Turning our back on America
My belief is that the vast majority of Americans are good people and this election hasn’t changed that. They are tribal but the same is…
My belief is that the vast majority of Americans are good people and this election hasn’t changed that. They are tribal but the same is true of other countries. But what has changed is how I think of America in the short and maybe the long-term as a country to orient my and my childrens’ economic options and prosperity towards.
Perhaps the major reason that five and a half years, we re-located as a family to North America was to be close to the US. For myself, there were huge gains in my career that have largely been borne out. For my children, they saw their future as tied to the US. But now we have a problem.
The US Immigration system has been unfriendly even at the best of times. It stands to get much much worse. Trump has promised to lock it up in various ways. Deportations are the most dramatic and the most shameful. Keeping the door closed to refugees continues the decades long thumb-nosing at America’s finest, nation-building traditions prior to the 1960s. Here, however, I want to focus on the less deplorable but no less real coming restrictions on immigration. For Trump has railed against the H1B program for skilled immigrants as well.
For people around the world who saw a career path as traversing through the US, it is perhaps time to rethink that. You want to be a student from a ‘non-standard’ country, you now have a problem. You want to be an employee from any country, you now have a problem. You want to visit for an extended period of time, you now have a problem. And the problem is this: when the time comes the probability that you will be denied has gone way up.
What this means is that when people come to me for career advice, I think that denial of entry into the US should factor as a significant risk. For my children, for instance, you might like to pursue a career based on being able to attend graduate school in the US, we cannot be sure that will happen. The playing field was never level but it may be unassailable.
And even if you do manage to get a Green Card, things are somewhat more frightening. I am somewhat surprised that the parents of teenagers in the US have not focussed on the fact that a draft still exists. You may comfort yourself that modern warfare means that a call up cannot happen, but let’s face it, no one is an expert there. The record in recent memory (since the 1970s) has been that wars have begun under Republican administration. And that was when they weren’t gunning for war. But right now, the terrorist threat is at an all-time high precisely because the goal of terrorists is to provoke a reaction and, let’s face it, their chances of doing so are pretty darn good. From that thought, the notion that there may be a major on-going conflict is perhaps the most frightening thing about all of this. And if you had a child who would be 20 something within the next 8 years, this would surely be enough to keep you away at night.
For would be immigrants who want a Green Card this is an issue too. They are also subject to the draft. And right now I cannot imagine a situation where I would want to put my 16 year old son (and yes, I suspect that gender division will still hold) at that kind of risk. But I am not facing that choice and will not be doing anything that might cause it to rise. And even so, Australia’s record on drafting isn’t that comforting either but that, at least, is a step away from the US risk.
People talk about the notion that in the short-run, the economic consequences of President Trump are perhaps not problematic. But it is now that these long-term decisions are being made. Those seem to me to be consequential.