 and so we went live by accident. I didn't intend to go live. Okay. Right. Just so wait a second. Always something. Second. Always something. Second. So why am I hearing myself on the because I have the YouTube? I know because I'm hearing myself. Because that's muted. No, it was me. I just had the YouTube. Oh, yeah, YouTube. Yeah. All right. We're going to do this, you know, the radical fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Thursday evening. Hope everybody's having a fantastic week and looking forward to the weekend. We're going to have a fun conversation today. So we're going to be talking about immigration, all things immigration. I am certainly, and Augustine is certainly open to questions. Any questions you have on immigration challenge us. We'll see if some of the people who are who don't like my positions in immigration show up on the chat, but happy to take all questions from anyone. But, you know, we're going to have a conversation. We'll take your questions. We'll see whether this goes and we'll cover whatever you guys want us to cover. Let's see. So yeah, Augustina, I should introduce you. So I'm being joined by Augustina. She's a junior fellow at the Andrian Institute. She is specializing in immigration. She's going to become our objective scholar on all things immigration. So just you guys wait and see over the next few years. Augustina is originally from Argentina. She has a law degree from I'm making this up. So from UCLA. Is that right? USC. I thought it was either one of those two from USC University of Southern California. She has been working at the Institute. How many years now? Five. Yeah. All right. So five years and just so you know, we'll talk about this a little bit, but she gave a talk at Ocon on immigration. It was it was fantastic. It was the only standing ovation in the entire conference. Augustina got it and she deserved it. And the talk just went up on YouTube like a few minutes ago. So I highly encourage you go watch it. It is really fantastic. And don't watch it while you're watching this. Watch it after you watch this. But please watch it. If you like it, like it, share it, comment on it, engage in it, tweet it, do whatever or exit. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what you call it these days. And yeah. So that's exciting. And we'll talk about the talk in a minute. Let's see. So let's just start with this. So you've got a law to agree. From USC, a good university, you could have gone and done law, even though you want an immigrant visa. My assumption is you probably could have still got a job in the US as a lawyer. What made you come to the Einstein Institute? And then what made you kind of specialize in the immigration area? So what made me come to you was actually in 2015, when I was still in law school, I did a short, I spent a short time at ARI learning about objectivism. And that's in fact, when I met you, Yaron. I don't think you remember that, but there's no reason for you to. I was not remarkable. I can't remember anything from 2015. So I can remember a few things. But yeah. So at that point, I was studying already, I was already in law school. And what I wanted to do is I always knew I didn't want to litigate. But I did know that the law is a career that allows to do many things, not just litigation. So I kind of wanted to follow the steps of my dad. My dad was a judge. And I really admire the work that he did because he was very intellectual. And I saw him writing a lot. And I saw him studying a lot, reading a lot. And I knew what that entails. So I wanted to do that type of intellectual work with the law. But I got to witness how people at ARI work. And I was already such a big fan, obviously. And I was already like I had been reading. I ran for a few years at that point. And so that's like immediately out in that trip, like the second day I realized that that's what I wanted to do. And I became obsessed with like working specifically for ARI because I felt there was an objectivist. I was a student of objectivism. I agreed with many of the things that Rand said. And I wanted to educate the general public about it. And then the reason I came to immigration in particular was I struggled through the immigration system myself. And even though I followed the law as people want us want us immigrants to do, even though I followed the law and did everything I could, I was disclose from being kicked out of the country. So I realized I wasn't the only one I realized that these injustices were happening to many people. And I decided that I wanted to use my knowledge in objectivism and the law to help try to change the system that is so unfair. If I remember, you were inspired by Stephen Simpson, who was a fellow at the Institute back in 2015. Also a lawyer who was doing intellectual work and today is at Pacific Legal Foundation doing great work there. Yes, Steve has helped me a lot. We still talk and he helps me a lot to think through issues. And I really, I was really also inspired by him. He was kind of like my role model at that point. That's great. So let's talk about the talk that you gave this summer. What inspired that particular talk? How you thought about it? And what is, if you could give us kind of the short version of what it communicates? So the talk is called the immorality of the US immigration system. And so the brief version of the talk is so I went through, like I said, like this system myself. And every step of the way was an immense challenge. And it wasn't just okay, you know, a challenge because you know, things that are good, like take a lot of effort to get. They were challenges that were completely unjust, irrational and unreasonable. So I was, like I said, really, really close to not making it to not being able to stay in America. Even though I was, you know, following the law as people want us immigrants to do. So the message of the talk is it highlights these injustices. And it highlights how, you know, when you try to get in line, because people say, you know, just get in line and come here legally. Well, it turns out that it is almost impossible or is impossible actually for the vast majority of people to come to America legally. There is no path to immigrate legally for the vast majority of people. Even when you're here already in a non immigrant visa, like a student visa, or a non immigrant or temporary work visa, it is really hard to stay in the United States. It's like the system pushes you out. And that's what it does. So there's no line to stand on for the vast majority of people. And if you get on a line, you are constantly being pushed out. So that is part of the message from the talk. And I'm making the talk some identifications of why this is happening. So in the talk, you show this crazy graph or flow chart, I guess, of, you know, all the things that are needed to kind of become a permanent resident or to become a have legal status in the United States as a legal immigrant, right? As a legal immigrant. Moody's come in legally. Catherine asks, did you compose the flow chart that you showed at Alcon? Or did you get it from someone who works in the system, immigration system, and she wants to know how she can get one? So the chart is from a website called Immigration Road. And it's a very famous chart. It's been featured in the Washington Post and other outlets. It's been a while since I've seen it in publications, but it's very accurate. And there is an updated one that the Cato Institute came up with. It's on their most recent paper that is called why it's why it's almost impossible to immigrate to the United States or something like that. They have like an updated version of that chart. You can look it up or you can search Immigration Roadmap, Immigration Road or something like that on Google and it will come up. Is the Cato I think now has a game? Have you seen this? Yeah, I played it many times. Oh, you played it. So tell us about this game that Cato has. So Cato had this incredible idea that so part of what they're doing right now is raising awareness of how almost impossible it is to immigrate legally to America, which is coincidentally what I'm trying to do as well to show people. And to make it real for people, they created this game, which you put your information, your age, where you're originally from, like you have to come up with a country if you're an American citizen that is not America, obviously. And like your wages, like if you have a job offer and things like that. And it takes you through in a very simplified manner because this process is extremely convoluted. It takes you through the process of what it's like to try to immigrate to the United States. And not surprisingly for me, but surprisingly for many Americans, it turns out that they wouldn't be able to immigrate to the US if they had not been born here because it is so hard. And it gives you several ways because there are several ways to try to gain permanent residency. And almost it's almost impossible to win in the game to actually get the green card. So it shows just how bad this system is. And if you are from certain nationalities like India or China or Mexico, you might get a response that is, okay, we have a green card for you, but the wait time is such that you will get it in 90 years. So good luck waiting for that long to get your green card. So it makes it very real for people to play this game and see, oh, okay, it is almost impossible for people to come here. So Cato is doing a lot of work on immigration. They've been doing it for a very long time. They've got some really good scholars working there. What is it that you hope to add to what Cato is already doing or to the debate about immigration, to the discussion about immigration? So yeah, Cato is doing a great job. They have Alex Norasta and David Beer particularly. I follow them and I read everything they publish. They do excellent research. And they're really good at debates and raising awareness of the issue. Now, what I see in general in the immigration debate that is lacking is a philosophical framework to the discussion. So what I see most is the anti-immigrant side has like a bunch of alleged facts, right? And then the pro-immigrant side, they rebuke those facts, which is like the pro-immigrant side has the realities on their side, right? But there's like a whole philosophical debate that needs to happen because when you get an objection like, well, immigrants displace Americans and they take American jobs. They take the jobs away from Americans. Like if you respond, well, that's not true. Here's the data. You're kind of conceding the premise in the first place that Americans have a right to a job. And like I think one, in that particular instance, for example, what needs to happen is to address, well, yes, we'll give you the facts and realities on our side because morality is on our side. Like say, well, do you, what makes you think that anyone has a right to a job? They have a right to work. They have a right to be hired if someone wants to hire them. But no one has a right to a job and to be exempt from competition. So that is the type of, I think, of debate that we need at this point. So there's certainly an issue of this notion of a right to employment that the opponents of immigration use all the time. There was a long in economics, of course, right? Because immigrants create jobs. They don't take jobs. I mean, the economics of it is pretty clear. The data both empirical and theoretical work that has been done on immigration shows from an economic perspective that immigrants create more jobs and they don't take, and they certainly, and they don't have a negative impact on wages. What are the other kind of philosophical issues that are relevant to the entire immigration debate? Because at the end of the day, this is a philosophical issue. It's an issue of rights. Yes. So there are several things that make up this debate. One of them is there are a lot of issues. Basically, every objection to immigration can be addressed philosophically and I think should be addressed philosophically. So, for instance, you have the question, you have the objection to immigration that says, okay, well, immigrants have used the welfare state. And that can be addressed. Of course, I can mean, if someone is paying taxes and they get such huge amounts of money drawn from their paycheck every single month, they don't want to see someone that just crossed the border or just got off the plane taking that money that they contributed. This is not to say that we're in favor or that I'm in favor of the welfare state in the first place, but I can see the irritation from people. And well, you have to address the welfare state in general. But if you can't do much about welfare state, what you can do is say, well, instead, like Alex Norasta from Cato Institute says, instead of getting, of building a wall around the country, build a wall around the welfare state. And don't let immigrants get any welfare, which they don't in the first place largely of a myth, but we can talk about that later. But you can frame that and make people understand from a more philosophical perspective, a more abstract perspective, that that immigrants shouldn't have that right to get welfare. They don't. And, well, you can address the welfare state more broadly too. But other issues are, for instance, okay, no one has a right to come here to America. It's, you know, a prerogative that we grant them. Well, there is a right of movement. And there's also the right of Americans that are violated when there are so many restrictions on immigration. Because I like to say that every restriction immigration is a restriction on native born Americans, because they are unable to hire whoever they want to invite to their home however they want. They have to ask permission from the government to live in America with their spouse if their spouse has been was born abroad. So there are so many issues that are philosophical in this in this debate. And we need to, I think, bring that that context that framework a little bit more. So, so let's talk a little bit about this idea of Americans rights being violated. Because, you know, I really think that this is partially at the core of of the whole immigration issue. People, you know, presented as if it's Americans versus the immigrants, right, that Americans have no interest here, that Americans have no benefit, don't get no benefits, but also that Americans have this is not an issue. They shouldn't care about the immigrants, right, because it's not their rights being violated, the government is is instituted to protect the rights of Americans, not to protect the rights of everybody around the world. So, so let's think into how the American government violates the rights of of American citizens when it makes it so difficult, almost impossible. It when it regulates the number of people that come into the country with which professions come into the