December 12, 2017

Okayed Ullah, "the nephew of an American citizen... benefited from what the officials called 'extended family chain migration.'"



That's the stark photograph at the NYT. It has the notation "The photograph was provided by a city employee." I guess the city employee doesn't want a photo credit, perhaps because he was violating rules by taking that picture and/or sharing it with the press.

The NYT article — "Suspect in Times Square Bombing Leaves Trail of Mystery" — tells us that Ullah lived in the Flatlands neighborhood in Brooklyn, next door to a guy named Alan Butrico, who had a problem with him: "He used to block the driveway. His family used to block the driveway all the time." Yesterday, he blocked traffic in the subway, by detonating an explosive in the tunnel between 2 major subway lines in Manhattan.

Although that article purports to delve into the "mystery" of Okayed Ullah — and whoever "okayed" him for immigration should be delved into — it does not contain the element I'm searching for (which I heard in the NYT "Daily" podcast this morning). Ah, here it is in another NYT piece, "Bomber Strikes Near Times Square, Disrupting City but Killing None":
Law enforcement officials said the attacker, identified by the police as Akayed Ullah, 27, chose the location because of its Christmas-themed posters, a motive that recalled strikes in Europe, and he told investigators that he set off his bomb in retaliation for United States airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria and elsewhere.
So... a war on Christmas... as the right-wing talking point goes. Lefties may mull over whether the visibility of the Christian majority in the United States makes non-Christians feel like outsiders and fuels — in a tiny minority of non-Christians — the kind of anti-social reaction that occasionally manifests itself in violence.

Anyway, this idiot had little impact on the concrete space of the NY subway, but he'll have plenty of impact on thinking and talking about extended family chain migration.

91 comments:

Darrell said...

He looks peaceful.

tim in vermont said...

... whoever "okayed" him for immigration should be delved into — it does not contain the element I'm searching for

I think Winston Churchill is the guy who said it best: "That's one grammar rule, up with which I will not put!"

Mike Sylwester said...

If President Trump and the Republicans in Congress make progress getting rid of chain-migration, they will help themselves win future elections.

The Democrats will argue that opposition to chain-immigration is racist, for two reasons:

1) The Democrats make racism accusations on any and every issue.

2) Immigration applicants in Third World countries will not qualify on merit.

tim in vermont said...

If he hates Christmas so much, there are lots of countries where he could have chosen to live.

David Begley said...

The next ISIS attack in NYC won’t be by an idiot.

Sebastian said...

"and whoever "okayed" him for immigration should be delved into" That would be Congress. Let's delve into it.

Mike Sylwester said...

The Democrats' logic for deciding immigration issues:

1) Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

2) Import hundreds of thousands of uneducated foreigners who do not speak English.

3) Grow the underclass of unemployed ethnic and racial minorities.

4) Argue that unemployment and poverty are caused by racist Republicans.

6) Agitate ethnic and racial minorities to vote against the racist Republicans.

Immigration based education, skills and English-language competence does not fit into the above logic.

Darrell said...

7)Tell them if they stop voting Democrat, they will be forced to leave the country.

The Drill SGT said...

Beyond the fact that Chain immigration brings in a very poor/untalented demographic, it has a significant negative impact on assimilation. Why assimilate, when you can just import your entire village along with its culture and moral code?

We've abandoned assimilation as a model, so we will continue to see the cultural friction. Third world-First world

MacMacConnell said...

This idiot must have gone to the Bill Ayers Weathermen school of bomb making.

tim in vermont said...

Where is the harm in importing people who think that democracy is an affront to the Koran, which already has all of the laws men need and who think that mass murder is political speech? I mean, doesn't this guy have a first amendment right to bomb subways?

The Drill SGT said...

Mac McConnell said...
This idiot must have gone to the Bill Ayers Weathermen school of bomb making.


Nawh.

Okayed violated the first rule of bombs and battles: Figure out how much explosive you need, then double it. Few bombs or battles fail because of too much explosive or too many troops

If he had done better, we would not need a trial.

Tank said...

@Tim

Bombing rights are in the 2nd Amd.

Chris N said...

One World. One Love.

