Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's say all the undocumented immigrants and asylees and refugees were suddenly, magically removed from the country and replaced by citizens. What would be different? I'm going to assume that these citizens would be employed in the same jobs as this group of people currently is, so I'm not talking about shortages of landscape workers, slaughterhouse workers, ag workers, disaster cleanup workers, and so forth. According to statistics we would have a somewhat higher crime rate. Probably a somewhat higher rate of illegal drug use (migrants are less likely to use drugs). I'm assuming we need the population numbers, including to support the social security retirement program. We might have a larger burden on assistance programs if pay rates for the people who replaced them did not change, but we wouldn't be able to blame immigrants for that. Seriously, I wonder what the actual threat to borders has been. While supposedly Biden opened the borders we didn't have terrorist attacks from people who had slipped through as far as I know.

If in this thought experiment these people were not replaced magically, we would certainly have shortages of healthcare aides, maintenance workers, ag workers, meat processors, roofers, and disaster cleanup workers. Not only would there be fewer people to care for elderly people who need to be cared for, there'd be fewer people paying into Social Security to pay for their retirement income (which, in long term care, usually goes to the LTC facility).

I also wonder about the issue with assimilation. What exactly does that mean? Learning English? Most people who are able to do so to learn English one way or another, but if not, so what? It seems to me most people who complain about lack of assimilation are complaining about language and clothing as the most visible attributes of a population that is not assimilation.

Is it the slippery slope theory? That if a significant number of people manage to cross the border illegally every year and to stay for an extended period of time it will become an uncontrolled avalanche? Would it have been a bad thing if immigration laws had been changed to make immigration much, much more accessible legally and reduce the burden on the systems set up to deal with illegal immigration?

I'm truly trying to consider a blank slate take on this.

Meatpacking used to be a stable, middle-class union job, with multiple generations of families working at the same plant. In 1960, the industry was 95% unionized, paying wages that were comparable to those in the auto and steel industries. Meatpacking was skilled labor. A meatpacker was trained like an old-fashioned butcher to take an animal from slaughter to final cuts.

In the 1960s, a company called IBP (Iowa Beef Packers) figured out that you didn't need skilled labor if you didn't care about your workers. Instead of workers doing a variety of jobs, IBP had workers do one cut all day long, maybe separate the hind quarter from the carcass, or slice a single cut of steak.

Meatpacking wages across the industry stayed high through the early 1980s, but then started to fall, as more companies adopted the IBP method. After all, anyone could be trained to do a single cut. By the mid-80s, wages had plunged and unions were disappearing. It was a race to the bottom and meatpacking was quickly becoming the worst job in America.

One reason it was now so awful, was that the IBP method resulted in a huge rise in repetitive stress injuries and debilitating knife cuts caused by inattention and fatigue. Doing one cut all day long on a speeding factory line was good for corporate profits but disastrously bad for actual humans.

Today, Places like Tyson Chicken and Smithfield Ham need an endless supply of 3rd world immigrants to keep wages low and unions busted, but also because it's a job that destroys the human body and spirit. Even if you're not injured, the work is so grueling that most immigrants can only do it for a couple of years before they move on. That's why you'll see that the ethnic composition of rural meatpacking towns goes through successive waves of foreigners-- Mexicans, Somalis, Sudanese, Guatemalans, Haitians-- as each group gets brought in and burned out, while management goes looking for another group of suckers.

Shutting down the immigration pipeline and deporting the illegals will go a long way to restoring the balance between workers and corporations. Likewise, we need to go back to a system with lots of small-scale regional meat processors staffed by skilled workers, something that will require breaking up these abusive corporations and overhauling the USDA inspection program.

Yes, prices of meat will certainly rise, but you already shouldn't be eating factory-farmed meat and you shouldn't be patronizing corporations that are actively wrecking America.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is significant cost to school systems for the extra seats, plus extra ESL and other services.

