
Socialite Cordelia Scaife May Spent Her Fortune Trying to Keep Immigrants Out - georgecmu
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html
======
tlb
It seems like many now-popular movements had deep-pocketed sponsors.

Can a billion dollars always push an idea into the mainstream? Or are there
counterexamples of groups who poured huge amounts of money into promoting
something that never caught on?

~~~
neetdeth
Money does seem to be the only way to get even a hint of policy change from
Washington, but the trend line of public opinion is opposite of what you
suggest. Until around 1995, immigration restriction was overwhelmingly
mainstream in the United States and still commands a strong plurality.

[https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx)

I'd further point out that the overwhelming majority of the moneyed interests
still stack up on the side of permissive immigration policies. It is, after
all, capital that benefits from a global free market for labor and an expanded
consumer base. It's just about the only thing the Koch brothers and Soros can
agree on.

~~~
ajxs
This is the fantastic irony of the completely false dichotomy that the public
imagines mainstream politics to be. The modern left seems to paradoxically be
supporting open-borders _and_ worker's rights. Normally I would further
qualify that statement by attributing such sentiments to the _far_ left, but
this seems to be a fairly mainstream position based upon what we saw in the
Democratic Primary debates recently. I find it difficult to believe that a
pro-trade union candidate like Bernie Sanders does not understand the basic
laws of supply/demand: How a supply of cheap labour affects the wages of the
individual employee. I'm in my early 30s and I came of age immersed in the
counter-culture of the 90s. Nihilistic Industrial rock decrying the emergence
of free-trade and a globalised economy was the left wing soundtrack of the
age. Now the far-left seems to be wholesale pro free movement of people and
capital. I would accuse the masses expecting that this will not have a
negative impact on the financial well-being of the individual of absolute
foolishness, but it seems that many proponents of such policies are no longer
expecting them to be feasible within the framework of social-democracy.
Instead opting for much more collectivist forms of government.

~~~
deogeo
> I find it difficult to believe that a pro-trade union candidate like Bernie
> Sanders does not understand the basic laws of supply/demand: How a supply of
> cheap labour affects the wages of the individual employee.

This interview would indicate that he understands that, and wants to restrict
immigration for that very reason:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0)

Edit: The interview is from 2015, so it may be that his understanding has
'evolved' since.

~~~
ajxs
( Without watching said interview, I'm in the office and don't have headphones
) Did Sanders not indicate his support for decriminalisation of illegal border
crossing in the primaries? I would hardly take that as an endorsement of
restricting immigration.

~~~
supercow12
Not necessarily no.

Most border crossings aren't even prosecuted.
[https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/520/](https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/520/)

Increasing the number of them being prosecuted places a massive burden on the
court system and results in the various unjust scenarios we have today.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/border-immigration-
cou...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/us/border-immigration-
courts.html?module=inline)

There isn't any evidence that criminalization decreases the number of border
crossings either.
[https://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/2015/OIG_15-95_May15.pdf](https://www.oig.dhs.gov/assets/Mgmt/2015/OIG_15-95_May15.pdf)

Indeed, immigration levels haven't decreased under trump despite the massive
increase in prosecutions.

Given this, it isn't absurd to think that other approaches would be at least
as effective at controlling immigration in practice.

------
romaaeterna
When someone moves from the 3rd world to the US, their CO2 footprint grows
enormously. Mass immigration is hugely disruptive to stable job and family
formulation. It seems to be supported by mainly by two groups in the US, one
that wants cheap exploitable labor, and one that wants to shift American
politics by changing the demographics.

~~~
jonstewart
There’s also a third group, who believes that if someone’s country has become
unlivable (e.g., Honduras today), the United States of America would be
honored to have them.

/s/, descendant of Potato Famine Irish Immigrants

~~~
romaaeterna
What quantity of people are you talking about exactly, and what price are you
willing for poor black/Hispanic/white people with only high school degrees to
pay in low-skilled labor competition, in order to assuage your racial guilt?

Do you have any idea what has happened to the wages for non-skilled labor
since the 1970s? While you and I may have nice cushy jobs and live in nice
houses, the largest employer in this country is Walmart. Most people in this
country don't have college degrees. They are poor, and mass immigration has
made them poorer, and continues to make them poorer.

A lot of the "Abolish ICE" support comes from people in highly gentrifying
areas of the country, living in cities that are in the process of driving out
their historic minority residents from their homes to go live in the Midwest,
all to make way for wealthier white people. Not that this would be your
situation, of course! But it can make that sort of person's cheap grace very
cheap indeed.

~~~
jonstewart
I live in Washington, DC, where I own a house in a neighborhood that was
ranked as the hottest market in the country a couple years ago. So, I’m one of
those privileged coastal elites who lived in a highly gentrifying area.

That gentrifying neighborhood is also home to DC’s Central American diaspora.
My daughter’s classmates’ families fled violence in Honduras and El Salvador
(both in the 80s and now, with renewed unrest).

I’m also from rural Iowa, lived on a farm during the 80s farm crisis until my
dad threw in the towel. I go back regularly. I have a very personal
understanding of rural depopulation and economic stagnation.

