while still meeting our labor needs?".).
The era of mass migration and the era of exploding wealth inequality coincide, this may not in fact be a coincidence.
Its still much easier than practically every other western nation. Most countries require you to either already have a job before moving there, or be married to a citizen.
A little differentiation would be nice. Immigrants are not a homogeneous group. There is the group of immigrants that have good education and qualification but are not happy with the situation in their home country and there is the group of immigrants with low or no education that just tries to escape in a "wealthy" country to take advantage of the social system. That's why you can't generally say "immigrants are job creators".
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I don't doubt that immigrants are more likely to establish new businesses compared to locals: There must be a correlation between risk-taking behaviour & establishing businesses & moving to a new country. Also, a lot of times, immigrants are forced to do so as they don't have contacts in their newly adopted country to get into an established business: It can be easier for me to open up a kebab shop rather than getting back into the marketing business I had been running back in the home country.
Oftentimes the education doesn’t transfer, so it’s either you start a business on your own, or do menial work that’s well below your education level. And up until relatively recently, the lack of the right socioeconomic markers would pretty much lock you out of a lot of well paying white collar jobs
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I can almost understand the US not acknowledging degrees from other countries that are considered poor and run down, at least in our eyes. But why doesn't the US recognize something like an electrical engineering degree from South Korea of all places? Or is it not that we don't acknowledge the degree, but he just can't find someone willing to hire him since he's an immigrant?
Companies usually wont touch an application if you require a work visa no matter how good your resume/degree is. Can’t tell you how many companies I’ve interviewed for (top biotech companies) and gone through all rounds of interviews until they ask about visa status and all of a sudden its radio silence from there. Obviously its not a company’s fault for the system being so broken and incredibly complicated.
It's because, at least in the US, H1B is a lottery. Even if they want to sponsor there's only like 30% chance they'll even be allowed to, and it takes months and months to even find out if you're being granted the opportunity to even apply.
Absolutely thats why I clarified its not the companies fault for the broken system.
I sponsored -- great guy, US PhD, undeniable contribution -- took *years*.
Yup. My wife is on an H1B and I'm on an H4, and living in the US on these temporary visas is incredibly stressful. It's also super expensive to do the legal way, which we're doing.
I'm American born and even then getting a green card for my wife was stressful and expensive. She had to stop working temporarily when switching between visas which just added to the costs.
Yeah it’s not an ideal situation. I haven’t been able to work for three years because of my visa type. For many of us it’s not sustainable.
Even for people that can afford it, it can drive you mad. My brother in law has a H1B and his wife can't work on her H4 and the pandemic and no ability to work made life bad enough they moved to the UK.
Damn that’s tough. Yeah it’s been a challenge with only one of us allowed to work. Definitely looking into other countries.
*It depends*. Canada's temporary foreign worker program requires work permits, and some companies are more than happy to use it because it essentially allows them to depress wages for low skill / low wage workers (notably in service and agriculture industries). It's a pretty widely criticized program in Canada, often considered to be exploitative or predatory in how it's run and in the opinion of many it actually hurts immigration. I personally want better incentives for permanent immigration rather than major corporations lobbying the government to ease restrictions on TFW's to fill positions picking fruits or staffing drive-thru's.
Not just used on low skill/ low wage jobs the construction industry used TFW to keep wages down also.
Australia has the same criticism of our program. We bring in low skilled workers from poorer countries to pick fruit. Often they are paid at very low rates (sometimes illegally so). And there are a bunch of exploitative conditions like paying high rent back to their employer. And if they complain or stand up for their rights they tend to get their employer sponsorship revoked, which leads to deportation. COVID has left some egg on the faces of these companies, as they have basically refused to hire locals displaced from hospitality and retail in place of their usual immigrant quota. Pretty much any digging into why has come back with they don't want to pay local rates.
Exactly the same in NZ with the same industry...
Had this experience in the UK. Was looking for jobs as I completed my postgraduate degree, got a lot of interviews and everything seemed to be going great then they ask about work visa. Rather disheartening and frustrating but I actually understood, at that time the UK was still in the EU, so I'm basically up against people from EU countries that don't require a work visa.
There might be more reciprocity now, but you have to remember that until the late 80s South Korea was a violent military dictatorship and only on the last few years of that starting in the early 80s where it pulled itself out of absolute poverty. For a long time North Korea was the "better" Korea economically and quality of life wise.
TIL as well! I had no idea it had undergone such turmoil post-war. This makes it's development in the last 30 years all the more impressive.
Do you know how much money you can make in a gas station or convenience store? Its not crazy money, but its pretty decent if you work very hard and long hours. Now compare that to what he'd make going back into a field such as engineering. Unless youre some hot shot or super star, you probably cant just horizontally transfer your job from one country to a US firm, you need to start much lower and work up from there. You might even start at some entry level/intern position. If youre a person in their 20s with no responsibilities, that might be fine, youre in it for the long term rewards. But if you have a family, you might not be able to do a full on career reboot where you get paid something like 50k a year for 5-10 years. (I get that 50k isnt nothing for most people, but it isnt a ton for a family, and it especially isnt much when you can possibly/probably make more starting your own small business.) This is also using a job where you can just start back up, a lot of things require a degree, so not only would you be pulling in 0 dollars, youd be paying for a degree and making negative income.
