Immigrant Song

We come from the land of the drizzle and sleet

Migration has become a hot button topic. Migrants cause inflation, raise house prices and rents, eat cats and dogs, all kinds of stuff.

Now I am a migrant so I take all this a little personally. In some respects, I had it easy. I came to Australia already speaking English (altho not knowing what “arvo” meant) and with some contacts and some solid experience on my CV. It was still hard. I had to make a life. It took me about five years to fully settle down here. I have respect for people people who come to a country with less than I did and make a go of it. Immigrants are typically people with the gumption and energy and ambition required to uproot yourself from home and move somewhere new.

The challenges of migration are probbaly one reason why only 16% of the world’s population actually wants to do it (although this goes up to 75% for a few places like Libera). This equates to about 900 million adults globally. About 170 million of those people want to migrate to the US (and 17% of Americans want to leave - or 44 million adults). Although this percentage is declining over time - well done to the US for making your country less attractive to people. N.B. Less than 10% of those contemplating migrating are making plans to make it happen.

This is not exactly the hordes of barbarians that we are told are at the gates. But this is still tens of millions of people. And developed countries (the most popular countries for migrants) are in a bind here. On the one hand, our universities want foreign students paying top dollar to study and our businesses want skilled, cheap workers for many of our industries (esp. our health sectors). On the other, we have neglected to build the infrastructure for all these people - esp. housing. So immigrants do cause house prices to rise (because they add to demand). But we could solve that with more residential construction. However that’s hard so it’s often easier to blame outsiders.

For decades the Australian government has had its immigrant cake (presumably made of cats and dogs) and eaten it. Asylum seekers and economic migrants arriving by boat have been demonized while many other groups of migrants have been let in. This has allowed governments to appease those hostile to immigrants (esp. non-white immigrants) while also reaping the economic benefits of immigration. That game now appears to be over.

But the those who are anti-immigration will need to reckon with the trade-offs of their position. Reducing migration will have economic impacts (as well as making us all more boring). If we are going to change our policies around migration then we need to have a grown up conversation about these things.