What Scarface Can Teach Us About Mass Immigration

The Case for Open Borders

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What Scarface Can Teach Us About Mass Immigration

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"It makes sense politically, rationally, electorally, to gain political power by saying all sorts of terrible things about immigrant groups, but at a certain point, the math doesn't work out," says Joel Fetzer, a professor of Political Science at Pepperdine University*, and author of the new book Open Borders and International Migration Policy: The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in the United States, France, and Ireland.

The book examines three cases of massive and at times nearly unrestricted immigration made famous in the movies: the influx of Central European immigrants to Ireland in the early 2000s as portrayed in the film Once, the flood of Algerians into Marseilles in the wake of the Algerian war as seen in the French film Samia, and the Cubans who ended up in South Florida after Castro's purging of the so-called "scum" of Cuban society, some results of which are memorably portrayed in Scarface.

Fetzer sat down with us to discuss what these three natural experiments in mass migration tell us about the arguments for, and against, opening our borders. These are some of his key findings:

• Unrestricted migration does not lead to job loss for natives, and in some cases even may lead to reduced unemployment.
• Mass immigration is not a net drain on public resources.
• Only in the Cuban case did violent crime spike, a phenomenon Fetzer attributes to the fact that Castro purposely sent criminals to America. Burglaries did increase slightly in all cases for a short time, but in at least one case it appeared that migrants may have more often been victims than perpetrators of the crimes.

For more, watch the full interview above, or scroll down for downloadable versions of this video. Run time approximately 8:43. Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Music by Cellar Dwellar and Kevin MacLeod. 

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*The views expressed in this interview belong to Fetzer and are not necessarily endorsed by Pepperdine University.

Comments

[Lee G]

BOOM goes the thread

[Lord Humungus]

*fires off Cosmo and Yokel signal*

[Lee G]

Does it look like this?

[Chipper Morning Wood]

If Dickbutt is the Cosmo signal, then surely Javert is the Yokel signal.

[Idle Hands]

Only in the Cuban case did violent crime spike, a phenomenon Fetzer attributes to the fact that Castro purposely sent criminals to America. Burglaries did increase slightly in all cases for a short time, but in at least one case it appeared that migrants may have more often been victims than perpetrators of the crimes.

Good I was hoping for an explanation regarding Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

[Brett L]

But what about the poor sanitation workers?

"I tol' em I was in sanitation."
"Sanitation? I said sanitarium."

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Say hello to my leetle frien, you fucking cockaroash!

[Brett L]

I think we can all agree that chainsaws and cocaine binges don't mix.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

The World is Yours!

[Citizen X]

Ooh, look at the pelican!

[Drake]

When are they going to make the movie showing the awesome the flood of Middle Eastern and North African immigrants into Western Europe? That's working out great, right?

[WTF]

Open Borders and International Migration Policy: The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in the United States, France, and Ireland.

Next up, The Effects of Unrestricted Immigration in Germany and Sweden.

[Drake]

Still waiting for the effects of unrestricted immigration study from the Algonquin Tribes.

[Tak Kak]

Might be just me, but I wouldn't base a policy on three case studies.

[Drake]

The Angle-Saxon-Jute migration into Britain, the Mongol migration into China, the Huns and Tartars moving into Central Europe. All peacefully assimilated with the natives last I heard.

[Lord Humungus]

WSJ: Arizona's Pro-American Immigration Reform Boosts Wages, Productivity, Housing

Because of the 40 percent drop in illegal labor, the wages earned by Americans rose significantly, the analysis by Moody's Analytics.

The median income of low-skilled whites who did manage to get jobs rose about 6% during that period, the economists estimate ? wages rose about 15% for Arizona farmworkers and about 10% for construction between 2010 and 2014 ? Some employers say their need for workers has increased since then, leading them to boost wages more rapidly and crimping their ability to expand ? graduates [at a federal job-training center] now often mull two or three jobs offers from construction firms and occasionally start at $14.65 an hour instead of $10 ? At DTR Landscape Development LLC, the firm's president, Dick Roberts, says he has increased his starting wage by 60% to $14.50 an hour because he is having trouble finding reliable workers.

[Lord Humungus]

The departure of foreign migrants also cut the state government's welfare costs by roughly $430 million per year, the WSJ reported.

The number of students enrolled in intensive English courses in Arizona public schools fell from 150,000 in 2008 to 70,000 in 2012 and has remained constant since. Schooling 80,000 fewer students would save the state roughly $350 million a year, by one measure ? annual emergency-room spending on noncitizens fell 37% to $106 million, from $167 million. And between 2010 and 2014, the annual cost to state prisons of incarcerating noncitizens convicted of felonies fell 11% to $180 million, from $202 million.

