After the Open Borders Action Group roundup of September 29, we decided to switch to a monthly frequency for OBAG roundups. This is the roundup for the month of October.
You can join OBAG on Facebook here. You can access all roundups published on our site here.
At the end of the month, OBAG membership rose by about 30, and currently stands at 581.
Both in order to reduce the time spent creating this and to keep it short and high-quality, we’ve opted for only the most salient items from the month. The roundup is not comprehensive. If you’d like to search the entire archives, you can do a search within the Facebook group, which is public.
In-depth labor mobility and migration control investigations
- Post by John Lee, October 31, 2014, linking to Job brokers steal wages, entrap Indian tech workers in US by Matt Smith, Jennifer Gollan, and Adithya Sambamurthy, the center for investigative reporting, October 27, 2014. 3 likes, 2 comments. See also the related Open Borders: The Case post How opponents of immigration on the left and right differ: territorialism versus citizenism.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 30, 2014, linking to China’s Internal Migrants by Andrew Scheineson, Council on Foreign Relations, May 14, 2009. 1 like, 1 comment.
- Post by John Lee, October 30, 2014, linking to The Green Monster. How the Border Patrol became America’s most out-of-control law enforcement agency by Garrett Graff, Politico Magazine, November/December 2014. 2 likes, 1 comment.
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 27, 2014, linking to “I already bought you”: new report details slave-like conditions for UAE workers by Amanda Taub, Vox.com, October 27, 2014, that in turn links to the original Human Rights Watch report “I Already Bought You” (here’s the browsable report and here’s the downloadable 79-page PDF). Shulman’s OBAG post references the views of Michael Clemens. 5 likes, 1 comment. See also Carl Shulman’s earlier blog post What does migration to the United Arab Emirates tell us about labor mobility?, May 14, 2014.
- Post by John Lee, October 26, 2014, linking to An American dream deferred. Javier Flores hoped for a reprieve from President Obama, but he was deported to Mexico, leaving his family behind by Eli Saslow, Washington Post, October 25, 2014. 4 likes, 1 comment.
- Post by Ryan P. Long, October 21, 2014, linking to Special Report: U.S. visa program for crime victims is hit-or-miss prospect by Dan Levine and Kristina Cooke, Reuters, October 21, 2014. 1 like, 3 comments.
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 2, 2014, describing his efforts to reconcile measures of GDP per employed person with the place premium estimates of Michael Clemens. Shulman links to the World Bank data set that he is using. 3 likes, 5 comments.
- Post by Carl Shulman, September 29, 2014, linking to Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 B.C.? by Diego A. Comin, William Easterly, ad Erick Gong, as a proposed explanation of the place premium. 2 lies, 1 comment.
General observations about migration and people’s opinion on migration
- Post by John Lee, October 31, 2014, linking to ‘The Daily Show’ Makes Anti-Immigration Look Absolutely Ridiculous by Ed Mazza, Huffington Post, October 30, 2014. 7 likes.
- Post by John Lee, October 27, 2014, quoting from The Ethics of Immigration by Joseph Carens. You can read our reviews of the book and of other work by Carens in our blog posts tagged Joseph Carens. 19 likes, 3 comments.
- Post by Grieve Chelwa, October 28, 2014, asking whether people who have traveled abroad are likely to be more pro-open borders than people who haven’t. 6 likes, 7 comments.
- Post by Michelangelo Landgrave, October 27, 2014, linking to an editorial on birthright citizenship in the Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2014. 4 likes, 1 comment.
- Post by John Lee, October 27, 2014, linking to Immigration & Capitalism, Stumbling and Mumbling, October 23, 2014. 7 likes, 3 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik linking to Immigration Policy and the Surge by Madeline Zavodny, Peregine, Issue 1402, October 6, 2014. 8 likes, 2 comments.
- Post by Tiago Santos, October 25, 2014 linking to From a Rwandan Dump to the Halls of Harvard by Michael Wines, New York Times, October 22, 2014. Santos was curious about the effects such stories have on people’s attitudes to migration and to open borders. 6 likes, 4 comments.
- Post by Ryan P. Long, October 20, 2014, linking to Sovereignty Is No Property by Adam Gurri, The Umlaut, October 20, 2014. 4 likes, 3 comments.
