Illegal Immigration

[arewethereyet]

The question is simple-- does the US have enough people, or would it like to have more people?  I think it has enough people.  Therefore, it should invite those who fill roles which are under-represented.

We are a vast country with a low average population density. With its aging population and reproduction below replacement, the USA absolutely needs more people to sustain its long-term tax base and labor needs. The Hispanic immigrants we allow in now will produce the generation that we need to be in place when all the Baby Boomers are over 70.

---

There are many unemployed people, and yet most of them don't want these jobs.  Are they lazy?

You can offer $20 an hour to be a ranch hand or $12 to pick watermelons, and still won't be able to meet your labor needs if you exclude migrants. There just aren't enough non-Hispanic American citizens familiar enough with that kind of work and able to perform the heavy labor involved to meet the needs of farmers. When you do get a non-Hispanic citizen for the job, most of the time they can't do it well enough to justify paying them even $10 an your.

Peach-picking in Georgia typically pays $12 an hour. When they clamped down on illegal immigrants, the peaches were rotting off the trees, because they couldn't get enough workers to bring in the harvest. This kind of crop loss associated with 'getting tough on illegals' has been repeated multiple times.

If the laws on the books require us to shoot ourselves in the foot, maybe they're bad laws. And if we can't change them through normal processes, maybe they're being kept the way they are for irrational reasons, like nativism.

Bolded - I still struggle with quotes and replies here...

What you say sounds as though you think there should be immigration regardless of the intention to work toward citizenship because the US needs breeding stock.

[Yonadav]

We are a vast country with a low average population density. With its aging population and reproduction below replacement, the USA absolutely needs more people to sustain its long-term tax base and labor needs. The Hispanic immigrants we allow in now will produce the generation that we need to be in place when all the Baby Boomers are over 70.

---

You can offer $20 an hour to be a ranch hand or $12 to pick watermelons, and still won't be able to meet your labor needs if you exclude migrants. There just aren't enough non-Hispanic American citizens familiar enough with that kind of work and able to perform the heavy labor involved to meet the needs of farmers. When you do get a non-Hispanic citizen for the job, most of the time they can't do it well enough to justify paying them even $10 an your.

Peach-picking in Georgia typically pays $12 an hour. When they clamped down on illegal immigrants, the peaches were rotting off the trees, because they couldn't get enough workers to bring in the harvest. This kind of crop loss associated with 'getting tough on illegals' has been repeated multiple times.

If the laws on the books require us to shoot ourselves in the foot, maybe they're bad laws. And if we can't change them through normal processes, maybe they're being kept the way they are for irrational reasons, like nativism.

Bolded - I still struggle with quotes and replies here...

What you say sounds as though you think there should be immigration regardless of the intention to work toward citizenship because the US needs breeding stock.

As long as we depend on a continuously growing economy, we actually do need to replenish our numbers. And if it were not for the millions of immigrants that we have accepted, our social security shortfall would be far more dire.  I don't think that it was suggested that immigrants be used for breeding stock. The immigrants can come in and have the same low birthrate that we have and that would be just fine as long as we kept replenishing our numbers with new immigrants.

[arewethereyet]

Bolded - I still struggle with quotes and replies here...

What you say sounds as though you think there should be immigration regardless of the intention to work toward citizenship because the US needs breeding stock.

As long as we depend on a continuously growing economy, we actually do need to replenish our numbers. And if it were not for the millions of immigrants that we have accepted, our social security shortfall would be far more dire.  I don't think that it was suggested that immigrants be used for breeding stock. The immigrants can come in and have the same low birthrate that we have and that would be just fine as long as we kept replenishing our numbers with new immigrants.

Well thanks for that...you aren't who I was 'asking' and I am not a fan of your stances on anything.

I don't care for using the ignore function but know that you will be ignored without technology.

[Yonadav]

As long as we depend on a continuously growing economy, we actually do need to replenish our numbers. And if it were not for the millions of immigrants that we have accepted, our social security shortfall would be far more dire.  I don't think that it was suggested that immigrants be used for breeding stock. The immigrants can come in and have the same low birthrate that we have and that would be just fine as long as we kept replenishing our numbers with new immigrants.