[Tak Kak]

Irrelevant. Doesn't work as the background for a good movie.

[R C Dean]

Contra-narrative facts presented. Deploy cognitive dissonance filter.

[JeremyR]

I don't think there is any question that the law of supply and demand applies to labor.

The open borders crowd wants cheaper labor because it (in theory) brings lower consumer prices. Although it generally doesn't seem to work out that way, and millions of American workers (not to mention lots and lots of illegals) have to go on welfare because they don't make enough money to live on. And billions of dollars leaves the country in the form of remittance.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

And why we are at it, let's also make it illegal to outsource labor to third world countries. Just think of all the jobs created if Nike were forced to make their sneakers in the US.

[JellyRev]

Likely not that many, but the automated factory they would build would be capital retained in the states. They might have to cut back on funding Oregon college sports program though. the humanity.

wages in construction have been flat in real wages for 25 years if not down. I wonder why? construction is not easily outsourced to another country so we resorted to insourcing cheap labor.

Kind of sad considering these people actually work, unliked the state and office workers peering from their windows talking smack about them.

[Mongo]

Anybody catch last night's X-Files? It was heavy on showing the Muslims as suicide bombers . I thought it was a great episode.

[Brett L]

I watched the first episode, but the creepy Glenn Beck guy put me off. And the fact that Scully fell for the "champagne in the limo" gambit.

[Loki]

The Glenn Beck guy hasn't been back since that first episode. Although he'll be back in the finale next week. I've been fairly impressed with the new episodes so far.

[JeremyR]

The first episode was terrible. The rest have been excellent.

[Loki]

Especially the bit with Mulder tripping on "'shrooms."

[Brett L]

Libertad! Libertad!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I'm having trouble believing that mass migration doesn't have any drain on government/welfare costs. Even pro-immigration forces often describe (not just in America, but in many European countries as well) large immigrant populations suffering very high unemployment compared to their native counterparts, higher crime and widespread lack of 'assimilation'.

I would believe that under these conditions they might not have an overall effect on wages (lowering) because if they're not working or in the labor force, they wouldn't have a big impact on it.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

I'm having trouble believing that mass migration doesn't have any drain on government/welfare costs.

See Anti-Foreign Bias

Actually, read the whole thing.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I read that many years ago. I recall being depressed afterward.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

But, you're being the "public".

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I've never once [knowingly] voted for a candidate or policy that wanted to clamp down on borders or build walls or restrict immigration. But suggesting that bringing in 125,000 people overnight doesn't have some kind of drain on the general fund while they "sit for years" in refugee camps (as I was instructed is the norm) is highly dubious.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Sit for years in refugee camps? I know some refugees and they were working within a week of arriving in the country. You think these people just want to sit around all day? Leaving your homeland speaks of a certain drive that cannot be satisfied by idleness.

[R C Dean]

At a gross level, every illegal or legal immigrant who consumes public resources is a drain on government.

Of course, what's more interesting is whether they are a net drain on government, whether, as a group, immigrants or illegals pay more taxes than they consume.

This is where it gets important to sort illegal from legal immigrants. Legal immigrants, especially in recent years, skew higher on the income scale, and pay lots of taxes, and pretty much have to have a job to stay legal. I have no doubt that they pay more taxes than they consume in public resources. And it may even be that if you aggregate legal and illegal immigrants, the total taxes collected outweigh the public resources consumed.

Illegals tend to be at the other end of the scale. The end that doesn't pay much in taxes, and does consume a disproportionate amount of public resources. I have serious doubts that illegals are net contributors to the public fisc.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Might I suggest you read page 12.

And then the whole thing.

[Pat (PM)]

What part of the section on balance of trade and comparative advantage did you think was germane to public resource usage by illegal immigrants?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The CATO article doesn't address all the questions being asked/discussed here. It talks about the theoretical effects of one fully assimilated immigrant who doesn't send money home to the family and spends 100% of his salary in the new country of residence.

It doesn't address what I'M talking about which is say, a certain dreamy, totally hawt PM airlifting 25,000 refugees a month and putting them in a tent-city on an airport tarmac for years while they're processed, and then shoving them into neighborhoods that suffer 50% unemployment-- surely that must cost the public coffers something-- because I can't imagine that's a total social-service-free zone.

The individual illegal immigrant standing at home-depot who's willing to work harder than your average white, college graduate writing editorials in the NY Times about how they will NOT work past 5pm isn't using a lot of government resources or being a drain on the welfare system.