country. And and, of course, makes it almost impossible to get people visas. So, you want to you want to start concretizing that and we can work through that. Yeah, so, for instance, they're the visas available, they're like 80 something visa categories total. They but they are very restrictive. And you have immigrant visas, which are the coveted green cards, and you have non immigrant visas, which are the majority of visas. So, the most popular, for instance, visa for coming to work in America, it's called an H1B and it's a visa for skilled workers. So people who have a college degree or higher in a specialized occupation, that visa allows us employers to hire them. Now, we're talking, we're not even so there is no visa for someone that has that is not skilled, as they call it to or doesn't have doesn't specialize in a specific field to come to America to start a business, for instance, or to do unskilled work, except for seasonal work that is agricultural. And you know, it's very temporary solely for a season. And then they go back. So if we take just the example of the H1B, we have a lot of people in tech, we have a lot of people in healthcare, doctors, for instance, that use this visa to come to America. So if a US employer identifies a worker that is exceptional, and they want to in say, China, they want to bring that worker to work in America, they have to get a visa for that worker. And what that entails is among, there's a lot of paperwork, like a stack like this of paperwork to file, they have to ask for kind of a permission from the Department of Labor. And the Department of Labor has to accredit that there is no US worker. I think they have to advertise it to US workers. Right. You have to advertise it once. And only if nobody applies or nobody qualified, applies, can they then approach the Department of Labor and try to convince them that this is the only guy who can do the job, and only then offer them the visa, right? Right. The Department of Labor kind of certifies, okay, you try to find an American worker and you couldn't. Well, what's the need for this particular job in this area? And you get the permission from the Department of Labor, right? But what's most aggravating is there are hundreds of thousands of people that American business want to hire every year for FY24. So for the next fiscal year, there were about 750,000 applicants for this visa. There are only 80,000 visas available. So what do they do with these candidates? They put them in a lottery, like a literal lottery. And if you're picked in that lottery, you may proceed with your application. It doesn't mean you get the visa. You can proceed with your application. Your employer can proceed with the application. And then if you didn't get it, well, tough like you can try again next year. But imagine like how much, like how little possibility of planning the employers have. And the fact that they have found someone abroad that they really want to hire that they think is extraordinary enough to go through this process and invest all this money. And then it turns out they cannot do it. So this violates American rights, for sure. You were going to say something, I think. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just just a right to violation. There are 690,000 job openings that employers would like if they were free to do so to offer to foreigners. They have candidates. They submit applications. They could hire people. And this is, I think this undercounts it, right? Because how many jobs don't they even try because they know they're never going to get it. If you think about, there's a massive shortage in the United States of construction jobs. But construction jobs are not, they're not extraordinary. So you're not going to get an H-1B to come into construction. So employers in the United States, instead of being able to drive down to Mexico, load up a truck full of people who are willing to do construction jobs, drive them across the board into the United States and give them work, they're not allowed to do that. That is, there's a, the law bans them from doing that. The law is banning them from doing what they think is profitable and right for their own business. Nobody's rights are violated when somebody crosses the border and picks up a bunch of workers and brings them home. Nobody's rights are violated when 750,000 H-1B visas were granted. But if they're not, the rights of Americans are violated. Not to mention the rights of the foreigners, right? But we're focusing on Americans. The rights of Americans would like these people to come and work for them are violated. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I give the comparison nowadays, because you know, there's Messi, Messi is playing for Inter Miami and he's making them so much money winning every single game, scoring like two goals every game or something crazy like that. And Messi, you know, is Messi. He got a different type of visa, an O-1 visa, which is for individuals with exceptional ability, which essentially means you have to be renowned worldwide, very well-known, either very, very famous, like Messi, or you have to be an academic, you know, essentially win a Nobel Prize or something like that. But Messi's here temporarily. He doesn't have a green card. So imagine if Messi wasn't that famous, like imagine the Messi scene of tech, of healthcare, that US employers are missing out on because they cannot get a visa. So that's insane. Yeah. And, you know, even here, I mean, the number of scientists who would love to come to the United States, but maybe are not, they haven't won a Nobel Prize yet. Indeed, I think it's true that most of the American Nobel Prize winners were immigrants, right? They came here before they won the Nobel Prize and then they won the Nobel Prize in the US. But in today's immigration system, it's very hard for those guys to come. And it not only is it violating, again, their rights, but it's clearly violating the rights of Americans and destroying the upside potential of having such incredible talent in the United States. Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, 80,000 spots, 80,000 visas for upwards of 700,000 applicants that already an US employer wants them. That's a huge loss. And the same thing is true of a lot of different aspects of life, right? Let's say you want to, let's say you own a hotel and, you know, you're renting it out to some conference and again, people need, in many countries, they need to go get a visa and many of them are going to be denied or it takes forever to get a visa to the United States. It might be a tourist visa, it might be other kinds of visas. But people can't just show up and say, I'm a tourist and I want to tour the United States and go to Iran's hotel or Augustina's hotel. So you're violating the hotel owner's rights, who'd like to rent out rooms, right, to rent out conference space to somebody? Because again, who rights are you protecting? Yep. So let's talk about some of the reasons people advocate for limiting immigration. So one reason you've mentioned, it takes away jobs. So yes, so you don't have to write your own job. What else would you say to somebody who makes that argument? So the question is like, yeah, why are these your jobs, like what you were just saying? And like, do you really think, like, where do you get this right from to a job from? And the example I like to give is like, imagine if my neighbor Bob is an accountant and I work for you, I have nothing like I hate numbers. But let's say I want to go, I need a second job because I live in California still, and I need a second job to pay for rent and all the taxes. So I'm like, okay, you know what, like, I'm just going to try to become an accountant because there's a lot of money there. Do you think and imagine I'm not an immigrant even, right? Imagine I become a citizen or I was born here. Do you think that Bob has a right to ask the government to prevent me from taking a job as an accountant so he doesn't face competition from me? No, that's crazy. Nobody would say that Bob has that right. But why do people think that? Bob would say he has it right. And that's why, for example, Bob has created a licensing organization that licenses accountants, thus reducing the amount of competition he faces in order for you to become competitive with Bob, you're gonna have to pass exams, you're gonna have to go through all this process that the state, not the marketplace, but the state is determined. And that's all the same kind of thing. Sadly, there are lots of examples where, I mean, you're right, but there are lots of examples in which the bobs of the world are protecting their job and trying to keep people out. That's the nature of a mixed economy and immigration is one of those things, one of those ways in which we'll keep out competition. But why can't doctors, you know, doctors can't practice medicine in the US? Doctors trained in other countries? What's the question? Doctors can't, if they come, doctors who come from Mexico or from someone, they can't practice medicine in the United States, even if they manage to get a visa, right? Because again, they don't have. I don't know what the, yeah, I was recently talking to someone at Ocon, he's a doctor. And he told me about the struggles that he's going through with his own situation. He told me something like that. I don't know exactly what it is that is going on with doctors. But yeah, it's really hard to, you know, any occupation that requires licensing, it's very hard for immigrants to go into those occupations. Very hard. And so people don't have a way to job. They don't have a way to protect their own profession from competition, from immigrants. So for that matter, for anybody else, the fact that they do so is horrible and disgusting. And, you know, luckily, we don't have, the Constitution protects us from states creating barriers, not allowing people to move from one state to another. But we have created these barriers. So what are some of the other objections people have to immigrants coming into the country? So, well, this, like, I can finish the talk from earlier about the welfare state. So there's this myth, it's largely a myth that immigrants abuse the welfare state. Do people think that even the legal immigrants abuse the welfare state? Yes. I mean, that is a very common, I read a tweet sometime when they were doing a tweet about the situation at the border. And so like people commenting, well, you know, those people are the ones that are going to spend my taxes, that type of thing. People think that all immigrants just abuse the welfare state. But I think that shows kind of, in the first place, a fundamental misunderstanding of why immigrants come here in the first place, I think legally or illegally. So there's Jose Guatemala is not sitting on his couch, daydreaming about, you know, abusing the welfare state in the United States. That is just not something that happens. He is already in a very big welfare state. So if he wants to be a welfare, he can just stay there and not work a day in his life. People that will come to America, come to America to work. That is the overwhelming majority of immigrants that we get in America. They are attracted to the economic opportunity here in the United States, not to the welfare state. No one is trying to spend the welfare state money. We'd be, you know, just sustained by the government here. No one is thinking like that. I don't think. So imagine people take huge risks, cross the border or not, or just try, you know, spend their life savings like I had to, you know, trying to immigrate legally. They are not going to come here to not work. So immigrant self-select, the people that are really hardworking are the people that come here. So, but also the reason why this is largely a myth is because the fact is that legal immigrants, and I'm talking about someone that gets, that has a green card, which is really hard to get, legal immigrants don't have access to means tested federal welfare until five years after they have been present legally in the United States, except for emergency Medicare, which they can get illegal immigrants, don't get access at all to federal means tested welfare. Now, on the state level, it varies depending on the state. Some states offer different types of welfare, but in the vast majority of states from what I've seen, they don't get much access to welfare if at all, whether legal or illegal. So this is largely a myth. And even the immigrants that do use welfare, I read a study actually also from Cato that it turns out that immigrants are less likely, they spend, they use less amount of welfare, the dollar value of their consumption is way smaller than those of native born citizens. And they're less likely to use it too, because they're in an eligibility, but also because a lot of immigrants tend to retire, supposed to use social security in the United States, they tend to retire back in their home countries, a lot of immigrants, so they don't use it in the first place. I also find it interesting that a lot of times the system itself drives you towards welfare because they don't allow you to work. So for example, a lot of these, a lot of the people coming across the border now claiming asylum are not allowed to work. And yet they have to live somehow. So the government supplies them with welfare for the nine, 12, 18 months, they can't work. Instead of letting them work immediately, as soon as they step across the border, they're all willing to work. As you said, they're all motivated. They want to come to this country to work hard and to make money and to make a life for themselves. Instead of allowing to do it, we don't allow them to work. And then what are they supposed to do? Yes, they consume welfare. That's right. So it's like, okay, you don't want them to use welfare. That's great. I agree. And in fact, as Alex and Rasta from Cato says, if you're really concerned about this, he says, build a wall around the welfare state. Don't build a wall around the country. So yes, I agree. Do not give immigrants welfare, but also if you're going to do that, you have to let them work. Because how else are they going to sustain themselves? And the same thing is happening in Europe. I mean, immigrants coming to Europe immediately go to Germany and Sweden. And why Germany and Sweden? Because Germany and Sweden have the highest welfare payments for immigrants. And it takes a long time to get a work visa in you, but you get welfare. So yeah, you're going to attract the one kind of people, the people who want the welfare, because you're giving it to them and you're advertising it. And even if they wanted to work, then a lot of work. So the European countries are creating the problem that they complain about, that the immigrants are taking up too much of their welfare. Yeah, that's right. We did a podcast with Onkar Gatte and Niko Sosirakopoulos yesterday on this very topic, Problems