How serious is the problem of undocumented immigration?

[arkirk]

The problem of someone coming into the country without government permission seems equivalent to the problem of someone having a child without government permission. Less so, in fact, as the immigrant can immediately (or reasonably quickly) be productive.

Tripe.

You mean Menudo?

 

[PyramidHead]

Then let I shall rephrase what seems to be unclear to you:

The 45 million Hispanics, now first and second generation American citizens, legal non-citizens, and illegals have lowered the well being of Americans that foolishly let them in. AND to continue this flow will continue to harm the economic well being of many American citizens, including current citizens of Euro-white, Hispanic and Black heritage.

It is the right of a people to decide who they wish to let join the nation, a right extended to every people of every nation in the world. And it is also their right to demand that 'new members' improve the collective well-being of current members, rather than continually add to the harm of existing members. It is within their right to refuse to turn the United States into an international flop house, and world charity.

Given our looming budget crisis and debt, the massive new burden of Obamacare, seriously education inflation, explosion in food stamps, challenges to basic infrastructure unmet needs in housing, etc. its pretty stupid to increase our collective drain by legalizing 5 more million people.

As Max is the only person here who thinks that immigration is a problem because poor people are a problem, and his rationale rests on a foundation of ideas from history's dustbin, the specifics aren't really worth going over. Those ideas will die and be replaced by liberal values in time, so there's no need to be worried about it.

Poor people are only a problem because education, welfare, housing, resources, etc. are problems. And the more you add that can't pay for it, the greater the problem.

So when checking the historical dustbin, you might look at the bread and circuses for Rome's retired poor as a "solution" ?

Yep, no need to be worried about it - that's why the quality of life in California has improved so much by increasing the State population from 18 million to 38 million over the last 40 years (85 or more percent due to foreign immigration), and has now attained the highest poverty rate in the nation at 23%. Just think how much better it will be when the state gets to 80 million in another 1/2 century, and the poverty rate is 30% - wow, what a great idea.

Of course, those of us who remember a 10 percent poverty rate in 1966, and a prosperous and very affordable middle class state, will have died out and I am sure there will be a forum of denialists who insist they live in the best of all possible and prior worlds.

Nothing you have said is unclear to me, and I apologize if I implied that your opinion needed clarification; all I meant to say was that it can be safely ignored.

 

[bilby]

The problem of someone coming into the country without government permission seems equivalent to the problem of someone having a child without government permission. Less so, in fact, as the immigrant can immediately (or reasonably quickly) be productive.

Tripe.

What an excellent, detailed and well thought out rebuttal.

Would you like to explain why you consider this to be tripe?

What is the harm caused by someone coming into the country without government permission, that is not inflicted by someone having a child without government permission?

Or what is the benefit caused by someone having a child without government permission, that is not gained by someone coming into the country without government permission?

 

[Jarhyn]

Tripe.

What an excellent, detailed and well thought out rebuttal.

Would you like to explain why you consider this to be tripe?

What is the harm caused by someone coming into the country without government permission, that is not inflicted by someone having a child without government permission?

Or what is the benefit caused by someone having a child without government permission, that is not gained by someone coming into the country without government permission?

Judging from the theme of barely veiled racism that tinges most of the reactionary posts against immigration around here, I'd guess the actual reason is 'brown people scare me'.

 

[Sabine Grant]

As to your depiction of illegal immigrants and based on your previously observed comments through FRDB, they strike me as motivated by a xenophobic mentality where the foreigner and culturally different person from Anglo Saxon origins can only be a nuisance and an inferior individual.

Posh. Me? Why should I not celebrate the gift of relentless chain migration? Rest assured, in California's sprawling urban tumors, from Los Angeles to Oakland we enjoy visiting this tangle of material and spiritual putrescence, and to suffer the blasphemies of a hundred guttural dialects assailing our ears, to be surrounded by the hordes of sun-pitted faces of swarthy prowlers shouting along sidewalks, or to experience the teaming apartment blocks packed with little round headed peoples - most of them engaged in the productive occupation of drug running, car jacking, or hand out seeking.

Whereas I am quite comfortable when immersed in cultural diversity.Especially when I lived in California. With the exception of "Resident-Americans" affected by Anglo Saxon attitudes. Nonetheless because I am such a sweetheart, I still socialized with them while forgiving them for frowning at the tales of my childhood in Africa.

