This seems helpful, but I think the misattribution of a general "anti-immigrant" sentiment to immigration detractors is part of the problem.
Very few detractors in the west have any issues with highly qualified immigrants occupying scientific or research roles. Being opportunistic with which kind of immigrants one offers as Good is partly what's aggravating the issue. It's a radical kind of dismissiveness and denialism which is provoking people and ignoring their issues.
The broad western detraction against immigration at the moment is targeted at specific waves of mass immigration with specific compositions that have specific effects on the places those immigrants have landed.
People are primarily concerned about the ability of state, social and corporate institutions to absorb immigrants at this pace and scale without significant zero-sum effects. And, in addition, the significant amount of state support segments of those populations (eg., esp. asylum seekers) have to receive at a time when gov. are under inflationary pressures, debt pressures, etc. and cannot service their own welfare obligations.
Going, "oh but we get good cancer research from immigration!" is so dismissive to these concerns, that the backfire against this messaging is one of the major contributors to people's disaffection.
The idea that people need to be told that there are people who want to immigrate that are in our national interest to absorb, is just plainly absurd. This is uncontroversial and obvious.
This isn't addressing the main point of your comment, but a side issue:
> Very few detractors in the west have any issues with highly qualified immigrants occupying scientific or research roles. Being opportunistic with which kind of immigrants [...].
I'm not a detractor of any individual immigrant, certainly not a very skilled one. But I am dumbfounded when I hear people say how wonderful immigration is "for the economy", "for the health system", etc., because we can lure all these bright people over from poor countries with offers they can't get at home.
Like... Mozambique needs good doctors and nurses too. Sudan needs good engineers. Syria needs entrepreneurs.
I don't begrudge the immigrant one bit for moving to get more money or a better life or whatever it is that motivates them, and they sure do contribute to the place they move to. But harvesting the best and brightest minds from poor countries on an industrial scale isn't something that sits too well for me at all. The merits and effects could be debated and disagreed, but it certainly requires much deeper thought than just the greed driven "good for my economy, good for my healthcare, good for me" type quips.
I actually think of it as neocolonialism. The most valuable resource in this day and age is people, and wealthy countries are plundering the human capital from the poor ones like they did with resources in previous centuries. Throwing a bit of charity at them whenever the next outbreak or famine or civil war rolls around doesn't make up for it.
I'll point out that educational achievement and upward economic mobility in second-generation immigrants is generally excellent. That holds true regardless of their parents' education or income level.
Over a longer view, accepting a construction worker now, because his daughter might cure cancer later, might be an advantageous bargain.
"Very few detractors in the west have any issues with highly qualified immigrants occupying scientific or research roles."
Laughable, these 'few' reside in the highest seats of power and exist among the 'advisors' to the cabinet.
"It's a radical kind of dismissiveness"
People keep telling me I'm wrong in the wrong way, if they were nicer I'd consider their opinions. This is an irrational position to stake out, it should go without saying.
"The broad western detraction against immigration at the moment is targeted at specific waves of mass immigration with specific compositions that have specific effects on the places those immigrants have landed."
This is such a laborious way to say "poor, brown or both". Do you get tired of dancing around like this?
"People are primarily concerned about the ability of state, social and corporate institutions"
If you were actually "concerned", you'd advocate for punishing institutions that use cheap (or 'free' if you steal their passport) immigrant labor, rather than targeting those that arrived to fill those positions. Do you have an understanding of why this never happens?
It goes without saying that much of the 'specific immigrant labor' you despise is used to fill the welfare obligations related to care-taking that you are also deeply concerned about.
"dismissive to these concerns"
I was assured that 'tone policing' was the domain of the 'woke', yet here it is a second time in the same comment.
"uncontroversial and obvious."
You might want to speak to your fellow travelers about which are 'good' immigrants and which are 'bad'. It suffices to say that if they agree in general, but disagree about which group is good, then it is not actually 'uncontroversial'.
I personally don't care about immigration. I have yet ever to be negatively affected by it, and have tended to find immigrants more pleasant than my own citizens. I'm more worried about our aging, obsese, immobile populations who arent breeding, and need 3-to-1 worker ratios to support, that we cannot provide. I am, personally, relatively open borders -- for at least that reason. I am more motivated by welfare demands and geopolitics, both of which benefit from larger active populations in our borders.
However, what I want doesn't really matter. It's a democracy, and half of a country will not be ignored. You either listen and find some way to give them what they want in the least objectionable way; or they will take what they want, and take revenge on you for your obstinacy. They will do to you what you insist on doing to them: not listening to you at all as they enact the most extreme form of policies which they agree with.
You speak as if your views express those of a powerful majority who will impose them on your detractors. This a dangerous power fantasy. The castle has been ransacked, the draw bridge is down, and you've no army left.
You either draw up terms of surrender, or they will be drawn up for you.
> The castle has been ransacked, the draw bridge is down, and you've no army left.
Well, no, not that either. You're making the same mistake from the other side. The side you say has "no army left" also is half the country. And that half of a country will not be ignored either.
Both sides demand to be listened to, but neither side is willing to compromise or to admit defeat, even temporarily.
So I expect that power will continue to swap back and forth, that when in power both sides will do their best to implement their plans, and when they are out of power they will suffer the other side's vengeance for their obstinacy. I don't see it improving soon. I suspect we'll see at least another two election cycles of this viciousness.
Maybe. Certainly if detractors go to excess then they'll breed resentment from the supporters, and round and round.
At the moment though, i think there's lots of people speaking as if it were 2022 and all of that ammunition has now been expended and the stores are bare
Very few detractors in the west have any issues with highly qualified immigrants occupying scientific or research roles. Being opportunistic with which kind of immigrants one offers as Good is partly what's aggravating the issue. It's a radical kind of dismissiveness and denialism which is provoking people and ignoring their issues.
The broad western detraction against immigration at the moment is targeted at specific waves of mass immigration with specific compositions that have specific effects on the places those immigrants have landed.
People are primarily concerned about the ability of state, social and corporate institutions to absorb immigrants at this pace and scale without significant zero-sum effects. And, in addition, the significant amount of state support segments of those populations (eg., esp. asylum seekers) have to receive at a time when gov. are under inflationary pressures, debt pressures, etc. and cannot service their own welfare obligations.
Going, "oh but we get good cancer research from immigration!" is so dismissive to these concerns, that the backfire against this messaging is one of the major contributors to people's disaffection.
The idea that people need to be told that there are people who want to immigrate that are in our national interest to absorb, is just plainly absurd. This is uncontroversial and obvious.