with Immigration in Europe. And that is one of the aspects. These governments make it so much easier to get a welfare than to work, to get to work legally. It's in most US, sorry, in most EU states, it's really, really hard. But it's much easier to get asylum or to, you know, while you're asylum spending, you can just stay in the country, you know, and do whatever you want, but you cannot work. So it does attract, I think, a certain type of people that really don't want to work. Yeah. And then the other part of it, yeah, I mean, there are a lot of problems with assimilation in Europe that I think are somewhat different in the United States, although you have some of those problems as well. So other reasons that people against immigration, obviously there's work, there's welfare, but also these immigrants, you know, and this is probably true of me and you, we just don't assimilate, right? We just stick to our own old culture. We bring all those nasty values from Argentina and from Israel or from wherever people are to America. And we just corrupt the culture. I think a well-known law professor from the University of Pennsylvania, and this was on video, but she said they just make America filthy. They just make America ugly. So what about this cultural issue, assimilation, English speaking, the kind of American values? Do we have any evidence one way or the other? Do immigrants assimilate? So yeah, part of this conception that, oh, immigrants don't assimilate or they don't assimilate as well as immigrants from the past, you know, because the immigrants from the past were from Europe and the immigrants that we see today are from America and from Asia. So well, they're not assimilating. Well, there's a ton of research that shows that immigrants do assimilate and they assimilate pretty well. Assimilation is a process that is kind of messy and it takes a while, but it's going really well here in America. And part of the data shows that, so the first generation, so I am first generation, the person who came to America, I would technically be a little bit less assimilated and still have some, you know, ties to my culture. Maybe I don't speak perfect English, but then according to the research, my children will be almost perfectly assimilating, meaning they will probably, if they speak Spanish, they will kind of speak Spanish, they will speak English really well, and they will feel like Americans, essentially. Maybe they'll call themselves Argentinian Americans, I don't know. But then their children, research shows that they will actually be completely American, they may drop the Argentinian American, and they will just completely feel assimilated. There are a lot more research going on. There's a book called Streets of Gold that is a huge, huge study that was done, it was published in 2022, that shows this assimilation process and how different generations of immigrants end up being extremely successful, and even being the children of immigrants being even more successful than the children of native born Americans. So the assimilation process is going much better than most people like to claim. So I just read a review of that book, I sent it to you, but you already read the book this morning, actually. And I mean, it's fascinating because they look at the immigration cohort of 1880, which was primarily Northern Europeans, like Norwegians and Finns and English. And by the way, the Norwegians and Finns were considered the low brow, they took longer to assimilate, and they started up much poorer, and it took them much longer to catch up wealth wise. And then in 1910, 1910 was Southern Europe and Eastern Europe, it was Italians and then Poles and Russians and a lot of, and I think Jews were in both cohorts. And then they looked and they jumped forward and they look at, I can't remember what is it, a more recent immigration cohort that is dominated by Latin Americans and Asians. And it's really fascinating because what they show is, yeah, assimilation is hard, it takes time, it doesn't get fully done, it takes three generations to get fully done. And that was equally true with Italians and Poles, as it is true with Argentinians and Mexicans and Guatemalans, equally true with Finns and Norwegians, even though Finns and Norwegians are considered, you know, high quality immigrants today, I mean, as compared to you Latin Americans, which are low quality, considered low quality immigrants. Yeah, Trump has some epithets for us. Yeah, so the book is fascinating. And again, second generation is already well assimilated. The first generation is often assimilated because they're motivated to come. Second generation is assimilated. And the third one, it's almost completely assimilated. William in the chat says he's third generation and he confirms that he's fully assimilated. William Anthony, where are you from William? That sounds like a European name. So there's one more aspect too, which I don't think the research is showing yet, which is in the last, say, well, yeah, 20 years to this part, the assimilation process I think begins occurring nowadays way before the immigrant, you know, sets food in America or even thinks about the possibility of coming to America. Because a lot of cultures like mine, myself included, I'm one of those immigrants that kind of like pre assimilated, preventively assimilated, even way before I knew I could actually live here. Because like, I'll take myself as an example. I've always consumed American music. I've always consumed American TV shows. My favorite show growing up was Alpha, I don't know if people would watch. It's a really old show, but like, we had reruns. Okay. And then as a teenager, I would watch reruns of Friends and listening to American music all the time, reading I and Rand, you know, American authors. So I, when I came to America, I already felt that I knew what was going on, right? And I studied English, I began studying English when I was six years old. So these pre assimilation starts occurring where, you know, people already love and like the American culture because they have such good, through the internet TV or whatever, they have really great access to it and they consume it and they like it. And they learn English that way. I have friends that have learned English from watching TV or listening to music. So that that is occurring too. And I think we're going to start seeing the impact of that in the next several years. And I think the research is going to show this kind of like pre assimilation process a little bit more. All right. What are the, what are the objections that we have to legal migration? So we've got jobs that doesn't cut it. We've got culture. What else? What are we missing in terms of objections to legal migration? So well, there's this objection that immigrants can be a threat to national security, for instance. I think that this objection is kind of like fear. I mean, almost all objections to immigration are like fear mongering. But this one in particular and I think it is massively blown out of proportion. This relates today primarily to Chinese immigrants, I think. Yes, I think so. But I think the one of the things that is brought up the most is, when people talk about immigration and national security, the people that are anti-immigration immediately bring in 9-11. Like, okay, they were all, you know, from like they were not Americans, the people that blew up the tower. So that in itself is a myth because there were 19 terrorists, 9-11, 9-11. One of them was in a student visa, which is a non-immigrant visa. And the other 18 were on tourist visas, which are also non-immigrant visas. So none of these terrorists were immigrants to America. They came with that purpose on a tourist visa or temporary visa. They came exclusively with the purpose of committing this attack. That is not representative of immigrants and that is literally they are not immigrants. So that is not a valid claim. You could argue though that if we had more open immigration and it was easier to get an immigrant visa, they could have come as immigrants. They could have come as just as, you know, if we had some form of open borders, they could have come that way. They cleared security. On a tourist visa, they would have cleared security then. Well, the security that they cleared was not. Like, evidently, it wasn't, they were on screen very well. But I don't think that we should, that would be that big of a concern because, I mean, part of what it means, I think, to have immigration freedom means to, freedom means, you know, the government gets out of the way. But also, everyone has a right to not have their rights violated. And part of the role of the very minimal, I think, role of government here is to make sure that we don't have national security threats, people that are national security threats coming into the country. So there needs to be a vetting process for that, for sure. Because otherwise, it would be, I think, a problem for sure. But there needs to be a better system to vet national security threats, for sure. Yeah. But look, I think that's right. But it's also true that there's always going to be terrorists. I mean, you don't change the whole way in which you live. You don't change the whole way in which you respect rights and you allow people to travel and so on. Because there's a possibility of a national security threat. You know, if we're at war with Islam, I don't know what that looks like, then yeah, you ban Muslims just like when you're in war with the Nazis, you ban Nazis. But if you're not a war, once in a while, a terrorist will sneak in and they'll do something horrible. That's absolutely true. Of course, we have crime in the United States. People do horrible things in the United States. But you don't ban everybody from entering the United States because of a few exceptions who are crazy and nutty. Yes, once in a while, the Chinese spy will get an immigrant visa or go to work at a university and you'll sell the Chinese secrets. Sometimes an American will do that as well. It's just part of the risk of being alive. And when you're alive, you take on certain risks. Yeah, that's true. And in fact, the risk of getting killed in a terrorist attack is about 1 in 3.5 million, which is you have more chances of, you know, the analogy of being struck by lighting. You literally have more chances because those chances are like 1 in 1.5 million or something like that. So like not letting anyone in or like limiting safe severely because of that little risk, you know, I wonder if these people ever get in a car or in a plane. Yeah, it's ridiculous. And the other thing is, of course, 9-11 was a failure of American foreign policy. It was a failure of American protecting itself. It was a failure of doing what was necessary to rid the world of the people who ultimately attacked the United States when we had every reason and knowledge that they were going to do this. So it was a failure of national security. It wasn't a failure of immigration. So let's see. So we did that. What about this idea that, you know, we talked about the culture, but there's this general idea that they bring their bad ideas with them. And yeah, maybe people assimilated in the sense that they know the language, but the ideas, you know, just they're going to bring those bad ideas and ultimately they're going to turn the country much, much worse. So I think this also goes back to the issue. It's related to the issue of assimilation. So immigrants come to America because they are attracted to America as it is, as it exists right now, to the opportunity and to the culture. They like the order that they see in America. They come, most of the immigrants, myself included, you know, we come from chaos, right? Argentina is chaos. I mean, it's not the middle of the jungle, but it's pretty chaotic in every sense. So the orderly nature of America, just that alone is something that immigrants want to preserve. But also they, immigrants understand to some level that there's the this freedom that that they can see in America, it's due to, it's a very specific thing to America and they want to preserve it. I think they don't, they can't recite the Declaration of Independence, right? Of course, most of them. But they know that there's something special about America going on, and they want to preserve that. I don't think anyone wants to radically change that. But I think importantly, American idea also, the idea also, the enlightenment that the ideas of the founding of America are the best values and the best ideas in the world. So reason, freedom, individual rights. So people that are afraid that, you know, immigrants are going to change everything, I think they show that they have very little confidence that they can persuade people that these are actually the best ideas in the world. And I think that that is not true. I think we can persuade anyone that these are the best ideas in the world because they are the truth. So I think we need to be better at trying to persuade people and convince people that these are the right ideas. And I can see that, you know, with what's going on in universities right now and how the left's taking over and saying that America is a dumpster fire, which by the way, I find extremely offensive because I came here specifically to America because America is the opposite of a dumpster fire. But I can see how people are scared because, you know, there's this trend going on that, okay, now these values are wrong. But the problem is not the immigrants, the problem is inside America. So that is one of the things that has to change. Yeah, I mean, the bad ideas are right here. The bad ideas are being preached by American professors. And if the immigrants are going to get those bad ideas, they primarily get it from the professors here in America, they don't bring them with them. Most immigrants come to this country, even if they're legal, they don't vote first generation immigrants don't typically vote. They're not very ideological. They come here to work to send money back to the family, wherever they are, to raise their kids. And then the kids go to school and they get indoctrinated by whatever is being taught in the schools. And they might become radicalized, they might become left wing crazies or whatever. But that's not the fault of the immigrant. That's the fault of the educational system that exists in the United States, run and managed by Americans. If you're going to blame anybody for the state of America today, it's German immigrants from the 19th century. Those are the guys we should have stopped, right? All those Contians from coming to America. But that's impossible. You can't do it. Once you start doing ideological screens for people, the government is then involved in determining which ideologies are okay and which ideologies are not, what's acceptable and what's not. And short of a state of war, I don't see how that can ever be a legitimate government