
Amid debate, all 2016 American Nobel laureates are immigrants - _nh_
http://thehill.com/latino/300237-all-american-2016-nobel-prize-honorees-are-immigrants
======
punazj
Hate to play devil's advocate. But there just might be a reason or two to
explain Trump's supporter base without using phrases like "white supremacist"
and "racist xenophobe"...

[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-
nat...](http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-national-
academies-sciences-report-fiscal-economic-impact-native-born)

Bottom section is the critical point, about native born workers having 500 bn
in wealth transferred from the labor class to the ownership class as a result
of immigration.

We live in a very comfortable echo chamber where we usually don't actually
compete with illegal immigrants for jobs. Not everyone is so lucky. And those
people deserve to be heard instead of being shouted down and drowned out with
negative "-ist" arguments designed to censor them.

~~~
croon
Sure. I actually agree with what you write... up to the conclusion.

Why does this reasoning end up blaming people that by circumstance was born
elsewhere for competing by doing a better/cheaper job, instead of blaming the
system for allowing that transfer of resources between classes? Why not use
$100bn of those 500 for betterment/education/job creation/etc for those less
"lucky"?

~~~
punazj
Because of capitalism I think, you can't just appropriate someone's profits,
that's not capitalism.

There are two basic ideas to solve this though, you can put more and more
taxes on the capital owning class to "make them pay their fair share" for,
from what I gather the humanists want, an unlimited number of economic
migrants because it's the human thing to do. Now an important thing to note,
might be Trump's comments in the second debate, that while everyone is going
on about how he legally avoided paying maximal amounts of taxes (which I would
do as well, I think most everyone pays as little tax as they legally can),
Hillary's donors also use those loopholes. It takes a lot more research into
the respective tax plans to see if "making the rich pay their fair share" is a
campaign line or an actual plan, so that takes checking.

I gather that the arguments against this are that if people can't be rich in
the USA, they will go be rich somewhere else. The USA, from Trump's rhetoric,
I haven't checked this, has some of the higher corporate tax rates in the
world, and seeing as how manufacturing has already spread outside the USA, is
it really crazy to assume the capital will as well (especially when selling
the goods to America is facilitated by free trade deals that are in place,
making it less costly to move your business to another country).

This is the Democratic party tack to deal with wealth inequality.

The second plan is to cause a shortage of labor, which would increase it's
value, which would make wages go up. The common ways to do this would be: to
make it expensive to import goods into America (which lessens the effect of
labor in foreign factories which export into the USA) by getting rid of free
trade agreements; and to lower the number of people in the USA competing for
that labor. We attempt to do this by having an immigration procedure, with
quotas, so that we can accept as immigrants into our labor force the number of
people needed at various skill levels (this would be why it's easier for a
doctor to get in than a farmer, say). Trump's "wall" is basically just a way
to say "we should enforce the quotas that our immigration experts are setting
so that our labor force isn't glutted by excess supply in any relative tier".

This is the republican tack to tackle wealth disparity.

The arguments against this are mostly humanitarian, from what I gather. A
significant portion of the population consider's it America's duty and legacy
to be the harbor for the indigent. There's also arguments for cultural
enrichment etc.

I think that's why so much emotion is involved in opposing it, and why so much
backlash is rightfully indignant and angry. One side is hurt by this betrayal
of the American identity by building a wall to oppress the poor and keep them
from the upward path -- and then begins to call the other side hateful
things... When the other side tried to start an economic conversation.

This is just my interpretation of the situation.

~~~
punazj
edit: it's not letting me edit.

As is apparent, I have a bit of a Trump tilt. I would actually really
appreciate knowing more arguments against locked down borders in general (like
Switzerland, say), besides social ones.

~~~
Joof
The majority of illegal immigrants are people who have overstayed their visas.
A wall is expensive and won't stop them.

------
mc32
There is a difference between legal immigrants, illegal immigrants, immigrants
with advanced education and immigrants with low levels of education. To
evaluate the contribution of all of them together and say that the are the
same is like taking a look at all Americans and saying, Americans are doing
great, look at our per capita income.

There is a debate to be had about who and how and how many people from where
we allow to settle. We are outliers in how many people we take in. And I think
we should tailor policies with the impact on Americans in mind.

We're no longer in a steep growth phase, we're a mature economy which can
successfully absorb so many new people into viable jobs. We need to work
harder to get our underemployed better employed before we employ the surplus
workers from elsewhere.

That's not to say no immigration. Just controlled and proportional to need and
population of origin so that both a Senegalese and Indian and Cuban have
reasonable equality in obtaining a visa.

There is no reason we can't set data driven quotas to allow, say, 2MM per
annum to fill needs for ditch diggers and doctors, etc. But base it on need
and do it with some balance.

~~~
TorKlingberg
Yes, but hostility towards one group of immigrants often bleeds over into
hostility towards immigrants in general.