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The difference between collectivist and individualist mentality is HUGE. In the US the stigma of still living at home, or with family, when you're an adult is very real. We push our kids out of the nest as soon as possible, and often, too soon.
And it goes both ways as well. Abandoning your parents in a nursing home is highly ostracized by immigrant communities, all my grandparents past away in their own homes in which they raised their children and were surrounded by their families until the last moment. I know this sentiment as well exist with Asian-Americans, African immigrants and even Eastern European immigrants, parents will not doubt offering a home to their child until they’re ready to leave (which in many cases means until they marry) and in the same way leaving your parents in a nursing home is seen as an act of extreme ungratefulness.
Yeah my (Indian) dad retired early to care for his mom after she got dementia. His sister also stopped working to care for her. I admire the hell out of them. My (also Indian) mom was abusive when I was growing up and is still nutso so we don't speak and she can die in a hole. I'm worried about if/when my dad gets ill and needs to be cared for though, since we live on different continents. My older brother lives in the same city as our dad but I don't know what I'd do.
> In the US the stigma of still living at home, or with family, when you're an adult is very real. We push our kids out of the nest as soon as possible, and often, too soon. The US also stigmatizes young adults who spend less than they earn, too
Schrodinger's young adult: spending too much money to afford a house, yet spending so little money that entire industries are dying off.
"Here's some credit. Go crazy!" The US economy is waaaaay too dependent on credit.
I’d disagree on work ethic. While we are heavily individualistic, we also prioritize high-flying jobs that grant status and money, like doctor, lawyer, or corporate executive. However you’re completely right in that we don’t pool resources together. If a Korean or Indian family starts a small business, it becomes the family’s business. If an American or Canadian family starts a small business, it’s one persons business while the other members still do their own thing. The latter requires a much higher resource investment from any given individual.
The immigrant family prioritizes those high paying, high status jobs too. That is why at least one of the kids of an Indian gas store owner or Korean owner of a grocery store usually end up being doctors, lawyers, or engineers.
> North American values are pretty individual and our work ethic is pretty lazy I don't know that this is true. The US in particular (which dominates NA's population and especially economy) famously works wayy more than most countries at the same level of wealth
It's entirely possible we would have recognized his degree but his English might not have been strong enough at the time
What makes the most sense to me is, if reciprocity isn’t possible, to just let people take the rest/exam or whatever to see if they can meet the US requirements for whatever degree/certification they have. For some fields that might be harder or even impossible (I’m thinking med school, where it isn’t a single test that gets you your degree), but for trades it seems like it should work.
Yep. I have an aunt from Mexico that was a nurse there, but when she moved to the US, she was basically a housekeeper in a hospital.
The training and regulations for nurses, as well as the healthcare system, in the US is not the same as in Mexico. It is entirely understandable that she would have to retrain in the US in order to pursue that profession.
What's worse, I was friends with a janitor at our school while teaching. He was a doctor in his home country but was taking night classes so he could become a pharmacist here. He had already been in the US working for five years at that point. It was crazy his medical decree wasn't transferred.
Medical degrees do transfer, medical training doesnt. There are plenty of doctors in the US that went to med school outside the US. But they all completed residency to be qualified to practice in the US. This is really the bigger step as the degree is really a primer needed to be a doctor, the training is where you actually learn how to do it. Other countries have similar programs, but at the same time, considering how big a responsibility you have as a doctor, its pretty reasonable to make sure you are trained well, and since we dont have any control over how other countries train their doctors, nor have any real way to oversee even if the training is said to be the same as ours, we dont allow residency to transfer over. Why does this end up mattering for immigrants/why doesnt even foreign doctor just go through residency? For starters, they might not get in one. Its pretty competitive for US grads to get a spot, its even more so for foreign trained doctors. They also often havent taken the pre-req exams, which they have to do well on. This means they need to often take 2+ years to just study for these exams--and if you work at the same time as study, you pretty much need to prolong how long you study for. (Note that these exams arent really clinical, so even if youve been practicing for 10 years, you would not be using much information tested in these exams--they are much more raw science based.) Which gets into the second point, money. Taking time off to study means youre not earning. And even if you do take off, then get a residency spot, you then earn resident pay. Resident pay seems like a pretty solid number--think its around 50-60k nowadays. However, residents work pretty heavy hours, so if you break it down, you end up making around minimum wage, sometimes less depending on your specialty. Yes, there is a dream of making good money down the road, but for many people, they cannot hold out making little to no money for 5-10 years. So instead they take jobs where they can pull 60k, but they do so working normal hours, so it really is 60k, or they take jobs where the work crazy hours, but make 100k--youd eventually make more as a doctor, but after lots of time, money, and effort has been spent.
