Anonymous wrote:

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Sure, regularize immigration. My point is that the anti-immigrant people around here seem to be more focused on deporting all illegal immigrants and stopping all entries. If that happens, we no longer have enough people. That position, I would argue, is solely one that is fueled by being anti-immigrant, not by rationally seeking out policy solutions.

As for "crisis mode" ... the crisis is largely created by Trump's propaganda. The long-term trend is for border arrests going down: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44319094

You are misstating your opponent's position to make your own look better. No one here advocated stopping ALL entries. The argument to deport all illegal immigrants (as they should be) is not driven by anti-immigrant people - as they typically have no problem with legal entrants. It's driven by the passionate rejection of the current practice where people stream across the border not caring about rules, not caring about lines, not caring about anything but their own desires. People who opposed illegal immigration feel as if the folks crossing the border looked them in the eye and said, I don't care about your rules, I don't care about what you say, I'm getting in. I'm not sure what your argument is in favor of keeping these people over those who have waited in line, sometimes for years, paying thousands of dollars in fees, going through lengthy background checks, doing everything by the book and STILL sometimes not getting in.

Border arrests going down doesn't mean necessarily that fewer people are crossing over. It may just mean that fewer people are getting arrested. Bring proof first that the arrest to crossing ratio has remained steady.

So you just don't like illegal immigrants they are a moral affront to you. Yet, you still need to accept that our economy depends on them, and deporting them all would be a wasteful disaster.

The argument for not deporting them is that it would be shooting our nose to spite our faces.

If you can't put aside your animus to see that, then you admit you hate immigrants more than you care about the wellbeing of the country overall.

You are confusing the wellbeing of the country with cheap strawberries.

Great job pretending to be progressive while arguing passionately that we simply can't get by without a massive, underpaid, right-less underclass.

Precisely this. And what a fraud - aren't "progressives" dead-set against having a massive, underpaid underclass? They certainly pay lip-service to that concept. And yet, here's a progressive arguing that we NEED a massive underpaid underclass. Typical liberal hypocrite.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Sure, regularize immigration. My point is that the anti-immigrant people around here seem to be more focused on deporting all illegal immigrants and stopping all entries. If that happens, we no longer have enough people. That position, I would argue, is solely one that is fueled by being anti-immigrant, not by rationally seeking out policy solutions.

As for "crisis mode" ... the crisis is largely created by Trump's propaganda. The long-term trend is for border arrests going down: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44319094

You are misstating your opponent's position to make your own look better. No one here advocated stopping ALL entries. The argument to deport all illegal immigrants (as they should be) is not driven by anti-immigrant people - as they typically have no problem with legal entrants. It's driven by the passionate rejection of the current practice where people stream across the border not caring about rules, not caring about lines, not caring about anything but their own desires. People who opposed illegal immigration feel as if the folks crossing the border looked them in the eye and said, I don't care about your rules, I don't care about what you say, I'm getting in. I'm not sure what your argument is in favor of keeping these people over those who have waited in line, sometimes for years, paying thousands of dollars in fees, going through lengthy background checks, doing everything by the book and STILL sometimes not getting in.

Border arrests going down doesn't mean necessarily that fewer people are crossing over. It may just mean that fewer people are getting arrested. Bring proof first that the arrest to crossing ratio has remained steady.

Well said.
+1,000

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None of what you wrote is supported by anything other than animus against "illegals." Care to try again with your argument?

Seriously, I keep on giving you guys SO MANY CHANCES.

Telling everyone who disagrees with you they are unintelligent is a great route to the echo chamber. I mean, I think I made a pretty good argument that regularizing migrants turns them away from low-pay, bad-conditions jobs they occupy right now. So regularizing them won't really normalize the situation; on the contrary, it will drain away a source of cheap, right-less labor on which these industries currently rely.

No, you did not make a "good argument." A good argument is supported by published research. Got that?