- Post by Grieve Chelwa, October 19, 2014, asking about the extent to which existing studies about migration control for selection effects. 3 likes, 3 comments. See also Vipul Naik’s Open Borders: The Case blog post Selection effects for migrants: some a priori possibilities.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 15, 2014, linking to No panaceas: libertarian challenges to open borders by Kelly Barber, The Mitrailleuse, October 15, 2014. 1 like, 9 comments.
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 17, 2014, linking to The Openness-Equality Trade-Off in Global Redistribution by E. Glen Weyl, Microsoft Research New England, October 13, 2014.
- Post by Víctor Marín Vayá, October 12, 2014, linking to Good Fences: The Importance of Setting Boundaries for Peaceful Coexistence by Alex Rutherford, Dion Harmon, Justin Werfel, Alexander S. Gard-Murray, Shlomiya Bar-Yam, Andreas Gros, Ramon Xulvi-Brunet, Yaneer Bar-Yam. 1 comment.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 10, 2014, linking to a photo from Right Wing News that states “We Owe Illegals Nothing. We Owe Our Veterans Everything.” 4 comments.
- Post by Grieve Chelwa, October 5, 2014, linking to Losing The Birth Lottery by Markus Bergström, Washington Post, October 3, 2014. 10 likes, 1 comment.
- Post by Ryan P. Long, October 6, 2014, linking to The New United States of America. State borders were drawn in the distant past. Is it time to reimagine our map? by Ben Blatt, Slate.com, October 5, 2014. 3 likes, 4 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik, September 30, 2014, linking to Alexander’s “Back of the Envelope” Importance Calculations by Alexander Berger of GiveWell, and asking for thoughts on the calculations regarding migration. 1 comment.
Specific current and historical situations
- Post by Luis Pedro Coelho, October 31, 2014, linking to UK axes support for Mediterranean migrant rescue operation. Refugees and human rights organisations react with anger as minister says saving people encourages others to risk voyage, The Guardian, October 27, 2014. 1 like, 2 comments. Related Open Borders: The Case posts: Junk the international refugee system and open the borders, plus see all our posts tagged refugees.
- Post by Grieve Chelwa, October 28, 2014, linking to Overseas students: the impact on domestic student numbers in the UK has been positive by Stephen Machin and Richard Murphy at the Politics and Policy blog of the London School of Economics, October 27, 2014. 2 likes.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 24, 2014, linking to (what turned out to be a copy of) Look at this photo and tell me immigration laws are just by Dylan Matthews, Vox.com, October 24,, 2014. The photo in question describes people from Morocco trying to cross over the border into Melilla. 4 likes, 7 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 24, 2014, linking to Young, Scared, Alone and in Court on the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) website. 6 likes.
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 22, 2014, linking to A Harsh Climate Calls for Banishment of the Needy by Andrew Higgins, New York Times, July 9, 2014. Shulman’s post as well as the linked article put the spotlight on the immigration policy of Svalbard, a Norwegian outpost in the Arctic Ocean. 5 likes, 5 comments.
- Post by Michelangelo Landgrave, October 22, 2014, linking to UC leaders consider limiting out-of-state enrollment by Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2014, and asking whether people interested in open borders should be interested in restrictions such as these. 2 likes, 3 comments.
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 22, 2014, linking to The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place by Laura Seay and Kim Li Donne, Washington Post, August 25, 2014. 6 likes, 1 comment. See also John Lee’s recent Open Borders: The Case blog post Ebola is utterly irrelevant. Open the borders..
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 21, 2014, linking to a photo shared by immigration restrictionist group NumbersUSA claiming that Obama is ordering for 34 million EAD cards to be printed, and that this suggests an amnesty is around the corner. 7 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 17, 2014, linking to Ebola and Open Borders by Bryan Caplan, EconLog, October 17, 2014. 3 likes, 1 comment (with 7 likes).
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 15, 2014, linking to Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on Wikipedia, and asking for more information on how open the borders are in practice. 2 likes, 2 comments.
- Post by John Lee, October 12, 2014, linking to ‘Aren’t We Human Beings?’: One Year After the Lampedusa Refugee Tragedy by Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Maximilian Popp, Spiegel Online, October 9, 2014. 4 likes.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 10, 2014, linking to a photo from NumbersUSA claiming that the Obama administration was spending $9 million to defend illegals in court. 9 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 6, 2014, linking to Eight People Die Every Day Trying to Get to Rich Countries. The first-ever global study of migrant deaths finds thousands occur every year. by Vince Beiser, Take Part, October 1, 2014. 9 comments.