***At The Ayers School you’ll learn:

-Marxist Economics
-How To Suck At The Teats Of Mrs O’Leary’s Cow
-Organizing for Peace
-How To Wear An Earring

Michael K said...

" Why assimilate, when you can just import your entire village along with its culture and moral code?"

This is what has wrecked Britain. Pakistanis immigrate, then go back to Pakistan for wives and bring the whole village eventually.

The first cousin marriage that results has left the NHS with the highest incidence of congenital defects in the developed world.

The unwillingness to deal with the problems gave us Rotherham.

From the late 1980s until the 2010s, organised child sexual abuse continued almost unchallenged by legal authorities[14] in the northern English town of Rotherham, South Yorkshire. It was first documented in the early 1990s, when care-home managers investigated reports that children in their care were being picked up by taxi drivers.[15] From at least 2001, multiple reports passed names of alleged perpetrators, several from one family, to the police and Rotherham Council. The first group conviction took place in 2010, when five British-Pakistani men were convicted of sexual offences against girls aged 12–16, but the ringleaders remained at large.[16] Other major convictions regarding child sexual exploitation included one in 2007 of a lone male offender who "abused over 80 boys and young men".[17] From January 2011 Andrew Norfolk of The Times pressed the issue, reporting in 2012 that the abuse in the town was widespread, and that the police and council had known about it for over ten years.

The police and the town officials had known for ten years !

Darrell said...

--How to make a symbolic fork with your index, middle, and ring fingers and make a stabbing motion while cackling like an idiot.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

If we don't let all the Islamic Supremacists in, we are racists and xenophobes. So sayeth the hivemind.

Darrell said...

Up to 10,000 white English girls have been abused by "Asian" men across England in the last thirty years. Police still aren't investigating properly and still have Muslim advisers to steer the investigations.

Darrell said...

Radio Free Europe should be spreading the rumor that the reason we want all those immigrants is for fertilizer.

sean said...

I don't think Althouse's focus on Christianity holds up--in Sweden the Muslims firebombed a synagogue. I guess that's the fault of the Jews, for being so visible.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Tim said..

Where is the harm in importing people who think that democracy is an affront to the Koran, which already has all of the laws men need and who think that mass murder is political speech? I mean, doesn't this guy have a first amendment right to bomb subways?


Exactly. Islamic supremacists and Antifa share the same collective rights. Violence is free speech. and we need more. Especially because the NYT approves of their fashion choices.

Bay Area Guy said...

The Left is bona fide crazy on immigration. They want immigrants to not assimilate into American culture and, instead want them to get attached to the welfare state.

The Drill SGT said...


Dickin'Bimbos@Home said...
Exactly. Islamic supremacists and Antifa share the same collective rights. Violence is free speech. and we need more. Especially because the NYT approves of their fashion choices.


Violence is Free Speech (by guys in black)and Free Speech is violence (Mohammad cartoons or Coulter lectures)

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Lefties may mull over whether the visibility of the Christian majority in the United States makes non-Christians feel like outsiders and fuels — in a tiny minority of non-Christians — the kind of anti-social reaction that occasionally manifests itself in violence.

Really? Every lefty that's brought up Christmas to me has tried his best to convince me it's a pagan holiday, has nothing to do with Jesus, and is really just a "capitalist fantasy" designed to sell gifts to voracious consumers. God help the poor immigrant trying to understand the stew of issues that surround this huge celebration!

Too bad he didn't understand that Americans just like to celebrate. And there's always some of us that take it really far. We celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and holidays, and events. We turn Halloween into a 30-day candyfest and roll Dia de los Muertes into it just for fun and multicultural laughs. Hell, Disney combined Halloween and Christmas into a celebration/movie/amusement park ride that would probably blow this idiot's mind if he could absorb it. America.

War on Christmas, 2017.

Ray - SoCal said...

Looks like Trump will be getting immigration reform.

Soon to be gone:
- diversity / lottery visa due to other terrorist attack
- chain migration

Pressure points:
- Haiti immigrants here
- Central American here due to earthquake
- daca

Amazing politics instincts by Trump!

Tim said...

How much is this shitstain going to cost the taxpayer? I don't understand the blindness of the left (and GOPe) in WANTING this garbage (and it is garbage) into the US.

