Immigration Reform not happening under Obama

[Valmy]

Comparing India and the US is pretty tricky, since India is still only a developing country, and is a country with no real history or experience with immigration.

Well they did get lots of Arab, Mughal, and British immigrants in the past.

[Berkut]

So you are saying that India can absorb 3 times as much immigration as the US, since they have 3x as many people?

Comparing India and the US is pretty tricky, since India is still only a developing country, and is a country with no real history or experience with immigration.

ZOMG! Ar eyou saying there are other variable sinvolved other than total population!

Comparing Canada, Australia, and the US is fairly straightforward however.

How so? Tell me BB, what other variables are involved in how much a country should allow to immigrate, such that we can determine that despite the fact that the US immigration rate is some 4 or 5 times that of Canada, we are actually somehow deficient, in comparison?

How about historical immigration, and how much of a load the country is currently managing as a result right now? How about availability of work? Availability of places to live? Social infrastructure to hold immigrants? Simple space? Educational opportunity?

Do any of those matter compared to the simple measure of total population?

[Slargos]

How about you assholes take your fair share of the "asylumseekers" you are creating with your policy of bombing places to shit.

2004-2008 saw Sweden receive around 18/1000 whereas the number for the US was around 1.

[Berkut]

The rate at which people immigrate into other countries, or the amount that a country should allow to immigrate is NOT a function of the number of people already there. Obviously. In fact, it is completely independent.

I would agree with Minsky's post directly above yours.  Immigration is fairly closely tied to the overall population, although the correlation is not perfect.  To say that immigration and tht total population are "completely independent" is, well, wrong.

They are completely independent in the sense that Malthus compared it to death rate - in that the death rate is a direct function of the number of people, and immigration is most certainly not.

For example, China has a net negative immigration rate. If in fact they were not "completely independent" variables, that would be impossible. It is entirely possible to have any level of positive and negative migration no matter what your population is - it is not possible to have a greater population while having less total number of people dieing, barring some rather weird external factors.

So sorry, you are wrong again. Immigration rate is certainly "completely independent" from total population - knowing a countries total population tells you nothing about its net immigration rate.

[Eddie Teach]

How about you assholes take your fair share of the "asylumseekers" you are creating with your policy of bombing places to shit.

2004-2008 saw Sweden receive around 18/1000 whereas the number for the US was around 1.

Take them or don't take them, no concern of ours.

[The Minsky Moment]

We're 25th out of 181. I think it's fair to say we have a high immigration rate. (Australia and Canada are 15th and 18th).

Not a bit surprised that UAE is leading the list.

Let's say you exclude the island-city-states and microstates and Afghanistan (which is probably counting aid workers as "immigrants").  then the rank is:

1) UAE 
2) Kuwait 
3) Australia
4) Jordan
5) Canada
6) Liberia
7) Ireland
8) US
9) Bosnia
10) Portugal

Of this group UAE and Kuwait are basically gastarbeiter economies on a grand scale and don't really bother integrating their migrants.  Jordan is probably capturing political and economic refugees from Iraq.  Liberia is probably capturing a recent infusion of aid workers and probably some diasporic return after decades of civil war.  Bosnia same thing.

That leaves the "immigrant countries" as Australia, Canada, US, Ireland, Portugal(?!)

[Berkut]

How about you assholes take your fair share of the "asylumseekers" you are creating with your policy of bombing places to shit.

2004-2008 saw Sweden receive around 18/1000 whereas the number for the US was around 1.

Since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the U.S. than any other nation and more than two million refugees have arrived in the U.S. since 1980. Of the top ten countries accepting resettled refugees in 2006, the United States accepted more than twice as many as the next nine countries combined.

Sweden rocks. But you can blow me.

[Valmy]

ZOMG! Ar eyou saying there are other variable sinvolved other than total population!

Why are you still arguing about that?  Barrister Boy just conceded that point several posts ago...

You are the guy saying they are COMPLETELY independent, which is idiotic.

[Valmy]

Portugal(?!)

Latin Americans I presume?

Does the rate of immigration considers immigration of all sorts or just legal documented immigration?  That would make a big difference in this case.

[Berkut]

ZOMG! Ar eyou saying there are other variable sinvolved other than total population!

Why are you still arguing about that?  Barrister Boy just conceded that point several posts ago...

You are the guy saying they are COMPLETELY independent, which is idiotic.

Dude, do you know what an independent variable is?

More people != more immigration. It is that simple.

So saying it is just like birth rate, death rate, etc., is false - it is not, since those are dependent variables, whereas total population is an independent variable to immigration.

Hence the claim that "immigration rate" is jsut like those other demographic measures is in fact wrong.

But BB is still arguing that somehow total population is in fact a variable that ought to matter when you compare the immigration rates of different countries, and in fact is the MOST IMPORTANT variable to consider, since he hasn't mentioned any others, and based his apparent claim that the US doesn't really allow much/enough immigration based solely on that single variable.

I claim that is false, and that the US allows more immigration than any other country in the world, and that the raw rate is a much better measure than the per capita rate.

If BB wants to make a decent argument, he might try comparing the US/Canadian immigration rates as a function of GDP - that would at least be comparing a variable that actually matters. Of course, there are a LOT that matter, so picking which ones matter over others is a bit of a challenge, as JR pointed out.

[The Minsky Moment]

Immigration/GDP for those three countries is going to track (ordinally) immigration/pop for those 3 countries because they all have similar per capita GDPs.

I still don't see the point in the pissing match because the bottom line is that all 3 countries take in lots of immigrants.

[Berkut]

I still don't see the point in the pissing match because the bottom line is that all 3 countries take in lots of immigrants.

Indeed - have to ask BB about that one. Apparently it is really important though, since he was willing to be rather insulting about it.

[Ed Anger]

How about you assholes take your fair share of the "asylumseekers" you are creating with your policy of bombing places to shit.

2004-2008 saw Sweden receive around 18/1000 whereas the number for the US was around 1.

BOO HOO.

[derspiess]

How about you assholes take your fair share of the "asylumseekers" you are creating with your policy of bombing places to shit.

2004-2008 saw Sweden receive around 18/1000 whereas the number for the US was around 1.

Would you like our Mexicans?

[Ed Anger]

I hope Slargos gets more Somalis.