function. Yeah. And like I said, immigrants, from my experience talking to other immigrants, and not just, you know, the objectives that we have so many immigrants that are objectives that work for you, right? But it is, they find it offensive, like I do, that the left is saying, you know, America sucks. It's a dumpster fire. At the same time, the left is like, yes, bringing more immigrants. So that is a contradiction. It's like, I mean, do you want to read, do you hate immigrants? That you want to bring them to these alleged dumpster fire? Like which one is it? So immigrants don't fall for that type of rhetoric. Yep. All right, I want to ask you, find a question, then we'll go to these questions, a ton of them, that we've got a lot of them, although we're still really short on our goal, fundraising wise guys. So ask more guys, please. What's that? Yeah, don't make me look bad guys. That's right. Don't make Augustina look bad. So ask $20 questions, $50 questions, $300 all questions, you know, the sky's the limit. But we got to reach our goal. All right. So what about illegal immigrants? What about them? I mean, what do you do about them? The millions of them, they all want to come into this country, they're illegal. They're breaking the law. How can we allow people to break the law like that? Shouldn't they be, you know, thrown in jail or sent back home or, you know, we need to build a wall, right? Or a fence or, I don't know, something. Yeah. So it was, I think, Bastiat that said, in order for the law to be respected, it has to be respectable. So these laws, these immigration laws that these immigrants are breaking are extremely unjust and they are arbitrary and they are completely unreasonable. So to me, personally, someone that escapes, say the cartels in Mexico, that escapes government corruption, that escapes the violence and they want a better life. They're actively seeking a better life. They want to come here to work and they cross the border. They cross the Rio Grande. They go through the, essentially, the desert and they almost dehydrate to get to America. To me, frankly, that is heroic. So I think those people take their lives really, really seriously. So much so that they're willing to risk it because they are not going to settle for a crappy life back where they were there from. They want the best life possible. So the only place to make that happen for them is America. So I think these laws are arbitrary and it's okay to break them. For full disclosure, I have not broken any of these laws just in case ICE is watching. I know they watch your show. So I think that there has to be a way to, ideally, they would be able to come here and work without much. Yeah, if there was a legal immigration system that was correct, then they could come here to work and they could come here legally. The only reason they come here legally is it's impossible for them. Literally impossible. We're talking about H1B is where it's really, really hard. But for them, it's literally impossible. There's no chance in hell that they can come here legally. There's not a visa that allows them to come because they don't have a college degree or something like that. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. No, no, no, go ahead. I just said, I've said publicly and I don't care if ICE can hear me, that if I couldn't have gotten into the United States legally, I would have come illegally and made it work. So you only have one life and it's the people who come here and try to make something of that life that are worth keeping as American citizens. I find those people inspiring as compared to kind of the spoiled Americans who just sit and complain. I was reading on the Washington Post yesterday an article about a Chinese family that went to South America or Central America and they began the trek with the other migrants to come to the United States. So for that family, it is easier to fly from China. They couldn't get to America. They didn't get a visa or something like that. So it is easier for them to come to Central America, trek through the jungle, cross the border, the Rio Grande or whatever, cross the border or get on the beast, that train that takes migrants, there's a freight train that migrants latch onto to cross the border. It is easier for them to do all that and to risk their lives than it is to immigrate to the United States. That should give people pause and maybe there is something wrong with this system. Maybe it's not that they just like to break the law. And a lot of these are middle-class Chinese who just want out of China and China is becoming more and more authoritarian and they want the freedom that they thought they were going to get in China and now they can only get by coming to the United States. I've read some of the more and more Chinese being caught at the border. It used to be very rare for them to get a Chinese. Now there are thousands of them that are being caught at the border. They go through the jungles of Panama. It's just unbelievable the harrowing stories of what it takes to get to the United States. It's pretty shocking. Also just one more thing. Immigration is prohibited in America in a similar way that alcohol during the Prohibition era was prohibited. Alcohol had some exceptions for religion, medical exceptions or industrial purposes, but it was essentially banned. Immigration is the same. It's prohibited. It's forbidden unless you feed into an exception. That is essentially what it is. For both alcohol and for immigration, what is the result of a prohibition? It's black markets, people breaking the law, criminal organizations, in this case coyotes, abusing people, taking their money to help them cross or not. The cartels having a whole business out in the border, that's what black markets do. This I think is related. Wes, for $100, thank you, Wes, really appreciate the support. Wes has a big fan right here. Not sure if this came up. I'm hearing more people talk about human trafficking as another reason to secure the border. Is this just another way to increase hysteria about immigrants and crime? I think human trafficking is a reason to make immigration legal. So if you give these migrants a way to come here legally, they don't need to go to the border. They can fly here or enter the border in way more secure areas, which is a lot to ask frankly on the border, but with more secure areas and the ones that are currently out. I don't know the numbers for human trafficking exactly. I know it happens. I know there's a lot of criminality in general going on at the border, migrants getting raped, getting murdered, all sorts of horrific things. That is more the reason to give these people a legal way to come. If people cared about human trafficking, they would make immigration legal. You care about the humans, but you don't want the humans to come here legally. So it's a little bit contradictory sometimes. And everything that happens at the border is horrific, but it's obviously used in a way that's for fear-mongering for people, usually. You said it, right? Immigrations like prohibition. And what happens with prohibition is the criminals step in. Prohibition is how you create a mafia. The original mafia was created because of prohibition. Drug prohibition now keeps the cartels alive and gangs in the United States alive. And the immigration prohibition keeps all kinds of criminal activity alive at the border. And nobody seems to care about the raped women, the murderers, the theft, the criminal exploitation that happens, that these gangs engage in with people trying to enter the United States. It's good that they care about human trafficking, but it's not the biggest problem we have at the border, and it's only made possible because of illegal immigration. That's exactly right. And look, it's the same like illegal Muslim migrants to the United States. It's just hysteria. There are very few illegal Muslim migrants. Very few Iranians are coming in from the southern border, but they know how to trigger their audience, right? There's a, you know, people hate human trafficking. They hate Muslim terrorists. If you blame those phenomenas on migrants, then everybody turns against them. And so propaganda, the propaganda is very powerful. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Josh, $50. Thank you, Josh. Following on somebody's comment, the visa process creates scenarios where employers can take advantage of fallen workers because their visa status is tied to the employer. Can you comment on why this wouldn't happen in a rational immigration system? Well, I don't think that's a, that happens in a way that is, that is super predominant at all. It does happen. So I think he's talking about the H-1B visas because essentially, when you get an H-1B, part of what I did in address, but I'm writing an article about it actually, is the visa, when you actually have it, it's really hard to keep it because it has all sorts of rules that are super restricted. One of those rules is that if you lose your job, whether you get fired early, whatever happens, your company goes bankrupt, whatever, you have only 60 days to find a new job, but not just any job. It has to be someone that will sponsor your visa. Otherwise you either have to live to stay illegally or to transfer to a different type of visa, which is extremely hard to do as well. So some employers will abuse their employees by, okay, if you don't work 16 hours a day, I will fire you and you will have to leave America because I will not give you a letter of recommendation or anything to find another job. Sure, that happens, but why does that happen? Because of these stupid ridiculous restrictions that exist on the H-1B visa. I think if we got rid of those type of restrictions and we just gave people a blanket permission to work in America, like Canada is doing with American people that have applied for H-1B visas in America, they just thought, okay, you have a visa from America, here is a blanket work permit, you can work. And also your wife, your spouse can work as well because that's something that they cannot do here in America. So I think that if we just get rid of all these regulations within regulations, within regulations that we have in the immigration system, I think we're in a much better place. Yeah, I mean, I remember having an H-1B visa and it's scary. So I had many visas because you know, I had an F-1 visa, which is student visa, you had an F-1. And I was married at the time, so my wife had an F-2 visa. The F-2 visa didn't allow her to work, but I was a student, so I couldn't work. My F-1 visa only allowed me to work on campus, so I could work for the university but nowhere else. So I had a stair student, so you could only make that income. So my wife wasn't allowed to work. We had a finance, so I had two kids while I was a student. And then when I applied for jobs after my MBA, nobody wanted to sponsor an immigrant, like all the companies were saying, it's a recession right now, this is 89, things are bad in Texas and we're not going to spend money and effort on sponsoring you. We've got plenty of Americans we can hire. And it was really, it's scary, it puts you in this precarious situation where you think you're doing everything right, you think you're doing anything right to achieve your goal, and yet they could yank it at any point in time. And then I had a practical training visa for a year. Yeah, after your F-1 probably. Yeah, a practical training which is completely up in the air, and then you get an H-1B. And then so my focus was to get the green card as quickly as possible because the green card is the first time where you are now, you can take any job in the United States, right? So H-1B is limited to your employer and a green card is, so it's a nightmare, it really is and this is a legal path, right? So no wonder you have so many people pursuing an illegal path. But if you had been born in China or India, Iran or Mexico, you wouldn't have been able to get a green card so quick. Like the backlog for India is like 90 years or something like that. So imagine like you would have to be on H-1B forever and become best friends with your immigration lawyer because... I think it's some exception because I got some extraordinary something-something visa that allowed me to get the green card because I was a university professor. So I think university professors have it easier. Even Indian and Chinese don't have to wait in line. It's easier for them. Yeah, so maybe you got an EB-1 which is individuals of extraordinary ability, separate from the non-immigrant visa under the same name. But congratulations. That one is not really easy to qualify for. I don't know what happened and maybe it was an easier period of time when I got it, but it seemed like any university professor would get it. There was never really a doubt that you would get, ultimately you would get a green card. And I just was lucky that I got it before they basically fired me from the university. So then I would have been in trouble if I'd only had an H-1B. So it's good that I got the green card before that. Let's see. Adam says, an exceptional explanation of this issue. Thank you. Immigration opposition always sounds similar to the bi-local argument. Imagine having to post jobs within your state or town before allowing others to apply. Employers and consumers lose. Everybody loses. Yes, it's a lose-lose proposition. Absolutely. And it is by a local kind of argument. Except it's absolutely mandated. It's mandated. No one can force you to buy local, presumably, but they can force you to hire local. Yep. Let's see. Mark says, Augustina's O-Con talk was enlightening, maddening, and inspiring. That's a good combination. Thank you so much. Everybody should watch it. Thanks for having on, of course. And yeah, everybody should watch it. It's on YouTube, on the airway channel. What's it called? What's the name of the talk? The immorality of the U.S. immigration system. It should be the last video that was uploaded because it was uploaded today. Yeah, it's uploaded now ago. So go to the Iron Man Institute YouTube channel and go watch Augustina's talk. It was, it was really good. And share it. If you, if you find it valuable, please share it with your friends and family and social media. Share, share, share, like you're all says. Yeah. Well, I don't know how many, how many people listen to me. Let's see. Andrew says, Republican politicians and many conservative intellectuals may not be xenophobic, but they are playing with fire and stoking xenophobia in masses of people. They're morally responsible for what comes from there. So what role do you think xenophobia has in the whole immigration debate? So for me, the jury is still out. Like, I know it has a, it has a role. In fact, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, we've seen from then, like we already saw a lot of xenophobia, which the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first, like, like