When did imigration become a problem?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
I understand the point you're making here; I am just saying, why not focus on rationalizing the law (?) rather than bypassing it? Also, how is legal immigration corrupted by politics and money? I am interested in how the actual immigration law is corrupted by politics and money--whose money? Whose politics?

People in other countries have little to no ability to influence our laws. Therefore, the laws are influenced by people who are already here. Nothing wrong with that -- it's the logical situation. But, it means that the ethnic groups with the most power and money have the most influence over the laws. One clear case of what I would consider corruption of the laws is the fact that Mexicans are basically limited to family-preference as a means of legal immigration whereas any Cuban who can manage to touch US soil gets to stay. Similarly, the Jackson-Vanik amendment is another example of discriminatory law. While it should have applied to a number of countries, most notably China, presidential waivers meant that it really only applied to the Soviet Union. The result was that it mostly assisted Soviet Jews and a few Christians. Someone suffering similar oppression elsewhere was not assisted.

I once sat through a Congressional hearing on an immigration bill. Each committee member had one goal -- to get as many immigration slots for whatever group had a lot of votes in his district or had managed to fill his campaign coffers. It was a classic case of the rich getting richer. There was no rationality to the law-making beyond the rationality of a congressman wanting to get re-elected.

Even beyond the screwed-up laws, there is the process itself. It can take years to process an application. We routinely were sent forms that were out of date. We would complete them, return them, and after several months be informed that the form was out of date and needed to be resubmitted (and of course the fee had increased). At the very end, a single individual was able to create artificial delays for who knows what reason. It took a US Senator's intervention to finally break the logjam. Not everyone has the luxury of such assistance (and it was only through DCUM connections that we were able to obtain the help).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immigration is a paradox. Immigrants are perceived as competition by the people who are already here struggling to make a living. Yet immigrants have consistently driven growth in our economy. Pick any group other than the slaves or the first people off the boat, and the story is pretty much the same.

Driven growth and drained a lot of resources as well. I'm not against immigration but of course it has to be structured. Every country has rules and regulations set up for immigration and for good reason.

We used to think that immigrants were a drain. But now we know that while new immigrants do use resources, over time they become net contributors to the system, meaning that they produce more than they consume.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immigration is a paradox. Immigrants are perceived as competition by the people who are already here struggling to make a living. Yet immigrants have consistently driven growth in our economy. Pick any group other than the slaves or the first people off the boat, and the story is pretty much the same.

Driven growth and drained a lot of resources as well. I'm not against immigration but of course it has to be structured. Every country has rules and regulations set up for immigration and for good reason.

We used to think that immigrants were a drain. But now we know that while new immigrants do use resources, over time they become net contributors to the system, meaning that they produce more than they consume.

Does that account for the illegal immigration as well? If so, I think that is great. And also why we have a system in place for immigration. We want people to come into this country because a lot of them do provide valuable contributions. It's everything that goes on outside of that, that causes problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Immigration is a paradox. Immigrants are perceived as competition by the people who are already here struggling to make a living. Yet immigrants have consistently driven growth in our economy. Pick any group other than the slaves or the first people off the boat, and the story is pretty much the same.

Driven growth and drained a lot of resources as well. I'm not against immigration but of course it has to be structured. Every country has rules and regulations set up for immigration and for good reason.

We used to think that immigrants were a drain. But now we know that while new immigrants do use resources, over time they become net contributors to the system, meaning that they produce more than they consume.

Does that account for the illegal immigration as well? If so, I think that is great. And also why we have a system in place for immigration. We want people to come into this country because a lot of them do provide valuable contributions. It's everything that goes on outside of that, that causes problems.

I will try to pull up the study and report back. I had hard copy but lost it recently.

[Anonymous]

How about completely open borders then? You get here, go through a small formality of registering / declaring yourself and get on the fast-track to citizenship so the whole country can benefit as people have pointed out occurs with 'immigration'??

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:How about completely open borders then? You get here, go through a small formality of registering / declaring yourself and get on the fast-track to citizenship so the whole country can benefit as people have pointed out occurs with 'immigration'??

That's basically how things used to be. Google "Ellis Island".

[Anonymous]

Sure. So let's go for it today? Is that what you are saying? If you can make it here, anywhere, just declare yourself and b/come a citizen?

[Anonymous]

I guess my issue is that I see the favoritism that you seemed to be arguing very intelligently against (Cuban refugees, Soviet Jews while other groups don't have parity...Haitians for example). I see this same favoritism in rewarding one group of lawbreakers - those who make it here illegally, usually with some geographic proximity - over those who would like to break the law but probably haven't found a way to reach the shores/blend in to existing communities... Why don't we legalize and offer free passage from far-flung lands to equalize things a little?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College student here trying to find out the roots of the immigration problem.
Natives from the land never asked the Pilgrims for their visas once they jumped out of the Mayflower.
Nobody in Central America asked Columbus for his visa either. When did immigration became an issue?
Please try to focus the discussion! TIA

when it cost the tax payers money. Natives did not pay for the Pilgrims welfare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Natives did not pay for the Pilgrims welfare.

Tell the Indians that they didn't pay!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Natives did not pay for the Pilgrims welfare.

Tell the Indians that they didn't pay!

Yes, they paid dearly by losing their land and their way of life.

[Anonymous]

I think when the immigrants were no longer white ethnics, it became a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think when the immigrants were no longer white ethnics, it became a problem.

I think the "white ethnics", Jews, Irish, and Italian, were considered major problems a century ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the "white ethnics", Jews, Irish, and Italian, were considered major problems a century ago.

Yes, absolutely right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the "white ethnics", Jews, Irish, and Italian, were considered major problems a century ago.

Yes, absolutely right.

so were all other ethnic minorities.
They just did not have a name