[Pat (PM)]

I wasn't offering any commentary on the issue of illegal immigrants using public resources, just trying to pin down what in the piece of text that he cited Francisco thought actually had anything to do with the subject. The reference was a non-sequitur.

That having been said...

The individual illegal immigrant standing at home-depot who's willing to work harder than your average white, college graduate writing editorials in the NY Times about how they will NOT work past 5pm isn't using a lot of government resources or being a drain on the welfare system.

This is true, and as long as he pays into Social Security (using a real, fake, or stolen #, doesn't matter), the actuarials work out fine enough. But, it's also possible for that individual to have a wife or domestic partner at home with a kid or two that was born in the United States, entitling the entire household to WIC, SNAP, TANF, and housing assistance; the child to SBP, NSLP, SCHIP or Medicaid; and the day laborer to the child tax credit, partially if not completely offsetting his SS contributions (except that he may not ever collect his SS entitlements later, so bonus money). Since such benefit payments are not disbursed to the illegal immigrant (except the tax credit), it is still accurate to say he has not collected any public resources. And that's one of a million ways you can have a lot of fun with numbers as a government bean counter.

[Pat (PM)]

That's not to pick on illegal immigrants in particular either, by the way. Similarly-situated natives undoubtedly collect more in benefits since they don't have to qualify by proxy. But qualifying by proxy has the potential to underestimate the usage by illegal immigrants.

In a similar vein, you'd probably think that wealthy divorcees, trust fund kids and farmers with multi-million dollar land holdings wouldn't be a drain on public resources either, but you'd be wrong.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

In a similar vein, you'd probably think that wealthy divorcees, trust fund kids and farmers with multi-million dollar land holdings wouldn't be a drain on public resources either, but you'd be wrong.

I wouldn't be wrong because I think it's pretty well established how much graft a farm subsidy is worth.

[Francisco d'Anconia]

Oh, this part:

In terms of the balance of payments, immigration
is a nonissue. If an immigrant moves
from Mexico City to New York and spends all
his earnings in his new homeland, the balance
of trade does not change. Yet the public still
looks on immigration as a bald misfortune:
jobs lost, wages reduced, public services consumed.
Many see a larger trade deficit as a fair
price to pay for reduced immigration. One
peculiar pro-NAFTA argument is that if we
admit more Mexican goods, we will have fewer
Mexicans.42 It should be evident, then, that the
general public sees immigration as a distinct
danger?independent of, and more frightening
than, an unfavorable balance of trade.
People feel all the more vulnerable when they
reflect that these foreigners are not just selling
us their products. They live among us.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The end that doesn't pay much in taxes, and does consume a disproportionate amount of public resources.

They do pay taxes (sales taxes) when they purchase local goods (score one for a nat'l sales tax) but I don't see illegals as being a major drain on public resources as a population.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Ugh, he did that white, politically-correct pronunciation of "honduras". Why do white intellectuals do that? It's jarring and utterly inconsistent. Do you pronounce 'Prague' the 'native' way? Do you pronounce "Moscow" the native way? Of course not, because no one would know what the fuck you were talking about. This over-pronunciation of Mexican/Spanish words has got to stop. And I say that as someone who speaks enough conversational Spanish to be muy peligroso.

[Tak Kak]

I was open to listening to him until I heard that.

[Chipper Morning Wood]

Let him pronounce it however he wants. Who gives a fuck? Should I get upset when you order a glass or merloT or ask for some escargoT?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/.....t-npr.html

8) Politically Correct Pronunciation. I'm still trying to get a handle on the rules here. Latin and Spanish words have to be pronounced with a Spanish accent. This is not necessary, however, for French or other European languages.

[LynchPin1477]

Yeah, that bugs me, too. I got into a debate with a friend about it once (in this case over her pronunciation of parmesan). She claimed it was the true pronunciation. I claimed that was only true when speaking Italian, which we most certainly were not doing.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Tell her you're flying to Muoskvua this Christmas, because you hear it's beautiful in the winter.

[R C Dean]

If you were going to try to use the correct accent, why would you speak Latin with a Spanish accent, anyway?

And, yes, this is the kind of "ooh, look at me" signaling that grinds my gears. The worst is probably listening to some clown try to pronounce "Nicaragua" like they imagine a Nicaraguan would. It generally just shows that they have never actually had a conversation somebody with that accent, because they invariably butcher it.

[LynchPin1477]

Something something colonialism something something privilege.

[Brett L]

Am I having the conversation in Spanish? Because I'll try my hest if I'm speaking the language.

[B.P.]

I think the courtesy of native pronunciation should be extended to Minnesota, Alabama, Long Island, etc.