big restriction on immigration in the United States. I think most people, so the regular people, not the advocates specifically, most people are just genuinely concerned with all the first about some of the objections that we addressed today. Some of these objections don't take a lot of work to figure out. So it's like, okay, come on, you can figure it out. But I, you know, there's some people that have genuine concerns. I mean, people are busy, people have things to do. They can't be reading all the papers that I read on immigration or keep up with the latest things. And I can't understand that. You know, some people are lazy, but I can't understand some people that have these objections. But I think people that should know better, they actually think they do know better, and they hide some, some of them hide some xenophobia and racism behind these objections. So they are like, okay, no, they cannot come legally. And then look at the border, you know, don't let them in. They should come the right way. Then the immigrants come the right way, and they still don't want them, you know? So, or they, you know, make up the stuff about 9-11, about how they were immigrants. So I think there is a role in xenophobia for not for the regular people generally, but for the some of the advocates. And of course, their organizations are completely xenophobic. And as there are individuals that are completely xenophobic, I've been called all kinds of names since beginning to talk about this topic. So. Yeah, I mean, I'm on the side of more xenophobia, rather than less. I think there's a lot of it out there. I think it's much more in the American culture, unfortunately. And it's pretty sad. I think that if you actually gave people a choice of having more European immigration and less Latin American immigration, they would jump on that, sadly. So sadly, I think there's a lot of that in our culture today. But we will, and certainly, our politicians play that up. And it doesn't help that the issue of race is now a big issue, both on the left and on the right. Yeah. And then obviously, like, I think Trump is xenophobic. And he stalks people, you know, he talks in. But he uses, there's no question he plays it up, right? He knows exactly what he's doing. And he plays on the xenophobia of the people who support him. I don't know what's worse, frankly. But yes. All right. Shazba says there was a movie, Coneheads, with a pro immigration theme. It's about aliens from another planet trying to live in their lives in America while being investigated by the federal immigration agent. I've never seen that. Have you seen the movie Coneheads? No, I have not. But I will add it to my list. Okay. Shazba didn't say it was a good movie. He just said it was a movie. But it sounds like a movie you should watch if it's sounds like it's related to the topic. She asks, what sort of near term changes to the immigration system might we expect from the political establishment? Are there any nominally in the direction of boy immigration that you'd oppose? What is the last part of the question? Are there any that seem to be in the direction of more immigration, but we'd still oppose them for other reasons? Well, I oppose basically all politicians for different reasons. I mean, I don't agree with the actual laws on immigration that might be passed. So there's been so much talking forever about this comprehensive immigration reform. There's a lot of laws of bills, sorry, being evaluated right now. There's one recent one that is called the Dignity Act, which part of the goal is to give illegal immigrants a legal status, which is not residency, but it's a legal status. There's a lot of aspects of that law that I am not persuaded by. There's another bill. No, it's not a law. Sorry, it's a bill. There's another bill. I believe it is, is it being, is it right now or was it last year? I forget. That would give F1 students an expedited, meaning students that come to America to study universities that would give these students an expedited path to residency. So an expedited path to a green card, specifically students in STEM, because one of the things that are going on in America, we have a shortage of people that are, you know, that have, that have degrees in STEM. China is, you know, how politicians like to blame China for everything. Well, China has a lot of talent that they're cultivating and they're receiving talents from all over the world on STEM in STEM. So part of the reason this law is being, or was this, sorry, this bill, Jesus, this bill was introduced was because we have this problem with STEM. So we want to give F1 students that are on STEM fields an expedited path to residency. And there are some, like there's another, there are efforts to pass different kinds of laws. There's this organization that is dedicated to advocating for children of long term visa holders. And I think that is one of the most important laws that needs to be, that need to be passed, which because if you have an H1B and you have children, your children are not residents and you bring your children with you. They're not born Americans. If they're born America, they're citizens. But if your children came with you from anywhere in the world and you are a visa holder, once they turned your children turned 21, they either have to find an employer that will sponsor a visa for them, or they have to leave the country. So imagine these children were raised in America, most of them, and they're being kicked out. They are Americans in anything but, you know, on paper, everything but on paper. And they are being kicked out. So there is some initiatives to pass a law to protect these children and give them residency. And there are several other things. Also DACA recipients, there's, I think there's a bill, there has been many throughout the years to try to give them permanent legal status, but they have protected, protected status right now, but to give them pass to residency. All right. So it's hard to tell what's going to pass legal Congress. It seems like nothing really has the support of both parties and they're constantly fighting. And the problem is that even if something completely makes sense, there's some constituency within the political party that opposes it. And so I don't expect anything to come in terms of immigration reform at all. That's anything positive that doesn't restrict immigration even more from either party. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think anything major is going to happen, at least not in the near future in the next couple of years. I wish, but I don't think so. Yeah. And, you know, Biden just has increased the amount of visas that they're giving to asylum seekers if they apply in their country from four different countries, I think Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and Nicaragua, I think, which is great. You know, let them in. It's just a shame that it's just for countries and it's a shame that it's restricted. And it's a shame that it's only for asylum seekers. That is, you have to be literally being hounded by your government and the standards for asylum are very high when they could be inviting so many more immigrants into the country. So while I support that, it wouldn't be my highest priority. Asylum seekers are generally not my highest priority. Yeah. Right. And Anastasia just says, I know many individuals who would love to work and live in the United States, engineers, scientists, and artists who know who knows who know it's impossible to get to the United States and therefore have given up. Yeah. A lot of people give up either trying to come to the United States or they are in the United States and they get so tired of the system trying to kick them out and making life impossible, making it impossible to work and things like that that they just leave, they self support. So tell us what what Canada is doing now because Canada's got a clever system now to exploit that fact. Yeah. So Canada looked at the situation in America with the H-1B and how unhappy the H-1B visa holders are because of all these restrictions on their visa. And Canada said, okay, you know what? If you have an H-1B visa and you're currently in the United States, we will open 10,000 spots for you guys to come to Canada. And we will give you, we will give you a much better situation than what you currently have in the United States. We will give you a kind of like a blanket job permit so you don't have to be tied to one single employer or if you let go, you can just go ahead and find another job. We're going to let your spouse work and your children work as well because right now if an H-1B holder in America has children that want to put up a lemonade stand on the summer in the street, they can't because that's illegal because that's illegal work and the children are on visas as well. So they let everyone in the family work and they, instead of them having to wait years and years and years for residency, they give them an expedited path to residency in one year. So Canada launched kind of like this pilot program and they opened it up only for 10,000 applicants and they thought, if you went to the website it said we have 10,000 spots and this program, this application process will end when we fill that spot or within a year. So they kind of expected it to take a year. It took less than 48 hours to fill all those 10,000 spots because people really want to stay in America but it's impossible. It's so difficult to be on a visa in America and this uncertainty of what you don't know what's going to happen and you know, rational people like to plan and to know more or less what could potentially happen with their lives. So they have a much better shot at doing that in Canada than in the United States and it's really a shame. Yeah, it's Canada, this last year had more immigrants come into it as a percentage of the population than any country in the world, maybe ever. I mean it's just the number of immigrants is astounding with all the problems and all the problems this Canadian government has. The one good thing it is doing is basically opening up Canada to immigrants and good for the Canadians. I mean I think they'll benefit enormously in the future from the massive increases in immigration and the stealing, in quotes, many of our immigrants, many of our smartest and best immigrants because we make it so difficult for them. No, they're taking advantage of our broken system and they're offering people something better. So people are just going to go. Shasazba asks, did Augustina hold the Statue of Liberty as a special inspiration when she was struggling to get to America? I hold the Statue of Liberty as a really inspirational symbol. It's very inspirational for me. If you go to my website you can google it. I have a logo and it has the hand of the Statue of Liberty with the torch. I mean yes, to me that is a symbol of freedom obviously and it's a symbol that I hold very close to my heart. I think it represents the best of America. Yeah I think so too and it was of course a gift from France but constructed in New York with private money was not a government project. It was private money and that's why it was built in months whereas the Washington Monument in Washington DC was built by the government and it took something like 50 years to build this stupid obelisk which I think is a travesty for the memory of Washington, of General Washington. Why would you build an Egyptian obelisk? This is not related to the topic but why would you build an Egyptian obelisk? Egyptian obelisk to commemorate one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. It boggles the mind. No one says, this is the only discussion about immigration that seems thought out and somewhat complete. A nice breath of fresh air. Thank you no one. Sush up. I won an H1B lottery on the first try with one third chance. That's pretty good. For the last two years was locked to my employer while green card is being processed. This kind of visa slavery depresses wages significantly. Yeah, we talked about that. It's horrible. It's a horrible system. John, thank you. Really appreciate it. All right guys, we're only 150 short of the goal so it's very doable. We're talking about what? Seven and a half questions, $20 questions. So step up. You can also do what John did which is to do a sticker and not ask a question. We've got enough people live right now that if basically everybody does two or three dollars we're going to make the goal. So thank you, Justin. Justin just put in $5 and a question. Oh God, Justin, you're so wrong. We'll get to that in a minute. So yeah, step in and allow us to reach the goal. All right, anonymous user says, what are Augustina's professional plans as an immigration expert and how may we support her ideas? So the best way to support my ideas is first of all, get that money to your own now on the super chat. So he will have me again. No, but seriously, I work for the Imran Institute. You can go support ARI. ARI has been incredibly supportive of this message and is providing me the best possible intellectual training to make the best case for immigration. So part of the goal is to, you know, keep developing my expertise and become the best expert on immigration. So like we said earlier at the beginning of the show, there is the philosophical framework lacking from this discussion in general, this debate on national level. So I think I can do that because I have, I think I'm uniquely positioned to do that because my background in the law and my knowledge of objectivism and having experienced the immigration system firsthand. So to become this expert that this level that people go to for a fresh perspective is my goal and to influence the most people I can and to hopefully also try to make an impact. So change starts happening with, you know, when people have better ideas, I think we can start effecting change. Jean for $20. Thank you, Jean. Is there a website for immigration similar to Alex Epstein's talking points? Not until I build my own, which I'm already doing, but it's not live yet. So I am working on something similar to energy talking points, but immigration talking points, something like that. I'm not stealing Alex's IP, but something like that, because I think it's very likely to give it to you. Yeah, probably. But I want to do some things very similar to Alex. And as you know, you're on a look at Alex as a role model of how to communicate ideas effectively and how to frame ideas, frame issues on a with philosophy. Yeah, that's great. So looking forward to a to a Alex Epstein like talking points on immigration, it's on its way. Alright, Adam for $50. Thank you, Adam. For all its issues, America has a great culture, and it should be exposed to as many people as possible. Do you agree that open immigration not only benefits America, but it helps spread positive aspects of American culture globally? I think so, because part