Immigration

Seth Barrett Tillman: “A Dialogue on Migration”

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This is very good.

Left-of-Center Candidate: I understand. We will work to ensure that your wages are not compressed.
 
Audience Member: You are not listening. That’s not what I said; I don’t like the direction the nation’s immigration policies have taken our country. You have supported the Government’s policies—at the very least, you have not opposed them. I don’t like where we are now as a result—not that the other opposition parties would do anything different.
 
Left-of-Center Candidate: No, that’s not right. My job is not to ensure your personal vision of the good society. I live in the real world—in the European Union—which (in effect) determines our national immigration policy—in conjunction with international law and our treaty commitments. My job is to act within that context in protecting your objectively rooted economic interests…

Sound familiar? The immigration policies of the Democratic and establishment Republican parties appear to include:

1. Open borders.
2. A preference for the interests of an international coalition that includes American elites over those of Americans overall, and for the interests of refugees and illegal immigrants over those of poor and working-class Americans.
3. Hostility to Americans who oppose current US immigration policies and want their government to promote the interests of Americans exclusively.

In the real world that Seth’s hypothetical candidate invokes, many US and European pols should lose their jobs for disregarding the voters’ wishes on this issue.

(See also Seth’s earlier American Spectator piece: East Wall and the Plantations: Ireland and Its New Migrants)

UPDATE: See this 2016 post by Seth.

Midterms and Mayhem

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Abstract: A “red wave” midterm election seems about to occur. Notwithstanding the apparent (relatively) recent precedent of the 1994 midterms, the eight weeks from Tuesday 8 November 2022 to Tuesday 3 January 2023 may become the most challenging period to date in the entire history of the American constitutional order, not excepting the “Secession Winter” following Tuesday 6 November 1860. A broadly similar situation would almost certainly exist if the relative positions of the major political parties in the US were reversed. Even with alarming possibilities in view, this post is intended to promote constructive apprehension, not mere fearfulness.

Like all good students at our eponymous institution, you get the theoretical elements first, then more practical aspects, and falsifiable predictions at the end.

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Rapò Sitiyasyon Ayiti

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Most problems were not problems long enough to be interesting.

— Larry Niven, PROTECTOR

Haiti has remained a problem long enough to be interesting.

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Heuristics for Ukraine (and other places)

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NB: some of the following is from a recent videoconference that included our own Trent Telenko, who is very much the man of the hour, but some of it is more publicly available, not to mention common sense. First, though, as is my wont, a quadrant diagram to organize my presentation …

I. Theater “Hardware” (physical assets/consequences)

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Who are the Afghans evacuated ?

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The Biden evacuation was botched. We all agree on that but what happened and why ? The Afghans who were interpreters and who worked with the US military were given, or were supposed to be given, special visas. These were called “Special Immigrant Visas” and were for Afghans who worked with the US. We are now reading that The majority of these people were not evacuated.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. estimates it left behind the majority of Afghan interpreters and others who applied for visas to flee Afghanistan, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday, despite frantic efforts to evacuate those at risk of Taliban retribution.

In the early days of the evacuation effort, thousands of Afghans crowded Kabul’s airport seeking a way to flee the country. Some made it through without paperwork, while American citizens and visa applicants were unable to enter and board flights out.

The U.S. still doesn’t have reliable data on who was evacuated, nor for what type of visas they may qualify, the official said, but initial assessments suggested most visa applicants didn’t make it through the crush at the airport.

The Biden administration now boasts that 120,000 Afghans were evacuated. Who are they?

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