immmigrant haters: do you really want to be like Japan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only-rich-immigrants people have no clue about the economy or the labor force.

We really don't need the immigration system to bring in money. Foreign investment comes here without immigration.

We don't need the immigration system to focus on bringing in more mid-level and higher professionals. The biggest problem I see in our current labor force (I recruit for our company in NOVA) is that we have a lot of underemployed people (e.g. people with master's degrees in unchallenging jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree). I see parents stressfully trying to change career fields because there are not enough opportunities for advancement where they are. The legal immigration system's focus on bringing in only those with higher education is directly competing with them.

We do need the immigration system to legally let in more hard working immigrants in low-skilled labor markets - agriculture, services, construction, etc. These currently are undocumented workers because they are shunned by the legal immigration system.

Unemployment among U.S. citizens has been low for a while, to the point that any U.S. citizen who is willing and able to work can find a job, though it may not be the job they want or think that they deserve. Citizens are looking for middle-income opportunities, not laboring jobs with little hope for advancement. Those jobs would be better going to immigrants who are eager to work to build a life for themselves and their families in the U.S. Throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have worked these jobs that do not require English fluency, school connections, rich relatives, or other cronyism.

If all you care about is legal vs. illegal, the solution is to change the legal immigration system to let in more of the service and labor workers that are in demand in the labor market as legal immigrants.

NP: what people are talking about is about SKILLED immigrants, not wealthy ones.

Makes all the sense in the world -- which is why Canada does it.

Read what I wrote. Not just the first line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only-rich-immigrants people have no clue about the economy or the labor force.

We really don't need the immigration system to bring in money. Foreign investment comes here without immigration.

We don't need the immigration system to focus on bringing in more mid-level and higher professionals. The biggest problem I see in our current labor force (I recruit for our company in NOVA) is that we have a lot of underemployed people (e.g. people with master's degrees in unchallenging jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree). I see parents stressfully trying to change career fields because there are not enough opportunities for advancement where they are. The legal immigration system's focus on bringing in only those with higher education is directly competing with them.

There are not enough educated immigrants brought in to meaningfully compete with educated Americans.

Anonymous wrote:We do need the immigration system to legally let in more hard working immigrants in low-skilled labor markets - agriculture, services, construction, etc. These currently are undocumented workers because they are shunned by the legal immigration system.

No, these are currently undocumented because that's the cheapest pool of labor, and the employers prefer skirting the laws to bring you cheap strawberries.

Anonymous wrote:Unemployment among U.S. citizens has been low for a while, to the point that any U.S. citizen who is willing and able to work can find a job, though it may not be the job they want or think that they deserve. Citizens are looking for middle-income opportunities, not laboring jobs with little hope for advancement. Those jobs would be better going to immigrants who are eager to work to build a life for themselves and their families in the U.S. Throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have worked these jobs that do not require English fluency, school connections, rich relatives, or other cronyism.

There are all kinds of citizens and all kinds of jobs out there. I'm not sure how you can take a "laboring job with little hope for advancement" and "build a life for themselves and their families." A dumb dead-end job is a dumb dead-end job no matter who works it. There are tons of Americans in this country with no connections, no rich relatives or "other cronyism".

Anonymous wrote:If all you care about is legal vs. illegal, the solution is to change the legal immigration system to let in more of the service and labor workers that are in demand in the labor market as legal immigrants.

Let Americans work these jobs or bring in guest workers temporarily until these markets are automated because that's where the wind is blowing. I mean you need a guy for two months to pick strawberries? Bring him in for two months to pick strawberries, no need for a green card for the entire lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only-rich-immigrants people have no clue about the economy or the labor force.

We really don't need the immigration system to bring in money. Foreign investment comes here without immigration.

We don't need the immigration system to focus on bringing in more mid-level and higher professionals. The biggest problem I see in our current labor force (I recruit for our company in NOVA) is that we have a lot of underemployed people (e.g. people with master's degrees in unchallenging jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree). I see parents stressfully trying to change career fields because there are not enough opportunities for advancement where they are. The legal immigration system's focus on bringing in only those with higher education is directly competing with them.

We do need the immigration system to legally let in more hard working immigrants in low-skilled labor markets - agriculture, services, construction, etc. These currently are undocumented workers because they are shunned by the legal immigration system.

