Reason TV Video on the Case for Letting Hong Kong Refugees Migrate to the United States

In the video, I also make the case for extending the same rights to other victims of Chinese government oppression.

The Statue of Liberty. (NA)

Reason TV has posted a video in which I and others make the case for allowing Hong Kongers to immigrate to the United States, in the wake of a recent Chinese law that gravely threatens the relative freedom that has prevailed in Hong Kong until recently. In the video, I also argue for extending the same right to other victims of Chinese government oppression. Taking this step is both the right thing to do in itself, and also likely to provide important economic and geopolitical advantages to the US in its struggle with China. I make both points in greater detail here. The British government's offer to create a path to citizenship for up to 3 million Hong Kongers is an important step in the right direction, but does not protect all Hong Kongers threatened with oppression, and also does little for the victims of Chinese repression on the mainland, many of whom are suffering far more serious human rights violations.

I discuss expanding protection for refugees from oppressive regimes, more generally, in Chapter 8 of my new book Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom.

Comments

[Don Nico]

I cannot think of an action that would be a considered a severe provocation worsening an already bad relationship with China.
Bad as Chinese policies are, we need not make them worse by satisfying Somin's passions for open borders

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

How will Ilya survive if you don't purchase his book? He's already forced to eat canned cat food to survive on his measly salary with George Mason University.

[Don Nico]

Rabbi,
Du hast mikh lakhn, a dank.

[Commenter_XY]

Sure, they can come here Professor Somin. After undergoing very extensive background investigation, and demonstrated proof they can support themselves here. They're welcome.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

Bigot! Unlimited and unregulated immigration is beneficial for every country, except Israel.

[Brett Bellmore]

You do realize, don't you, that any country that opened its borders to anyone who wanted to leave mainland China would shortly BE part of China?

At least refugees from Hong Kong would be limited in number, and not have been indoctrinated in Chinese communism all their lives. Even there you would have to worry about thousands of Chinese intelligence agents coming in with them.

Of course you realize this. You just don't care.

[RabbiHarveyWeinstein]

That is absolutely silly. Would Israel become Palestine if it opened its borders to the Arab world?

[Sam Haysom]

Oh vey we’d need the latest pogrom the me too movement to really get serious about finding offenders to offset that with right of returnees.

[James K. Polk]

Do you ever write anything where you're not tooting your horn, linking to your own posts, or in some way or other pushing the Ilya Somin story? Have you noticed you're the most insecure of all the Conspiracists?

But anyway, I love the idea of taking in Hong Kongers and others, as long as it doesn't open the doors to unrestricted, uncontrolled immigration. But wait, that's exactly what you support. Never mind.

[Don Nico]

I thought they were Hong Kongolese. Me bad!

[John Rohan]

I am more sympathetic to people in Hong Kong migrating to the US than I am to Central Americans, since they would be fleeing political oppression, not just poverty, and that is what asylum laws were for. They are also more likely to speak english or have marketable skills. However, as they were a British colony, it would make more sense for them to migrate to the UK or Australia.

But it's just not possible to "extend the same right to other victims of Chinese government oppression". There are over a billion people in China.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's just published the reductio ad absurdum to his own position, and not realized it, because he really is a fanatic on this topic.

The people in Hong Kong would likely be a good addition to the US, though we'd have to watch carefully who we let in, because the Chinese would undoubtedly use the opportunity to flood us with intelligence agents, and maybe criminals the way Cuba used the Mariel boat lift. We'd have been better off doing it when Thatcher screwed them over, instead of at this late date, but I guess Reagan didn't want to embarrass Thatcher. He should have.

Opening the door to anybody in China, though? That's crazy. It's rather telling that you don't realize it.

I suppose you think what happened to Tibet was a triumph of human rights, then?

[Sam Haysom]

Yes destabilize monopolize penalize

[Ed Grinberg]

Probably. The Cuban immigrants in Florida are staunchly Republican.