All Migration Is Local

The classic adage "out of sight, out of mind" might seem a bit dated nowadays, given how the Internet brings us everything, everywhere, all at once. Present-day behaviors, on the other hand, inform us that it's as valid as the day it was coined.

Consider the recent hyperventilation in blue cities such as New York over the influx of migrants (people that, at one time, were dubbed "illegal immigrants," and later "undocumented persons) to their hallowed grounds. For years, southern border states have been protesting, loudly, the feds' indifference to border control and the concomitant influx of, well, anyone who was willing to try hard enough. Also dubbed "asylum seekers," the incoming masses include people from a number of Central and South American nations who, we can presume, are unhappy enough with their native lands' conditions - whether they be economic, freedom-related, or safety-related to traverse hundreds or thousands of miles for a shot at getting into America.

I'm sympathetic to most of the "stakeholders" in the immigration matter. I get that people see America as an opportunity for a better life. My parents did, as have tens of millions (per one estimate, 72M people have immigrated to the USA since 1776) others. I get that people who navigated the maze/lottery that is legal immigration are off-put, to put it mildly, that millions are "skipping the line." I get that taxpayers are affronted by their money being used to support migrants. I get that people are upset at the lack of vetting that has allowed known and recidivist criminals to enter the nation. I get that people are upset by a lack of border control (as I've blogged in the past, a nation that doesn't control its borders is not a nation).

I also get the cynics' view that this "blind eye" to border-jumping, the asylum matter being as much a dodge as anything else, is a political strategy intended to, in the long run, tip the electoral calculus in favor of the Left. I share that cynicism, if only because one can never be cynical enough when it comes to politicians' motives.

I am skeptical, on the other hand of the "close the borders, the nation is full" crowd, and the "they're stealing Americans' jobs" crowd. The former is fact-free nativism and an echo of numerous anti-immigrant (see: Chinese, Irish, Italians, Catholics, et al) attitudes of decades past, and the latter presumes a right that doesn't exist.

But, those are another day's discussions, because both are secondary to the current Big Problem - how to manage all these people, many of whom showed up with little more than the clothes on their backs.

That Big Problem has, for the taste-makers, narrative-writers, and Best-and-Brightest true-Blue folks, been of the "out of sight out of mind" form until migrants started showing up in their communities. Ron DeSantis was much derided for sending a couple planeloads of migrants north to Martha's Vineyard, but the stunt worked. Suddenly, liberals "got" the real-world problems with unchecked immigration coupled with safety nets.

A quarter century ago, Milton Friedman articulated a simple and irrefutable truth:

It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state.

If you tell people "we will support you if you manage to get inside," you create a massive moral-hazard incentive. When that incentive burdened other states and soaks up other people's money, blue-staters clucked their tongues at the people in those state who pled for border control and other efforts to stanch the flood. Now that cities like New York are getting influxed, those clucks are for the Administration.

NYC Mayor Eric Adams suddenly discovered that migration means money has to be spent. A billion and a half this year alone, plus the "where to put them all" matter. Twice that has been budgeted for next year, and it won't be enough. Adams is trying to ship migrants to other parts of NY State - and those who scolded DeSantis are now demanding that Biden force those other communities to take the migrants.

I've long advocated for robust immigration. I've noted that the only way Social Security and Medicare can be sustained is, like all Ponzi schemes, via a growing population (and even that's not nearly enough), and with the American fertility rate being below replacement, that growth must come via immigration. I reject the notion that productive immigrants do harm to the nation. But, I'm with Friedman - you can't have robust immigration and a State that funnels money to immigrants. The latter has to be resolved before the former is embraced.

That's just math + human nature.

Our Best-and-Brightest routinely choose to ignore both, especially when the fruit of that willful ignorance is far away.

Radio personality Anthony Cumia once observed:

The farther away people are, and the browner they are, the less we care about them.

His lament referred to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed a quarter million lives, but the observation on human nature is broadly applicable. We care about "our own" far more than about people far away. News outlets alway report the number of Americans lost in a tragedy, even if it's only a couple out of hundreds or thousands. With our growing domestic tribalism, the plights of those of the "other team" are of less concern than of "our own," and the migrant crisis was of little bother to the high-power folks in NYC, DC, Martha's Vineyard, and the like - until those poor brown people started showing up in their neighborhoods.

The Administration is ignoring the pleas for help emitting from the various Blue-burgs that are its political base. I suspect Biden et al believe there will be little political fallout from that deaf ear, and I figure they're right in that belief. When your core constituents would rather chew hot asphalt than vote for the other team, no matter how poorly you treat them (yes, this goes for Team Red as well), you can safely ignore their plaints.

"All politics is local." Migration is politics, and now that it's come to the doorsteps of the people who control the narrative, I'm making popcorn.

Herbert Stein noted that "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Safety-netting migrants cannot go on forever. It remains to be seen how long it take Biden's handlers to figure that out - or if they ever will. Even as a Cloward-Piven strategy to bankrupt the nation, political calculus will catch up with them. If they don’t fix it, they may find themselves out of work.