Unemployment among U.S. citizens has been low for a while, to the point that any U.S. citizen who is willing and able to work can find a job, though it may not be the job they want or think that they deserve. Citizens are looking for middle-income opportunities, not laboring jobs with little hope for advancement. Those jobs would be better going to immigrants who are eager to work to build a life for themselves and their families in the U.S. Throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have worked these jobs that do not require English fluency, school connections, rich relatives, or other cronyism.

If all you care about is legal vs. illegal, the solution is to change the legal immigration system to let in more of the service and labor workers that are in demand in the labor market as legal immigrants.

NP: what people are talking about is about SKILLED immigrants, not wealthy ones.

Makes all the sense in the world -- which is why Canada does it.

They are not wealthy in the sense of being captains of the industry. But an educated immigrant family can usually swing a six-figure income, and a nice house in a nice neighborhood with good schools and kids who excel in them. So they may not be wealthy but they are definitely headed for the affluent class.

[Anonymous]

Re: Birthright citizenship -- the Framer's of the Constitution definitely regarded immigration as a positive thing. One of the complaints against King George was:

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither[.]

The Founders of this country wanted more permissive laws that allowed more people to come into the country and to Naturalized as citizens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know that we’ll ever end up exactly like Japan (too many cultural differences) but something will probably have to give. I don’t think immigration is the sole answer, getting Americans to have kids would also help. But in order to make an appreciable difference there, we’d need to let go of treating child rearing as an extracurricular, individual responsibility activity and enact family-friendly policies to acknowledge that raising the next generation benefits the society as a whole.

But there would also need to be changes to make Americans willing to take jobs currently filled almost exclusively by immigrants. Buttigieg touched on this during the debate- something like, there needs to be a path to earning a decent living even if you don’t go to college. We as a society would need to be willing to pay more for many services, and the govt would have to be willing to crack down on employers that cheat and hire illegals to save $.

Sometimes all of these challenges feel so hopeless.

I don't think the challenges are hopeless. We just need a rational immigration policy. A plan of somehow convincing white women to have more babies for "the nation" by providing more financial benefits is not likely to substitute for the need for more unskilled labor. We need to focus on legalizing labor.

In nations where women have easy access to education and birth control, birth rates drop. Liberal policies towards parental leave and childcare don't reverse the trend. We see the same slow population decline and aging across Europe, just to a lesser extent than in Japan. Europe is also more welcoming to immigrants than Japan. The US has a small positive population growth due to immigration.

I see someone read "Empty Planet" by Darrell Bricker

[Anonymous]

If development leads to women having fewer babies, rich countries need to figure out how to live with this rather than constantly bringing in people from less-developed countries to outsource their procreation. Because immigrants adopt the ways of their new country within one generation, and then what are you going to do? Repeat the cycle over and over?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You guys are saying you're against illegal immigration, but it sounds like you're problem is really with poor people. Given a choice between rich illegal immigrants and poor legal immigrants, you'd choose the rich immigrants. So it's not the illegality, it's the poverty.

Where do you get that from? That’s certainly not the case for me and most people that I know who are opposed to illegal immigration. Didn’t you see the other thread about Russion women coming here to have babies and take advantage of US citizenship for their kids? I find that absurd. Most posters in that thread also found that absurd.

Also, I doubt there are a ton of rich people trying to immigrate here illegally. They would just come here via legal routes.

Just to point out that these Russian women aren't doing anything illegal and aren't immigrating per se. So they are not at all germane to the topic of illegal immigration.

PP here

You're right. Thought it's somewhat germane because it might support a case to end birthright citizenship. Obviously many people, from all over the world, of all races, are taking advantage of the United States' crazy immigration laws, and ridiculously lax immigration enforcement.

Yep. My Italian friend's brother-in-law"s cousin from a small northern european town did this.

They arent rich either. Lower middle class, came over to have thr baby, then bounced back to Italy.

Just wanted the kid to get brithright citizenship for the future

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re: Birthright citizenship -- the Framer's of the Constitution definitely regarded immigration as a positive thing. One of the complaints against King George was:

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither[.]

The Founders of this country wanted more permissive laws that allowed more people to come into the country and to Naturalized as citizens.

The American Revolution was also about expansion into the frontier and the British wanted the colonies to stop at the Appalachians. More people were needed to move west. Brits put a damper on buying what in essence is Kentucky and Tennessee. I think the USA already has populated Kentucky, Tennessee, and territory west of the 13 Colonies. No need to import.

https://american-studies.williams.edu/files/Kiel-West-of-the-Revolution.pdf

Conditions and settlement have changed since 1776. Geo Washington would have noticed. Wanting more people to come for expansion, security , brute labor is exactly how comparable to illegal immigrants in MOCO and FX? Casa de Maryland.