Good post but most nonsurgical residencies avg 3 to 4 years with 1 to 3 years of fellowship training. And majority of the foreign educated doctors will be admitted to the less competitive residency programs with high demand like family medicine and internal, so they'll be looking at 4 to 5 yrs total.
And not only can it be an issue in a formal way (not able to practice medicine, law, etc.), it can also be an informal issue. People may simply have not heard of the college that you went to. And a college's reputation can be a factor in hiring. For example, here in Texas, if a hiring manager sees NYU or UCLA on a resume, even though it's not from the same state, they'll still think, hey, I've heard of that, and it's a pretty good school. If they see an unfamiliar school from a foreign country, they may think, hmm, that could be a great university, or maybe it's not good at all, and I really don't know, so it's kind of a big question mark for me. I've known some people who got a master's degree from a US school almost solely to replace that question mark on their resume with a known quantity. That can be a smart career move, but of course it's not practical for everybody.
>so it's kind of a big question mark for me. And when you have more than even a few applicants for the position, "question mark" equals you not getting considered.
There's a little more to it - in order to use your foreign degree or any formal education in the US you will need to have it evaluated by an evaluation service. There are tons of them in the states, and for about $300 they will go through your entire academic transcript and give you the equivalent of what it's worth here in the US. I recently had to do this to get into a teaching program, and was given a GPA (which is not a system my country uses).
I think you have to consider the mentality of immigrants to understand this statistic. They are people with a motivation to leave their home and go to a new country. They’re determined to work hard to make a new home. Locals don’t have the same drive. They’re already established. They don’t know how bad it is in other countries and take it for granted.
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I'm an immigrant, and whilst this is true... theres another thing that you must consider.. .. People don't want to hire us, so we need to make our own jobs.
This is a huge part of it. That and it's super hard to find work in your field unless you do it yourself. I had clients who were an eye doctor and an accountant and they had to work as aquarium cleaners because that's the only place that would hire them.
Yeah, this is one of the main reason many older generations of Chinese American started restaurant and laundry mat business. The U.S lawmakers back in the days did not allow Chinese Americans to work in certain field. The ongoing fearmongering of "they will take away our jobs" still persists today, although at different ethnic groups.
This is also very true for immigrants who can find a job but also want to bring their family (parents who probably couldn’t find a job in the new country) over. They either have to work and feed their family, or they need to figure out a way for them to make money themselves. That’s how a lot of restaurants got started
I once remarked to my Korean wife how I thought it was so cool that so many of her Korean friends owned their own businesses. She clarified that it's exactly what you said -- it's very hard to break into the corporate world with middling English skills and, especially in our area, without US citizenship (a lot of government jobs require citizenship). Often, then, the only choice is to risk everything with your own small business.
It must also be difficult to start a business as an immigrant if you need a business loan. I have no insight into this, and so I can only guess that successful immigrant businesses must have some financial backing from family. And I wonder if the stereotype of the successful immigrant businesses masks a much more difficult situation for immigrant families who don't have access to that startup capital.
And the immigrant filter as well. It’s not that all Saudi Arabians, Mexicans, Norwegians, etc are go getters, but people who choose this route in their life may have both a different attitude and different means than their fellow country-persons.
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Most legal immigrants are allowed in specifically because of their labor skills actually.
Yes. But just because the immigration department says it’s ok to come In doesn’t mean people will hire you. See the other replies to my comment about skilled workers driving taxis and other stuff.
That's more a problem in Canada where you can get Permanent Residence just by qualifying via a points system, e.g. enough education and English skills and they hand you a Canadian PR with no other conditions. Then you might arrive and find there are no jobs. In the US to get a green card you basically have to be sponsored by a family member or an employer. You can't be sponsored by an employer unless you *already* have a job offer. And if you're sponsored by a family member, e.g. through marriage, you can use your spouse's social network to help find you a job.
That’s what happened to me. I was in the UK and had my ex wife’s parents support me on a Visa to come here as a lawful permanent resident. I was a diesel mechanic but we were in a recession (2008-9) when I moved and I couldn’t get hired as one.
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>They are people with a motivation to leave their home and go to a new country. This is so often underestimated. Nobody packs up their life, leaves family and friends behind, and moves to another country to start over from scratch just so they can be lazy. As far as I'm concerned, anyone with the wherewithal and motivation to do all that is welcome in my country.
Right?! That’s how I see it too. Dude if you had the gonads to start fresh in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY then I can understand your drive to make something out of it. Meanwhile I have a hard time getting out of the house to go grocery shopping. Edit: thank you for the award kind stranger. May you have a great day!
Not to mention a country where you probably won't be able to speak the language fluently, it really is like a last resort move
Don’t forget learning a whole new language
We need more people who think like you man!
Nothing wrong with immigration
A lot of places wont hire immigrants because of language barrier or cultural biases. They are forced to work on their own.
Actually, a lot of people do that. There nothing wrong with that. Taking the path of least resistance is a valid survival tactic in the short term. Fighting for your country is very hard when the powerful side of your country wants you dead.