Well thanks for that...you aren't who I was 'asking' and I am not a fan of your stances on anything.

I don't care for using the ignore function but know that you will be ignored without technology.

You're welcome.

[camoman]

The real issue is how everyone looks at this.   Lots of people believe its a race issue that you don't want them here because they are Mexican or not what ever.  Yet the reality is you would not have a party at your house and let just anyone walk in.  You invite those you trust. If you have a open door policy eventually someone will enter the party who doesn't like the music and try to change it. The owner of the house then gets up set that his music was changed and then there is a controversy. Its about providing a safety net for those who are already here.  Simple solution is for the left to give the money for the wall with stipulations on the amount of immigrants who can come in every year. The right would have to agree to a certain amount of immigration.   Then both sides get close to what they want.  Then the people who feel death is going to ride in from the south unchecked are happy. The people who feel that the poor and desolate people of Mexico need to  have a place to come look for the dream are happy.  Yet  the dream seems like a night mare anymore.  I suppose when your country will let Chevrolet work you for 2 dollars a day though  America does seem like a dream.  That was a guess on the two dollars don't take that literal.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The real issue is how everyone looks at this.   Lots of people believe its a race issue that you don't want them here because they are Mexican or not what ever.  Yet the reality is you would not have a party at your house and let just anyone walk in.  You invite those you trust. If you have a open door policy eventually someone will enter the party who doesn't like the music and try to change it. The owner of the house then gets up set that his music was changed and then there is a controversy. Its about providing a safety net for those who are already here.  Simple solution is for the left to give the money for the wall with stipulations on the amount of immigrants who can come in every year. The right would have to agree to a certain amount of immigration.   Then both sides get close to what they want.  Then the people who feel death is going to ride in from the south unchecked are happy. The people who feel that the poor and desolate people of Mexico need to  have a place to come look for the dream are happy.  Yet  the dream seems like a night mare anymore.  I suppose when your country will let Chevrolet work you for 2 dollars a day though  America does seem like a dream.  That was a guess on the two dollars don't take that literal.

The my-country-is-like-my-house analogy is starting to make me sick.

The primary reason for the wall is that Trump doesn't want to 'look foolish' to his base.  The primary argument against the wall is that walls don't work.  You lot may as well spend the $5 billion on a huge pile of candy floss along the border, hoping migrants will get stuck.

If you think the two sides on the US political divide are going to agree amount of legal migration, you're living in a fantasy world.

Boru

[Yonadav]

The real issue is how everyone looks at this.   Lots of people believe its a race issue that you don't want them here because they are Mexican or not what ever.  Yet the reality is you would not have a party at your house and let just anyone walk in.  You invite those you trust. If you have a open door policy eventually someone will enter the party who doesn't like the music and try to change it. The owner of the house then gets up set that his music was changed and then there is a controversy. Its about providing a safety net for those who are already here.  Simple solution is for the left to give the money for the wall with stipulations on the amount of immigrants who can come in every year. The right would have to agree to a certain amount of immigration.   Then both sides get close to what they want.  Then the people who feel death is going to ride in from the south unchecked are happy. The people who feel that the poor and desolate people of Mexico need to  have a place to come look for the dream are happy.  Yet  the dream seems like a night mare anymore.  I suppose when your country will let Chevrolet work you for 2 dollars a day though  America does seem like a dream.  That was a guess on the two dollars don't take that literal.

I don't follow your reasoning. It is pretty much a given that Democrats and Republicans will negotiate immigration quotas. That actually has nothing to do with the wall, since quotas will be negotiated with or without the wall. So you are suggesting that Dems should give money for the wall in exchange for nothing, since quotas will be negotiated with or without a wall. Further, quotas and asylum are different things. We have a quota for immigrants who have the necessary skills (or the necessary relatives) that qualify them for immigration. In addition to that, we accept those who qualify for asylum. The first is accepting 'desirable' immigrants. The second is accepting immigrants for humanitarian reasons. The quota applies to the first category. The second category is additional immigrants.

