I've been hearing a lot of worry, I would say paranoia, about illegal and even legal immigration yet to me I don't really understand why this is that much of a problem. Immigrants are filling vital sectors of our economy at a price that benefits everyone. If Americans were willing to work at those jobs at those wages they would be filled by Americans but we aren't seeing that. The argument for illegals taking our jobs to me seems like a protectionist argument that Americans can't compete so we have to shield them from competition. At the same time though lower inflation for goods and services frees up money to be spent and invested on other things which can fuel the advancement of the economy. Protecting lower skilled jobs like picking produce and dishwashing from competition from illegals strikes me as taking money that could be used in developing other sectors of the economy to protect the least skilled sectors. The next argument I hear is that immigrants are using up services while providing nothing. That seems very odd as immigrants still pay taxes and in many cases even social security while not gettting any of it back. If anything illegal immigrants are getting a rawer deal by both working for low wages, paying things like sales and property taxes yet being unable to take advantage of many government services. Another argument is that they might swamp our culture. Well the US culture is an evolving culture and successive waves of immigrant cultures have affected US culture. The only argument that to me seems like it should be a major concern is the inability to control our borders and potentially having terrorists come in. To me though that is a a problem that can be solved by having much higher levels of legal immigration so instead of having a black market smuggling people in it is done legally and can be regulated. By legalizing most illegals the coyote networks can be seriously crippled as there will be almost no need to use them. So to me I don't understand why there is all of the worry about immigrants both legal and illegal.
Beside controlling the border, we also want to control our immigration, making whatever policies or laws we have in place effective. The whole terrorist angle is a fraud, thrown out by social conservatives who want to conflate illegal immigration and terrorists.
Not completely open as I wouldn't let people infected with Ebola or members of Al Qaeda in but yes I think we should open our borders more and acknowledge that as long as their jobs to be filled at wages that most Americans won't for we should let people who want to work in. I also don't believe our permanent population will double. Considering how much money immigrants send back to their home countries I'm guessing many don't want to live here for the rest of their lives but want the chance to earn some money, help out their families and then go home.
I think that's the biggest problem people have. The culture war is the most tangible and visible issue. Whenever I have more passionate debates on the net, there's always someone who says the streets of California are swamped with immigrants or they bring up protesters waving the Mexican flag. They seem to think a "third world" culture will turn the "best nation in the world" into another third world nation. Although there have been successive waves, each wave has had to face some form of cultural hazing. While debatable, I believe African Americans speed the integration of other European immigrants because both groups were fighting for the same type of work, and racial preferences solidified when the 2nd generation integrated fully... Quite frankly, some Americans don't want a browning of the nation. So while I think other immigrant waves has had similar opposition, there's a stronger resistance to this wave despite the rate of immigration being proportionately similar to the Italian and Irish wave. It's seriously challenging some inherent perceptions of what an American should be, one that the media portrays worldwide.
Working in the service industry, my only real problem with open borders is people who don't speak English... Other than that I'm fine with new citizens.
I largely agree with you in a "long-term" point of view. Also - it is very hard for me to restrict people from coming here, when the vast majority of theses people are just poor folks trying to improve their lives. Unemployment is down right? Wages are up? I'm not sure, but the point is we are not facing high unemployment rates right now nor widespread wage depression (please correct me if I'm wrong). The labor supply arguments would hold more water for me if we were ina period of high unemployment. I do think that unchecked immigration can overload some public services though. In Southern California, we have emergency rooms closing. It's difficult to parse through all the politics, etc - but a lot of people point to a mass influx of uninsured people (ie. illegal immgrants) as a prime contributor to the problem. Gov. Arnold (Republican ?!?!) is actually pushing some sort of universal health care coverage plan aimed, oddly enough, to alleviate this problem. The theory being that "free" preventive care (relatively low cost) would offset emergency room care (very expensive). Also - many public schools here are overwhelmed by large numbers of Spanish speaking migrants (or children of migrants) that tend to lower the quality of education. Many schools are "forced" to teach in Spanish. Also - the parents of many of these kids do not seem to place much importance in education, which leads to lower test scores, etc. The dropout rates for Hispanic kids (a lot of whom are immigrants or the immediate descendants of) are alarmingly high. Again - my information comes from largely biased sources so the "real" data may provide a different picture. As is with many other issues (such as global warming), radical politicization of an issue tends to make finding "real" and "unbiased" information difficult.