Fine. You got it. Everyone except you is an ignoramus. You are the only one with good opinions. No one has any good objections to what you say. Anyone who objects is stupid. You are welcome to this thread. You are the only one with good arguments. Go and enjoy your party of one with "published research".

+100
OP is the perfect example of a liberal who absolutely refuses to acknowledge that other people have sound opinions too. S/he may not agree with them, but that doesn't make them any less sound or smart. OP is like that kid who insists everyone play HIS (or her) game, or else he's going to run tell his mommy that the other kids aren't playing nice!! Absurd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So now you're hating on Japan? Isn't that an anti-liberal measure?

Read the articles and try to engage intelligently, tx.

OK

So here's the main point from the NPR article:

Lawmakers also passed a measure in December that will allow more foreign workers to enter the country, for longer periods of time and, in some cases, with a path toward attaining Japanese citizenship.

But apparently, xenophobia is posing a problem.

So here's where I'm confused by neo liberals. When people arrive here, we bend over backward to respect their culture, right? So why should anyone bash Japan's culture? their country, their business, correct?

Based on history - with immigrants coming from South and Central America - I don't think xenophobia really factors into the mix. Look at the growth, according to Pew.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/18/how-the-u-s-hispanic-population-is-changing/



While growth is slowing down among Hispanics, general immigration growth is still expected among foreign-born - https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/03/09/u-s-immigrant-population-projected-to-rise-even-as-share-falls-among-hispanics-asians/



I fail to see why OP has posted such an ALARMING message. lol

Perhaps you need to engage intelligently, my friend. TX

I appreciate that you posted actual research, I really do.

But, I'm not sure how it relates to immigration policy? Those charts seem to support what I am saying - that population growth (which is needed) is currently coming from immigrants to the US.

As for "bashing Japanese culture" -- I'm not doing that. Japan is just the best example of what happens when a 1st world country has restrictive immigration policies plus a tradition of xenophobia.

In one breath you claim you're "not bashing Japanese culture," and then you turn around and call the Japanese "xenophobic"? Your fellow liberals must be so proud of you!

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

No, I think that immigration reform has to come first or at the same time. As it is, the Trump administration is expending tremendous resources and political capital on things like tearing babies away from mothers, while not working on immigration reform, and taking away resources from things like actually pursuing drug and human traffickers at the border (which everyone can agree is important). A practical approach would likely recognize that trying to deport everyone that we have here now would be tremendously costly, so that would have to factor in.

If your overriding focus is "ILLEGALS ARE BAD!!" then that gets in the way of thinking rationally about policy.

You don't have to deport people. You just have to make employment and the use of public resources impossible, and people will stop coming. People come for better economics, and if this becomes impossible, there is no incentive to come.

Which does not answer my original question: how do you propose to run the economy without enough low-skilled workers?

Wait - aren't liberals constantly saying there is too much economic disparity in this country? And here you're arguing for us to import an entire low class population to do your dirty work? Wow, hypocritical much?
-DP

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Anonymous wrote:Well said. The US continues to accept about 1 million legal immigrants every year, and these numbers have continued under Trump. There is no such large scale legal immigration to Japan.

I do think we could increase legal immigration , say, to 1.5 million people a year, but no-one seems to want to discuss this.

OP here. The Democrats want to discuss this. Despite the libel that they want open borders, what their platform ACTUALLY calls for is regularlizing immigration in a way that serves the needs of the economy. Whether that is 500,000 a year or more or less, I don't know.

"What serves the needs of the economy" means different things to different people. There is no need to set up false dilemmas like "let in everyone who wants to" or "be cared for by robots in your old age."

Besides, when you argue for increased inflow of low-skilled migrants, you are basically institutionalizing a perpetual underclass. Businesses love hiring people who work cheaply, have no rights and receive no benefits. I don't know if this is the sort of dependency you want to encourage.

Hey, if you want to talk about the well-being of low-wage workers, I know of a couple of great candiates focusing on that (Warren and Sanders).