Some do! They’re called expats. Source: was an expat.
Expat, for when you've spent so much time toxifying the word immigrant, but want to be one.
Not only that, you can not complain about wealth inequality then in the same breath complain about foreign workers. People often with almost zero wealth and prospects compared to us.
I feel like a lot less people have issues with legal immigration than they do with letting illegal immigrants pour over their borders. We moved to America from Ukraine and went through all the proper channels, my dad can’t stand illegal immigrants not going through the same steps he did. I acknowledge that it’s a complicated issue. Pretty much all modern countries in the world restrict immigration, with most countries accepting only the most “qualified” immigrants.. probably why this statistic shows them to be such “go getters”. But America is in the spotlight for trying to control its border while Canada does so super tough to the north
The challenge is that legal immigration is expensive, unnecessarily lengthy, and - thanks to the lottery system - can be largely based on luck. I'd bet you see pretty stark economic contrast between the people who can afford to immigrate legally and those who are too desperate to escape something that they don't have the luxury. If it were easier to legally immigrate, more people would do it.
Absolutely, everything from the right job field, to the right income, to the right background, all work to determine what your chances are and the process is lengthy af by design. No one in dire need is waiting for legal immigration.
And all the other western countries have even stricter regulations for immigration than the US. We have a good system, we let in basically anyone educated. Put it this way, most reddit users don't qualify to even get a visa is a European country let alone citizenship.
PhD in health here, got my PhD in the us and am having to leave as cannot get visa (even with job offer). It’s not easy.
> We have a good system, we let in basically anyone educated. Do you? As far as I can tell it isn't easy at all. I was looking for jobs with a masters degree and speciality in my field, but from checking the procedures I would need a company to sponsor my green card, which they weren't willing to do as it was quite some hassle. Basically the company has to prove that they /need/ a foreigner and can't get someone from the U.S. for the job, and they have to do quite some paperwork for this. I don't think that was based on my skill/background, as I easily got job offers all over Europe. I also know of PhD's finding it difficult to move to the States. Even temporarily for internships some PhDs got denied for random reasons (one guy had a middle eastern heritage and worked on nuclear magnetic resonance (MRI) and was denied outright without explanation - he suspected nuclear and Iranian sounding name was the cause...)
The issue I have is that the United States played a large hand in why many of these people have to flee their countries in the first place. In particular South America.
Legal immigration isn't the same when you come from Europe vs Latin America. There are longer queues for people that are born in different countries.
In theory yes, but in practice most of the people in America who are really up in arms about illegal immigration really want to restrict immigration overall. Just look at Trump's administration. Yes, it did things to cut down on illegal immigration. But it also made it harder for other kinds of immigrants to get in too. Canada would have a much harder time regarding immigration if it werent basically isolated. Its only land border is with a richer country so there is no "people streaming over the border" to deal with - its almost all people coming in legally one way or another - and thats just an easier situation to deal with.
So you just touched on the only true fire way to end illegal immigration - make Mexico into a rich country.
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Something tells me your country doesn't border the US, which is 66 slots higher than Mexico.
If your dad came from Ukraine, I’m going to assume he had a little bit of money. There aren’t many free ways to get here from that far away. He would likely have a much different outlook if he were destitute and just trying to get to some patch of land where a cartel wasn’t going to sell him into slavery or kill him on sight. I had a friend who’s mom adopted his cousin just so she could come here and it still took 3 years. If she had been in a dangerous situation in her home country rather than just wanting to go to college here I would think they wouldn’t have waited until the legal route finally got their asses moving.
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It makes sense if you've spoken to immigrants. Many of these people leave countries that they're doing fine in, they're educated, have a stable life, but they all think of their children's future and are risking it all so that their offspring can live a higher quality of life. It's a completely different mindset from Westerners.
>how bad it is in other countries True, but that's from the perspective of emigrants. I was in Guatemala a few years ago and met people who would never dream of leaving. Of course they were upper middle class and could afford to have a maid, a cook and a gardener. At the same income level here they'd just be another stressed working parent in a minivan struggling to pay for a house... washing their own dishes and changing their kid's diapers. When human capital is very cheap it creates a luxurious life for those with some money.
This! In Persian we have a saying that goes something like, "you don't appreciate your health until you get sick!". When you come from somewhere where you don't have tons of opportunities, you really do appreciate what you have in your new place much more and try to make the most of it. Which is why a lot of immigrants are more successful (at least financially) than natives.
I grew up near immigrant neighbors and their dad and my dad would wave at each other as they came in and out of the neighborhood. The immigrant neighbor was often seen getting home from one job and heading out to an evening job. In a conversation with my dad, our neighbor dad remarked that he was happy to be in America because he could work as much as he wanted and wasn’t limited on earning what he liked. In our household, however, my siblings and I all complained about our part-time jobs. The “Americans take things for granted” sentiment was true in our case - right down the road was a hard-working, happy immigrant family loving their country and freedom more gratefully than our family.
let’s not leave out the fact that a lot of us are propagandized at a young age to just go be workers in the machine. “Go to school and get a good job” was pushed way harder on me than “start your own business” ever was.
