Should Immigrants Advocate For More Immigration?
(Last update: June 2019)
The answer is no! It is natural for every individual who has been fortunate enough to migrate to a developed country, like the United States, to help his relatives join him. It might even seem rational for an immigrant to advocate for relaxed immigration policies, but excess immigration can have negative consequences for the immigrant community.
Even in an immigrant-based society like the United States there is a limit to how many immigrants the native population is willing to tolerate. When the number of immigrants from visibly different cultural and ethnic backgrounds grows too high, the native population develops
hostile attitudes toward immigrants. There is no specific common threshold for the entire native population. Some extreme and ethnocentric groups might be opposed to even a small immigrant population. Other, more liberal citizens, might have a higher threshold. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine that as the number of immigrants increases, eventually it might pass the threshold ratio of a majority of the native population. In a
2014 academic article, Benjamin Newman shows that residents develop anti-immigration attitudes if the number of immigrants in their local community increases sharply. The negative attitude toward immigrants might be rooted in racism for some individuals but for some others it can be a result of a fear that the native population's ratio of total population will decline over time and it will lose its majority status. The anti-immigrant groups frequently play on this "ratio anxiety" of the majority population to gain support for their cause and recruit members. This ratio anxiety (the fear of becoming a minority as a result of immigration and higher birth rates among some immigrant communities) has been visible in Europe and the
United States since 1970s.
When the immigrant community is relatively small and it is not perceived as a threat to the population ratio of the native population, the native population has a tolerant and positive attitude toward the immigrants. If the population of immigrants grows larger and becomes a concern for the natives then the native attitude toward immigrants will change and they will face a hostile social environment.
So it does not make sense for immigrants to support more immigration without taking into account the risk of this adverse outcome.
Some American suburbs have undergone a visible transformation as a result of the rapid influx of high-wealth, highly educated professional families from non-european ethnic groups. The large number of new neighbors has resulted in the atomization of these communities. The sense of community has declined as the older (European/native) neighbors are showing less and less interest in their new neighbors. Gone are the days that neighbors knew each other and they had occasional social interactions. Now each resident family mostly socializes with members of its own ethnic community and the interactions among various ethnic communities is limited. Everyone is nice and polite but no one has much interest in others. Not only the natives don't show much interest in others, but the immigrant families live in isolation from each other as well. This is happening at the same time that residents are fully aware of the growing ethno-isolation. If the ethnic balance of these communities shifts even further in favor of new immigrants, the situation is likely to get worse.
We are observing a new development in some high income suburbs that have developed a positive reputation for their education systems. These communities are very attractive to ethnic groups that put a high value on education of their children. However, as the ethnic mix changes and the share of these ethnic groups rises above a threshold, some families with school age children stay away from these communities because they are worried that most students will be so competitive in public schools that their children will be in a disadvantage. This perception will keep away some families and lead to an even larger concentration of education-oriented ethnic groups in these communities. In a
2011 academic article Albert Saiz and Susan Wachter provide evidence of white flight from neighborhoods that have experienced rapid increase in immigration inflow.
The ratio anxiety among white Americans has had a profound indirect impact on all types of public policy. Election of President Trump was a result of this anxiety about over-immigration. Many of the whites that voted for Trump were concerned about the browning of America (a decline in the population share of whites as a result of rapid immigration of non-whites into America). President Trump has slowed down or suspended several environmental policies that would have boon good for preventing global change. Reduction of restrictions on coal industry is a good example. He has also reversed many other progressive achievements of the Obama administration. The setback in healthcare reform under Trump administration is very unfortunate. Had it not been for white concern about over-immigration, he might not had been elected.
As the democratic party and progressive activist groups fight to end ethnic and racial discrimination against immigrants they should not encourage more immigration. Instead they should call for a significant reduction in immigration to prevent further demographic shift in the United States. Ending over-immigration and addressing native anxiety will help reduce prejudice, racism and social rejection toward immigrants. The young white men will then have less incentives to join right wing movements that chant "
You will not replace us."
Response to Over-Immigration:
Strategic harassment: When the number of visible minorities (visible "other") rises to a level that it causes anxiety in a community, the native residents might engage in deliberate harassment and rejection of the target groups in order to encourage them to leave and also to deter other members of the target group from moving into their community. It also becomes a taboo for any native to show a warm and welcoming attitude. This deliberate strategic harassment can take the form of hate mail, dumping garbage on an immigrant's yard, and more harmful activities such as property damage.
Overtime, many communities might engage in competitive strategic harassment to deter undesirable families from moving into their neighborhood.
Strategic avoidance: In more sophisticated, more prosperous communities, the natives might express their displeasure not by overt harassment but by avoidance and exclusion. They will treat visible "other" neighbors as if they don't exist. They might avoid any interaction other than a minimum greeting ("Hi, How Are You?", "Good Morning") but never any interest or neighborly interaction.
Strategic Cruelty: A local community, a state government or even the national government might adopt very serious measures to make the life experience very difficult for new comers and immigrants in an effort to deter further immigration. For example, a community might impose limits on social services for new immigrants, or it might deny bilingual education, or excessive search and ID checks on visible "other"s. Treatment of asylum seekers in the United States under Trump administration is an example of strategic cruelty that is intended to deter others from trying to seek asylum. Government bodies representing native populations engage in strategic cruelty when they cannot obtain sufficient political support for reducing or preventing immigration legally.
Examples of strategic cruelty and strategic harassment are abundant in Germany after 2015. In 2015 the German government admitted a million Syrian refugees. This policy angered a segment of German population. As a result harassment, cruelty and violence against all visible immigrants has intensified. The angry mobs not only target the new refugees but they are making life more difficult for all visible minorities - even third and fourth generation immigrants whose families have lived in Germany for 60 or 70 years.