~~~
adiabatty
Can you show how, say, a hostility to uneducated Latin Americans would bleed
over to upper-middle-class Chinese immigrants and their descendants?

~~~
mc32
It's less likely because professionals have a. different options when job
pressures arise, b. usually opt for civil options to address shortcomings. So,
by the nature of the demographics, the reaction to jobs pressures will be
different.

But... regardless, we should always proceed civilly and petition the gov't
rather than lash out on a population, legal or not.

For example, in England /UK we witness outlash toward Poles, despite their not
being outwardly different, but for language. Again, lower classes feel undue
labor pressure and take it out on working class immigrants.

------
pvdebbe
And again they give a false implication that _legal_ immigration would be at
stake here. I don't mind if people support Trump or Hillary or whoever, but
this intellectual dishonesty about newsreporting should cease.

~~~
youdontknowtho
intellectual dishonesty.

if you think that trump has been talking about illegal immigration only, I
would like to point you to the term "dog whistle politics". Do you think that
the white supremacists that have come out in support of him are only referring
to illegal immigrants when they talk about the threat posed to "our" culture?

Lee Atwater once explained in a speech that because of changes in social
moirés you couldn't call black people "n*" anymore. Instead you could refer to
racial issues in terms of tax cuts and school busing. Tax cuts keep your hard
earned money from benefiting "those"" people and school busing...they were
going to make your kids schools worse by bringing "them" in.

Are there issues with the US immigration system. Yes. Has that been at issue
in this election? Not really. That's just not what's going on here. The issue
of immigration is a surrogate for a perceived loss of power by one population
relative to another.

~~~
kristopolous
there's more to it. The disenfranchised poor white didn't have a political
voice. I know many out-of-work ex-democrat ex-liberal 50+ white males that are
supporters of trump. Just last weekend, I was talking to an avid
environmentalist in an interracial marriage who supports trump. To say "well
some ignorant people are just racist" misses the true thing that's going on.

~~~
Scarblac
But if there really is a large group that does have real problems so that they
need fundamental change in politics -- why then do they need a fact-free,
intimidating, racist, conspiracy-addicted non-politician like Trump to fight
for their cause? Do they vote for a guy like that because they feel the system
must crash, and this is the only way to do it?

~~~
leereeves
Why do they need a politician like Trump to fight for their cause?

Because both parties have abandoned them, and class politics, in favor of
identity politics.

Why do so many politicians, activists, journalists, and other leaders ignore
(or demonize) their cause?

------
NhanH
I was curious so I went to check for historical Nobel prizes. Wikipedia
helpfully has the list of all laureates by country along with their birth
origin (0). 98 out of 362 American Nobel laureates are born outside of the US
(Bengt R. Holmström was listed under Finland for some reasons, otherwise it
would be 99/363).

Also, first American Nobel laureate was Teddy Roosevelt. Now that is a
surprise.

(0):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_cou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_country#United_States)

------
tnzn
Do we really need Nobel Prizes to legitimize migration ? I mean, why can't
someone just be allowed to move because life is too harsh in his home country
or because he has an opportunity or a family in the other one ? Because
seriously, all those antionalists have done to "earn" their nationality is
grow in the belly of the right mom'

~~~
flyinglizard
The argument being countered by showing the origin of the 2016 laureates is
that immigration is bad for the destination country; on the contrary,
immigrants have fantastic achievements, both as scientists and as
entrepreneurs. This is not about the wellbeing of the immigrants themselves.
Arguably, tough (yet reasonable) immigration policies act as somewhat of a
barrier, causing "good" immigrants to flow in, and restricting the bad. I
mean, you can't argue that on average, the population of prospective
immigrants is any better than the indigenous American citizens, but those who
make it past the immigration hoops are, evidently, pretty good.

If all immigration barriers were to be removed tomorrow, the influx of third
world population would crush the USA - or any other western state - as we know
it.

The challenge of the immigration system is being tough but fair, where you let
more of the useful immigrants pass while filtering out the rest. The American
system is not there; it's tough alright, but it's still missing on a huge
amount of human potential.

(I'm not a US citizen)

------
klagermkii
So where are the American-born Nobel laureates? Surely all six being
immigrants it at least a little statistically strange. Is this a result of
poor US primary education, an issue with culture, or something else at play?

~~~
rak00n
It's statistics I believe. 6 billion vs 318 million. Beside that the people
who get the chance to move to USA are cream of that 6 billion.

------
conjectures
While on this side of the pond, amidst the Brexit debate, I note the UK born
Nobel laureates appear to be emigrants. Maybe the US cup is half full?

------
iopq
And none of them are illegal immigrants from Mexico