of part of what happens when immigrants come to America is sometimes they go back and they bring really good ideas with them. This book that we mentioned earlier Streets of Gold addresses this this aspect of immigration of people that come to America, spend some time working here, building a better life, and then they go back and they bring really much better ideas from country. I think the one of the examples that they cite in the book, I think it's Belgium, the country, I could be wrong, it's someone in Europe, someone that ended up, you know, becoming mayor of their city and implementing a bunch of the ideas that he got from America. So I think when the ones when people see the ideas here and see the way of life and experience freedom to the extent that we have freedom, when they go back to a country, if they go back to a country, they can bring those ideas to. Yeah, and they tell family members about it and they tell other people about it and people, some people want what America has to give without having to travel all the way to America. So they try to create it in their own countries. And you know, America was, I think Ronald Reagan called it, maybe it comes from even before, shiny city on the hill, but a lot of people around the world, America is still a shiny city on the hill. And I think if we had on an open immigration or more open immigration system, it would be even more of a shiny city in a hell, it would exemplify what freedom actually represents today. It's a bureaucratic kind of slightly lit up city on a little anthill. And it could be so much more. And part of that is having the right kind of laws and the right kind of regulations regarding immigration. But yeah, I think I think America, when it's at its best, the rest of the world tries to emulate it, the rest of the world tries to copy it. And when it's not at its best, the whole world suffers, suffers, unfortunately. Yeah, exactly. America is this beacon of freedom, which I think is also represented when we're talking about the Statue of Liberty. It's this beacon of freedom that the entire world looks to, to see what freedom looks like. So yeah, when America is not doing very well, it's bad for everyone. Alright, Travis says, my wife is from Japan. And two years ago, she moved here to the States, but it took two years for the process for her, even though she's a wife of an American. The COVID did play a little bit of a part in that. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. I mean, if she married you, why does she become a citizen immediately? Why is there this process? Yeah, and you know, people say that, you know, marrying an American is the easiest way to get a green card. It is extremely complicated, difficult. And there's a lot of waiting times. In fact, because of different regulations, you might be the case that your spouse, you cannot come to America while the process is taking place. So you could be separated from your spouse for many, many months. Ridiculous. Alright, Jeff says, how much do you think NIMBY not in my backyard policy contributes to the complaint that asylum seekers are taking away resources or getting more than, than seniors or security or homeless already existing here in Canada. The right here is outraged about this myth. So I'm not sure I fully understand the question, meaning what do you make of the question, Yura? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think, I think it's the same kind of zero sum game that people assume with employment that would, that immigrants come in and, and they take stuff from locals rather than create it. Okay, got it. Yeah. But the whole not in my backyard is relevant here because I, you know, one of the reasons Canadians object to immigration, I think somewhat legitimately, is that immigrants are driving up real estate prices. But why are immigrant estate prices? Because you're not building enough homes because in not in my backyard, people restrict, restrict building. And if you don't build enough homes, then real estate prices go up. And instead of blaming the local regulation, the zoning, the committees, the government, you blame immigrants. But in a well functioning economy, supply meets demand. And it goes up supply, you know, you'd expect supply to increase. And, and it doesn't because of government regulations and government controls. And that has a lot to do with NIMBY. But no, it's not a zero sum game. Immigrants don't take resources. They don't, you know, they don't take welfare. They're very, very low consumers of welfare. So I think that's what you're getting at. So hopefully we answered the question because he did put a lot of money into it. So hopefully we answered. It was a little grammatically difficult, Jeff. Let's see. Brian says go Augustina. Thank you, Brian. Another Canadian reading a lot of Canadians today and Europeans too. We've got some euros. We had, we've, we've got some British pounds. And we have a lot of Canadian dollars. So that's good. So these are all people who would have liked to immigrate to the United States and have given up even the Canadians secretly, they will never admit it or want to America. And it's the American immigration system. Canada's just good enough to prevent them from coming illegally and so is Europe. It's good enough to prevent people coming here illegally, whereas Latin America is so rotten that people will come here illegally. But Canada's just good enough so you don't come illegally. But if you open the borders, Canada would empty out. I mean, who the hell wants to live in Canada? Really? It's cold. Except, you know, except maybe some people like, who like the cold, who I, whose name I won't mention. Jeff says, yes, sorry, I did not do that very well. Yeah, it was a little confusing the question, but hopefully we answered what you wanted. Okay, then a little analytic synthetic dichotomy asks, what literature do you recommend on the subject of immigration, including fiction? Oh, there's so much. I'm looking at my bookshelf right now. It depends on exactly what you want to, because immigration is one of the reasons it's really fun to study is because it encompasses everything, like a lot of subtopics within immigration. So I would recommend, because a general book that is interesting to read, this book that we mentioned earlier, Streets of Gold. This book deals with assimilation. It's a huge massive study that was conducted through many years by two researchers. It's probably the biggest study on immigration ever. It's particularly deals with assimilation and but it makes it accessible to a general public in a way that's really fun. And they take real stories from immigrants. And they exemplify basically every single claim that they make, they exemplify with one story. So it's really it's an excellent book I recommend and it's not very long, it's a quick read. Then if you're interested in the history of immigration, I am reading a book by Carbone Tempo and another author, who I'm blanking out on her name. It's called Immigration. It really has a kind of like subheading immigration, an American history or something like that. I believe it is. I cannot fully understand because I haven't finished reading it, but what I read so far is like the most comprehensive book on immigration history that I have read. So that is really good. There's also the by Benjamin Powell, The Economics of Immigration. If you're more interested in the economical aspect, it's from 2015 that books sold a couple of studies are a little bit dated right now, but they're essentially the numbers that remain essentially the same from what I've seen, but that is a really good book to read as well. And then when it comes to fiction, one book that had a big impact on me in understanding the struggle of people that cross the border is a book by author Jeanine, I cannot pronounce some names, Jeanine Cummings or something like that. It's called American Dirt and it tells the story of a woman whose family, 17 members of her family and it said the family get murdered by the cartels at a birthday party. That's how the book starts, so I'm not spoiling anything. So and they are after and she is able to hide in a bathroom with her little son, I think he's like eight years old and she escapes and it's her trek through Mexico from Acapulco to get to the border escaping the cartels and coming to America. That is an excellent book and I actually checked some of the facts and the claims and it's really, really well researched. So I recommend that book to understand the struggle of the people crossing the border a little bit better. It's excellent. You know, I think We The Living has an immigration aspect, right? Yeah. If you watch my talk, people watch my talk, they will see the immigration aspect from We The Living there. Yeah. There's a movie, I can't remember, maybe from the 80s and 90s. Do you ever see Green Card? I am not. I don't watch a lot of movies, so no, but I've heard about it. Okay. So I really like the movie. It's with Girard de Badoe who plays a Frenchman who wants to, it was a great actor, one of the great French actors who wants to come to the U.S. So he marries an American in order to do it and the immigration, you know, the horrible immigration people track him down and they have to fake that they're married and it's very well done, very well acted, funny, heartfelt and you really get the sense of how horrific this is and how damaging this is to human life. So Green Card is a good movie that has one story. All right. We've got a bunch of these questions. Okay. Paul says, don't children of immigrants have access to public education? I guess that's the counter, the idea that they don't get welfare. Yeah. So the children of immigrants have access to public education. Now, part of what the research shows is, yeah, sure, it's very expensive to educate someone in the public system, but what the research shows is that these immigrants are educated in public school more than make up for what they consume, make up for the funds they consume later on in life with the jobs they get and the taxes they pay. So ultimately, they don't have a negative impact in that sense. But of course, I mean, yes, it does happen. They have to get education. And part of the problem is that a lot of immigrants, especially legal immigrants, or mostly legal immigrants are poor, because they cannot get any really good jobs because they have to work illegally. So the jobs that they get pay, they don't pay well. Obviously they have to take what they can get and they have to consequently send their children to public school as opposed to private school because they don't have the money. So I think if we had legal immigration, more legal immigration and we allow these people to get better jobs, they would probably like most people choose to send their children to private school and pay for tuition as opposed to sending to public school. But even then, they make up for that, for the money that they take from public school later on in life. Well, I mean, most Americans still send tickets to public school. So most people still would go. But you're absolutely right. I mean, the idea that they don't make, they don't pay for it is ridiculous. They're paying taxes because they're working, the kids later pay for it in taxes. I mean, you pay a lot more taxes than the value you get out of public education. Public education is a net loss. Richard for $20 asks, so rational open immigration system policy, would there be any case when immigrant would be deported? Yes, I think so. I think if someone commits a crime, a serious offense, murder, rape, I mean, it would be a matter of figuring out what the threshold is, but I think they should be deported. They shouldn't be deported for speeding. You know, that's ridiculous. But if they commit a really serious crime, they should be incarcerated and then they're deported. Yeah, I mean, I think that even in a rational immigration system, you still wouldn't give citizenship to anybody. I mean, I have a whole theory that I don't know if other objectivists agree with. But I think citizenship should be earned. I think that's true for Americans as well. I think just because you're born in America, you shouldn't become a citizen. So I'm against birthright citizenship. But for Americans as well, for everybody, I think citizenship should be earned. I think to be able to vote, to be able to participate fully in the American system, you have to earn that. And that requires certain things. I think deportation, if you don't live up to, in a sense, the contract, yeah, you're out of here. So by being a criminal, I think that's a that's a criteria by which you have not lived up to to the contract of coming. Yeah, I agree with that. Mary Aline asks, how big a world do unions play in immigration injustice? So part of what unions do is, you know, they try to, you know, protect jobs by limiting competition. That is the big part of what they do. So they do have a lot of influence with, especially Democrat politicians, not fixing the broken immigration system that we have right now. Unions are not pro immigration. The left generally is anti immigration. Yeah, both the left and the right are anti immigration for a little bit different reasons, some of them, but they are essentially the result is the same. It's completely restricted immigration. So I think unions do have a lot of power when it comes to this issue. Yeah, I agree. All right, Apollo Zeus, I don't understand this Apollo. Sorry, are people aligned with Cato a better type of immigrant, a better type than whom? What do you mean by aligned with Cato? You're gonna have to re-ask it because I don't know what you mean. Do you know what he means? No, I mean, the people working not Cato. I from the work I follow, like I said, from Alex Dorasta and David Beer, I really like their work. I think it's excellent. Basically, I think it's the best work on immigration out there right now. Yeah, Alex at Cato is excellent. Okay, Travis, to clarify his previous comment, excuse me, my wife from Japan was my fiance at the time. Yes, the K1 visa was difficult. I got everything right without a lawyer, but getting her social security card, driver's license and work authorizations were onerous each alone. Yeah, I mean, the bureaucracy in the US is just ridiculous. It's insane. I feel it took me forever to get a driver's license because no one understood a DMV when my immigration status was what they didn't understand. They don't know anything. It took me forever. I have to renew now, so we'll see how that goes. But also my work permit took nine months to arrive, which meant that I was nine months out of a job, unable to work in America and unable to leave America because part of that authorization also includes what is called advanced parole, because they love to treat people like criminals. It's called advanced parole to be able to reenter the country without that much issue. So I could not work