My observation is not original, but of this I shall say no more.

Mon cher Max, consider yourself a welcome guest in my home if you can suffer through interacting with a ...legal immigrant.

 

[maxparrish]

Posh. Me? Why should I not celebrate the gift of relentless chain migration? Rest assured, in California's sprawling urban tumors, from Los Angeles to Oakland we enjoy visiting this tangle of material and spiritual putrescence, and to suffer the blasphemies of a hundred guttural dialects assailing our ears, to be surrounded by the hordes of sun-pitted faces of swarthy prowlers shouting along sidewalks, or to experience the teaming apartment blocks packed with little round headed peoples - most of them engaged in the productive occupation of drug running, car jacking, or hand out seeking.

Whereas I am quite comfortable when immersed in cultural diversity.Especially when I lived in California. With the exception of "Resident-Americans" affected by Anglo Saxon attitudes. Nonetheless because I am such a sweetheart, I still socialized with them while forgiving them for frowning at the tales of my childhood in Africa.

My observation is not original, but of this I shall say no more.

Mon cher Max, consider yourself a welcome guest in my home if you can suffer through interacting with a ...legal immigrant.

I shall remember your kind offer should I find myself in Florida. I gained a whole new appreciation for the French the other day, when I made my first beef daube provençal. It was so good I almost forgot that we Anglo-Saxons are supposed to be allergic to the French.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Whereas I am quite comfortable when immersed in cultural diversity.Especially when I lived in California. With the exception of "Resident-Americans" affected by Anglo Saxon attitudes. Nonetheless because I am such a sweetheart, I still socialized with them while forgiving them for frowning at the tales of my childhood in Africa.

My observation is not original, but of this I shall say no more.

Mon cher Max, consider yourself a welcome guest in my home if you can suffer through interacting with a ...legal immigrant.

I shall remember your kind offer should I find myself in Florida. I gained a whole new appreciation for the French the other day, when I made my first beef daube provençal. It was so good I almost forgot that we Anglo-Saxons are supposed to be allergic to the French.

As you may know, in person interactions are vastly different from Internet based ones. I have no doubt that your family and mine would greatly enjoy each other's company. That is if you are willing to bear with my including gastronomy originating from a nation with "brown people", such as Le Maroc. . That said , I can now return to wanting to stick needles in my eyes when reading some of your comments.

 

[whichphilosophy]

I'm of mixed ancestry and my wife may have some Chinese ancestry. However immigration controls are not racist. They are required to protect the local labour force, and prevent overcrowding. Places where I have been such as India, UAE, Qatar, Philippines, Hong Kong and China all have immigration controls, which are often much stricter than those in the UK.
it is easier for a Westerner to travel throughout China then its own citizens. To prevent 200 million people ending up in Beijing looking for work the government has immigration controls within China.

Hong Kong during the colonial period set restrictions on importing labour where the employer had to demonstrate he advertised for local staff. The Hong Kong labour laws also prescribed that a foreign worker could not be paid below a set rate of pay. This was to prevent cut price labour pushing local people out off work. This didn't stop people using illegal labour from Vietnam or mainland China but it seems to have reduced it.

In the UK there is a general increase support for reducing immigration in that the Islands are already overcrowded.

This even comes from immigrants from Asia and the African sub continent

I cannot say the following article is accurate but here is an article from the DAILY EXPRESS

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/535688/Fury-Romanian-immigrant-25k-benefits-bring-family-UK.


The move, allowed under European Union freedom of movement rules, was even denounced by a Labour MP as an “abuse”.

One British worker described the handouts the Romanian can expect to get as “a disgrace”.

Nicu Popescu, 30, originally from near Bucharest, came to Britain two years ago and began working in the scrap trade.

The father-of-five, who lives in Birmingham, has realised that he and his family can use the benefits system to top up his low income.

He has told wife Iuliana, 24, to come over with their children Hagi, Peter, Marta, Mica, and Rubens.

Currently sleeping in a single room where he works, Popescu hopes they will be given a three or four bedroom house and extra cash as well.

In Romania, the family would be given a total of £425 a year in handouts.

But in the UK they can expect nearly £4,000 in child benefits alone, plus income credit, housing benefit and council tax support.