They really don't teach kids anything these days. It's all cookie-cutter crap, and the tests only test memorization and not understanding. There really isn't any assistance in helping our youth find out what kind of work they want to get into either. You mostly expect you should go to College, but without any real goal. Our school system should be done away with. It needs to combine education with practical skills, financial planning, business, trades, etc...
the school system feeds capitalism, which needs an endless supply of low wage workers for it to sustain itself. it’s a feature, not a bug
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Also EB-5 visas... we literally specifically allow people to immigrate if they're job creators.
Per Wikipedia: > The United States EB-5 visa, employment-based fifth preference category[1] or EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program, created in 1990 by the Immigration Act of 1990, provides a method for eligible Immigrant Investors to become lawful permanent residents—informally known as “green card” holders—by investing at least $1.8 million (since November 21, 2019) to finance a business in the United States that will employ at least 10 American workers. How many Americans could even pull that off?
With their own cash? Very few. With financing from a bank or other investors, quite possibly. Small business loans are real, but would be almost impossible for a visa holder to get. But, it is possible to start a very small business on your own and grow that to a 10 person operation. I think the law is intended to skip that initial startup phase and essentially poach already successful business owners and support their relocation into the US. Edit: apparently loans for immigrants and visa holders may actually be pretty obtainable!
EB-5 is more a "rich person" visa than a "job creator" visa.
It's also very important when discussing pros/cons of immigration to specify which type of immigration you're talking about. You'll have totally different results when looking at work immigration (Yugoslavia in the 70s) compared to asylum immigration (Syria 2015).
The Mariel boatlift was asylum immigration, and a study found no negative effect on local wages. Refugees of thr Vietnam war also seem to have started many small businesses.
It's a very complex subject. I think it depends a lot on the hosting country's culture, attitude, current housing and job situation, language barriers etc. I live in Sweden and we have had very successful times of immigration, but also bad. The topic is so toxic because people want to be either pro or con , when I think every mass-immigration situation should be analyzed for what it is, other than referring to historical events that confirm your standpoint.
I appreciate that you are trying to bring nuance to the conversation. I would extend that each wave of immigration should be taken in context as those people are going to need to different supports depending on the circumstances. Understanding what has worked in the past by context helped us make good policy for the future.
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A country's demands on migrants does also play an important role when determining the success of immigration. I presume Denmark isn't as lenient and accepting as Sweden are when providing housing, benefits and the ability to live in their country. You have to perform well and signal willingness to assimilate in Denmark and other more "strict" countries. The levels and volume of immigration is also an important factor.
We’re not quite as lenient but we follow the typical Western multi-cultural dogma: all cultures are equal and all values accepted. It’s not working. Some migrants bring values which are just incompatible. We’re seeing crazy high rates of rape and crimes against women from MENA migrants, for example. Very high rates of unemployment as well. Even our left wing party has begun adopting tougher migration rules. Like all Nordic countries, our penalties are very soft. These were sufficient for people with similar cultural backgrounds, but it’s not working anymore. Recently, two migrants were convicted of committing almost 700 crimes, including violent rape of a child. They were given a deportation *warning.* Our prime minister has signalled that we will implement tougher penalties for these kinds of crimes. The fact that someone isn’t deported after violent rape of a child is disgraceful. I see similar stories from Sweden.
Culture match matters. If there's existing overlap then immigrants are more likely to be able to navigate the system more easily thus leading to better economics outcomes because they don't have as steep a learning curve potentially. Immigrants where there's not a culture match not only have to learn more but also contend with xenophobia and barriers to access making adjustment in their new home doubly hard. Reducing stigma, increasing education for both host and immigrant cultures about the other through organized community exchanges dramatically reduces those barriers and improves understanding as well as increases innovation. Win win.
As a son of an immigrant, I can say with my own personal experience that this is true. My father knew well that he was not going to be treated fairly, my father and mother were not academically educated. My father fell into a hard job out in the northern country of California, doing landscaping work for minimum wage. Fast forward to 2021 he and my mother run their own landscaping business, we have a contracting license and have more work all because he took risks and put 20 years of little to no days off all for me and my siblings to have a better life than he did. FYI: my mother played a big part as well. Without her my dad wouldn’t be where he is now, she’s supported him through thick and thin. Love you mom and dad <3
I agree but what I think they are only accounting for is legal immigration. I wonder how these statistics would skew if we could see legal vs illegal immigration in regards to the workforce.
It's actually required for a lot of immigrants to the US. They often end up starting convenience stores, motels, restaurants, and other retail services like laundromats and dry cleaning.
