I think an honest reading of what I wrote would conclude that I was referring to international movement. I could have done a better job by using that qualifier, or replacing "movement" with "migration".
That describes internal migration rather than immigration (international migration). In the end the results may be similar, but it's a different thing. You can't be deported out of China (though you can be sent back to your village) but they are generally speaking the same culture and people, for the majority of cases. Every large country which has transformed from agrarian to industrial has gone through this internal migration phase. From former USSR down to Bolivia or Mali.
Even in a one-world-government scenario, there are countries with restrictions on internal migration.
The usual arguments about migration are "crime, language, culture, jobs".
Crime: AI can already give us trivial cost total surveillance that would make the literal Stasi feel you'd gone too far
Language: AI translation is pretty good, just not real time and speech recognition is still kinda meh
Culture: internet is a giant melting-pot even without migration, and also there's cultural assortive behaviour even within borders over things like "democrat or republican"* or "Red Sox vs… Yankees"** or "Catholic vs. Baptist"
Jobs: offshoring, remote work, and automation are all bigger issues… or should be, at least from an economic POV when the dichotomy (to use an American perspective for illustration but there's also an equivalent one in Mexico) is "Mexicans move to San Diego and take American jobs" vs. "The factory moves from San Diego to Tijuana and Americans are no longer allowed to work there", and the fact this counterpoint never comes up is really just evidence that it's not actually about the economics.
* both big and small R/D, in different contexts; I was born in a kingdom not a republic.
American society so far has demonstrated a tendency to alternate between mass migrations coming in from abroad, and mass internal migrations.
The last great internal migration was the 1940’s to 1970’s as cars and highways became widespread.
The period of mass migration from abroad coming in happens in the mid 70’s with significant events being Vietnamese refugees in 1975 and Iranian refugees in 1979. The end of the Cold War meant the stopping of US support to many anti-communist dictators which also increased these numbers. I believe though it was a change in the immigration law in 1965 that made this possible, which reversed the quotas put in place in the mid 1920’s and established family unification as a priority.
With that all being said though, it seems that mass migration from abroad has become more controlversial in the US, and perhaps we are entering the next great age of internal migrations.
You do realize intra-country migration has the same effect right? In the US, the majority of counties are losing population, because people are moving to cities.
You're advocating for internal passports and residency permits:
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