So you don't have a problem, Sishir, with the inequity of those attempting to come to this country legally having to wait years to do so, while others simply go across the border illegally? That's my problem with it. I don't care if they work here, if they have a work visa of some sort. And I'm not that concerned with "bad people" coming across the border. I don't mind if they do jobs willingly that others don't want, or do jobs that others would like to have, as long as it's within the legal system governing immigration. It bothers me a great deal that those using the legal system, in countries all over the world, are following a system designed to handle immigration, and are being penalized for it. It's an issue of fairness and equity. Right now, fairness and equity don't exist. Not if you are attempting to follow the law. Pretty ironic, don't you think? And you think that will be solved by higher levels of immigration? Fine. Tell everyone, all over the world, who wish to come to the United States, today, to come on over. Open the doors wide, from every culture, every country, in their countless millions. Why should we care? Using your reasoning, we shouldn't, so let them all come here if they want. When we get to 500 million, 600 million, 700 million people in a decade or two, we can revisit the "problem," talk about it for several more years, and wonder what hit us. Groovy. D&D. Replicant City.
Nevermind the terrorists, if you open the border, you will have millions and millions people here for economic reason, I guarantee you. Your logic is flaw, how do you jump from: 1) Immigrants send money back home. It must mean 2) They do not want to stay here. I am sure everyone would want to stay in their homeland with their families if they have jobs. Fact is they don't. They may not like it here but they will stay as long as they have jobs that support themselves and their families back home.
I think one problem we have is that there isn't very reliable data on illegal immigrants and how much they are contributing or costing the economy. I'm willing to state that my own reasoning is based on limited knowledge which is why I started this thread. We've had a lot of debates regarding how to stop illegal immigration but I have yet to see a real debate on why we should.
Immigrants aren't the problem. Immigrants expose domestic problems such as poor public schools, ridiculous War on Drugs, and bad idea one-size-fits-all social services. Politicians don't want to confront the real issues and eliminate the federal bureaucracy that goes along with eliminating them or returning them to lower levels of government. So instead, they blame the immigrants. Edit: All of that is my opinion, and I readily accept that it makes me a radical.
If I was the Emperor I would : 1. enforce immigration policies, on the employer level too!! 2. build a wall if it is necessary to ensure enforcement 3. take a long hard look at current policies and enact changes. Number 3 would most likely result in far more lax and lenient policy. On a personal level, I generally side more with the more liberal-minded folks regarding this issue but I stongly believe that any policy is worthless without proper enforcement measures. Heck - I would probably grant amnesty to most of the current illegals. I just want to make sure that I would, in fact, be in control of the situation. That if issues of national security or disease actually arose, that I would be able to cut off immigration. I do agree with with you that in the nebulous "long-term", open-immigration will tend to have a beneficial effect. It's the short-term fluctuations in the labor market that are the trouble areas. Again, as in my previous post, it does not appear (from the unemployment data at the very least which I believe to be "non-biased") that illegal immigration is posing much of a problem in the labor market.
Forget the blame game. Just answer some questions: What do you do if 10 mil immigrant show up in the US next month? What do you do if 20 mil more show up the month after that? If people can not find job even for $50-$100 per month in their country, they will come here.
Don't worry about it. I'm sure my opinion doesn't fit some conceptions of me as a liberal, which I am, by the way. I don't think wanting fairness and equity regarding immigration for those attempting to do it via the legal system is an illiberal idea. D&D. Replicant City.
Your numbers just wouldn't happen. We've been able to handle massive amounts of immigration in the past, we just didn't have all the social services. If we let any immigrants who want come with no promise of government assistance, I don't see how it can negatively affect our country.
why should a country monitor and document who enters their country and who lives there? seems obvious to me.
walton and johnson use the term invasion...and although it sounds a bit silly, thats exactly what it is.
The "massive amount of immigrant in the past" is nothing compared to the numbers who would come here tomorrow if you have open borders. Do you know how many people apply to come into this country legally? I know people who are allowed under the law to apply who were told their application will be processed in 10-13 years. "Let any immigrants who want come with no promise of government assistance". Easier said than done. Noone promised the illegal immigrants anything but they are still swamming the schools, hospital and other services ... Didn't you hear the uproar when government threatened to cut off their services? Actually, the system is already overburdened as it is. Besides that, there is the humanitarian issue, you can't just let people who get sick dies on the street, not to mention public health problem.
You raise a good issue here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_187_(1994) California tried something like this but the law was struck down. I believe that Proposition passed by a 60-40 vote as I recall.