What creates a perpetual underclass is when the business establishment of a nation knowingly relies on illegal labor, while Republicans further drive immigrants into the shadow and make them even more vulnerable to exploitation. A cynical person could say that is by design ...

This problem - and its solution - is not tied to any particular candidate. It will persist well past the time when both Trump and Sanders are pushing up daisies. Let go of personalities for a moment.

If your sole argument that low-skilled, low-literacy, poor immigrants are good for the US economy and should be regularized because we rely on them to do the things Americans won't do, do you realize that the whole reason they take jobs Americans won't take is that they have no access to any other jobs? Why would a person who is legally in the country work for less than a native-born American? Why would a person legally in the country take a job that pays crap wages with no benefits?

Yes, they take jobs here because it's a better opportunity - there's nothing unclear about that.

You don't get it. It's only a better job if you compare it with subsistence farming in Guatemala. Once you're legal in the country with access to any job at all, a different set of criteria will come into play. Why would a Guatemalan framer charge less than an American one if both are legal?

I will type it out again because I think you missed it the first time:

Illegal migrants take jobs that Americans won't because they have no access to any other American jobs. Once they have access to ALL American jobs, the kinds of jobs that illegals used to do begin to look much less attractive.

I don't know what your point is. Do you think we should have a permanent underclass of low-skill workers who should never be able to move up?

I think that every society will naturally have an underclass, and there are enough people domestically to fill that need. Some people will move up, some won't. There is no shame in that.

Yes, there are industries that are heavily reliant on illegal migrant labor. That's not the thing you want to encourage - both for the sake of businesses, and for the sake of migrants they exploit. This problem won't be solved by legalizing migrants because legalized migrants won't find these jobs attractive anymore.

That's the ENTIRE point. It's hypocritical to rely on illegal labor on the one hand, and not work to regularize it. Democrats do not want to encourage illegal immigration - they want a rational immigration policy that creates a stable labor force (coupled with labor rights). So now we are veering into other policy differences that go beyond immigration, like minimum wage, health care, unions.

The actions of Democrats in Congress and the words and promises of Democrats running for president totally contradict this statement.

Ok well the words and actions of Republicans show that they hate brown people and Muslims and want to create animus against immigrants as an electoral issue for their white base, and it's working.

See how far that kind of argumentation goes?

Please, try to engage, and get past the slogans. I'd like to THINK you are smarter than that, although I have yet to see much intelligent engagement here. Pretty much the only smart thing I have heard anyone say on this thread is that the wellbeing of workers does not necesarily coincide with the wellbeing of the economy. To which I say -- good point, and Bernie would like to have a word with you!

When Democrats get serious about curbing illegal immigration instead of making it easier for them to get here and stay here - we can talk.
I frankly am not interested in making those already here "legal" until we can ensure that the constant flow coming in will slow incredibly, if not stop altogether.
And, even then, I am not at all in favor of rewarding those who break our laws.

We tried this under Reagan, and the Dems did not keep their promise.

This, exactly. And to the OP who keeps insisting no one is "engaging" - BS. There have been post after post of thoughtful, interesting viewpoints. You simply ignore them because they're not the viewpoints you're insisting on. Your entire premise is flawed and your thread title is misleading and (as usual) rude. You're actually trying to engage with people you call "immigrant haters"? No wonder you're not being taken seriously. And it's also pretty rude to slam Japan. They can govern the way they see fit - as can we.

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Well, I'm thrilled that you're so in favor of workers rights. So you're going to be voting for Bernie, right?

The fact is, we currently have a pool of illegal labor, and the BEST way we can improve their conditions (if that's what you actually care about) is to regularlze them and given them the right to unionize, OSHA protections, minimum wage, access to benefits.

Also curious what you think the immediate economic impact would be of deporting all illegal labor?

If your idea is that we are going to simultaneously reform immigration to replace them with legal immigrants, that seems like quite a feat, and maybe Trump should have been working on that when he had control of Congress and the White House.

