The Immigration Conundrum: Further Thoughts & Solutions

The response to my Times of Israel blog essay last week amazed me (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-paradox-of-anti-immigration-policy). I thought that it was a relatively “dry,” semi-academic piece, albeit on an important topic. What I got was the largest number of responses I have ever received – and a ToI “Top Op” placement to boot! I obviously hit a nerve.

However, most of the responses were critical of my stance, especially the perception that allowing illegal immigration is detrimental and can even be catastrophic politically, culturally, and socially. So I’ll devote my essay here to refining my approach – and then offer some solutions to the general problem of xenophobia, racism, and intolerance of “the other” that underlies much of the debate surrounding immigration – in the world and in Israel.

First and foremost, the “problem” of immigration is not going away. Indeed, as we move into the mid-21st century it will only become more salient throughout much of the globe. Once again, the reason is simple: the massive collapse of birth rates throughout the developed world, leaving gaping holes in the workforce – and an even bigger (financial) hole in public retirement funds (e.g., Social Security) with too few workers supporting too many elderly. The manpower solution is clear: immigration from Africa – the only continent in the world with a “positive” fertility rate (defined as above 2.1 children per female; Africa’s today is exactly double that: 4.2 per woman!). Even the conservative Middle East is falling beneath “replacement” (except for Israel, with a very healthy 3.0 children per woman). In 1960, the average woman in the Middle East and North Africa gave birth to 7 children (!). In 2022 that had plummeted to 2.6 (!!) – with Iran (1.7), Qatar (1.8), UAE (1.4), and Lebanon and Kuwait (2.1 each), barely keeping their population steady.

The question, then, is “what to do” – and how. Here are several solutions, none the “only” answer, but cumulatively a major step in the right direction. After that, a few more thoughts about how to overcome the antagonism of significant parts of the absorbing countries.

1) Massive investment in AI and robotics. While it is doubtful that robots will completely take over all work, such technologies will go a long way to reducing the need for immigrants. However, for that to be socially beneficial the advanced countries will have to also produce…

2) Massive change in the tax structure i.e., increasing the tax on companies using AI and robotics, in order to replace the reduced tax inflow from workers. Other changes in such a circumstance: reduced employee working hours (a continuation of the trend these past 150 years) and some form of Universal Basic Income (UBI) for all citizens.

3) Massive investment by the advanced economies in the less developed world. The best way to lower emigration from poor countries is to raise the standard of living there. This has the added beneficial effect (almost an “Iron Law of Demography”) of eventually lowering the birth rate as well – thereby further reducing the number of migrants from those lands.

4) Residentially spreading immigrants i.e., ensure that they don’t congregate in closed “enclaves” that prevent cultural and social assimilation. True, immigrants (as anyone else) want to live with others of somewhat like mind, but this does not demand ghettoization. Such “spreading” is especially important and beneficial for schooling. Once immigrant children are educated together with native-born children, the second generation becomes quasi-native, and ultimately their progeny view themselves as natives for most intents and purposes.
Which leads me to the second issue: how to lower the antagonism to immigration on the part of the locals? Here I’m going to be “creative”.

5) Mandatory DNA checking of every newborn baby. This is already being done in some hospitals for health reasons (preventing/ameliorating genetic diseases), but my reasoning lies elsewhere. The vast majority of the world’s population is of “mixed ancestry”. Compulsory testing and then reporting to the person (at bar-mitzvah age?) would at a stroke remove most thoughts of “racial or ethnic purity.” This would be followed by…

6) Mandatory, serious education (high school level) regarding human biology and DNA – thus further undermining theories of “purity.” All Homo Sapiens share approximately 99.8% of the same genes – how “different” can we really be? This can be supplemented by serious lessons in demographic history e.g., Germans are not “Teutonic” but rather an amalgam of different tribes from yesteryear; the “English”? Descended from Celts, Angles, Saxons, Normans, etc. etc. Belief in “purity” is not merely a “racial” fable, but a cultural one as well. We are all “admixtures” of our past (Judaism no less than others). Finally (on this score), such education would emphasize one last clear black and white fact: all modern humans are descended from… Africans!

Where does Israel fit into all this? To a large extent the Jewish historical experience actually supports this “genetic” approach. First (whether fable or actual), the Hebrews who left Egyptian bondage constituted by 20% of the entire group; the others were the non-Hebrew “erev rav” that Moses had no problem with their presence. Many Israelite heroes (e.g., David, the great-grandson of Ruth the Moabite) biologically were not fully “Jewish.” Indeed, the reason that the Mishnah’s rabbis changed patrilinear descent to matrilinear was that among Jewish women, there was too much “miscegenation” with Roman men (whether by rape or willingly). Most relevant, of course, is the fact that Judaism has no “biological purity” problem with true converts.

Which leaves the “cultural” issue to be dealt with. Indeed, beyond some economic fears about large-scale immigration, it seems that in most cases the antagonism to immigrants lies in the “national-cultural” sphere. Even Israel suffered from this in its early years, with Jews from Arab countries (Edot Ha’mizrach) generally treated worse than their Ashkenazi (western) counterparts. Today, however, that serious social cleavage from the 1950s through the 1980s has almost disappeared from Israeli society for reasons mentioned above (#4).

As I noted in my column from last week, such anti-“otherness” is natural to human nature, and cannot be easily expunged. However, it can be ameliorated by employing several of the recommendations above.

Finally, the 800-pound gorilla in the room – the one that brought most of the criticisms against me: not relating to legal vs illegal immigration. Clearly, legal immigration is preferable. The question is what are the criteria and the annual numbers permitted? If the policy is to severely limit immigration – or to restrict it to those who are carbon copies of the absorbing nation, then that’s a failed policy (also for reasons I explained in last week’s post). On the other hand, unrestricted immigration that enables huge numbers to arrive in a short amount of time is socially disruptive, especially if they share no cultural norms with the host country.
Israel gets around these problems by enabling Jews to immigrate automatically – and they come from quite different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, providing the “yeast” that immigrant countries need. It is no accident that the country became a “Start-Up Nation” a mere few decades after absorbing over a million Jews from the four corners of the Earth – and close to 80 somewhat different “cultures” (and again in the early 21st century after absorbing a million immigrants from the collapsed Soviet Union). Indeed, the United States of America became the greatest power in the world because of massive, unrestricted and unregulated immigration in the 19th century. It was a human “flood” of massive proportions that turned the U.S. from a backwater (compared to Europe) to the world’s economic and cultural leader in the 20th century. (Was it coincidence that the 1929 Great Depression occurred only five years after immigration to America was basically halted?) But in any case, Israel is an “immigration outlier” because of Jewish history (ongoing persecution) and the Holocaust (severe demographic decline).
Other countries have to find the balance between relatively large numbers but not too great a socio-cultural dissonance with their host cultures. The debate continues – even strengthening, as the needs of the economically poor South and the demographically diminished North converge. In the end, there are no magic bullets – but there are partial solutions that together can constitute a Golden Mean.