Darrell said...

Cloward-Piven Strategy. Take down the United States by overloading entitlement programs.

Unknown said...

There is a guy at the bar who is extremely sensitive to news about terrorist attacks when immigrants are involved. His sensitivity is heightened further if the terrorist is a Muslim. Because he is gay. With a Muslim boyfriend.

He does not want to see his boyfriend subjected to hate. As such, people tiptoe around him when a terrorist act has just occurred. But obviously, it is an elephant in the room. So the elephant is carefully ignored, and people mostly talk about sports when he is around.

Of course, the sports world has elephants of its own. Players kneeling, being one example. Because now you are talking about racism, not sports. Sometimes there are a lot of elephants in the bar.

However, the guy at the bar with the Muslim boyfriend has become more outspoken about this of late. There is a lot of hate, he says: a lot of Americans are homophobic immigrant Muslim haters. These people are usually identified as white. He is white. But he knows about homophobia, so he understands what it is like to be hated. Sometimes homosexuality is an elephant, too.

On a rare occasion it will be brought up to him that his boyfriend is Muslim and gay. The idea being that Muslims are not seen as tolerant of American Gay Life. He explains that this is not true: Muslims are a loving people. Oh yeah: the haters he usually identifies as white he also identifies as Christians. Sometimes more specifically identified as dumbfuck Christians. So: sometimes Christians are an elephant, too, at least if you are are loosely Christian in a Seattle bar.

When there is a mass shooting he is noticeably happier when the killer is not Muslim. If the killer is white, that is better. If the killer is from the South: better yet. And odds are that the killer isn't gay: gay killers are not really an elephant.

There was a time when this country was remembered fondly as Where The Buffalo Roam. But now: mostly elephants.

- james james

Jersey Fled said...

I don't often recommend Wikipedia, but there is a very good discussion of chain migration there, including historical bakground in the U.S. and effect of various changes in legislation.

Interesting that illegal immigrants granted amnesty in 1986 created a whole new class of qualified applicants.

Sorry, I'm not good enough at html to attempt a link. Just type in "chain migration"

Bill R said...

I dunno. There are millions of Americans who live in Asia, Africa, or even the Middle East. They may or may not feel isolated but most of them can go weeks at a time without blowing people up.

Fabi said...

Mostly peaceful, Darrell! :-)

James Pawlak said...

IN RE JIHADII CAEDITE EOS NEVIT ENIM DOMINUS QUI SUNT ELUS

mockturtle said...

Round up the usual excuses.

Ken B said...

Christmas here just means any overt kuffar symbol. Could be a Church, a synagogue, a Hindu temple, or a secular symbol.

Fabi said...

There's no letter "J" in Latin, viz. "INRI".

steve uhr said...

So Trump doesn't like the immigration policy hat allowed him into the country. And what exactly has Trump done to change the policy over the past year?

MadisonMan said...

The person who shared this photograph of the bomber should be fired promptly. It shouldn't be hard at all to figure out who it is, if someone wanted to. There is absolutely no excuse for this invasion of privacy.

Moreover, he should file suit for invasion of privacy.

(And yes, I'm serious)

Darrell said...

So Trump doesn't like the immigration policy hat allowed him into the country.

Trump was born here. A natural-born citizen.
Not on that planet you were born on.

Darrell said...

That photo was for the Ryker's shower area.

Unknown said...

Well, Steve Uhr: He first tried to stop immigrants from the terrorist ridden hellholes with no government dedicated to fighting terrorism. Places like Iran and Syria and Yemen.

You called him a racist and the left found a judge who thinks he is God. So we no doubt let in tens of thousands of terrorist and terrorist wannabes because you leftists say it's racist to try to keep out people determined to kill us.

Next, we'll hear how it's racist to stop Muslim rapists--just like Rotherham, as mentioned upthread. Democrats happily sacrifice women to the Muslims in order to feel good. Hey, raped and murdered women--who cares, amiright? Nothing Ted Kennedy would't do.

--Vance

steve uhr said...

Vance. I never called him a racist and always thought the travel ban was within the scope of his constitutional powers as commander in chief. So please don't lie about what I have said or believe. Nor am I a leftist by any reasonable definition of the word. Stop playing identity politics.

