I agree with your concerns. It’s hard enough as an American citizen to fix America’s broken immigration citizen, and like you said, it would be harder still to lobby these foreign countries for exactly the kinds of pro-growth policies that they are distancing themselves from. I’m half-Taiwanese, but I can barely speak Mandarin and have 1% of the cultural context I’d need to be an effective political advocate there.
But there’s a lot we can do from the vantage point of rich countries to benefit citizens of poor countries, like lobbying for more immigration. In terms of benefits to the global poor, open borders would probably trump any policy that developing countries could enact on their own. And it’s probably more tractable if we focus on the countries whose political climates already favor immigration.
I agree with your concerns. It’s hard enough as an American citizen to fix America’s broken immigration citizen, and like you said, it would be harder still to lobby these foreign countries for exactly the kinds of pro-growth policies that they are distancing themselves from. I’m half-Taiwanese, but I can barely speak Mandarin and have 1% of the cultural context I’d need to be an effective political advocate there.
But there’s a lot we can do from the vantage point of rich countries to benefit citizens of poor countries, like lobbying for more immigration. In terms of benefits to the global poor, open borders would probably trump any policy that developing countries could enact on their own. And it’s probably more tractable if we focus on the countries whose political climates already favor immigration.