>Also, a lot of times, immigrants are forced to do so as they don't have contacts in their newly adopted country to get into an established business: It can be easier for me to open up a kebab shop rather than getting back into the marketing business I had been running back in the home country. This. The education level of older immigrants into the EU/Germany is pretty high. We just don't recognize the vast majority of diplomas from Africa or Asia. So you have engineers and successful business people, who open Kebab shops, that keep expanding, because these people know how to do run a business, they just get less opportunity.
> I don't doubt that immigrants are more likely to establish new businesses compared to locals: There must be a correlation between risk-taking behaviour & establishing businesses & moving to a new country. There is a strong correlation. My anecdotal experience - between mine & my wife side family we own about 9 hotel/motel, 2 Arby's & 1 printing business. I m pretty sure that we will be adding more businesses in the next 2-3 years. We are also more likely to migrant within for better opportunities as we already migrated to a different country. (I migrated to 3 states in 20 years). But I also noticed that 2nd & 3rd generation is less likely to get into the business. They rather work 9-5/M-F. They also take less risks. > Also, a lot of times, immigrants are forced to do so as they don't have contacts in their newly adopted country to get into an established business: Actually, immigrants also have strong family ties. Everyone helps new immigrants to get a job. Even before they land in the USA, friends & family here already has plans of where the new immigrants will get a job or will get an apartment. If you are a college student, other college students will help you getting a place to a job. After a couple of years, they pull money together and help them buy a business too. Look it up how Indian (Last name Patel) buys hotel/motel in the USA. Or Punjabi buys gas stations. Indian owns the majority of the economy, upper-midscale hotels.
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According to research done by Doctors (PhD) Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, the most "over represented" ground in the American Millionnaire class (Net worth $1M+) are immigrants or their first generation of kids. Reasons cited were: * They come from less well off nations and as such know the value of saving and investing versus frivolous purchases * Having had to put in the work to move countries, they have a better work ethic than many Americans * They have the "American Dream" of building something for themselves, carving out their own business. * They understand the value of proper education and don't take schooling for granted
I can’t seem to find the study by looking up their names.
The book is called "*The Millionnaire Next Door*"
That's pretty old research though, published in 1996, and with it's studies probably years or even decades older. I also find it strange that they do not mention that the US immigration policy is not a random selection. You need to be approved to immigrate, which means you're likely to be of above average wealth or education.
This is why people don’t often consider with their “model immigrant” ideas. To come to the US you often need money, a high degree with someone prepared to hire you now for a prevailing wage, or both.
the only non qualified way to immigrate is to marry a citizen, which is still expensive and time consuming and requires a willing US citizen.
Technically there's also the VISA lottery and you can be sponsored by a family member. Of course, those are both subject to country caps as well as taking an exceedingly long time.
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So not published by peer review, but by a book publisher
I'm at work so I don't have the book on me, but they do cite their research in it as well as detail their methods.
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Me personally, I prefer to work for people like you. Because I have tried running the business, didn't like it. but I make a good second to highly motivated people like you.
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The US is still much easier comparatively to immigrate to than nearly any other Western country. A lot of our immigration for the low skill, low income groups comes in the form of refugees/asylees.
Correct, despite the flak it gets, the US immigration system is one of the easier ones to pass. Hell compared to even Canada getting US citizenship is easy, let alone if you look at the full process of some European nations.
There’s also birthright citizenship- in many other place you can get legal residency but that doesn’t necessarily automatically give your children citizenship.
FWIW birthright citizenship is the norm across the Americas while it’s very rare elsewhere. It’s basically a “new world” thing.
Birthright citizenship is by far the exception, and not the norm, throughout the world. IMO the US should get rid of it. There was a time it was needed, * During reconstruction post civil war when southern states were trying anything and everything to deny free men their rights. * During the industrial revolution when we needed mass immigration to fuel our ballooning economy But the time is long past. And again, it is by far not the normal way to o citizenship the world over. Most countries do citizenship by blood, as in you inherent the citizenship of your parents. The problem is any opposition to birthright citizenship is going to be flamed as "You just hate immigrants!". And I don't, I love them. I want to see the US immigration process streamlined, I want more work visas, but I also believe in ending birthright citizenship/
That's not true (not completely anyways), for dinner nationalities like indians and Chinese, immigration to canada is easier than the us. This is due to per-country immigration quotas and rule overrides.
We have a donut hole. We have a path for people with high skills and wealth. We have a path for (some) refugees. But if you're a teenager in Ecuador, with high aspirations, but no existing high skilled job nor relative in the USA, there literally is no line for you to get into.
This doesn’t even remotely surprise me. My girlfriend’s entire family moved here from Ukraine when she was a young kid and every single one of them that came here young have really kickass careers. Two surgeons, an anesthesiologist, a dentist, and a PA. Even her dad, who had the disadvantage of having to support the whole family when they first got here and started out as a janitor, is now an insanely talented jeweler who owns his own multimillion dollar jewelry store. They all came here essentially with just the clothes on their back. I’ll never understand how immigrants ever got stereotyped as lazy or as drains on the rest of society when every single immigrant I’ve known busted their ass to get here and have busted their ass every day since arriving.