The total could be at least £25,000.

The children too will have free schooling and the whole family will be able to use the NHS for nothing.

Popescu said: “The benefits are huge.

"Life is better here because the money is better.

"I’m not doing anything wrong.

"It’s my right to claim benefits.

“In Romania the healthcare is very bad and here they offer you free treatment.

"It will be a dream new start for my family.”

 

[maxparrish]

I'm of mixed ancestry and my wife may have some Chinese ancestry. However immigration controls are not racist. They are required to protect the local labour force, and prevent overcrowding. Places where I have been such as India, UAE, Qatar, Philippines, Hong Kong and China all have immigration controls, which are often much stricter than those in the UK.
it is easier for a Westerner to travel throughout China then its own citizens. To prevent 200 million people ending up in Beijing looking for work the government has immigration controls within China.

The debate over immigration in the UK (and several other countries) have strong elements of rationality that is completely absent in the gushy and irrational feelings of culture elites of the US. My own brief experience in New Zealand was that immigrants were largely welcome AS LONG as they had the skills, knowledges, and abilities of use to their nation. Moreover, age is also a factor as the last thing they want is to have to support someone on their social insurance after only a short period of contribution.

They take their immigration law seriously and enforce it without the teary eyed "oh what about the poor children from unluckystan".

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm of mixed ancestry and my wife may have some Chinese ancestry. However immigration controls are not racist. They are required to protect the local labour force, and prevent overcrowding. Places where I have been such as India, UAE, Qatar, Philippines, Hong Kong and China all have immigration controls, which are often much stricter than those in the UK.
it is easier for a Westerner to travel throughout China then its own citizens. To prevent 200 million people ending up in Beijing looking for work the government has immigration controls within China.

The debate over immigration in the UK (and several other countries) have strong elements of rationality that is completely absent in the gushy and irrational feelings of culture elites of the US. My own brief experience in New Zealand was that immigrants were largely welcome AS LONG as they had the skills, knowledges, and abilities of use to their nation. Moreover, age is also a factor as the last thing they want is to have to support someone on their social insurance after only a short period of contribution.

They take their immigration law seriously and enforce it without the teary eyed "oh what about the poor children from unluckystan".

So what you're saying is you don't care about children. Gotcha. Loud and clear.

 

[Bomb#20]

The problem of someone coming into the country without government permission seems equivalent to the problem of someone having a child without government permission. Less so, in fact, as the immigrant can immediately (or reasonably quickly) be productive.

To equate those scenarios fails to take several differences into account. Off the top of my head...

- The local child will probably learn the local language faster and more thoroughly than the immigrant.

- The local child will probably be supported until he becomes productive primarily by the individuals who chose to have him, rather than by draftees.

- If the immigrant really can quickly become productive enough to outweigh the downsides of letting him in, then, provided there's a rational immigration policy, the government would have given him permission. The fact that he chose to line-jump and risk the wrath of the government instead of waiting his turn and going through the legal procedure is a red flag that he's probably not actually any time soon going to become productive enough to make taking him in worth the consequent costs to the locals.

- In cases where illegally immigrating or having a child the government would rather someone not have really does more harm than good to the people of the community, that harm has to be weighed against the harm done by whatever measures might respectively be taken prevent illegal immigration or unauthorized childbirth. To put it bluntly, escorting a foreigner onto an airplane back to wherever he came from doesn't put the government in the position of strapping down a pregnant woman and raping her with a vacuum cleaner.

 

[Bomb#20]

Specifically, what is wrong with being an illegal immigrant other than the fact that it violates a law?

Well, what is wrong with any variety of line-jumping? It takes a spot away from somebody willing to follow the rules and wait his turn to become a legal immigrant.

 

[maxparrish]

The debate over immigration in the UK (and several other countries) have strong elements of rationality that is completely absent in the gushy and irrational feelings of culture elites of the US. My own brief experience in New Zealand was that immigrants were largely welcome AS LONG as they had the skills, knowledges, and abilities of use to their nation. Moreover, age is also a factor as the last thing they want is to have to support someone on their social insurance after only a short period of contribution.

They take their immigration law seriously and enforce it without the teary eyed "oh what about the poor children from unluckystan".

So what you're saying is you don't care about children. Gotcha. Loud and clear.