So the issue is mainly that the Trump administration wants to block requests for asylum by hindering prospective asylum seeker from the opportunity to officially request it, and the administration is also attempting to change the grounds under which a prospective immigrant can qualify for asylum. For example, the administration is attempting to remove those from eligibility who aren't specifically being persecuted by their government in their country of origin. So a prospective immigrant might come from a country in which narco-terrorists are burning down villages, raping the women, killing the men, and forcibly recruiting the boys, and yet those villagers will not qualify for asylum because they are not being persecuted by government officials. This definition would remove pretty much all people south of our border from refugee status.

Further, there is no reason to fund building the wall, even if we wanted to stop asylum seekers, when there is no reason to believe that a wall would effectively stop them. A wall just isn't that much of an obstacle. Its cost to benefit analysis just isn't very promising. It is a dog of an investment.

---

The real issue is how everyone looks at this.   Lots of people believe its a race issue that you don't want them here because they are Mexican or not what ever.  Yet the reality is you would not have a party at your house and let just anyone walk in.  You invite those you trust. If you have a open door policy eventually someone will enter the party who doesn't like the music and try to change it. The owner of the house then gets up set that his music was changed and then there is a controversy. Its about providing a safety net for those who are already here.  Simple solution is for the left to give the money for the wall with stipulations on the amount of immigrants who can come in every year. The right would have to agree to a certain amount of immigration.   Then both sides get close to what they want.  Then the people who feel death is going to ride in from the south unchecked are happy. The people who feel that the poor and desolate people of Mexico need to  have a place to come look for the dream are happy.  Yet  the dream seems like a night mare anymore.  I suppose when your country will let Chevrolet work you for 2 dollars a day though  America does seem like a dream.  That was a guess on the two dollars don't take that literal.

The my-country-is-like-my-house analogy is starting to make me sick.

The primary reason for the wall is that Trump doesn't want to 'look foolish' to his base.  The primary argument against the wall is that walls don't work.  You lot may as well spend the $5 billion on a huge pile of candy floss along the border, hoping migrants will get stuck.

If you think the two sides on the US political divide are going to agree amount of legal migration, you're living in a fantasy world.

Boru

I agree that the wall is one hundred percent a political symbol. And it is probably symbolic of racism. It is certainly symbolic of nativism.

[FlyingNarwhal]

The real issue is how everyone looks at this.   Lots of people believe its a race issue that you don't want them here because they are Mexican or not what ever.  Yet the reality is you would not have a party at your house and let just anyone walk in.  You invite those you trust. If you have a open door policy eventually someone will enter the party who doesn't like the music and try to change it. The owner of the house then gets up set that his music was changed and then there is a controversy. Its about providing a safety net for those who are already here.  Simple solution is for the left to give the money for the wall with stipulations on the amount of immigrants who can come in every year. The right would have to agree to a certain amount of immigration.   Then both sides get close to what they want.  Then the people who feel death is going to ride in from the south unchecked are happy. The people who feel that the poor and desolate people of Mexico need to  have a place to come look for the dream are happy.  Yet  the dream seems like a night mare anymore.  I suppose when your country will let Chevrolet work you for 2 dollars a day though  America does seem like a dream.  That was a guess on the two dollars don't take that literal.

I don't follow your reasoning. It is pretty much a given that Democrats and Republicans will negotiate immigration quotas. That actually has nothing to do with the wall, since quotas will be negotiated with or without the wall. So you are suggesting that Dems should give money for the wall in exchange for nothing, since quotas will be negotiated with or without a wall. Further, quotas and asylum are different things. We have a quota for immigrants who have the necessary skills (or the necessary relatives) that qualify them for immigration. In addition to that, we accept those who qualify for asylum. The first is accepting 'desirable' immigrants. The second is accepting immigrants for humanitarian reasons. The quota applies to the first category. The second category is additional immigrants.

So the issue is mainly that the Trump administration wants to block requests for asylum by hindering prospective asylum seeker from the opportunity to officially request it, and the administration is also attempting to change the grounds under which a prospective immigrant can qualify for asylum. For example, the administration is attempting to remove those from eligibility who aren't specifically being persecuted by their government in their country of origin. So a prospective immigrant might come from a country in which narco-terrorists are burning down villages, raping the women, killing the men, and forcibly recruiting the boys, and yet those villagers will not qualify for asylum because they are not being persecuted by government officials. This definition would remove pretty much all people south of our border from refugee status.