Second, the travel ban would have made no difference in his case since he is from Bengledash so you didn't answer my question

Levi Starks said...

It’s hard for me to respect someone who can’t even make a bomb functional enough to kill himself.
I was making my own gunpowder from scratch when I was 12.

Caligula said...

"Lefties may mull over whether the visibility of the Christian majority in the United States makes non-Christians feel like outsiders and fuels - in a tiny minority of non-Christians - the kind of anti-social reaction that occasionally manifests itself in violence."

Umm, we are talking about Manhattan. Christians are probably a majority in Manhattan (unless one counts "none" as a competing category), yet New York City (and especially its core, Manhattan) is surely the most cosmopolitan city in the United States.

One could posit that migrating to and then living in a foreign land is inherently stressful, especially if the new country's customs differ greatly from those of the country of one's youth. Nonetheless, could we agree that the host country, the country you chose to migrate to, has no obligation at all to change itself to suit you?

But the host country does have an obligation to protect its citizens, including an obligation to protect them against immigrants who are likely to commit violence against them, for any reason.

Immigration presents benefits and risks. Is it somehow unreasonable to demand a careful assessment of the balance between risk and benefit presented by every would-be immigrant, or is this a duty owed to existing citizens?

Yet assessing risk and potential benefit is far from an exact science, and is easily corrupted by biased assumptions. Is "when in doubt, keep 'em out" xenophobic? Or just prudent, especially when there are so many who wish to immigrate here that it's not really difficult to select those who present lower risk and/or more potential benefit than many of those who presently just slip through our sloppy procedures?

Immigration is for keeps, as it irrevocably changes the host country. Does it not follow that due diligence is fully warranted?

buwaya said...

As I have shown here many times, US K-12 education is committed to do the opposite of integrating immigrants. Every effort is made to drum up an atmosphere of hostility vs the native population, and to create a reflex of ethnic activism.

Unknown said...

Steve: Trump was trying to take care of a bigger problem than chain migration. That nice young woman who is squeaky clean but brings in her rather dubious relatives later is a problem, and a big one... but not as big as just directly importing Jihadi John like the left wants. I may well have a knife in the chest... but it's more important to tourniquet my amputated arm first. Then worry about the knife wound. Both are fatal, but the knife wound is not immediately fatal.

--Vance

President-Mom-Jeans said...

No more chain migration. Deport this piece of shits family and bulldoze their home. Waterboard him until there is no valuable intelligence to be gathered then execute him. Declare CAIR a terrorist organization and root them out across the country.

President-Mom-Jeans said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jimbino said...

Chain migration is just another example of the affront to Amerikan singles and the childfree represented by our tax, immigration and inheritance policies. We are subjected to evaluation based on merit when applying for work visas to places like Canada, Australia and New Zealand that benefit greatly from our immigration policy favoring chain migration that brings the US little but terrorists, welfare dependents and others from breeding families who benefit from our taxes, for which they claim extra deductions.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

If anybody who's related to anyone who's related to someone who is a US citizen/legal resident can come here, why not just run the ISIS flag up the White House flag pole? Let's get this over with.

Darrell said...

Blame Ted Kennedy for our immigration mess. I know time travel isn't possible because no one can back to drown that bastard in his baby basin.

Darrell said...

Blame Ted Kennedy for our immigration mess. I know time travel isn't possible because no one came back to drown that bastard in his baby basin.

Curious George said...

"President-Mom-Jeans said...
No more chain migration. Deport this piece of shits family and bulldoze their home. Waterboard him until there is no valuable intelligence to be gathered then execute him. Declare CAIR a terrorist organization and root them out across the country."



I like the cut of your jib PMJ!

Edmund said...

I guess the city employee doesn't want a photo credit, perhaps because he was violating rules by taking that picture and/or sharing it with the press.

Given that he is on a gurney, it may be a HIPAA violation to share it, as it would be disclosure of medical data. Seriously.

MaxedOutMama said...

The whole point of the extended family immigration thing is that there is not very much scrutiny of those who benefit from it. That's the reality. Trying to blame some nameless official for this attack is pointless and counterproductive.