Ya that's it, New Zealand, Canada, Austrailia, (etc.), and Max don't care about children. Gotcha.

 

[Sabine Grant]

If the vast majority of your fellow Americans, Max, feel so strongly about rejecting children of all ages coming from hellholes in South America, seeking refuge in this nation, let me suggest that it is time for your country to show its real face rather than exhibiting on Ellis Island :

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus.

 

[PyramidHead]

Specifically, what is wrong with being an illegal immigrant other than the fact that it violates a law?

Well, what is wrong with any variety of line-jumping? It takes a spot away from somebody willing to follow the rules and wait his turn to become a legal immigrant.

I can accept this as a legitimate problem, but that's only because I don't know what the rules are and how long a person must wait his turn. Desperation plays a huge part in what rules people are willing to break, and in those cases (which may be a few or a lot, I honestly don't know) I disagree that "The fact that he chose to line-jump and risk the wrath of the government instead of waiting his turn and going through the legal procedure is a red flag that he's probably not actually any time soon going to become productive enough to make taking him in worth the consequent costs to the locals." You prefaced that with "provided there's a rational immigration policy, the government would have given him permission." Do we have such a policy? Depends on who you ask, as this thread demonstrates.

 

[dismal]

Specifically, what is wrong with being an illegal immigrant other than the fact that it violates a law?

Well, what is wrong with any variety of line-jumping? It takes a spot away from somebody willing to follow the rules and wait his turn to become a legal immigrant.

But this assumes there is value in having lines at all. Presumably if you don't think illegal immigration causes problems you are for open borders (aka no lines).

 

[bilby]

The last time the U.S. had open borders it resulted in a massive boom that made her the most powerful nation in the world.

Clearly it would be disastrous to let that happen again.

 

[maxparrish]

The last time the U.S. had open borders it resulted in a massive boom that made her the most powerful nation in the world.

Clearly it would be disastrous to let that happen again.

And that ardent faith comes from what, desperation to believe something for other reasons that its factual truth?

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It generally comes down to tribalism. You care more for your family than outsiders, and you care more for your countrymen than outsiders, not because they are inherently better people, but because they are your tribe. This has racial and cultural overtones, but it isn't just that. There are also good rational reasons to oppose high immigration, and especially low skilled immigration, and even more especially illegal immigration.

When space, resources, jobs, etc are already seen as being in short supply, why would you want to invite in more competition for these scarce resources? Immigrants, especially illegal ones, are pointed at as ruining the opportunities of those already in the group. It is true that illegal immigrants will do jobs that nobody else wants to do and will do it for crazy low pay that nobody else will work for, but that is a problem, not a solution. Exploitation and slave wages for these people is not something we should be pointing at as a good thing or a mitigating factor. We should be clamping down on employers that bring them in and exploit them.

My viewpoint is a Canadian one. I work in Brampton, Ontario, where many many Indian people (mostly Punjabi) settle in Canada. In my work, I have encountered many who marry to bring a spouse over, and break up and do it again, exploiting that loophole. Some of them go on welfare shortly after arriving in Canada, and many more work jobs under the table, and don't contribute to the tax base. In this case mostly as truck drivers. So yes, this is a problem. Why should we support people who come to the country by dubious means and then want us to pay for their life expenses through our taxes, that we have been paying all our working lives. I think there is something to be said for that argument.

On the other hand, there are plenty of Canadian-born citizens who cheat on their taxes, etc, and there are plenty of legal immigrants who contribute greatly to our society. And I do think the issue of illegal immigration is overblown, especially in the US. In Canada, I think we have our concern levels at about the right point. Not very concerned, but aware that there are problems.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

If the vast majority of your fellow Americans, Max, feel so strongly about rejecting children of all ages coming from hellholes in South America, seeking refuge in this nation, let me suggest that it is time for your country to show its real face rather than exhibiting on Ellis Island :

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus.

I am curious if the Statue of Liberty words were ever taken seriously, even in their time. I know if was a gift from France after both nations fought civil wars, yearning for freedom and democracy, etc. And the US was a rugged country that needed a lot of immigration to exploit the resources of the land. But even in that time... I wonder if they really wanted the "huddled masses yearning to be free", or if that was just a bit of pretty poetry to feel good about.