[R C Dean]

Scale is everything. The Mariel boatlift brought around 125,000 Cubans to the US. I have no idea about the other two case studies. It would be helpful information to have.

The idea that true mass immigration does not impact the employment prospects of the natives strikes me as counterintuitive, to say the least. Increasing supply doesn't reduce price? There may be second-order effects that offset this, but I would sure like to have them described, hopefully without using terms like "multiplier effect".

Whether mass immigration is drain on public resources is entirely contingent on what public resources are made available to the immigrants. To claim that the arrival of hundreds of thousands of unemployed, and likely unemployable, migrants in Germany hasn't been a drain on public resources strikes me as ludicrous.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

There may be second-order effects that offset this,

I believe there are 2nd order effects. Per my post above, 125,000 foreign immigrants don't immediately enter the labor force. Some start their own businesses (because they're foreigners, they have this ridiculous idea of hanging your shingle out, regulations be damned), others end up on welfare while they assimilate, which is why I have trouble believing there's no real impact on welfare systems.

I believe that yes, if 125,000 entered the country and immediately hit the workforce at 100%, you'd increase supply and drive down prices. It just makes sense. But I don't believe all 125,000 hit the workforce. For a lot of reasons.

[R C Dean]

So, if they are on welfare, we can say they aren't reducing wages, and if they are reducing wages, we can say they aren't on welfare.

Okey - dokey.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

That's kind of it. There seems to be a want-it-both-ways kind of thinking here. See my post above-- I hear non-stop about immigrant neighborhoods with 50% unemployment.

Now, you *might* argue that that IS the drop in wages. The supply of cheap immigrant labor is so large that for some sectors, the 'price' of an employee has gone to zero.

[MEB]

It *is* ludicrous. These cases are not comparable with today's flood of Third World migrants into Europe. The harkis who came to France 50+ years ago were the most Francophile and Francophone section of the population in Algeria -- and even then, their descendants are much more likely than autochthonous Frenchmen to be unemployed and on welfare. The Poles who flocked to Ireland a decade ago were almost all young people of both sexes looking for work, with educational qualifications generally similar to those of the Irish population, not to mention being overwhelmingly of the same religious background. In all three cases, the immigrants arrived in countries with social welfare systems considerably less generous than those offered today in Sweden and Germany. 42% of the unemployed in Germany are immigrants or from immigrant families; unemployment rates even for *second and third generation* Turks in Berlin are nearly 50%. The figures for Arab migrants, coming from societies considerably more backward than Turkey in matters such as women working outside the home, will likely be dramatically worse. A study based on numbers from 2012 reckoned that the net lifetime cost of an immigrant to Germany was nearly 80,000 Euros; this was based on all immigrants (i.e. including the many highly educated and qualified migrants from other EU countries). With today's new influx of refugees and migrants, overwhelmingly male, Muslim, and uneducated, those costs can only be significantly higher.

[cesohiclut]

Your family and earn. Start bringing $ 55 per hr just on a computer. Very easy way to make your life happy and earning continuously. Start ,, http://www.alpha-careers.com

[toolkien]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Eighters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weydemeyer

And

Carl Schurz
Franz Sigel
and more

Again, our country is in the beginning phases of instability. Do we really need to bring loads of immigrants at this time? Radicalized Germans came to this country after 1848, founded the Republican Party, and infused itself with the aggressive North. Schurz's wife is credited with founding the first kindergarten, and the whole socialized education system got its start/support from these German immigrants. We are still paying the price for the socialistic impact these Germans brought to this country. We live with its legacies every day.

And, again, I have no problem with immigration - the movement of individuals looking for a better life - but I have a wholesale problem of the movements of masses of people who have little notion of assimilation, who will be aggressive, and most probably infuse with the socialist-statists for yet another grab of power and the subjugation of people.

Of course, with the Germans, we DID get beer.

[Ivan Pike]

Seems like a good place for this.

Happy Elizabeth Peratrovich Day

[AlexInCT]

First you get the money...

Then you get the powa..

And then you get the pussy..

CO?O!

[JoWaDat889]

That actually makes a lot of sense dude.

http://www.Anon-Net.tk

[Jr12]

Is somebody paying the Libertarian Party to pretend that the best means to a successful welfare state is immigration of mostly welfare qualified people, in which almost all politicians and political activists are encouraging immigrants, legal and illegal, to help their constituencies of home grown thieves take advantage of every tax funded handout and vote leftist to keep the loot rolling in.

Or does the LP think that immigrant status is irrefutable evidence of a universal "free minds, free markets" perspective, and the LP is helpfully trying to entice in enough of these free marketeers to vote the American welfare state out of existence.

[lukashik]

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