I love Noah’s analysis about the MAGA right's internal conflict over Indian immigration. It's funny how despite the large role curtailing immigration played in MAGA rhetoric, one of the first things they do will probably be to increase it. I'm not complaining.

I advocate something much closer to Open Borders, which I think has both strong moral and economic arguments. At the end of the day, I think we're a nomadic species, and people should be able to go where they want, so long as they respect the land -- and we share knowledge of how to do so. Indian immigrants have no more or less right to be here than my Scottish immigrant ancestors who came here a couple of generations back, or the first of our kind who walked here across the ice 15,000 years ago. I recognize that maybe it's infeasible to jump straight to an Open Borders policy all at once (fast change is bad), but I hope we continue to push in this direction. I hope for a future where we all feel like citizens of the world.

But even if you're more moderate and less moralistic about it than me, H-1B Indian immigrants are absolutely the most insane group to oppose. Much of the usual immigration hand-wringing simply doesn't apply. To Noah's economic arguments, I would add a cultural point:

A common worry about immigration is that it will erode our cultural values, or that the immigrants won't be able to merge well into our (idealized) melting-pot multicultural society. Well, India is the world's largest multicultural democracy. There is no dominant religion, no dominant ethnic group, and no centrally-advocated illusion of homogeneity (such as that in Xi's China). Even the most blatantly Indian Nationalistic media (see the movie RRR, for example) is forwarding a vision of Indian identity that transcends language, ethnicity, and tribe. (not to say India is without problems, there are plenty!)

I believe that blending and back-and-forth sharing of culture at the edges is absolutely essential to a healthy society, and, anecdotally, Indian immigrants do this better than just about anyone. (contrary to leftist cultural ownership/appropriation narratives, afaict, "you wanna learn to teach yoga? great! be healthy! just learn it right so you don't hurt anyone" is the dominant sentiment) In an even more anecdotal note, from the outside, Indian third-culture kids I've known seem to be able to carry their supposedly competing identities more comfortably and gracefully than any other group. I don't know, but I bet that's because they and their parents are bringing the legacy of an ancient polyglot, multiethnic, and multicultural society with them. I think the US, and all us other immigrant groups of various ages, could learn a lot from them.