If your idea is that we're going to deport everyone and not replace them, then we will face demographic collapse, and enjoy your robot caregiver and the end of Social Security.

There is already a pool of labor in the country that has the right to unionize, OSHA protections, minimum wage, and access to benefits. The employers know how to find them, they just prefer not to. I wonder why that is.

Maybe you should think about the immediate economic impact of no longer having an exploitable pool of labor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP’s thread title is completely misleading.

But that sort of intentional distortion is increasingly common among democrats these days.

+1

+2

Anonymous wrote:OP’s thread title is completely misleading.

But that sort of intentional distortion is increasingly common among democrats these days.

+1

If your concern is to replenish the tax base, then it seems that welcoming masses of minimum-wage people who are likely to require substantial - and costly - public benefits. A much better solution would be to increase the number of educated, well-paid immigrants whose incomes, spending and attendant tax contributions will inject much more fuel into the economy.

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Anonymous wrote:
Oh you can stuff it. Please, detail here all the progressive, labor-rights policies you advocate for?

Regularlizing immigration is PRECISELY to protect workers right. Having an "illegal" class of workers is a recipe for exploitation.

Stuff it? I thought you're all about intelligent debate and research and whatnot?

You have this weird, utopic idea that illegal migrants who put up with low pay, terrible conditions, and utter absence of employee rights for no reason other than not being able to work better jobs, will continue working in the same terrible jobs once they are legally able to work anywhere else. Why? You think they are loyal to their slumlords?

The industries that rely on illegal migrant labor aren't doing it because they love migrants. They do it because they love paying artificially low wages and ignoring benefits and employee rights. That's what you are arguing should be preserved. And you are somehow persisting in your conviction that people who currently eat margarine because they can't have butter will weirdly continue doing that even when butter becomes available.

You're the one distorting the argument. Legalizing labor is the first way to protect worker's rights. That's obvious. And no, I don't think immigrants should be a permanent underclass - the reverse, actually. I never said that I think immigrants should never move up, and that's not what the economically-based argument on immigration is about, at all. It is about filling current labor market needs, not about repressing social/economic mobility. And of course, immigrating to the US generally is a huge leap in mobility for many immigrants. To say that we need immigration for low-skilled employment does not mean that we should repress workers.

The answer to "current labor market needs" is temporary, time-bound guest worker visas. Like haitch one bees but for the illiterate. Not permanent residency. Because the only way to make sure migrants stay in the low-wage, low-benefit industries that currently depend on them, as you say, is to make them legally unable to work anywhere else.

That doesn't help with our demographic issues. I'm not sure you're getting it -- native-born Americans are not reproducing at the rate needed to support the country as Boomers die off. Also, I thought y'all ranted about "assimiliating"? A class of temporary workers is not going to assimilate.

"The easiest way to grasp the seriousness of what is happening is to look at the fertility rate, which is the average number of babies born to mothers between the ages of fifteen and forty-four. Merely to replace the existing population, the fertility rate needs to be about 2.1 per cent. During the baby-boomer years, it reached 3.7 per cent. In 2017, it was just 1.76 per cent. If this trend persists, as it seems likely to do, it portends a declining population and a sharply rising dependency ratio.

From a public-finance perspective, there are several possible ways to tackle the looming challenge. One is to reduce the level of retirement benefits significantly—but that would be very unpopular and difficult to achieve politically. A second option is to increase the proportion of people who are working, among both working-age people and senior citizens. That, too, would be a mighty challenge, because the trend is going in the opposite direction. Since the start of 2000, the employment-to-population ratio among adults sixteen or older has fallen, from 64.6 per cent to 60.4 per cent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To be sure, the Great Recession and its aftermath were partly responsible for this decline. But so was the aging population: employment rates tend to decline in older-age cohorts.

