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Comment by kevviiinn | Hacker News Reader

Xenophobia and racism prevents that

Racism and xenaphobia of the native population has very little effect on migration if the reward for the migrants is enough.

If a "developed" country wanted to stop migration they would work to raise the living standards at the source. There is less chance of that happening than removing xenaphobic behaviour from the natives however.

Or the "developed" society becomes more brutal than the place the migrant are fleeing from, so they stay away out of fear.

> If a "developed" country wanted to stop migration they would work to raise the living standards at the source.

Biden at least nominally adopted such as policy. See, for example, "U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America", https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Root-C...

But, AFAICT, it's mostly been a quiet public-private approach that in dollar terms isn't very substantial. See, e.g., https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...

If you look at Haiti, Venezuela, etc, it seems the limiting factor here is an unwillingness of the U.S. to leverage any political muscle, either domestically or internationally. I presume that's partly a consequence of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also probably because for some large factions, especially on the left but increasingly on the right, in American politics any form of involvement is unacceptable. It's almost like a radical ecological argument: the rest of the world is in a state of nature, and any intervention by an external agency is per se morally evil; the moral imperative is non-intervention, outcomes are irrelevant. Even those who don't hold this belief (explicitly or implicitly) at least understand the consequences: any perceived failure in intervention will be blamed on them, and nobody wants to face the ire of the religionists.

> It's almost like a leftist ecological argument: the rest of the world is in a state of nature, and any intervention by an external agency is per se morally evil.

The USA will get flack if it meddles and if it doesn't meddle, they really shouldn't worry about world opinion at that point. More to the point, it is impossible for America to fix the rest of the world, even if that were the moral thing to do. Welcoming some immigrants from countries having problems is probably the best we can do.

There's a huge gap between isolationism and trying to "fix the rest of the world". But in the current political epoch nuance, pragmatism, and mercy seem to be alien concepts.

The USA already has a foreign aid budget, and gets involved in bits and pieces, but it’s always too much and not enough at the same time, so how can they win at that?

> xenaphobia of the native population

People being afraid of the warrior princess is probably a good thing.

> Xenophobia and racism prevents that

Huh? My understanding is the US scores lowest of any country on objective measures of both.

Which country has less Xenophobia and racism? People throw out Canada often but I believe empirically that is false.

How is xenophobia measured empirically?

Probably by the ethnic distribution of the immigrants. Most of US immigrant are not white so I don’t understand your argument. Maybe only Canada has more diverse immigrants than the US.

Are you really defining diversity by skin color

What is the relationship between xenophobia and the diversity of immigrants?

Counter-example: Certain Arab gulf states, extremely large and diverse immigrant populations from all of Eurasia. Yet still super xenophobic to anyone who isn’t an Arab.

Canada explicitly legalized racism so long as it’s done for equity purposes. In America the same laws would be unconstitutional and immigrants of all types coming to the country on a regular basis. This is a country where the median income of several immigrant groups outstrips that of the local population despite factors such as nepotism.

Define racism I suppose. Is racism inequality or inequity?

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