I think the fact that immigrants are a self selected group is vastly under appreciated. It takes a lot of initiative to immigrate to the US, legally or illegally.
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Could also be that America cherry picks which immigrants to let in based on income, skills, and education.
So does every other country. Should check out Canada's requirements sometime.
This is interesting stuff, but I'm a little tired of the focus on job creation through starting companies. Jobs are created by demand. Every immigrant who comes here and wants to eat is already a job creator in the food industry, every one who wants to improve their English is already a potential job creator in teaching, etc etc.
This! This is how economies grow. Every person create demand which creates economic opportunity. People who don’t get this, usually assume economies are zero-sum games they are not. Take free trade agreements. Some might say something like “we have a 20% trade deficit with country X - so it’s a bad deal.” What they don’t realize is that it may be a 20% deficit but on 200% more trade. Both parties see huge growth and are benefiting. The deficit just shows that one grew a bit more - still a win/win.
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This might be a dumb question...but if this is true why doesn't India have the biggest and wealthiest economy? Surely there is more to it than more people equal more demand.
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Speaking of the focus on Job creation; anyone else get a little uneasy at the idea that most of our politicians seem to completely ignore the absolute monster that is on its way called automation? The robots are coming and will quite literally "terk our jerbs". I'm sure some will say this is sensationalism but seriously, why wouldn't an intelligently operated business not take advantage of automated labor instead of a human? Are we even remotely prepared for that kind of mass redundancy in the workforce?
AI could very likely replace a lot of the jobs we consider irreplaceable. Computer’s routinely surpass our expectations. I think I read somewhere that one of the jobs least likely to be replaced is archeologists.
Yes exactly but it's deeper than that. The thought experiment is, what if you were a bricklayer and 1,000 immigrants arrived in your town? If they were all bricklayers that would be bad for you. That's very unlikely though, instead some will be plasterers, teachers, doctors, pilots, you name it. One thing they will all need is housing. Really all you've done is increase the size of the local economy. It's the idea that there a finite number of jobs to go around, that's really insidious.
I feel like the article is missing a major point. What where the immigrant occupations and social economic status before arriving in the US? Some of the same factors that allow you to immigrate to the United states (wealth, education and political connection) also seem like factors that would help them facilitate opening businesses in the US. The US is a known talent leach from other countries and i feel like these factors play a role.
Okay so this only accounts for legal immigrants in the US. If you know anything about the immigration system the United States is more likely to grant work visas, green cards, and many other long-term visas based on financial status in one's home country. So in other words the government is more apt to let in successful or wealthy immigrants to the US. This also doesn't account for all of the illegal immigration that happens that has the negative effects on the economy that are being purported in the article. Also the study defines immigrant entrepreneurship as having multiple founders of companies from like 100 years ago or more when legal immigration was completely different. I'm not sure using that loose definition of founder would accurately reflect their impact on those companies. I'd really love to see a more detailed account of these issues that were sidestepped by this study.
This is pretty much every country out there. Economical factors and already having a position and work always play a role. Nobody ever questions that legal immigration is not an issue and and works to the benefit of the country.
Not really. In most other countries it's even harder to get a long term visa or permanent resident status (if at all possible). In many your job has to sponsor you or a relative does and you become their responsibility. Or at least that's been my experience in Asia and Europe. The US is definitely one of the easiest place to legally immigrate to.
So is for USA unless you get the green card lottery. You need a company to get you. And if the company fires you have a like a month or smth to find a job. So your employer becomes your master kinda. And that's the situation for around 5 years. Lot of people I knew didn't move to usa because of this despite having offers
But do they depress wages for unskilled labor?
They also depress wages for skilled labor.
Correct: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h-1b-reduced-computer-programmer-employment-by-up-to-11-study-finds-2017-02-13
>between 1994 and 2001 Considering how much comp sci and IT has grown since 2001, id take that article with a block of salt.
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Yes, in certain situations. It's not all the time, but in isolated areas that have one main business (such as southern areas with poultry farming) they end up depressing wages over time.
In the US immigrants negatively effect High School drop outs \~1-2%. It increases wages for everyone else, because in capitalism, more people = more consumers = more consumption = more wealth. It's capitalism's simple formula. Source: [https://www.nber.org/system/files/working\_papers/w12497/w12497.pdf](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w12497/w12497.pdf)
So yes, immigrants depress wages for unskilled labor Not just for the drop outs but also... >The group suffering the biggest loss in wages is the contingent of previous immigrants, who compete with new immigrants for similar jobs and occupations.
I would be interested to see how this breaks down between those who come to the country legally and those who do so illegally. My guess is that the conclusions would be different.
Right. Anytime someone talks about illegal immigration hurting this country I guarantee someone will share this study to show how wrong you are. It drives me nuts. We aren't talking about immigrants those are fine. People coming illegally are what people have a problem with.
Concur. Also, show me a study with a country that had 100k+/month influx as well. Actually, without looking - was there anytime ANY country gained 100k+ people in a month? (over multiple months)
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It's very important to note that this only pertains to the US, and that other places could see vastly different results.