- Post by Michelangelo Landgrave, October 9, 2014, linking to New York City Follows Obama Playbook on Immigration by Genevieve Wood, The Daily Signal, October 6, 2014. 2 likes, 2 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik linking to Ebola and Obama: The policy of a vain and headstrong man by Thomas Sowell, The American Spectator, October 7, 2014. 1 like, 16 comments.
- Post by Carl Shulman, October 8, 2014, linking to The Kitchen Network: America’s underground Chinese restaurant workers by Lauren Hilgers, The New Yorker, October 13, 2014. 3 likes, 4 comments.
- Post by Grieve Chelwa, October 8, 2014, linking to Sea, sun, and easy visas lure Chinese buyers by Peter Wise, Financial Times, Octoer 8, 2014. Chelwa describes the article thus: “A growing number of well-off Chinese entrepreneurs are leaving China to take advantage of so-called “golden visa” residence schemes offered by cash-strapped countries in the eurozone.” 1 like, 3 comments.
- Post by John Lee, October 6, 2014, linking to In Peril on the Shore: Thousands of people have died this year trying to reach Europe from North Africa’s coasts. But for these would-be migrants, the danger begins long before they take to the sea. by Bel Trew, Foreign Policy, October 3, 2014. 6 likes.
- Post by Milo King, October 5, 2014, linking to and critiquing Is there a STEM worker shortage? Why immigration is hurting STEM majors’ employment prospects by LJ Hodgkinson, The DiamondBack, September 29, 2014. 5 likes.
- Post by Carl Shulman, September 30, 2014, with a discussion of migration to the European Union. 4 likes, 4 comments.
- Post by Michelangelo Landgrave, October 1, 2014, linking to Cambodia refugee resettlement: Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says deal is a long-term arrangement by Samantha Hawley, abc.net.au (an Australian news site),September 27, 2014. Landgrave writes: “Australia has signed an agreement to re-settle refugees in Cambodia. Do you think this will become an acceptable norm for other countries in the future? Would the US public be fine with resettling refugees in say, Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic?” 3 likes.
- Post by Carl Shulman, September 29, 2014, noting that the UAE tripled its migrant population since 1980, and asking how long it would take for a country such as the US or Japan to see a similar increase in population. The post links to the Wikipedia page Demographics of the United Arab Emirates. 7 likes, 5 comments.
- Post by Carl Shulman, September 29, 2014, asking for how valid it would be to extrapolate from the migration numbers of the Gulf Countries and Singapore to other countries, such as the United States. 3 likes, 7 comments
- Post by Ryan P. Long, September 30, 2014, linking to What countries allow automatic citizenship by marriage? on Quora. 4 likes, 2 comments.
- Post by Vipul Naik, September 29, 2014, linking to Should you move to Thailand? by Benjamin Todd, 80,000 Hours, September 26, 2014. 5 likes, 10 comments.
Open borders and migration policy activism opportunities
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 31, 2014, linking to Update on Open Philanthropy Project by Holden Karnofsky, the GiveWell blog, October 30, 2014. 2 likes, 2 comments. Quoted portion:
In June, we hired Shayna Strom as our Director of U.S. Policy. Shayna comes to GiveWell from the White House, where she was the Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. She is based on Washington, D.C., and she is investigating our two leading contenders for priority causes in U.S. policy – labor mobility and criminal justice reform – at a higher level of depth than any cause investigation we’ve done so far, aiming to get a full lay of the land and develop a preliminary strategy for where we expect to concentrate our grantmaking. She is also aiming to surface more potentially promising causes.
- Post by Vipul Naik, October 28, 2014, asking for existing BuzzFeed-style posts that make arguments for open borders. 3 likes, 4 comments.
- Post by Michael Wiebe, October 28, 2014, suggesting the slogan for promoting migration to the US: “It doesn’t matter where you’re born. What matters is how American you are on the *inside*.” 3 likes, 3 comments.
- Photo post by Fabio Rojas, October 22, 2014, sharing an open borders sticker. 3 likes.
- Post by Fabio Rojas, October 13, 2014, linking to the Archer Wiki description of Coyote Lovely, an episode of Archer related to migration. 5 likes, 2 comments.