What I wonder about is families of English Learners are paying taxes towards those seats. They pay rent and their landlord then pays taxes from that rent, or they own and pay taxes. So, yeah when enrollment goes up, then costs go up, but more people living in an area means more money for the township. My experiences teaching in schools has demonstrated that while yes, EL's need special services, they truly get next to nothing. I mean, I taught in a city school with 500 kids and I was the only EL teacher. 200/500 qualified for services. So, they were getting maybe 30 minutes of push in support each week. It isn't much. Plus,most of the kids who qualify for EL support come from families who are here legally. So, not sure how much money having undocumented folks actually "cost". Plus when you figure in the tremendous amount of economic activity immigrants bring in, the amount of taxes their businesses bring, the amount they pay in stores, etc, I suspect they give more than they take.
I live in Chicago and while everyone knows about Michigan Avenue, many people don't know about 26th Street in Little Village that is the 2nd highest economic generator in the entire state. That area is nearly entirely Spanish speaking with lots of immigrants, documented and undocumented.

I'd be interested in knowing more about best ideas for ESL teaching, I'm vaguely aware of different opinions as to how best to do this. Where I used to live in the midwest, Hispanic population grew a great deal a few decades ago as itinerant Spanish speaking farmworkers were mechanized out of their ag jobs and stayed permanently. They started a Spanish immersion program at one elementary school that attracted both immigrant and non-immigrant families, and the program has become increasingly popular among non-immigrant families, so there is an elementary school that is 100% Spanish immersion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is significant cost to school systems for the extra seats, plus extra ESL and other services.

What I wonder about is families of English Learners are paying taxes towards those seats. They pay rent and their landlord then pays taxes from that rent, or they own and pay taxes. So, yeah when enrollment goes up, then costs go up, but more people living in an area means more money for the township. My experiences teaching in schools has demonstrated that while yes, EL's need special services, they truly get next to nothing. I mean, I taught in a city school with 500 kids and I was the only EL teacher. 200/500 qualified for services. So, they were getting maybe 30 minutes of push in support each week. It isn't much. Plus,most of the kids who qualify for EL support come from families who are here legally. So, not sure how much money having undocumented folks actually "cost". Plus when you figure in the tremendous amount of economic activity immigrants bring in, the amount of taxes their businesses bring, the amount they pay in stores, etc, I suspect they give more than they take.
I live in Chicago and while everyone knows about Michigan Avenue, many people don't know about 26th Street in Little Village that is the 2nd highest economic generator in the entire state. That area is nearly entirely Spanish speaking with lots of immigrants, documented and undocumented.

You think their landlords are reporting the income they receive, likely in cash, from illegal aliens? Bless you.

Anonymous wrote:Let's say all the undocumented immigrants and asylees and refugees were suddenly, magically removed from the country and replaced by citizens. What would be different? I'm going to assume that these citizens would be employed in the same jobs as this group of people currently is, so I'm not talking about shortages of landscape workers, slaughterhouse workers, ag workers, disaster cleanup workers, and so forth. According to statistics we would have a somewhat higher crime rate. Probably a somewhat higher rate of illegal drug use (migrants are less likely to use drugs). I'm assuming we need the population numbers, including to support the social security retirement program. We might have a larger burden on assistance programs if pay rates for the people who replaced them did not change, but we wouldn't be able to blame immigrants for that. Seriously, I wonder what the actual threat to borders has been. While supposedly Biden opened the borders we didn't have terrorist attacks from people who had slipped through as far as I know.

If in this thought experiment these people were not replaced magically, we would certainly have shortages of healthcare aides, maintenance workers, ag workers, meat processors, roofers, and disaster cleanup workers. Not only would there be fewer people to care for elderly people who need to be cared for, there'd be fewer people paying into Social Security to pay for their retirement income (which, in long term care, usually goes to the LTC facility).

I also wonder about the issue with assimilation. What exactly does that mean? Learning English? Most people who are able to do so to learn English one way or another, but if not, so what? It seems to me most people who complain about lack of assimilation are complaining about language and clothing as the most visible attributes of a population that is not assimilation.

Is it the slippery slope theory? That if a significant number of people manage to cross the border illegally every year and to stay for an extended period of time it will become an uncontrolled avalanche? Would it have been a bad thing if immigration laws had been changed to make immigration much, much more accessible legally and reduce the burden on the systems set up to deal with illegal immigration?