[Anonymous]

I've been reading this thread for several days and many pages and just now noticed that the title spells "immmigrant" with three "m"s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only-rich-immigrants people have no clue about the economy or the labor force.

We really don't need the immigration system to bring in money. Foreign investment comes here without immigration.

We don't need the immigration system to focus on bringing in more mid-level and higher professionals. The biggest problem I see in our current labor force (I recruit for our company in NOVA) is that we have a lot of underemployed people (e.g. people with master's degrees in unchallenging jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree). I see parents stressfully trying to change career fields because there are not enough opportunities for advancement where they are. The legal immigration system's focus on bringing in only those with higher education is directly competing with them.

There are not enough educated immigrants brought in to meaningfully compete with educated Americans.

Anonymous wrote:We do need the immigration system to legally let in more hard working immigrants in low-skilled labor markets - agriculture, services, construction, etc. These currently are undocumented workers because they are shunned by the legal immigration system.

No, these are currently undocumented because that's the cheapest pool of labor, and the employers prefer skirting the laws to bring you cheap strawberries.

Anonymous wrote:Unemployment among U.S. citizens has been low for a while, to the point that any U.S. citizen who is willing and able to work can find a job, though it may not be the job they want or think that they deserve. Citizens are looking for middle-income opportunities, not laboring jobs with little hope for advancement. Those jobs would be better going to immigrants who are eager to work to build a life for themselves and their families in the U.S. Throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have worked these jobs that do not require English fluency, school connections, rich relatives, or other cronyism.

There are all kinds of citizens and all kinds of jobs out there. I'm not sure how you can take a "laboring job with little hope for advancement" and "build a life for themselves and their families." A dumb dead-end job is a dumb dead-end job no matter who works it. There are tons of Americans in this country with no connections, no rich relatives or "other cronyism".

Anonymous wrote:If all you care about is legal vs. illegal, the solution is to change the legal immigration system to let in more of the service and labor workers that are in demand in the labor market as legal immigrants.

Let Americans work these jobs or bring in guest workers temporarily until these markets are automated because that's where the wind is blowing. I mean you need a guy for two months to pick strawberries? Bring him in for two months to pick strawberries, no need for a green card for the entire lot.

History and economics disagree with you. Let more low-skilled laborers in legally and we all will be better off.

[Anonymous]

Mostly a couple of posters on DCUM disagree with me. It might even be just one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only-rich-immigrants people have no clue about the economy or the labor force.

We really don't need the immigration system to bring in money. Foreign investment comes here without immigration.

We don't need the immigration system to focus on bringing in more mid-level and higher professionals. The biggest problem I see in our current labor force (I recruit for our company in NOVA) is that we have a lot of underemployed people (e.g. people with master's degrees in unchallenging jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree). I see parents stressfully trying to change career fields because there are not enough opportunities for advancement where they are. The legal immigration system's focus on bringing in only those with higher education is directly competing with them.

There are not enough educated immigrants brought in to meaningfully compete with educated Americans.

Anonymous wrote:We do need the immigration system to legally let in more hard working immigrants in low-skilled labor markets - agriculture, services, construction, etc. These currently are undocumented workers because they are shunned by the legal immigration system.

No, these are currently undocumented because that's the cheapest pool of labor, and the employers prefer skirting the laws to bring you cheap strawberries.

Anonymous wrote:Unemployment among U.S. citizens has been low for a while, to the point that any U.S. citizen who is willing and able to work can find a job, though it may not be the job they want or think that they deserve. Citizens are looking for middle-income opportunities, not laboring jobs with little hope for advancement. Those jobs would be better going to immigrants who are eager to work to build a life for themselves and their families in the U.S. Throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have worked these jobs that do not require English fluency, school connections, rich relatives, or other cronyism.

There are all kinds of citizens and all kinds of jobs out there. I'm not sure how you can take a "laboring job with little hope for advancement" and "build a life for themselves and their families." A dumb dead-end job is a dumb dead-end job no matter who works it. There are tons of Americans in this country with no connections, no rich relatives or "other cronyism".

Anonymous wrote:If all you care about is legal vs. illegal, the solution is to change the legal immigration system to let in more of the service and labor workers that are in demand in the labor market as legal immigrants.