Further, there is no reason to fund building the wall, even if we wanted to stop asylum seekers, when there is no reason to believe that a wall would effectively stop them. A wall just isn't that much of an obstacle. Its cost to benefit analysis just isn't very promising. It is a dog of an investment.

---

The my-country-is-like-my-house analogy is starting to make me sick.

The primary reason for the wall is that Trump doesn't want to 'look foolish' to his base.  The primary argument against the wall is that walls don't work.  You lot may as well spend the $5 billion on a huge pile of candy floss along the border, hoping migrants will get stuck.

If you think the two sides on the US political divide are going to agree amount of legal migration, you're living in a fantasy world.

Boru

I agree that the wall is one hundred percent a political symbol. And it is probably symbolic of racism. It is certainly symbolic of nativism.

The administration isn't changing the qualifications for those seeking asylum.  I'm just gonna lay this here from the wiki page on US asylum:

The United States recognizes the right of asylum for individuals as specified by international and federal law.[1] A specified number of legally defined refugees who either apply for asylum from inside the U.S. or apply for refugee status from outside the U.S., are admitted annually. Refugees compose about one-tenth of the total annual immigration to the United States, though some large refugee populations are very prominent. Since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the U.S. than any other nation and more than two million refugees have arrived in the U.S. since 1980. In the years 2005 through 2007, the number of asylum seekers accepted into the U.S. was about 40,000 per year. This compared with about 30,000 per year in the UK and 25,000 in Canada. The U.S. accounted for about 10% of all asylum-seeker acceptances in the OECD countries in 1998-2007.[2] The United States is by far the most populous OECD country and receives fewer than the average number of refugees per capita: In 2010-14 (before the massive migrant surge in Europe in 2015) it ranked 28 of 43 industrialized countries reviewed by UNHCR.[3]

Asylum has two basic requirements. First, an asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country.[4] Second, the applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_...ted_States

There's not even really a dip in the amount of asylum seekers we let into the country each year.  It's stayed pretty steady even throughout Trump's administration.

You are right that a wall is not much of an obstacle, but that's not it's only purpose.  The lock on the outside of most peoples houses is not much of an obstacle either.  It can be easily picked, removed, destroyed, or the door can even be kicked in.  It works along the principle that criminals look for easy targets.  That's why burglars look for unlocked houses, it's why scammers target old people, and it's why muggers target tourists.  The wall won't be a complete 100% deterrent, but in all reality how many people do you think would even be fit enough to climb it.  And those that are fit enough, how many would risk it?  It purpose is meant to funnel people towards point of entry or at the very least areas with increased border security where anyone entering the country illegally can be picked up with relative ease.  And ultimately, if you the walls are not easily scalable, and all other entry points are heavily scrutinized, a lot of people may not bother trying to enter the country illegally.  Instead they'll have to enter through legal channels which is what we want.

[Yonadav]

I don't follow your reasoning. It is pretty much a given that Democrats and Republicans will negotiate immigration quotas. That actually has nothing to do with the wall, since quotas will be negotiated with or without the wall. So you are suggesting that Dems should give money for the wall in exchange for nothing, since quotas will be negotiated with or without a wall. Further, quotas and asylum are different things. We have a quota for immigrants who have the necessary skills (or the necessary relatives) that qualify them for immigration. In addition to that, we accept those who qualify for asylum. The first is accepting 'desirable' immigrants. The second is accepting immigrants for humanitarian reasons. The quota applies to the first category. The second category is additional immigrants.

So the issue is mainly that the Trump administration wants to block requests for asylum by hindering prospective asylum seeker from the opportunity to officially request it, and the administration is also attempting to change the grounds under which a prospective immigrant can qualify for asylum. For example, the administration is attempting to remove those from eligibility who aren't specifically being persecuted by their government in their country of origin. So a prospective immigrant might come from a country in which narco-terrorists are burning down villages, raping the women, killing the men, and forcibly recruiting the boys, and yet those villagers will not qualify for asylum because they are not being persecuted by government officials. This definition would remove pretty much all people south of our border from refugee status.

Further, there is no reason to fund building the wall, even if we wanted to stop asylum seekers, when there is no reason to believe that a wall would effectively stop them. A wall just isn't that much of an obstacle. Its cost to benefit analysis just isn't very promising. It is a dog of an investment.