I'm truly trying to consider a blank slate take on this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We shouldn’t have illegal immigration because it’s illegal. Our country is based on the rule of law. Don’t do illegal stuff. This goes for Trump as well. I’m opposed to law-breaking. It’s unfair to everyone else and causes disorder and chaos.

I’m fine with lots of high-quality immigrants who are smart and hard-working and can support themselves and their family and love America, as long as it’s through legal channels.

"High quality immigrants"? WTAF.

Anonymous wrote:Let's say all the undocumented immigrants and asylees and refugees were suddenly, magically removed from the country and replaced by citizens. What would be different? I'm going to assume that these citizens would be employed in the same jobs as this group of people currently is, so I'm not talking about shortages of landscape workers, slaughterhouse workers, ag workers, disaster cleanup workers, and so forth. According to statistics we would have a somewhat higher crime rate. Probably a somewhat higher rate of illegal drug use (migrants are less likely to use drugs). I'm assuming we need the population numbers, including to support the social security retirement program. We might have a larger burden on assistance programs if pay rates for the people who replaced them did not change, but we wouldn't be able to blame immigrants for that. Seriously, I wonder what the actual threat to borders has been. While supposedly Biden opened the borders we didn't have terrorist attacks from people who had slipped through as far as I know.

If in this thought experiment these people were not replaced magically, we would certainly have shortages of healthcare aides, maintenance workers, ag workers, meat processors, roofers, and disaster cleanup workers. Not only would there be fewer people to care for elderly people who need to be cared for, there'd be fewer people paying into Social Security to pay for their retirement income (which, in long term care, usually goes to the LTC facility).

I also wonder about the issue with assimilation. What exactly does that mean? Learning English? Most people who are able to do so to learn English one way or another, but if not, so what? It seems to me most people who complain about lack of assimilation are complaining about language and clothing as the most visible attributes of a population that is not assimilation.

Is it the slippery slope theory? That if a significant number of people manage to cross the border illegally every year and to stay for an extended period of time it will become an uncontrolled avalanche? Would it have been a bad thing if immigration laws had been changed to make immigration much, much more accessible legally and reduce the burden on the systems set up to deal with illegal immigration?

I'm truly trying to consider a blank slate take on this.

Anonymous wrote:If we got rid of all immigrants, we'd be left with Native Americans only. Each and every one of us who is not a Native American is an immigrant.

I'm not for that.

I do think we have to have sane immigration, not thousands of people flooding over the border, released to our equally insane immigration system.

We had a bipartisan bill that Trump told the GOP to kill because he wanted to use immigration to help his re-election efforts.

Of course we need immigration. One of my kids goes to a prestigious grad program, and 3/4 of my kid's cohort is from outside the US. These people are brilliant, the best and the brightest IN THE WORLD. Many of them have brown skin. Why would we want to keep them out of the US?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We shouldn’t have illegal immigration because it’s illegal. Our country is based on the rule of law. Don’t do illegal stuff. This goes for Trump as well. I’m opposed to law-breaking. It’s unfair to everyone else and causes disorder and chaos.

I’m fine with lots of high-quality immigrants who are smart and hard-working and can support themselves and their family and love America, as long as it’s through legal channels.

"High quality immigrants"? WTAF.

Ask Canada. Literally. Canada’s immigration system is based on “points.” You only get in if you have a degree or you invest 1 million+ Canadian dollars.

Unskilled worker? ZERO points. Canada only allows high quality immigrants; others caught illegally are deported by Canadian authorities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We shouldn’t have illegal immigration because it’s illegal. Our country is based on the rule of law. Don’t do illegal stuff. This goes for Trump as well. I’m opposed to law-breaking. It’s unfair to everyone else and causes disorder and chaos.

I’m fine with lots of high-quality immigrants who are smart and hard-working and can support themselves and their family and love America, as long as it’s through legal channels.

"High quality immigrants"? WTAF.

Ask Canada. Literally. Canada’s immigration system is based on “points.” You only get in if you have a degree or you invest 1 million+ Canadian dollars.

Unskilled worker? ZERO points. Canada only allows high quality immigrants; others caught illegally are deported by Canadian authorities.