If you have a society with robust social welfare systems - education, healthcare, social security, pensions, childcare, housing etc. etc., mass immigration becomes a massive problem.
Everything is taken care of via taxes, and those taxes come from a productive working population. Slow population growth (whether from births or immigration) allows social institutions to expand at a matching rate over the decades.
Rapid population increases from migration can overwhelm the systems in place and put society in a spot where it is no longer able to maintain them.
Furthermore, when it comes to illegal immigrants, it gets doubly bad. They can’t hold down a legal job (at least in my country, and thus not pay taxes either), which inevitably pushes them towards crime or illegal jobs which brings a whole host of other issues.
In most cases, illegal immigrants do not benefit from government welfare programs, but they do work and contribute to the economy positively.
In cases where data has been collected, immigrant populations tend to put more into the economy than take through social programs, when compared with native populations. I can provide sources and data on this if you’d like.
Illegal immigrants may often not pay income tax, but they do pay most other forms of taxes that still end up paying more into the system than they get back. I can also provide evidence on this if you’d like.
If tax isn’t being collected from someone, when they’re willing to pay it, that is 100% the fault of anti-immigration policy, not an immigration issue.
Thanks for a well-written reply. Here’s some quick responses:
1… as mentioned the primary costs here come from increased crime which is hard to document. In high trust societies (which social welfare countries usually are) this has a disproportionately negative impact on the economy. Also, in several Scandinavian countries everyone has a right to emergency healthcare, regardless of their immigration status.
2… I believe you’re correct when it comes to countries with less social welfare such as the US, however, this isn’t the case in countries with robust social welfare systems. As recently as 2023 Denmark assessed the net contribution of migrants and their descendants on the public finances and published the results. The sum total effect of migrants was negative (-19B DKK). Per capita the average Dane had an impact of (22k DKK) per year and the average migrant (-21k DKK). Some migrant/migrant descendant subgroups were better or worse than others (best 52k DKK, worst -109k).
3… Sure, I assume this accounts for other societal costs such as law enforcement and crime?
4… See the response to #2. The taxes don’t cover the costs.
Thanks for your response. Your argument is convincing and I have no refutation, I appreciate you taking the time.
The only thing I would say is I bet this is still fixable with policy without having to ban or restrict immigration. But alas, that’s a different discussion, and your point that there are valid non racist reasons to criticize immigration is correct. Thanks again!
No worries. I think the more interesting discussion that I’d like to have at some point is how a good system for immigration actually looks. It’s not a trivial problem to solve and can’t be done in isolation either. Societies are systems where everything is interlinked in one way or another.
The thing is, if they are there illegally, they won’t be able to benefit from most of these welfare systems. And over straining welfare can also happen for a lot of different reasons (thank you neoliberalism)
If you have a society with robust social welfare systems - education, healthcare, social security, pensions, childcare, housing etc. etc., mass immigration becomes a massive problem.
Everything is taken care of via taxes, and those taxes come from a productive working population. Slow population growth (whether from births or immigration) allows social institutions to expand at a matching rate over the decades.
Rapid population increases from migration can overwhelm the systems in place and put society in a spot where it is no longer able to maintain them.
Furthermore, when it comes to illegal immigrants, it gets doubly bad. They can’t hold down a legal job (at least in my country, and thus not pay taxes either), which inevitably pushes them towards crime or illegal jobs which brings a whole host of other issues.
Thanks for a thoughtful response. My thoughts:
Thanks for a well-written reply. Here’s some quick responses:
1… as mentioned the primary costs here come from increased crime which is hard to document. In high trust societies (which social welfare countries usually are) this has a disproportionately negative impact on the economy. Also, in several Scandinavian countries everyone has a right to emergency healthcare, regardless of their immigration status.
2… I believe you’re correct when it comes to countries with less social welfare such as the US, however, this isn’t the case in countries with robust social welfare systems. As recently as 2023 Denmark assessed the net contribution of migrants and their descendants on the public finances and published the results. The sum total effect of migrants was negative (-19B DKK). Per capita the average Dane had an impact of (22k DKK) per year and the average migrant (-21k DKK). Some migrant/migrant descendant subgroups were better or worse than others (best 52k DKK, worst -109k).
3… Sure, I assume this accounts for other societal costs such as law enforcement and crime?
4… See the response to #2. The taxes don’t cover the costs.
Thanks for your response. Your argument is convincing and I have no refutation, I appreciate you taking the time.
The only thing I would say is I bet this is still fixable with policy without having to ban or restrict immigration. But alas, that’s a different discussion, and your point that there are valid non racist reasons to criticize immigration is correct. Thanks again!
No worries. I think the more interesting discussion that I’d like to have at some point is how a good system for immigration actually looks. It’s not a trivial problem to solve and can’t be done in isolation either. Societies are systems where everything is interlinked in one way or another.
The thing is, if they are there illegally, they won’t be able to benefit from most of these welfare systems. And over straining welfare can also happen for a lot of different reasons (thank you neoliberalism)