Let Americans work these jobs or bring in guest workers temporarily until these markets are automated because that's where the wind is blowing. I mean you need a guy for two months to pick strawberries? Bring him in for two months to pick strawberries, no need for a green card for the entire lot.

History and economics disagree with you. Let more low-skilled laborers in legally and we all will be better off.

didn't the black death lead to labour force scarcity which broke the system of serfdom and increased wages?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading threads like this help me understand why we have in excess of 11 million illegal aliens living freely in our country (probably closer to 20 million).

Our liberal friends here fully support illegal immigration. They seem to think it is a positive for our country. Doesn't seem to matter that they use many services for which they never pay and that we have no idea WHO is in our country. Those little inconveniences don't seem to matter. It makes no difference that we read stories about our fellow citizens killed by those in our country illegally. It doesn't matter that the children of illegal aliens use more services at our local schools than others. And, it is just too bad that low-skilled workers suffer in the long run from the presence of illegal aliens.

This is why I will vote for Trump again. He may not be able to do everything he wants to stop the flow of illegals into this country, but at least he is realistic about the issue. And, he is trying. I cannot say the same for the Democratic candidates. Not one of them.

I mean, I've cited those well known commies the Cato institute a zillion times to show that illegal immigrants don't hurt the economy, so I'm not sure why you are so focused on "liberals"? I've attempted to show that the policy should be to legalize immigration, because our economy needs immigrants.

Anyway, I will mark you down for "Yes, I would like a demographic collapse like Japan, and to be cared for by a robot in my old age."

You can mark me down for, "Yes, I would like to halt illegal immigration and make sure those entering are here legally."
I don't want to be cared for in my old age by someone here illegally.

ok, a robot for you it is!

Based on the level of care my father got in a nursing home from immigrant labor I'm all for robots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only-rich-immigrants people have no clue about the economy or the labor force.

We really don't need the immigration system to bring in money. Foreign investment comes here without immigration.

We don't need the immigration system to focus on bringing in more mid-level and higher professionals. The biggest problem I see in our current labor force (I recruit for our company in NOVA) is that we have a lot of underemployed people (e.g. people with master's degrees in unchallenging jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree). I see parents stressfully trying to change career fields because there are not enough opportunities for advancement where they are. The legal immigration system's focus on bringing in only those with higher education is directly competing with them.

There are not enough educated immigrants brought in to meaningfully compete with educated Americans.

Anonymous wrote:We do need the immigration system to legally let in more hard working immigrants in low-skilled labor markets - agriculture, services, construction, etc. These currently are undocumented workers because they are shunned by the legal immigration system.

No, these are currently undocumented because that's the cheapest pool of labor, and the employers prefer skirting the laws to bring you cheap strawberries.

Anonymous wrote:Unemployment among U.S. citizens has been low for a while, to the point that any U.S. citizen who is willing and able to work can find a job, though it may not be the job they want or think that they deserve. Citizens are looking for middle-income opportunities, not laboring jobs with little hope for advancement. Those jobs would be better going to immigrants who are eager to work to build a life for themselves and their families in the U.S. Throughout the history of the U.S., immigrants have worked these jobs that do not require English fluency, school connections, rich relatives, or other cronyism.

There are all kinds of citizens and all kinds of jobs out there. I'm not sure how you can take a "laboring job with little hope for advancement" and "build a life for themselves and their families." A dumb dead-end job is a dumb dead-end job no matter who works it. There are tons of Americans in this country with no connections, no rich relatives or "other cronyism".

Anonymous wrote:If all you care about is legal vs. illegal, the solution is to change the legal immigration system to let in more of the service and labor workers that are in demand in the labor market as legal immigrants.

Let Americans work these jobs or bring in guest workers temporarily until these markets are automated because that's where the wind is blowing. I mean you need a guy for two months to pick strawberries? Bring him in for two months to pick strawberries, no need for a green card for the entire lot.

History and economics disagree with you. Let more low-skilled laborers in legally and we all will be better off.

didn't the black death lead to labour force scarcity which broke the system of serfdom and increased wages?

No. That may be someone’s theory but it is a bad one. Life was shitty for peasants long after that, into the 19th century. Feudalism was ended by trade. Places where people farmed their own land were much more productive than poor peasants farming some asshole lord’s land. Once shipping capabilities improved, the old model of big estates surrounded by tenant farms fell apart. Then industrialization became the great exploiter of labor until the reform era.