Now if it turns up this guy had a dangerous profile known to Homeland through other avenues, perhaps we can discuss it. But the reality is that we are seeing increasing attacks from individuals who came to this country as refugees or normally through immigration. If you get a bunch of people in the country from places in which extremely hardline, aggressive Islam is common, sooner or later some of those immigrants will turn on you.

It's not really different than other violent, aggressive ideologies - there was a reason we didn't let Nazis in the country for a long time, tried to screen out Communists or those who had been involved in various violent movements in foreign countries.

We have just been very complacent about this issue.

buwaya said...

This fellow has been in-country so long its unlikely that there was a "profile" for him in the old country. Like most of the Muslim terrorists in the US he was probably radicalized in the US.

The issue here is not whether dangerous individuals can be discovered and prevented from coming, but that the US is importing a population with a high propensity to be radicalized in this manner.

buwaya said...

IOW, the problem is that of a weakness in a particular group of populations, inherent to those populations.

This is troublesome to the US as merely acknowleging the problem violates various values. But it is so regardless. The facts are in opposition to values.

Michael K said...

" Nor am I a leftist by any reasonable definition of the word. Stop playing identity politics. "

Steve you are a card.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Yeah Steve, what have you ever said here that wasn't lefty boilerplate?

madAsHell said...

I was making my own gunpowder from scratch when I was 12.

Buying instructions from the advertisements in the back of comic books, and Boy's Life. I'm lucky to have both eyes, but I did burn off the eyebrows a couple of times.

n.n said...

Diversity: color before character... a progressive slope.

Darrell said...

Today's one of Muhammed's Birthday. (The other is April 20th--I think...Different sects.) Hey! I thought Lefties always tell me that no one in the Middle East is ever born in December. Huh.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Ann Althouse said...Lefties may mull over whether the visibility of the Christian majority in the United States makes non-Christians feel like outsiders and fuels — in a tiny minority of non-Christians — the kind of anti-social reaction that occasionally manifests itself in violence.

I beg the Left: PLEASE go with that. PLEASE start publicly insisting that Americans ought to be less proud and less "showy" of their religious belief and/or national pride/nationalism because of the threat that foreign immigrants may take offense and violently attack other Americans. Oh geez, please base entire political campaigns around that idea. I will send you some money to help spread that message!

madAsHell said...

Moreover, he should file suit for invasion of privacy.

I disagree. He was in a public place. There is no expectation of privacy. Your thinking is suspect.

tim in vermont said...

Yeah Steve, what have you ever said here that wasn't lefty boilerplate?

He did aver that perhaps the email investigation by the FBI didn't look on the up and up, and perhaps should be looked into.

That marks him as an honest commenter by me, who just thinks differently than we do. Inga and ARM can be confronted with no end of clear refutations of whatever talking point they are spouting that day, and their only acknowledgement will be to disappear. Well, sometimes ARM will acknowledge you are right by descending into pure name calling.

Howard said...

I hope trump adds bangalodash to the list of islimbic scum ban roll tide, then this won't happen ever again.

Robert Cook said...

"Vance. I never called him a racist and always thought the travel ban was within the scope of his constitutional powers as commander in chief."


????

What do you mean by this? The president acts as "commander in chief" only over the armed forces during wartime. He is not a "commander in chief" all the time or over all the people, i.e., he is never the commander in chief over any American who is not in the military.

Sigivald said...

Anyway, this idiot had little impact on the concrete space of the NY subway, but he'll have plenty of impact on thinking and talking about extended family chain migration.

Well, outside of the Democratic Party, perhaps.

I can't see a single Progressive saying "well, amybe we need to rethink this whole chain immigration thing" because of this loser.

After all, Islamic terrorism never counts, ever; can't be allowed to.

(And note I think the Right frankly overdoes it on that; it sure looks like this guy managed to get himself radicalized all on his own, quite possibly after immigrating... there's a problem with a brand of Islam and a subset of Muslims, but the solution isn't nearly as simple as "just don't let those guys immigrate", since the Internet lets their ideas - the actually dangerous bit - travel freely.)

The only people we're allowed to think of when discussing the issue are brave, innocent, hard-working Hispanics, remember.