---

I agree that the wall is one hundred percent a political symbol. And it is probably symbolic of racism. It is certainly symbolic of nativism.

The administration isn't changing the qualifications for those seeking asylum.  I'm just gonna lay this here from the wiki page on US asylum:

The United States recognizes the right of asylum for individuals as specified by international and federal law.[1] A specified number of legally defined refugees who either apply for asylum from inside the U.S. or apply for refugee status from outside the U.S., are admitted annually. Refugees compose about one-tenth of the total annual immigration to the United States, though some large refugee populations are very prominent. Since World War II, more refugees have found homes in the U.S. than any other nation and more than two million refugees have arrived in the U.S. since 1980. In the years 2005 through 2007, the number of asylum seekers accepted into the U.S. was about 40,000 per year. This compared with about 30,000 per year in the UK and 25,000 in Canada. The U.S. accounted for about 10% of all asylum-seeker acceptances in the OECD countries in 1998-2007.[2] The United States is by far the most populous OECD country and receives fewer than the average number of refugees per capita: In 2010-14 (before the massive migrant surge in Europe in 2015) it ranked 28 of 43 industrialized countries reviewed by UNHCR.[3]

Asylum has two basic requirements. First, an asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country.[4] Second, the applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_...ted_States

There's not even really a dip in the amount of asylum seekers we let into the country each year.  It's stayed pretty steady even throughout Trump's administration.

You are right that a wall is not much of an obstacle, but that's not it's only purpose.  The lock on the outside of most peoples houses is not much of an obstacle either.  It can be easily picked, removed, destroyed, or the door can even be kicked in.  It works along the principle that criminals look for easy targets.  That's why burglars look for unlocked houses, it's why scammers target old people, and it's why muggers target tourists.  The wall won't be a complete 100% deterrent, but in all reality how many people do you think would even be fit enough to climb it.  And those that are fit enough, how many would risk it?  It purpose is meant to funnel people towards point of entry or at the very least areas with increased border security where anyone entering the country illegally can be picked up with relative ease.  And ultimately, if you the walls are not easily scalable, and all other entry points are heavily scrutinized, a lot of people may not bother trying to enter the country illegally.  Instead they'll have to enter through legal channels which is what we want.

I went searching for a very good article that I read a few months ago which detailed one of the changes that Jeff Sessions was attempting to make to the definition of 'credible fear'. He wanted to change it so that the fear specifically had to be fear of the government in a prospective immigrants home country. I have not been able to locate that article. I apologize for that, and hope to come up with it in the near future.

The wall really will be a very, very small obstacle.  We are talking about people who are willing to risk their lives following 'coyotes' on life threatening treks through the desert. Quite a few of them die doing this. Compared to that, the wall is just a little hill that they have to get over, under, through, or around. They are going to do it.  Seriously, the cost to benefit analysis of the wall is really horrible. The benefit is close to zero. The cost isn't really known aside from being many billions to build and billions more to maintain. We have bridges that are falling down. I would rather spend the money on bridges. The cost to benefit analysis on most of them is fantastic.

[Cecelia]

The my-country-is-like-my-house analogy is starting to make me sick.

The primary reason for the wall is that Trump doesn't want to 'look foolish' to his base.  The primary argument against the wall is that walls don't work.  You lot may as well spend the $5 billion on a huge pile of candy floss along the border, hoping migrants will get stuck.

If you think the two sides on the US political divide are going to agree amount of legal migration, you're living in a fantasy world.

Boru

I'm going to disagree with you here.  The primary argument against a wall isn't that walls don't work.  That's a red herring.  Republicans want us to argue that walls don't work because they can argue right back that walls do work.  But whether walls work or not isn't the issue.  The issue is that THIS WALL isn't cost effective.  You're spending what will probably be $50B to increase the ladder and shovel market in Mexico. 

THIS wall has hundreds of problems.  Cost, Upkeep, Ineffectiveness, Environmental issues, Property Rights issues, structural issues, size issues, and more. 

All the wall really is a monument for Trump to build for himself on Taxpayers dimes.  (And possibly divide the country and shut down the government for Putin)