During the last few days of the midterm campaign, it was conventional wisdom that everyone on the right would instantly stop talking about the caravan as soon as the polls closed. I never believed that -- right-wingers are always talking about how evil immigration is -- and here's the lead story at Breitbart right now (see above).
I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that that's not what Gallup's survey actually says.
From the Breitbart story:
Five million poor Central Americans want to migrate into the United States’ communities and workplaces, according to a report by Gallup.
The caravans of economic migrants moving northwards to the U.S. border “actually represent a relatively small fragment of a much larger group of people in their own region — and around the world — who say they would like to move to the U.S. if they could,” said Gallup.
Notice that the linked item from Gallup doesn't say that the people surveyed want to come here in a migrant caravan. Or want to come here illegally in any other way. And only a small percentage seem to be really serious about moving.
From the Gallup post:
In Gallup's most recent global estimate, between 2015 and 2017, 15% of the world's adults -- more than 750 million people -- said they would like to move to another country permanently if they could. In Central America, this percentage is one in three (33%), or about 10 million adults.
Three percent of the world's adults -- or nearly 160 million people -- say they would like to move to the U.S. This includes 16% of adults from Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica, which translates into nearly 5 million people.
But...
But unlike the caravan of Central American migrants who are currently on the move, most people who desire to migrate will never try to make their way to the U.S. Desire remains only that. Gallup typically finds that the percentage of those who have plans to move is substantially lower than the percentage who would like to move, and even fewer are actively making preparations to do so.
Central America is no different in this regard. For example, in Honduras, whose residents make up a large percentage of the migrant caravan, about half of adults (47%) say they would like to move to another country permanently if they could, but about 9% are planning to move in the next year -- and 2% are actively preparing to do so.
That's 2% who intend to move to any other country. And we have no idea how many of those 2% will actually follow through, or how they intend to attain residency.
The Breitbart story quotes some of this -- but then insists that the problem is more horrifying than they want you to believe:
However, these Gallup numbers may be far too low.
People stuck in their poor homelands may not want to admit their frustrated wish to migrate.
Also, rising migration spurs runaway migration once successful migrants use their cell phones to video and broadcast their glamorous success in Europe and the United States to their homeland peers in their towns, villages, and families.
"Their glamorous success"!
Also:
The five million number is one-in-three adults in Central America, the survey firm said. But average birth rate and family size in Central America are roughly twice as large as in the United States, so the migration of 5 million could lead to the birth of at least 5 million additional people after the migrants get jobs in the United States.
Don't let them in! Those people breed like rabbits!
The story ends with a laundry list or awful things that happen as a result of immigration ("The policy also drives up real estate prices, widenswealth-gaps, reduces high-tech investment..."). And then we're told:
Immigration also pulls investment and wealth away from heartland states because coastal investors can more easily hire and supervise the large immigrant populations living in the coastal states.
But ... but ... but I thought the immigrants were all parasites bleeding us dry! This says that "investment and wealth" gravitate to states where the immigrants are hired! I'm confused!
In any case, they're coming, they're bad, and they'll be under all your beds soon.
Crossposted at No More Mr. Nice Blog