Your accusation of cheap grace is indeed cheap. You want real grace? Love thy
neighbor, every one of them. Do you have any idea what life is like in San
Pedro Sula?

~~~
romaaeterna
What do you want me to say? That you're going to heaven by taking the bread
out of poor black people's mouths in order to help Hondurans? I don't think it
works that way. You aren't making any personal sacrifice whatsoever here.
You're just hectoring people about neighbor-loving while you get rich and they
get poorer.

And if your interest in immigration is especially asylum law, I would be
extremely worried about the people now deploying asylum fraud as a mass
immigration wedge. It's going to wind up hurting the people who need it the
most, and in fact already has.

------
oh_sigh
I assume this article was written because of proposed changes to the green
card system hinted at earlier this week.

It may be my own bias showing, but is there ever a reason to offer some person
permanent residency in the country when you know they will need to go on
public assistance right away?

~~~
jakelazaroff
Because permanent residency shouldn't be a privilege granted only to the
relatively wealthy.

~~~
oh_sigh
Most Americans aren't relatively wealthy, but also aren't on food stamps or
other public programs.

~~~
dragonwriter
As of July 1, 2016, over 80 million Americans, nearly a quarter of the
population, was enrolled in Medicaid. [0] (Because someone qualified for other
means-tested assistance will almost always also qualify for Medicaid, that's a
pretty good rough estimate, though still a lower bound, for the total aid-
receiving population at that point in time.)

[0] [https://data.medicaid.gov/widgets/x3sw-
xby3](https://data.medicaid.gov/widgets/x3sw-xby3)

~~~
oh_sigh
Okay, so most Americans are not on public assistance. That seems to agree with
what I said.

------
egypturnash
This is your occasional reminder that a lot of the “Mexican” “Immigrants” our
president hates so much are the descendants of the people who were already
here when Europeans came here.

------
georgecmu
paywall breach: [http://archive.is/RRKEH](http://archive.is/RRKEH)

------
chkaloon
On a recent Vox Weeds episode there was mention made of the environmental
movement's early connections to eugenics, sterilization and population
control, and how national parks weren't so altruistic when it came to native
populations and local population subsistence. I have also heard opinions in
the past that environmentalism in its 20th century forms was really just a
white culture concept of aesthetics. I can imagine that if you scratch deep
enough there's lots of dark stuff there.

~~~
mc32
Up until the green revolution population control was of great concern. The PRC
took that to heart and introduced the 1CPF policy.

It’s arguable that this policy while very cruel and unjustly applied and which
resulted in skewed gender demographics, had allowed China to prosper quicker
than otherwise. On the other hand, in 20-30 years they will face a severe
shortage of working age people. But they are autocrats so they may be able to
manage that via central policies.

~~~
pm90
If you sincerely believe that the earth cannot support a large population of
humans that live unsustainable lifestyles, your most logical conclusion will
probably be to find ways to reduce it. However, we know now that as a country
gets wealthier, it’s fertility rate also decreases rapidly. So perhaps instead
of trying to fix the problem by eliminating humans we can try to make other
societies prosper and let socioeconomic factors take care of the problem.

------
rdiddly
Don't like to see overpopulation being conflated with immigration again,
because...

Overpopulation is obviously a problem; immigration maybe or maybe not (case-
by-case each country decides).

Overpopulation is from people being born; not from people crossing borders. No
humans are created or destroyed in the act of emigration or immigration.

Overpopulation, nobody wants to talk about; immigration, everybody wants to
talk about.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
How does that square with many western nations whose population would be
declining due to low birthrates if not for immigration?

~~~
Spooky23
Prosperity reduces birth rates for a variety of reasons.

One of the big drivers of population growth is being a poor farmer and
preserving a legacy. Once you have some wealth, the incentives change.

My grandparents grew up poor in rural Ireland, my grandmother was one of 12
children and at least 16 pregnancies, born in the WWI era. 9 of the siblings
made it to adulthood. They needed people to milk cows and catch fish, and
needed living sons to inherit the land and take care of the elders.

Immigration in modern western countries fills the gap between productivity
gains and the dearth of workers. It keeps salaries lower to reduce inflation
and preserves the status quo. Remember that behind of all of these crazy
debates is a need for certain stakeholders to maintain power.

~~~
pm90
> It keeps salaries lower to reduce inflation and preserves the status quo.

That doesn’t seem correct. Waves of Hispanic and Asian immigration has
reshaped California from Conservative to _the_ most liberal state. CA also has
high minimum wages and much better worker protections than most other states,
due to the liberal leaning politicians that got elected.

~~~
Spooky23
Enter the right wing "populists".

Why do you think that these folks are so upset about immigration from Latin
America and Asia? The old way was to exploit cheap immigrant labor... but
after many years, you now have a situation where that immigrant labor is
disrupting the status quo.

This has happened before. The same type language directed at Mexican and
central american laborers was directed at Irish, Italian, Greek, Chinese and
Jewish immigrants in the 19th century. Race, religion, supposed immorality,
the same shit. See the Page Act, Chinese Exclusion Act and "Know Nothing
Party".

------
inflatableDodo
A billionaire worrying about the possibility of global ecological collapse due
to overpopulation and then deciding that their preferred reaction to this is
to spend their vast wealth keeping people out of the particular corner of the
planet that they personally spend most time in, is some of the laziest
thinking I have encountered in quite a while.

edit - Also, I am not entirely sure that her partners in this battle she was
fighting against immigration, have really got the memo on the whole
ecology/overpopulation thing. They strike me as more the sort to either be
siring their quiverfull ready for the coming eschaton, or to leave a trail of
illegitimate children from a series of messy affairs with employees.