and I could not travel outside of the United States. So I was stuck here. So yeah, these regulations make absolutely no sense. Let's see. Oh, I guess Apollo Zeus meant libertarians as immigrants. So libertarians better immigrants because they promote freedom when they come to America. I mean, I don't know that I, I'm not sure that I know what most libertarians stand for. It's very, you know, it's a term that encompasses a lot of things. Some of them are nationalists. Some of them are really are much better. Like from what I've seen people at Kato are much better thinkers and much more actually pro freedom. But I wouldn't say libertarians in general because I've seen horrific things were also from libertarians or people that call themselves libertarians. Even people at Kato. Yeah, what we want is AI immigrants, not Kato immigrants. We want AI immigrants. We're an objectivist to immigrate. There are lots of objectives around the world. We should bring them all to the United States so they can help us take over the government in a secret revolution. But don't tell anybody. Okay, Valdrin says this immigration hurts home countries. It creates lack of labor in every field. Does it also create a housing shortage to countries they migrate to? So we address the housing issue, I think with an in the question. And then the question about immigrants hurting the countries they migrate from, I think, I mean, if it's like you have to either that's what it's called the brain drain. So you have to choose either there's a brain drain or there's a brain waste. Because these brains that come to America are wasted in the in their home countries. That's why they're coming here because they don't have the opportunities that they have in America. So I think no one has the duty to stay in their country and fight for their country and try to make it better or anything. You know, you have one life and you have to make the most of it. And part of what that is just taking us seriously. And if your home country is not doing anything for you is not, it's not working for you, you have every right to live and without any sort of guilt. But also one aspect one extra kind of like wrinkle about this is a lot of people, this is part of what we're saying earlier, either they come back with better ideas, or they help their countries from abroad to help change their cultures. Like you, Yaron, you've done a lot for Israel, like being an America citizen and being here in America. I do a lot for Latin America through the Imran Center Latin America. I give talks, I teach a course every month on Objectivism and I do a lot to change the culture in Latin America. Not because I feel a sense of duty, but because I want Latin America to flourish and to be better for myself and be better for my friends and family that are still there. But I am not concerned about immigrants making their own countries worse because I'm concerned about the individual, not the collective in the country. All right. Valdrin says, he's quoting, I want my country to remain the same race as my grandfather. Japan is doing well. Why should we import third world? Look at France. How do you respond? I mean, that is just racist. I mean, why do you want your own race to remain the same race as your grandfather? I think that is racist. I don't think it deserves much of an answer other than, you know what? Acknowledging this is a racist remark. People are not determined by the color of their skin or the race. They're determined by the, I mean, if they are the other council. Yeah, and Japan is not doing well. Japan is doing pretty poorly. Japan is quite poor relative to America. It's shrinking and it's old and they don't have immigrants, so they don't have a chance of reviving their economy. They lack that kind of entrepreneurial energy that immigrants bring to a culture. Japan should not be the model for anybody. I mean, Japan is a wonderful country in many respects, but it's lack of immigration, it's homogeneity, and it's poverty are real. And let's see, why should we import? Oh, yeah. We're not importing anybody. You don't import human beings. Slavery is gone. People come here out of their own free will. Thank you, Apollo. Zeus. All right, we've got like 55 questions of Justin now. All right, let's start. What should Israel adopt open immigration? I have thoughts, Yaron, but I think you're better. You would be better answering this question. I mean, for starters, Israel is at war with every single country, essentially surrounded by a country in the area. So I don't think anyone should have open borders when they're actively at war. So, but you take it, Yaron. So when Israel is at peace with all its neighbors, and the world is rational so that violent anti-Semitism has disappeared and is unlikely to return, then yeah, Israel should have open borders. Not sure Israel should even exist in that scenario. Maybe we can just create a large Middle East country that is pro-individual rights and is united across the place. I mean, you cannot ignore the existential reality that exists if Mexico was an enemy of the United States. If Mexicans were literally trying to annihilate Israel, sorry, the United States and terrorists were crossing the border and blowing up buildings and blowing up buses and blowing up restaurants and trying to kill you. Absolutely build a wall. Now, I still wouldn't build a wall. I would go into Mexico, I would crush them, I would defeat them, I would occupy Mexico and make Mexico part of the United States. But you can't compare a situation where a state is at war with its neighbors, even though normally they have peace deals, they're literally at war with their neighbors. You can't compare people who are facing constant threat of eradication, of genocide, of complete annihilation with Americans who nobody wants to kill especially, and nobody has the capacity. We're a country with 350 million people with the mightiest military force in all of human history. What are you afraid of? And you want to compare yourself to a little country of 10 million people that fits into the size, into the state of Rhode Island? I mean, that's the comparison. It just pisses me off because it's not a real question, or at least, I'm not saying Justin is not, but I hear it all the time. And it's so obviously just a gotcha. And it's not a gotcha. Reality is what it is. If you live next to enemies, if you are on a threat of annihilation, no, you should not let immigrants in. As I said, if America's at war with Islam, shouldn't let Muslims in. If America's at war with Nazis, don't let Nazis in. Israel is, the Jewish people are at war with much of the rest of the world, don't let them in. Like it or not. All right, Justin also asks, Ayan Hosea Lee is concerned about Islamic immigration to Europe. Should she be? I think she should be. I actually have her book right here because I read it for the podcast that we did with AI yesterday. Yeah, the problems in Europe are very real. There's particularly what she addresses in this book, which is called Pray, is the issues with Muslim immigrants assaulting women or several types of sexual harassment towards women. Obviously that is a huge concern. It's happening a lot in Europe. It's really hard and she acknowledges this to get data in part because governments are looking the other way. And her hypothesis is that governments are looking the other way because if they acknowledge that there's a problem with this specific type of immigrant or with any immigrants at all, really, they're going to be called xenophobic and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, she's right. There's a big problem going on. I don't think that problem could come to America. And for like a very in-depth analysis, please go to ARS YouTube channel and search for the podcast we did it yesterday. So yeah, it's a problem. But part of the reason there is a problem going on is because European is fundamentally different philosophically than the United States. One of those aspects is that Europeans have for decades now embraced this multiculturalism where they put all cultures and all sets of ideas at the same level as actual rational enlightenment ideals. And they have let go of traditional people called Western values. And they are not willing to defend it, to defend them. So, you know, they get the kinds of immigrants that, you know, they that know that they essentially can do whatever they want and leave the with total impunity in Europe. But also I think it's important to distinguish, and this is a distinction that on Cargate, maybe yesterday in the podcast, which is the type of immigration itself is very different what we get in America than what goes on in Europe. Why? Because in Europe, the majority of the big chunk of the immigration is asylum seekers. And there's a big, very big difference between asylum seekers and regular immigrants because asylum seekers are people that are fleeing something and they're just landing in a country, not because they particularly admire their country, the values or they're seeking the opportunities for a country, but essentially because, you know, bombs are being dropped at their house. Things are exploding around and they run somewhere. And some of these people will look for places where they can act with impunity. This is the bad actors that Europe is attracting. But the immigrants that we get in America are people that want to come to America to work. They are seeking a positive. They are seeking value as opposed to escaping a negative for the most part. So that is one essential difference between America and Europe in terms of immigration. But again, for a way more indefinite analysis, please go listen to the podcast. Yeah. And in my view is the main problem in Europe is Europe. It's the fact that law enforcement doesn't follow up with criminals because they're in minority communities. The law enforcement allows neighborhoods, they have neighborhoods where they don't even go into in places like France and Sweden. They allow gangs to dominate those neighborhoods. They don't protect this. The immigrant population comes there and it is not protected. It's ruled by gangs of immigrants. So I think the fault primarily lies with the fact that Europeans don't try to assimilate them. One of the ways in which immigrants are assimilated into America is through work. But in places like Germany and France and Sweden, then the immigrants are not encouraged to work. They're not allowed to work and they're given welfare. So many of them just don't work and they just live off of welfare. If you don't work, you don't assimilate, you don't learn the language, you don't learn the customs. So there are a lot of problems in Europe that are mainly a consequence of the way Europe treats its immigrants. And it is afraid. They're afraid to judge them and they're afraid to integrate them. And America's never been like that. America is a place where we expect them to integrate. We demand that they work for the most part. And as a consequence, they assimilate. They become part of American society. So it's not even that it's Islamic immigration to Europe. It's just because a lot of the immigrants today to Europe are Africans, although many of them are still Muslims. It's the way they're treated once they get to Europe and they're treated in a way that encourages them to be the worst of themselves, rather than the best of themselves. Justin also says, does the Democratic Party want more immigrants to get more votes? Well, to vote an immigrant has to become a citizen. And that doesn't happen. There has to be... So for that to happen, it has to be a legal immigrant who previously held a green card. And a green card is extremely hard to get. And it takes many, many years. So if, I mean, if that is a reason why they want... Which I will challenge actually the premise that the Democrats want more immigrants, because I don't think they actually do. The evidence is not pointing that direction. I mean, they claim to be premigration, but they're not. So no, I don't think that's the case. But because it's not just... It just doesn't happen. Most immigrants are unable to vote in America. There's a separate discussion to be had about how immigrants vote. But I don't think it's... I mean, they're not premigration in the first place. I mean, check the numbers. Obama deported more immigrants than Trump did. And Obama was very tough on immigration. Bernie Sanders in a moment of honesty told, I think it was Ezra Klein, who was interviewing him when he was running for president a few years ago, that no, of course, he's not for open borders and he's not for a lot of immigrants, because they suppress wages and they're bad for the economy. All the socialist arguments about why it's a zero sum world and you shouldn't have more people here. So I don't see any evidence that Democrats want more immigrants. Again, the illegal immigrants that come in are illegal. As Augustina said, it takes years for them to vote. Even if they become somehow legal, it takes years. The legal immigrants takes years to vote. I mean, do Democrats really think 20 years and 10, 20 years ahead? I don't think they do. I don't think they're smart enough. I don't think they're strategic enough. No, I think the Democratic Party is basically anti-immigration and to the extent that they're pro-immigration, they're motivated by altruism and they're motivated by being anti-Trump or anti-Republican. So they were the opposite of what Republicans are. It's not out of love or out of some strategic calculation. It's a lot of it's altruism and the left is more susceptible to altruism and certain issues than the right. Let's see. Just then again, according to Kato experts, some Americans don't like immigration because they don't like to hear foreign language in public. Have you read that? I don't remember that being a claim that was highlighted as a primary. There are articles in Kato that address the common objections to immigration and why people don't like immigration and they give the facts why those objections are not merited. I don't remember seeing that as a major objection to immigration. And if that's the case, well... It's again, it's racism and xenophobia. So yeah, I mean, who cares? If Americans are that dumb, that that's the criteria. I mean, how can you take that too? I do think that speaking a common language is very important, that people learn to speak the language, in this case, English. But that doesn't say anything about people not being able to speak. Like if I'm speaking, if my mother comes to visit me and we're at Disneyland and we speak Spanish among each other, I mean, I don't see why that would threaten someone or something. Speak Hebrew with my wife all the time or that's threatening. It's the kind of xenophobia that people don't like. And of course, if you live in New York or any major city in the US, there are tons of tourists who come. How can you even differentiate between