(And again, not that such people don't exist ... or aren't even quite likely the honest majority of such immigration. But the pretense that they're the only story, or the only one speakable, is incompatible with intellectual honesty.)

Robert Cook said...

"The Left is bona fide crazy on immigration. They want immigrants to not assimilate into American culture and, instead want them to get attached to the welfare state."

How do you come by this idea?

Fred Drinkwater said...

Re: the photo
The first news I saw yesterday had what looked like his driver license photo, credit AP. (Pic had the usual state watermarks over it.)
I wondered then who / how it was obtained.

buwaya said...

"I hope trump adds bangalodash to the list of islimbic scum ban roll tide, then this won't happen ever again."

The US has made the European mistake of importing a large number of Muslims. Not as bad in proportion as Europe, but bad enough. Now they are here, and will always be likely to cause this sort of problem. You can't do much about the ones you've got already.

But it isn't prudent to let in any more. But a religious test doesn't work re US ideology. So what to do? You have a conflict between common sense and ideology.

buwaya said...

"The Left is bona fide crazy on immigration. They want immigrants to not assimilate into American culture and, instead want them to get attached to the welfare state."

This is the overt message blaring out through US public schools.
I mean it, this is there to be heard by anyone who cares to check.
I have heard it constantly.

Its very easy to miss if you haven't got, or dealt with, kids in public schools.
Its invisible in the press, one of the great open secrets of US culture.

Jupiter said...

"Lefties may mull over whether the visibility of the Christian majority in the United States makes non-Christians feel like outsiders and fuels — in a tiny minority of non-Christians — the kind of anti-social reaction that occasionally manifests itself in violence."

Do I understand correctly, you are calling Lefties a "tiny minority", and asking them to ponder why they hate Christians so?

I'm Full of Soup said...

The Dem lefties prefer 3rd world immigrants [preferably non-Christian] so it can eventually [OUTNUMBER no that is not the best word] DOMINATE conservative / moderate and mostly white Christian voters at the ballot box.

mockturtle said...

Cookie asks: How do you come by this idea?

It's called a voting bloc. If immigrants assimilate into American society rather than forming their own communities and affiliations, it destroys the bloc's political power. Get it?

buwaya said...

This is the classic reveal re left-liberal impulses on immigration -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.html

The British, and the British press, are more open about all sorts of things. The same reasoning is going on in the US but less likely to be found out. Note that the arguments for immigration in the US are also strangely circumscribed - there is no rational response to objections, there is no econometric response to, say, Borja.

"The huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.
He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".
As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.
Critics said the revelations showed a "conspiracy" within Government to impose mass immigration for "cynical" political reasons.
Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s."

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Robert Cook said..."The Left is bona fide crazy on immigration. They want immigrants to not assimilate into American culture and, instead want them to get attached to the welfare state."

How do you come by this idea?


Come now, Robert. Neither proposition is controversial. The Left's insistence on multiculturalism and opposition to "cultural hegemony" means they strongly discourage the type of assimilation that used to occur. You can find any number of examples of Progressive/Left groups talking about how the nation is failing this or that immigrant community because that community is not "taking full advantage" of the various welfare programs available--some immigrant groups view welfare as taking handouts and oppose doing that, so the Left pushes for government spending/outreach to discourage that stigma and encourage immediate enrollment in any and all programs available. It's not some kind of secret that "immigrant rights" groups, mostly Left or Left-leaning, work hand in glove w/government welfare-type agencies to expand those programs as much as possible.
Mind you they don't see that as wrong or evil in any way--they're doing the good work of getting benefits for as many deserving people as possible. Doing that just happens to expand the reach and influence of their NGOs, get more money for those government agencies/welfare programs, etc, but all of that is a side benefit.

Like I said, this isn't some crazy accusation, Robert, it's a very clear dynamic--the groups who encourage more immigration are usually the same groups that encourage expansion of welfare-type benefits and push to make sure as many immigrants as possible are enrolled on those programs. Anti-immigration people see that as encouraging life-long dependence, etc, but I'm not sure either side really disputes that it occurs.