The final option is to welcome more immigrants, particularly younger immigrants, so that, in the coming decades, they and their descendants will find work and contribute to the tax base. Almost all economists agree that immigration raises G.D.P. and stimulates business development by increasing the supply of workers and entrepreneurs. There is some disagreement about the net fiscal impact of first-generation migrants. The argument is that they tend to be less educated and therefore earn lower wages than the native population, and that they tend to contribute less in taxes. But this is disputed. There is no doubt about the contribution that immigrant families make over the longer term, however."

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/why-the-united-states-needs-more-immigrants

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh you can stuff it. Please, detail here all the progressive, labor-rights policies you advocate for?

Regularlizing immigration is PRECISELY to protect workers right. Having an "illegal" class of workers is a recipe for exploitation.

Stuff it? I thought you're all about intelligent debate and research and whatnot?

You have this weird, utopic idea that illegal migrants who put up with low pay, terrible conditions, and utter absence of employee rights for no reason other than not being able to work better jobs, will continue working in the same terrible jobs once they are legally able to work anywhere else. Why? You think they are loyal to their slumlords?

The industries that rely on illegal migrant labor aren't doing it because they love migrants. They do it because they love paying artificially low wages and ignoring benefits and employee rights. That's what you are arguing should be preserved. And you are somehow persisting in your conviction that people who currently eat margarine because they can't have butter will weirdly continue doing that even when butter becomes available.

You're the one distorting the argument. Legalizing labor is the first way to protect worker's rights. That's obvious. And no, I don't think immigrants should be a permanent underclass - the reverse, actually. I never said that I think immigrants should never move up, and that's not what the economically-based argument on immigration is about, at all. It is about filling current labor market needs, not about repressing social/economic mobility. And of course, immigrating to the US generally is a huge leap in mobility for many immigrants. To say that we need immigration for low-skilled employment does not mean that we should repress workers.

How am I distorting the argument? You say, we have industries who are reliant on the illegal migrant labor so let's make sure they have legal access to that pool of people. Of course, what that really means is that "we have industries who stay in business only because they are able to pay artificially low wages, offer zero benefits and no worker protections since illegal migrants have no option to work anywhere else." A normal person would have reacted to this with "no business should tie its survival to exploiting workers so maybe they should pay more and offer some benefits." But no, not you. You say, let's make sure they have a legal way to pay artificially low wages, no benefits and no worker protection. Because otherwise, god no, they can't stay in business.

Well, I'm thrilled that you're so in favor of workers rights. So you're going to be voting for Bernie, right?

The fact is, we currently have a pool of illegal labor, and the BEST way we can improve their conditions (if that's what you actually care about) is to regularlze them and given them the right to unionize, OSHA protections, minimum wage, access to benefits.

Also curious what you think the immediate economic impact would be of deporting all illegal labor?

If your idea is that we are going to simultaneously reform immigration to replace them with legal immigrants, that seems like quite a feat, and maybe Trump should have been working on that when he had control of Congress and the White House.

If your idea is that we're going to deport everyone and not replace them, then we will face demographic collapse, and enjoy your robot caregiver and the end of Social Security.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh you can stuff it. Please, detail here all the progressive, labor-rights policies you advocate for?

Regularlizing immigration is PRECISELY to protect workers right. Having an "illegal" class of workers is a recipe for exploitation.

Stuff it? I thought you're all about intelligent debate and research and whatnot?

You have this weird, utopic idea that illegal migrants who put up with low pay, terrible conditions, and utter absence of employee rights for no reason other than not being able to work better jobs, will continue working in the same terrible jobs once they are legally able to work anywhere else. Why? You think they are loyal to their slumlords?

The industries that rely on illegal migrant labor aren't doing it because they love migrants. They do it because they love paying artificially low wages and ignoring benefits and employee rights. That's what you are arguing should be preserved. And you are somehow persisting in your conviction that people who currently eat margarine because they can't have butter will weirdly continue doing that even when butter becomes available.

