How Europe Can Fix its Jihadi Problem While Saving Money
Reform its restrictive labor laws
Critics of "mass" immigration have seized on the Paris and Brussels attacks to counsel Europe to shut its doors to
Syrian refugees so as to not exacerbate its "Muslim problem." Their latest argument is not that these refugees will serve as cover for ISIS agents to sneak in. It is that integrating populations culturally at odds with the host county is costly requiring all kinds of social programs. However, the failure to offer these programs risks creating a disaffected population that is susceptible to radicalization.
But I note in my column at The Week, immigrants today, Muslim or otherwise, don't need jobs programs — they need jobs. And:
Europe provides much more of the first and America much more of the second. Europe has an army of social workers in various NGOs whose job is to prepare immigrants for jobs. Not so much in America, which may be partially why America has a far better assimilation track record than Europe.
What's keeping immigrants from jobs is not the lack of programs but Europe's ridiculous labor laws. Europe's stupid minimum wage mandates (that Bernie and Hillary are hell-bent on replicating here) and its silly union contracts (that make it hard to get rid of non-performing workers) end up protecting incumbents and adults at the expense of newcomers and the young. Reforming these laws is a costless way of curing the pathologies of the underclass that immigrants in Europe have come to inhabit. What's more, it's not like shutting out refugees, whose plight the West may indeed have a hand in creating, is a costless and clean option.
Go here to read the whole thing.