who's a tourist and who's an immigrant? If Americans, I don't believe Americans actually feel that way, but if American feels that way, then America is in worse shape than I think it is. All right, this one, I just don't know what you're talking about, Justin. Techacross and demolishes pro-immigration advocates frequently on the show. No one seems to be able to debate him. So let me just say, I've seen Alex tell me his family name from Cato, Alex. No Rasta. No Rasta. I can never get his name. I've seen Alex No Rasta being interviewed by Techacrossen. And Alex No Rasta demolishes Techacrossen. I mean, it's not even close. Techacrossen often is speechless. He doesn't know what to say because Alex is brilliant. He has all the facts at his fingertips. He has studies. He has concretes. He knows exactly what he's talking about. And Techacrossen is just silence, demolished. It's why, by the way, Techacrossen is very good at finding weak opponents. He goes out and he finds people who are not very good at defending immigration. And yeah, he demolishes those people. But that's because he's self-selected the worst. But when he has somebody like Alex on, he is completely flabbergasted and doesn't know what to say. I love to say that the problem with a lot of immigration advocates is they don't do what Augustina does. They don't make them all arguments. They just get caught up in numbers. And then it seems like an argument about numbers rather than an argument about principle. So I don't know what shows you watch the Techacrossen, but the ones I've seen, he's the one being demolished. Apollo is reminding me that I have to review Megan's noveletta. And I will. I know it's on my list. I'll get to it. Okay. Jacob says, my girlfriend's family got Canadian citizenship as a backup in case they need to flee Taiwan. They tried for the U.S., but it was too hard. That's insane, right? Yeah. It's essentially impossible to get cities to appear because you need a ringer for that, and that is almost impossible to get. And this is Taiwan. These people living in a free country, opposed to China, you think we just invite them all to come here, you know, empty out Taiwan, bring them all to the U.S. and give it to China. That would be a peaceful solution. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Okay. Justin says, will woke anti-racism lead to more immigration? What? So will kind of the leftist, crazy left woke stuff, what do you call it, anti-immigration, which really is anti-racism, which really is racism, will that lead to more immigration? I think the opposite. It will lead to less immigration. Nobody wants that crap. Certainly not immigrants. How many immigrants want woke? They're not interested in this stuff. They didn't come to America to be told that whites are evil and that they are good because they have dark skin or whatever. They don't come here for reverse racism. They come here to live the American dream. Yeah. This whole woke thing is just, it's unfortunately the probably one of the worst American inventions. And like, people that want to come here to America, they don't, like they are surprised when they come to America and they find all these crap about this woke stuff. Like you said, just want to live their lives. In fact, politicians insist on calling, you know, Latin Americans, immigrants and other immigrants oppressed, you know. And, you know, they have all this term Latinx because, you know, they don't want to assume the gender of whoever they want to be inclusive. I don't know a single person of Latin America that is on board with that term. In fact, we kind of like, you know, pieces people off because they're like, what is this nonsense? Just what? Like, no, stop. It doesn't make any sense. No, people, immigrants do not, they're not attracted by that. And the more the left embraces woke and embraces the crazy left, the more the Hispanic population and other minorities shift to the right. That's just, that's just a reality. So it's, it's nobody votes for the Democrats in the migrant population because the Democrats are woke, they vote for the Democrats because they hate Republicans primarily. And because they generally think the state should ever be old and they're pro the welfare state for, you know, kind of for, but not because of woke stuff, they reject the woke stuff. Okay, Andrew says, how does the American sense of life compare with the sense of life in Argentina? Well, America's sense of life is much, much better. I guess to concretize this, I can, I can tell you my own reaction to, to America when the first time I came to America, which was when I was like eight years old or something like that. One of the things, so I came, the first time I came to America, I came to Orlando to go to Disney World with my family. But even at that age, and this is not uncommon. So even at that age, I got here and I noticed before I went to Disney World, which is his own thing, right? It's his own bubble where everyone is happy. But even before then, like, I was, you know, at the hotel, I was at the supermarket, I was in stores. And I noticed that people were just different. And I like my mom, I don't remember this, but my mom tells me she remembers me telling her like that people just walked differently. You know, it's different. Like you see people on the street in Argentina, they are always they look worried, they look sad, they look stressed out of their minds in America. I mean, that can happen sometimes in big cities and whatnot. But generally, people are much happier, are much, much, much happier to work even. There's like some people that have the TGIF mentality type thing, but nothing compared to what Argentina is like, because people essentially, you know, have freedom here. And you know that, you know, if you do things right, you'll be left alone to live your life, which is not the case in Argentina. There's so many challenges and obstacles in your way of trying to make a living, even which is the most basic thing you can try to do, that you cannot even sometimes get out of your house to go to work because there's a picket on your street, you know, and it takes you three hours to get to work when normally it takes you 15 minutes. So it is just incessant obstacles and BS that people have to deal with. And that doesn't happen in America. That's just a very broad, you know, experience that I've had. Yeah, no, that makes sense. All right, Justin says with more immigration, eventually we have to destroy our beautiful national national parks to build more houses. Is that right? Well, this is, I think, part of it's similar to this objection that, you know, if we have more immigration, we will run out of space. Have you seen how big America is? Like, the amount of space in America, it's just insane. There's so much room in America. There's so much land that is not being used because there's not enough people to use it. I don't think we would have to go to national parks. There's a whole discussion to be had about national parks separately. But I don't think you would get to the point where, you know, you have to build houses in the Grand Canyon or anything like that. I don't think that will be the case. Yeah, no. And you can build up. You can build skyscrapers. You can build all kinds of things. I mean, America can hold billions of people if you really needed it to. But again, not everybody in the world is going to migrate to America, even if you had open borders. A lot will. And it'll make America a better place, not a worse place. William Anthony, what was dangerous about Douglas Murray's argument? Douglas Murray's argument. He's asking on behalf of the analytic. Yeah, I mean, I think Douglas Murray's argument borders on racism. Douglas's argument is that basically immigrants to Europe just can never become European. It is impossible for them that there's something inherent in them or in the fact of Europe, in the history of Europe, in the tradition of Europe that makes it impossible to assimilate them properly. He's not critical of Europe, right? When I was with him, my argument is, yeah, that's hard because Europe has made it hard because Europe won't be proud of its values, doesn't stand up for its values, doesn't defend them. The Charlie Hebdo and the Danish cartoons, a great example of this, where Europe basically folds in the face of violent jihad. And Murray's approach was, yeah, but it's also true that Europe is for Europeans kind of attitude. And people from outside Europe are never going to truly be Europeans in the real sense. And I think that's a very dangerous argument. I think it's wrong. And I think it is borderline racist arguments, and it's a real problem. And when I talked about America and the need for more immigration in America and the support for much more open borders in America, he was very opposed to that. So it's not like he limited his arguments to just Europe and Islamic migration. He was very negative about immigration in the United States as well. So he's anti-immigration for all the wrong reasons. And I like Douglas. And we get along personally well, but on immigration, we disagree very, very fundamentally. And I think he's wrong. And I think he's dangerous. He's dangerous because he's smart. He's dangerous because he doesn't come across. And he says, I'm not a racist. You know, he makes all these statements, but he really is. He really is. I mean, he talks about this, Takako Costa talks about as well, a completely racist theory, which is the replacement theory, right? This replace this idea of replacement theory. They will replace us. Who the hell is us? We have white skin. Is that what makes us us? I'm not us because I'm Jewish. I don't count. But the white non-Jews, non-Hispanic, not I don't know the pure white Anglo, I don't know who the who the us is. But there is this issue of replacement theory that is one of the most disgusting, I think, forms of races that racism takes that is definitely out there and that Douglas Murray floats with. And I think that's dangerous and bad. And by the way, if you want to see me and Douglas Murray discuss this, kind of debate it, but mostly discuss it. There are at least two occasions where we did this one in London, I think one in Rotterdam. And you can find the videos online. So I've had these discussions with Douglas Murray. Justin asks, do you still play video games? I assume the questions for me. I assume so because I've never played video games, so it still would not apply to me. Yeah, I like video games. I don't have time to play almost at all. The last I played. That's what she says because I'm kind of like her boss, so she has to say that. Yeah, I have to say I work 24, not just kidding. The last one I tried to play was the new Final Fantasy. But I just don't have time every single, you know, the free time I have I usually read or work out. So I don't have I wish I had more time, but I don't. If you guys like video games, and you want to watch a fun movie, which I really enjoyed. I watched it the other day. And it's supposed to be based on a true story, but it seems too crazy to be true, but it probably was. Tetris, I don't know if you've seen Tetris. It's on Apple TV. It's about the Tetris, the video game Tetris, and there was written by a Russian in the Soviet Union, and how how this American got the rights to it. It's fun, exciting, interesting. I think it has a really good portrayal of the Soviet Union, in a sense of how ugly it was, and how unjust it was. That's to its credit because a lot of times movies try to whitewash what happened in the Soviet Union. So yeah, Tetris was fun. I would recommend that movie. All right. Last question, the toughest question of all, Augustina, why do you live in California? It has high taxes and taxes and regulations. Let's see if she gets the answer right. That's a good question. Look, I I've been in love with California since before setting foot in California because they have different things, including the music that I like the most is from here. I like the sun. I like the beach. It is true. The taxes are insane. I rationalized it by calling it the sun tax, you know, I pay for the weather. It there's a chance I'll eventually move elsewhere because there's so much I can pay taxes without like going insane. So I just really like the I just really, really love California and it provides a quality of life that maybe I'll find elsewhere, but I'm hesitant to risk it. So we'll see what happens in the future. But for now, I'm enjoying Orange County. I told you guys that California is an amazing place to live in spite of all the problems, spite of all the taxes, all the regulations, the quality of life, if you can afford it is just amazing. And then there's nowhere else that has that combination of perfect weather and just amazing infrastructure and just a high, high quality of life. Yeah. And it's well, the weather this year was a little disappointing. I mean, it's going back to normal. Now there was a lot of rain, which like made me insane. But it's just such a good safe place. I know some places in LA are really unsafe. I know that. But where I live in Orange County, it's very safe. The other day, something happened that my husband and I left the garage door open all night. Somehow, I don't know what, you know, we just forgot. And I thought someone would have, you know, gone in and stolen my one wheels and like these things are like $2,000 or, you know, other stuff we had in the garage. Nothing was missing. No one came in, not even the raccoons. So it's very safe. Yeah, I know. I mean, the biggest worry I had when I left my garage door open was that the rats would come in, but because they lived all around us. But no, California is incredibly safe. Most of the places, all the places I've lived in California have been amazingly safe. There are a few places you don't want to go to. But other than that, again, the quality of life is pretty amazing in spite of the regulations and the taxes and everything else. All right. We did really well. So we reached our goal. We surpassed the goal. So you did well, Augustino. They did well, the superchatters. So thank you. Thanks to all the superchatters. Thanks for all the questions, great questions. Thanks for the support. Thanks for all the super sticker guys who did the super stickers and supported the show without asking a question. And this is being great. Thanks, Augustino. I will see you guys tomorrow morning. Well, yeah, 12 o'clock tomorrow. It's early tomorrow because I have to teach a class. And you're not in this class. No, this is the beginners class, the public speaking beginners class tomorrow. So we're doing that. And then, so it's March 12, Saturday at three. I'm not sure what the topic will be. I'll figure it out. And then we'll get, we'll be back on schedule. We went for over two hours. That's great. Have a good night. Have fun. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, your own. Bye, guys. Goodnight.