This, by the way, is why I find comparisons between our current immigration regime and immigration in the past to be so facile and/or disingenuous: pro-immigration people say thing like "oh the Irish assimilated, groups assimilated in the past and didn't take lots of government money, etc" without admitting that our wider culture ENCOURAGED assistance in the past and actively DISCOURAGED government dependence in a large number of ways that we just don't anymore.

Anonymous said...

But it isn't prudent to let in any more. But a religious test doesn't work re US ideology. So what to do? You have a conflict between common sense and ideology.

A conflict of fairly recent vintage, btw. Didn't trouble many Americans before, say, 1965 or so, when American immigration policy was either unapologetically "racist", or highly restrictive of any immigration. But, as we all know now, "who we are" has absolutely nothing to do with "who we were".

Anonymous said...

steve uhr: So Trump doesn't like the immigration policy hat allowed him into the country.

No thread dealing with immigration is complete without somebody throwing down some variant of the dopey "but they let you (or grandpa) in!", as if it pointed to some withering irony.

SeanF said...

Angel-Dyne: No thread dealing with immigration is complete without somebody throwing down some variant of the dopey "but they let you (or grandpa) in!", as if it pointed to some withering irony.

Probably true, but that's not what Steve was doing. The "him" in Steve's sentence is Okayed Ullah, not Trump himself (nor any of his ancestors).

buwaya said...

The best argument to permit immigration from Bangladesh is Razib Khan.
But on the whole that business seems net-negative.

Anonymous said...

SeanF: Probably true, but that's not what Steve was doing. The "him" in Steve's sentence is Okayed Ullah, not Trump himself (nor any of his ancestors).

Stupid response on my part. Thanks for pointing that out.

Sorry, Steve. Careless reading.

JaimeRoberto said...

Another benefit of chain migration is that many immigrants bring their elderly parents here and collect Social Security. It's not supposed to be legal, but I keep hearing about acquaintances who have done it.

Robert Cook said...

"I keep hearing about acquaintances who have done it."

Now there is definitive data!

I think those of you who replied to my question are projecting and/or imagining things.

Seeing Red said...

Marginal Revolution links to an interesting article written by an immigrant from China.

The thread running thru the article is enlightening.

Anonymous said...

No matter how many people are killed or maimed, New Yorkers will never give in to Islamophobia,

Robert Cook said...

Well, LarsPorsena, statistically, very few few Americans have been killed or maimed by Islamic terrorism, and we are more likely to die by lighting strike than by terrorist strike. That aside, while I can't speak for others, I view the problem as one more of political strife than religious fanaticism. It's just that the political strife is expressed as religious fanaticism.

In other words, I don't believe most Muslims innately want to kill me or us. I think they, like most people, basically want to live peaceful lives enjoying their friends and families. But they, like most people, when made miserable by social or political forces beyond their comprehension or control, react with anger, and, given enough anger, with violence.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

But they, like most people, when made miserable by social or political forces beyond their comprehension or control, react with anger, and, given enough anger, with violence.

Yeah those Christmas posters are really infuriating, as is this magnificent country which offered that piece of shit nothing but tolerance, opportunity and freedom. I can understand why he tried to blow the fucking place up.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

*correction:

ungrateful piece of shit

Kirk Parker said...

buwaya,

" You can't do much about the ones you've got already. "

Really? Now what's that phrase that the financial advisors have to use?

Ah, here it is: Past Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Results.

Robert Cook said...

You’ve also always got your lone, disturbed nutjobs, Pants. They come in all colors, sizes, nationalities, and ages. Are you going to live your life in fear and hatred because of them? Get a grip.

Anonymous said...

Cook: But they, like most people, when made miserable by social or political forces beyond their comprehension or control, react with anger, and, given enough anger, with violence.

and

You’ve also always got your lone, disturbed nutjobs, Pants. They come in all colors, sizes, nationalities, and ages. Are you going to live your life in fear and hatred because of them? Get a grip.

There is nothing in Pants's comment from which one could (rationally) infer that she's "living her life in fear and hatred".

But I understand that maintaining your preferred view of these issues relies on the unevidenced belief in the "fear and hatred" motivating the people who aren't doing the blowing up.

Also, nice loopy volte-face from "people made miserable by social or political forces beyond their comprehension or control" to "lone, disturbed nutjobs".