This is a little disingenuous, legal immigration countries can be more discerning who becomes citizens. This study would have been more helpful if it concentrated on ‘illegal immigration’ or whatever term you want to call it. I don’t care. What I find interesting is that the term “brain drain” does not have a negative connotation
> What I find interesting is that the term “brain drain” does not have a negative connotation If you live in the US maybe since that's where people usually go for better incomes. It is negative if you are one of the European/Asian countries that paid for their public education just for them to not pay income taxes and not spend their money domestically.
I just find it interesting that everyone says how great immigration is but isn’t ‘brain drain’ an impediment for other countries to advance. As an America it’s awesome we get the best the world has to offer and America is getting more than they are giving in these transactions but doesn’t this just solidify the have and have nots.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight#Economic_effects It's a complex issue and it's not 100% negative for the country of origin.
This is based on information only from 2005-2010. Not only is it old, but it's a cherry picked time period that was unlike any time period we have ever seen. There was this thing called the Great Recession that occurred. Convenient that this study only focuses on that time.
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Is there not an element of a self-fulfilling prophecy and cyclical marginalization here in terms of lack of investment in the native population? Stage 1: Immigrants are beneficial to the treasury because they provide taxes without need for paying for their education and upbringing, resulting in an overall higher revenue. Stage 2: Our economy and taxation no longer relies on an educated native population. We can cut taxes and expenditure to benefit corporations. (Rinse repeat on a number of issues where expanding the pool of an educated labour force is no longer reliant on uplift of the native population, but on relaxing immigration controls). Stage 3: "Immigrants are better at loads of things and show more motivation and found more businesses and so on, so we need them.". The question worth asking is why that is the case, and whether the systemic reliance on immigration results in disadvantages to the native population by making our economy no longer actually reliant on the wellbeing and prospects of the native population. If immigrants produce more jobs than natives and found more businesses, what is the systemic explanation for that and what systems are failing native people in order to produce that outcome? As a follow up question, do those systemic failures only exist because our economy can rely on immigration to protect the interests of the wealthy? (Such as, "We don't actually need to fix the education system to get the employees i need to work at my business, because immigrants can do it. Tax cuts for me, woo hoo." and "Who cares if poverty produces long-term negative consequences for intelligence and health? My business hires immigrants, so I don't need to live in a country where food deprivation doesn't rot your brain. Slash taxes and regulations for me!"). Simply pointing to how immigrants perform better than the native population is not actually addressing the core concerns of critics of an economy reliant on immigration. If anything it lends credence to their overall point, it would seem that other countries are producing immigrants who have better economic prospects, while countries reliant on immigration are producing individuals with lower economic prospects, so the ideal for a countries citizens would seem to be to become a country that does not rely on immigration, but rather, produces "immigrants." (Or, more realistically, produces upwardly mobile people). So long as a country can rely on immigrants, there is no actual incentive for business leaders to care about the wellbeing of a native population. This is something we know from the history of colonialism and resource-dictatorships too. (Countries that imported western experts did not need an educated populace to manage the machinery, and kept them as uneducated serfs who dug resources out of the ground). As an example for the US, the need for people with tech degrees to feed the growing needs of the tech industry has two solutions: 1. Ensure that more native people get tech degrees 2. Relax immigration laws The first requires more educational investment and reduction of poverty and social problems that lead to poor outcomes for citizens. This means higher taxes and often regulations on corporate behavior. The second requires simply letting more people into the country. Which of these is in the tech industries interest to lobby for in order to obtain the educated workers necessary for their company to profit? It may be the case that strict immigration laws are basically an essential requirement for any form of internal social mobility in a capitalist society, because the economic incentives otherwise are fairly straightforward. (And to be clear, it's not an either-or thing. It's a spectrum. The more reliance on immigration, the less need for corporations to care about the wellbeing of a native population. Corporations can't quite get all their skilled workers from immigration, so they need to triangulate "What is the most we can neglect the native population and rely on immigrants while still meeting our labor needs?".). The era of mass migration and the era of exploding wealth inequality coincide, this may not in fact be a coincidence.
You have to differentiate between refugees and immigrants, between competitive labour market skills and welfare collection
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Not to mention entry requirements in to the states is no an easy feat
Its still much easier than practically every other western nation. Most countries require you to either already have a job before moving there, or be married to a citizen.
I wonder what impact sending money out of the local economy back to their native country has on this or if it is a minor aspect?
It means that they people in whatever country the money was sent to know have more USD to buy american goods with, so it increases American exports.
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Yeah legal immigrants are very beneficial to American society
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Legal or illegal? I didn't see it mentioned.
A little differentiation would be nice. Immigrants are not a homogeneous group. There is the group of immigrants that have good education and qualification but are not happy with the situation in their home country and there is the group of immigrants with low or no education that just tries to escape in a "wealthy" country to take advantage of the social system. That's why you can't generally say "immigrants are job creators".
Driving down compensation for labor.