The Border Crisis Won't Be Solved at the Border

>Top of this political theater is the "migrant crime" panic. For example, in a country with >20,000 homicides per year, so far this year 27 of them have been committed by noncitizens [3] and that includes documented and undocumented people.

Illegal immigrants would have to be really stupid to commit crimes; after all, they jumped through huge hoops just to get into the country, so of course they're going to keep a low profile.

What I'm curious about, however, is how many crimes are committed by their kids? One thing I've noticed about immigrants in many countries is that, while the actual immigrants (the "first generation") went through hell to immigrate (illegally or legally), and generally are extremely hard-working and want a new life, their kids aren't the same. The kids didn't grow up in the old country and don't know what it's like there, and don't understand their parents' sacrifice. But in the new country, they frequently don't fit into the society (particular if they come from an extremely different culture and ethnic background), and then this can lead to big problems later, like joining criminal gangs.

Second generation children of immigrants vastly outperform children of non-immigrants, when you compare them by family income.

There are some differences by a demographic, but by and large, The stereotype of the hard-working immigrant parents pushing their children harder to succeed is accurate.

I don't know if they work as hard as their parents, but they have higher social mobility and lifetime income then their native economic peers.

Besides that data-driven point, My personal take on the original question is that the children generally don't work as hard as the parents, but that is simply a regression towards the American mean.

That said, just like not all people are the same, not all immigrants are the same. It is a broad classification that by definition includes both doctors and human traffickers. It's pointless to talk about immigration policy without getting into the details

My niece is the child of an "illegal" immigrant. She graduated from University of Oregon last year, works in HR, is starting law school next fall. She was nationally ranked as a cheerleader in high school. As far as I'm aware, she's never committed any crimes. Her dad, whose mom brought him here as a 2 year-old or something, went to school with me and my sister, and he was a bit of a punk back then, skateboarding kid who hung with guys that liked to put firecrackers in lockers and throw bottles of piss at pep rallies, but he's actually a good guy now in his 40s. Didn't marry my sister, but married, three other kids. Never got that citizenship for whatever reason, but living a normal life.

I'm really not sure where these impressions come from. They're just people, humans being humans. They're not any different than me. They're not any different than you.

For what it's worth, Mexican culture is not an "extremely different culture" from California and Texas, which were both part of Mexico and are majority ethnic Mexican. I'm ethnically Mexican, born in California, currently living in Texas.

There’s a joke that basically goes the first generation are immigrants, the second generation are Americanized, and the third generation have opinions about immigrants.

>Second generation children of immigrants vastly outperform children of non-immigrants, when you compare them by family income.

Do they? Can you provide a citation to back up this assertion, in France?

>For what it's worth, Mexican culture is not an "extremely different culture" from California and Texas

For what it's worth, MNEA cultures are "extremely different cultures" from France and Germany.

You're aware this is an article from Texas Monthly Magazine about the border between Texas and Mexico?

You're aware that discussion threads can go on tangents, right? My original message said "One thing I've noticed about immigrants in many countries is..." The US is not "many countries", it's just a single country, and this is a discussion about immigration in general.

They do in the US. I have no clue about France.

Here is a source:

Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the United States over Two Centuries, Ran Abramitzky American Economic Review, vol. 111, no. 2, February 2021

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20191586

Here is a podcast with the study authors:

https://www.econtalk.org/ran-abramitzky-and-leah-boustan-on-...

My point is that immigration in the US is somewhat different from immigration in most other countries. The US does a much better job of assimilating people from other cultures. How much this can be blamed on the immigrants, geography, or the host countries is debatable though. But instead of doing the American thing and ignoring everything outside US borders, as Americans almost always do, I think it's important to look at how things work elsewhere and see if there's lessons to be learned there.

> in France

Lol

WTF is MNEA ?

What on earth does MNEA mean?

I'm guessing that you're a French Islamophobe, since you keep trying to make this conversation about European immigration. But it's not. And you're not taking the conversation on a tangent, you're trying to change the topic of the conversation to something that no one else is talking about.

I dont disagree that there are multiple factors. That said, you do realize that this is an article about the US and the Texas boarder, right?

It seems you want to talk about other countries. Do you have any lessons you would like to share from abroad?

A typo of "MENA"