You're the one distorting the argument. Legalizing labor is the first way to protect worker's rights. That's obvious. And no, I don't think immigrants should be a permanent underclass - the reverse, actually. I never said that I think immigrants should never move up, and that's not what the economically-based argument on immigration is about, at all. It is about filling current labor market needs, not about repressing social/economic mobility. And of course, immigrating to the US generally is a huge leap in mobility for many immigrants. To say that we need immigration for low-skilled employment does not mean that we should repress workers.

How am I distorting the argument? You say, we have industries who are reliant on the illegal migrant labor so let's make sure they have legal access to that pool of people. Of course, what that really means is that "we have industries who stay in business only because they are able to pay artificially low wages, offer zero benefits and no worker protections since illegal migrants have no option to work anywhere else." A normal person would have reacted to this with "no business should tie its survival to exploiting workers so maybe they should pay more and offer some benefits." But no, not you. You say, let's make sure they have a legal way to pay artificially low wages, no benefits and no worker protection. Because otherwise, god no, they can't stay in business.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh you can stuff it. Please, detail here all the progressive, labor-rights policies you advocate for?

Regularlizing immigration is PRECISELY to protect workers right. Having an "illegal" class of workers is a recipe for exploitation.

Stuff it? I thought you're all about intelligent debate and research and whatnot?

You have this weird, utopic idea that illegal migrants who put up with low pay, terrible conditions, and utter absence of employee rights for no reason other than not being able to work better jobs, will continue working in the same terrible jobs once they are legally able to work anywhere else. Why? You think they are loyal to their slumlords?

The industries that rely on illegal migrant labor aren't doing it because they love migrants. They do it because they love paying artificially low wages and ignoring benefits and employee rights. That's what you are arguing should be preserved. And you are somehow persisting in your conviction that people who currently eat margarine because they can't have butter will weirdly continue doing that even when butter becomes available.

You're the one distorting the argument. Legalizing labor is the first way to protect worker's rights. That's obvious. And no, I don't think immigrants should be a permanent underclass - the reverse, actually. I never said that I think immigrants should never move up, and that's not what the economically-based argument on immigration is about, at all. It is about filling current labor market needs, not about repressing social/economic mobility. And of course, immigrating to the US generally is a huge leap in mobility for many immigrants. To say that we need immigration for low-skilled employment does not mean that we should repress workers.

The answer to "current labor market needs" is temporary, time-bound guest worker visas. Like haitch one bees but for the illiterate. Not permanent residency. Because the only way to make sure migrants stay in the low-wage, low-benefit industries that currently depend on them, as you say, is to make them legally unable to work anywhere else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh you can stuff it. Please, detail here all the progressive, labor-rights policies you advocate for?

Regularlizing immigration is PRECISELY to protect workers right. Having an "illegal" class of workers is a recipe for exploitation.

Stuff it? I thought you're all about intelligent debate and research and whatnot?

You have this weird, utopic idea that illegal migrants who put up with low pay, terrible conditions, and utter absence of employee rights for no reason other than not being able to work better jobs, will continue working in the same terrible jobs once they are legally able to work anywhere else. Why? You think they are loyal to their slumlords?

The industries that rely on illegal migrant labor aren't doing it because they love migrants. They do it because they love paying artificially low wages and ignoring benefits and employee rights. That's what you are arguing should be preserved. And you are somehow persisting in your conviction that people who currently eat margarine because they can't have butter will weirdly continue doing that even when butter becomes available.

You're the one distorting the argument. Legalizing labor is the first way to protect worker's rights. That's obvious. And no, I don't think immigrants should be a permanent underclass - the reverse, actually. I never said that I think immigrants should never move up, and that's not what the economically-based argument on immigration is about, at all. It is about filling current labor market needs, not about repressing social/economic mobility. And of course, immigrating to the US generally is a huge leap in mobility for many immigrants. To say that we need immigration for low-skilled employment does not mean that we should repress workers.

And while we're on the subject of workers rights, I'd like to know your position on minimum wage, workplace safety, and unions ... since you're so concerned with the fate of low-skilled immigrant workers, of course.