One thing never changes about immigration
Voters everywhere tend to ask what's in it for them.
Several recent news stories cast light on a basic challenge of our divided nation. The United States is commonly called a nation of immigrants. Many of this nation’s voters have mixed feelings about immigration. And elected governments have to deal with both realities.
In recent days the Biden administration finally lifted Title 42, shorthand for a pandemic-era authority that made it easier to expel asylum seekers and others who crossed the border. Years of debate over this change were driven by the anxiety that ending it would invite a “flood” of migrants.
It was a false anxiety. The surge didn’t come, at least not yet. The Biden administration replaced Title 42 with new rules, which made it easier for some people to apply for asylum legally, but made it harder for anyone to enter illegally. Susan Rice, President Biden’s outgoing domestic policy chief, told me why the administration had toughened some rules: “We are a nation of immigrants,” she said, but also “a nation of laws,” and the U.S. government must enforce them.
The administration’s course drew predictable responses. Right-wing media stars have spent the whole Biden administration claiming the U.S. has “open borders,” even when the old policies of the Trump administration were still in place. Progressive activists have alleged the administration is copying the policies of the Trump administration.
In truth the administration seemed to be responding to the complexities of immigration—including the widespread demand that whatever happens at the border should be orderly and lawful. A democratically elected government could hardly do otherwise. Concern about migration is not limited to the right-wing media. Republican and Democratic political leaders have relayed complaints from their communities about the numbers of migrants and asylum seekers who have already come. Cities and states keep busing people from one place to another.
Migrants apprehended by the Border Patrol, 2014.
Nor is that anxiety limited to the United States. Today NPR’s Peter Kenyon reported on the election in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to hold on to power. Erdogan is a populist, playing on religious and identity issues, but apparently got on the wrong side of some voters. “Immigration is driving a lot of anger in the Turkish public,” Kenyon told me on the air. “Over a decade ago, Erdogan's government began welcoming Syrians and other migrants fleeing conflict or economic hardship at home. Europe shut its doors and started paying turkey to keep the migrants. Now, as Turkish families struggle in the down economy, migrants are coming in for more and more blame, and calls for them to be sent home have been growing for some time now.”
In other words, democratic governments in Europe stopped taking in refugees (after accepting many at first), so Erdogan agreed to take them, only to face eventual opposition at home.
Nor is the anxiety limited to the present day! Differ We Must, my forthcoming book on Lincoln, takes place mainly in the 1850’s and 1860’s, when a nativist movement rose to prominence and, briefly, to great power.
The book tells Lincoln’s life story through his meetings with people who disagreed with him. They included nativists whose ideas dismayed Lincoln—but whose support he needed, because some also opposed the spread of slavery.
This would seem to be a widespread problem in democratic societies. The debate becomes especially toxic when newcomers bring a different language, religion, race or culture than the immigrants who arrived a generation or two earlier. (When refugees fled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, neighboring nations such as Poland welcomed them; among other things, they have been seen as culturally similar.)
Amy Pope, the new head of the International Organization for Migration, was on the program this week and spoke of this reality. She argues that migration is often good for countries that need more workers and talent. She also knows that many voters in democratic societies don’t feel that way.
“It's a huge challenge,” she said. “And I think one of the things that IOM needs to do as we move forward is to help frame the conversation differently. I mean, we know as Americans that migration has actually led to tremendous benefits in our own country. We know even recent evidence shows that migration has revitalized communities that have been dying, in fact.”
Her words reminded me of reporting I did in 2022 in Akron, Ohio, which like many industrial cities has lost population. Akron openly welcomes refugees and other immigrants to make up the difference. In one case, a community center built by past Italian immigrants has become a wedding hall for people from South Asia:
As I learned while conducting voter interviews door to door, refugees and migrants are now sometimes neighbors with people who voted for Donald Trump and his promise to build a wall on the southern border.
Weeks after my visit, Ohio chose a senator, J.D. Vance, who campaigned against global elites and supported Trump—though he also has an Indian-American wife and talked of his biracial children during his campaign. Americans, like America, are complicated. As a senator, Vance has gone on to blame illegal immigration for higher housing prices.
It’s true enough that immigration brings costs, such as finding shelter for asylum seekers or making space in public schools. Illegal immigration in particular brings disruptions and hardships, including for migrants themselves. It’s also true that migrants bring skill and drive, take jobs that would otherwise be hard to fill, acquire citizenship and become part of the national fabric. As this Senate report finds, immigration expands the labor force and brings economic benefits. The “nation of immigrants” is the richest and most powerful country in history.
When democratic leaders favor immigration, they face a constant need to show voters how, on balance, it serves their interests.
Thanks for reading Differ We Must. If you haven’t, you can subscribe to receive it by email: