[mainframed]

> At least in America, “less immigration” won out over “more immigration” by clear polling margins every year since 1965, except for a few years in the 2010s. Democratic processes gave them more.

You are probably referring to the Gallup poll [1]. To me, it seems, they don't make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration. Some questions even dig into the illegal part. I'd say illegal immigration is a different question, and also somewhat unique to the US. Here in Germany, illegal immigration would be a no-go. If you look at polls about legal immigration in the US it is a totally different result where 46% say keep the level and 30% want to increase it. [2]

> It seems like even if you vote for the anti immigration parties you get just as much immigration.

I did not find anything supporting your argument on an international level. Although for the US you are probably right considering the recent H1B drama. On the contrary, here is an international comparison showing that in many developed countries, people think migration strengthens their country vs. being a burden [3].

> wages would have to rise, and more Gerrmans would choose nursing over what they choose now.

I think it's not an either/or. It's a big problem with no silver bullet. We'll have to do multiple things.

> Further, since birth rates are dropping everywhere, aren't you just buying yourself a few years?

No. Look at the age pyramid of Germany. We have to overcome the baby-boomer generation.

> and their home countries will be in horrific shape because you've sucked away all their talent. What happens then?

In the past, Germany had deals with the respective Governments called "Anwerbeabkommen." The other state often had a high rate of unemployment. Also, they haven't been skilled workers, mostly. But yes, I think now it is different. And I heard, they are already pissed at us today.

But it's also a totally different argument. And the Nazis on German streets definitely don't care about effects in the home countries. They just want ethnic homogeneity without the consequences.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/immigration.aspx [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/12/19/americans... [3] https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-the-wor...

[Amezarak]

> No. Look at the age pyramid of Germany. We have to overcome the baby-boomer

Everyone has this problem. Birth _rates_ are declining everywhere. Different countries are just in different parts of the decline. Even if this is your reason for importing immigrants and you think it’s worth any negatives, you are simply helping the boomers and doing nothing to help later generations. In addition, you are making the situation dramatically worse for migrant origin countries as their young people leave to be workers somewhere else.

I do think it’s also worth asking, if you keep this policy up, what you mean by “Germany.” If it’s an economic zone defined by arbitrary borders, all well and good, but if you think anything more of it than that, then obviously importing immigrants to create a square or non-inverted population pyramid means that at some point in the next century, German culture, norms, morals, and ethnicity will be a tiny minority in Germany the economic zone. If you’re okay with that tradeoff then alls well, but it seems worth acknowledging. I did some rough calculations with Canadian demographics for example, and in 80 years Canada will be totally unrecognizable as it will have had near-total population turnover via migration. Unless birth rates suddenly skyrocket instead of declining, or immigration comes to a screeching halt.

The future is never really predictable, but it’s looking like the future of a lot of Western countries is that they’ll end up basically satellites of countries like India, China, or Turkey. (Of course they’re facing their own declines, particularly China, but there’s a lot of quantity involved.) It’s also unclear to me that voting blocs of young voters will continue to fund entitlements. It will be pretty interesting to live through. I think the closest historical parallel is the total collapse in the Roman population during the early empire.

[mainframed]

> In addition, you are making the situation dramatically worse for migrant origin countries as their young people leave to be workers somewhere else.

I did not disagree. But I also think this is a whole other argument.

> German culture, norms, morals, and ethnicity will be a tiny minority in Germany the economic zone.

Ethnicity I really don't care about. Why do you? I'm also fine and actually glad about people bringing along their culture as long as it doesn't get in the way of life of other people and most importantly respects everyone's human rights. The other ones are a question of integration. There is certainly a lot of room for improvement, but making it sound like they come here and will replace German culture is a big stretch. If anything is killing German culture, it is increasing cost of living and it being somewhat outdated, e.g. a lot of meat in cuisine, outdated values from Christianity and alcohol consumption. If any culture is replacing ours, it is US/consumerism.