Saagar Enjeti: preference

Transcript context

…You mentioned in the book Melting Pot or Civil War by Reihan Salam. He makes an argument against the open borders. The thesis there is a simulation should be a big part. I guess there’s some kind of optimal rate of immigration which allows for a simulation. Yeah, and there are ebbs and flows, and that’s what I was talking about historically where, I mean, the truth is you could walk the streets of New York City in the early 1900s and the late 1890s and you’re not going to hear any English, and I think that’s bad. I mean, really what you had was ethnic enclaves of people who were basically practicing their way of life just like they did previously, bringing over a lot of their ethnic problems that they had and even some of their cultural unique capabilities or whatever, bringing it to America, and then New York City police and others are figuring out like, “What the hell do we do with all of this?” And it literally took shutting down immigration for an entire generation to do away with that and there’s actually still some. The point about assimilation is twofold. One is that you should have the capacity to inherit the understanding of the American character that has nothing to do with race, and that’s so unique that I can sit here as a child of people from India and has such a deep appreciation for the Scots Irish. I consider myself American first, and one of the things that I really love about that is that I have no historical relationship to anybody who fought in the Civil War, but I feel such kinship with a lot of the people who did and reading the memoirs and the ideas of those that did because that same mindset of the victors and the values that they were able to instill in the country for 150 years later gives me the ability to connect to them. And that’s such an incredible victory on their part and that’s such a unique thing. In almost every other country in the world, in China and India or wherever, you’re kind of like what you are. You’re a Hindu, you’re a Jew, you’re a Han Chinese, you’re a Uyghur or you’re Tibetan, something like that. You’re born into it. But really here, it was one of the only places in the world where you can really connect to that story and that spirit and the compounding effect of all of these different people who have come to America, and that is a celebration of immigration as an idea. But immigration is also a discrete policy, and that policy was really screwed up by the Biden administration. And so we can celebrate the idea and also pursue a policy for all of the people in the US, our citizens to actually be able to benefit. And look, it’s going to be messy, and honestly, I still don’t know yet if Trump will be able to pursue actual mass deportation just because I think that I’m not sure the public is ready for it. I do support mass deportation. I don’t know if the public is ready for it. I think, I don’t know. I’ll have to see because there’s a lot of different ways that you can do it. e public is ready for it. I do support mass deportation. I don’t know if the public is ready for it. I think, I don’t know. I’ll have to see because there’s a lot of different ways that you can do it. There’s mandatory E-Verify, which requires businesses to basically verify you’re a US citizen or you’re here legally whenever they employ you, which is not the law of the land currently, which is crazy, by the way. You can cut off or tax remittance payments, which are payments that are sent back to other countries like Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. Again, illustrating my economic migrant point. There are a lot of various different ways where you can just make it more difficult to be illegally here in the US so people will self-deport, but if he does pursue real mass deportation, that will be a flashpoint in America.…

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