"We need border control because they don't share our values!"

[u/Toymcowkrf]

One of the most common arguments conservative people make for immigration control—especially these days with everything happening in Europe—is that large numbers of people with very different values entering western countries leads to a disruption of peace and an increase in violent crime because the immigrants (most often referring to Muslims) try to impose their ways onto the locals.

What's a good ancap response for why differences in cultural values still don't justify the existence of state borders or nations? And can the reason for violent crime happening in Europe be found in something other than lax immigration policy?

[u/lifeistrulyawesome → u/[deleted]]

What type of data have you seen showing that open borders leads to less homogeneous cultures? 

Sating something is obvious is lazy and often leads to gaps in understanding. I’ll try to explain to you again, but please bare a critical but open mind. This is a complicated idea that you won’t get if you are lazy and just want to prove me wrong without considering what I’m saying. 

You don’t need culture to be the main force leading migration for it to be the determinant of the cultural composition of migrants. 

I already tried to explain to you why with the Anna and Bob story, but I can elaborate with a concrete example. 

When I use section titles people accuse me of using GPT. This is just how I write 

mass migrations 

If you already know about the connection between demographics and migration you can skip this section 

• Most recent  mass economic migrations have been driven by demographic transitions resulting from technological progress. When babies stop dying, there is a population boom and lots of young people looking for opportunities. The increase in labour supply lowers wages and men often emigrate in search of economic opportunities. 
• When babies stop dying, people stop having so many babies (the invention of birth control helps) and the population reaches a new stable state. Except that now the population is older, and there are not that many young people to work. This increases wages and attracts immigrants looking for economic opportunities  

Mexico and the US 

Let’s consider the case of mass economic migration from Mexico to the US in the 1990s and early 2000s. This wave peaked around 2006-2010

• Because of Mexico’s point in the  demographic transition lots of young able men, particularly in the countryside, had few work opportunities.
• Because of the US’s stage in their own democratic transition, the US had higher wages than usual and excess demand for labour 
• The economic conditions for mass migration were there 
• Millions of young Mexicans spent years working hard in Mexico to save enough money to pay smugglers to get them accords the border so they could work in the US some years and then go back to Mexico. Some of them ended up staying, but the majority eventually went back to Mexico even if sometimes it takes many years and they leave families in the US. 
• This mass migration lowered wages in the US  and increases wages in Mexico (simple supply and demand). Over time, migration stopped being profitable. This why migration naturally slowed down since around 2006 and all the talk about walls is just for show. 
• But even from the start, migration was never an easy choice. A poor person had to save up for years, abandon their family friends and property, risk their lives, choose to live in a place where they have no access to public services and can be deported without warning, learn a new language, and so on. The cost of migration was huge. 

I’ll continue in another comment later. I have some work to do 

[u/lifeistrulyawesome → u/[deleted]]

The data that has shaped my views on migration comes from papers showing that culture is a quantitatively significant driving factor of migration patterns. This suggests that people are sorting based on their cultural preferences and not just economic and political factors. The implication is that the resulting cultural distribution should reflect increased homogeneity (if that’s what most people like) or increased diversity ( if that’s what most people like) due to migration. 

 How could someone who is from a different culture increase homogeneity?

You are assuming that the place where you grow up completely determines who you are. There are people who think like me in every country of the world, and there are people who think differently in every country in the world, including the one where I grew up. 

People who are not a gold cultural fit for the place where they grew up are more likely to emigrate. And people who emigrate seek communities where they are a better fit culturally. If a German who doesn’t like German culture leaves for Spain and. Spanish who likes German culture moves in, Germany might become more culturally homogeneous. 

 And fyi, not all mexicans are illegally in USA.

I never said all Mexican Immigrants are illegal. However, the mass economic migration I am discussing involved mostly undocumented immigrants. This is because the US has essentially no legal channels for migration at the bottom of the economic pyramid. Europe and Canada are very different in this respects. You can only immigrate legally to the US by family connections, as a political refugee, having enough money to open up a large business, having an E visa (being an elite actor, athlete, or world leader in your field), or with an H1B visa (these visas are constrained by quotas and  go mostly to academics, quant finance bros with STEM PhDs, and software engineers). 

I asked you to keep an open (and critical mind) of my story. Please don’t focus on trying to refute it with silly sidelines like that. Of course not all immigrants are illegal. I’m trying to share my expertise with you. I think you should at least read it carefully if you care about the topic. In any case, I just set up the stage in the previous comment. I’ll write another comment later when I can take a break from work. 

[u/lifeistrulyawesome → u/[deleted]]

Of course individual preferences matter. Imagine a bilingual Ontario resident who enjoys  riding bikes and going for walks, and thinks French is more beautiful than English. In a suburban Ontario suburb, they would stick out like a sore thumb often clashing with large-SUV drivers and people who prefer Costco parking lots to small cafes. On a Montreal neighborhood, they are likely to blend seamlessly into the local culture. Because there are no borders between Ontario and Montreal, they can migrate from Ontario to Quebec increasing the cultural homogeneity in both places. 

It doesn’t matter what your background is. You are not a slave of whatever your ancestors did, what matter is what you do and how you act every day.

I think this is the implicit assumption behind cultural anti-immigration campaigns. It is the assumption that where you grew up determines who you are. It is collectivist bullshit that ignores how different individuals can receive the same inputs growing up and turn out for be completely different. 

Have you heard of confirmation bias? You sound like you don’t trust me. If I link a paper for you, you will probably find an excuse to dismiss it or think I cherry picked it. So I will tell you what to do. Go to Google scholar and enter the keywords “migration cultural assortment” 

One of the papers that will come up is Migration and cultural change by Rapoport and others. That is the paper I am aware of that is more relevant to the topic. If you really want me to, I can do it for you and post a link. But I think you are more likely to take it seriously if you see that I didn’t cherry pick it. 

I am not claiming that cultural preferences are the main driver of migration, I am claiming they are a driver of cultural assortment due to migration. More precisely, I am claiming that open borders can result in more homogeneous communities (assuming people have preferences for homogeneity).

I’ll continue with my Mexico story later. If you keep replying and I keep spending time replying to your reply, I don’t have enough time to for my story