~~~
GnwbZHiU
and none of them are Muslim immigrants.

~~~
techer
And none of them American born Christians. What's your point?

Last year:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Sancar](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Sancar)

------
internaut
Oh you shouldn't have opened this can of worms.

Now that you have done so, I have a simple retort.

The only person of African descent to win a real* Nobel Prize was Sir William
Arthur Lewis for Economics, and that chap was obviously fairly well
anglicized. Just look at his bio!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Arthur_Lewis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Arthur_Lewis)

* If we're working with the colloquial meaning of the phrase Nobel Prize, then winning it for 'Peace', while honorable and relevant to Alfred's original intent, isn't an intellectual feat. Intellectual prowess has nothing to do with morality, noble though it could be.

Now onto Muslims.

From Wikipedia:

Muslims make up over 23% of the world's population.[5][6][7] And as of 2015,
twelve Nobel Prize winners have been Muslims.

Again, if you discount 'Peace' then only 3 Muslims have obtained a Nobel Prize
for an intellectual reason.

If one categorizes writing as of equal intellectual consequence as physics or
chemistry, you only get an additional 2 winners.

The long and short of it is that African and Middle Easterners are populations
which are in the _billions_ but which have a single digit number of Nobel
Prize winners.

That makes perfect sense even if you don't believe race is a real biological
concept since those are the areas of our planet that have experienced the
least amount of progress, dare I say civilization.

If you dispute the Nobel Prize as evidence of an objective way to measure
intellectual prowess I'll completely agree with you (even though I believe
more objective metrics are likely to yield similar results), there are many
intelligent people who have performed feats who don't get a Nobel Prize, but
then maybe it points to the idea you shouldn't write headlines like "Amid
debate, all 2016 American Nobel laureates are immigrants" because that is
total bullshit.

~~~
toomanybeersies
Wouldn't it seem purely logical that poorer countries would have less Nobel
Prize winners? I suspect that there are not huge amounts of theoretical
physicists in Afghanistan.

Trying to equate it to how "civilised" a nation is, is just racism.

~~~
internaut
> Trying to equate it to how "civilised" a nation is, is just racism.

Is that all you have got?

Your ideals are intellectually dysfunctional, leading to stagnation, anarchy
and death as they have done so in every age. The whitewash job on history is
peeling off and every day that passes undermines your credibility.

Watch, as Venezuela and South Africa collapse into an abyss.

Watch, as each generation sinks deeper into poverty than the one before it.
Working harder, for less, every day.

Watch, as the fires rise in France and it becomes unsafe to walk the streets
in our own cities.

That is your work devil.

------
dschiptsov
That's the point of the US immigration system - to attract top 5% of the bell
curve.

~~~
croon
Yeah, I loved my NYC visit a couple of years ago. The statue of liberty was
incredible, and reading that famous quote really inspiring:

"Give me your healthy, your rich, your educated masses yearning to contribute
significantly to our GDP."

------
hugh4life
And every one of them would have been welcome to immigrate before the 1965
immigration law. That wouldn't be true many past winners but it's still
important to point out that nobel prize winners aren't exactly evenly
distributed among the source populations of immigrants.

I find it laughable that all immigrants are bundled under the banner of
"immigrant". Apparently the category of "race" or even "ethnicity" should not
be used but the category of "immigrant" despite origin is something that is of
great value despite being far more general.

~~~
whack
Are you suggesting that the immigration system should specifically make it
easier for Europeans to immigrate, but not Mexicans/Middle-Easterners? Please
sketch out some specific policy prescriptions.

~~~
hugh4life
Immigration should be mostly skills based and there is no reason to use race
or ethnicity for determining who immigrates.

What I am suggesting is that this collective romanticism about immigrants is
absurd. This was posted it the "latino" section of thehill to make an
ideological point yet none of these people are of latin american origin.

------
pornel
Brexiters want currently _legal_ EU immigrants to leave. It does affect
science, because scientists and students who are currently working/studying
legally in the UK may lose their rights.

Comments stressing immigration laws are only about illegal immigration are
almost tautologic. Of course illegal immigrants are illegal, but the real
issue is who the policy makers want to declare illegal.

------
deviate_X
I'm interested in the arguments against immigrants who have nearly nothing and
little-formalised skills.

Historically is there any information on the quantities of migrants who have
migrated to the USA with highly-formalised skills, or who are already wealthy
vs. those who arrived with nearly empty pockets.

------
mms1973
They are not immigrants, they are expatriates.

~~~
croon
When did they transition?

"An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or
permanently residing, as an immigrant, in a country other than that of their
citizenship."

~~~
miraj
its a wordplay + bias by mainstream media.

expats = migrants from the 'elite' class. educated, wealthy, well-connected
etc. most often referred to persons from so called '1st/2nd world' countries.

immigrants = migrants from the 'cattle' class. not-so-rich, varied education,
mostly non-caucasians. most often referred to persons from so called '3rd
world' countries.

------
code_sardaukar
In the non-Bayesian updating of progressives, if 100% of Nobel laureates are
immigrants, this is evidence that diversity is good, but if 100% of Nobel
laureates are born in the US, this is evidence of discrimination.

