The US needs more immigrants, despite Trump's claim that the US is full!

[southernhybrid]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/upshot/trump-america-full-or-emptying.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

President Trump has adopted a blunt new message in recent days for migrants seeking refuge in the United States: “Our country is full.”

To the degree the president is addressing something broader than the recent strains on the asylum-seeking process, the line suggests the nation can’t accommodate higher immigration levels because it is already bursting at the seams. But it runs counter to the consensus among demographers and economists.

They see ample evidence of a country that is not remotely “full” — but one where an aging population and declining birthrates among the native-born population are creating underpopulated cities and towns, vacant housing and troubled public finances.

Local officials in many of those places view a shrinking population and work force as an existential problem with few obvious solutions.

And that, in turn, is reflected in the national fiscal outlook. There are now 2.8 workers for every recipient of Social Security benefits, a rate on track to fall to 2.2 by 2035, according to the program’s trustees. Many state pension plans face even greater demography-induced strains.

In smaller cities and rural areas, demographic decline is a fundamental fact of life. A recent study by the Economic Innovation Group found that 80 percent of American counties, with a combined population of 149 million, saw a decline in their number of prime working-age adults from 2007 to 2017.

Population growth in the United States has now hit its lowest level since 1937, partly because of a record-low fertility rate — the number of children born per woman. The United States increasingly has population growth rates similar to slow-growing Japan and Western Europe, with immigration partly offsetting that shift.

I would ask what the fuck is wrong with Trump, but I think most of us know what the fuck is wrong with Trump! Who is going to fill the jobs that we need filled if we don't start being more reasonable about immigration? Sure, we need to screen immigrants, but the vast majority of them are productive people who are just looking for a better, safer life.

 

[repoman]

Ok, what about my coworkers who are bringing over their elderly parents?

 

[zorq]

Ok, what about my coworkers who are bringing over their elderly parents?

Elderly immigrants aren't eligible for social security unless they have worked in the US for 10 years. And that assumes they actually become citizens... So... they will only be a drain on your co-worker. Or should I say, an incentive for your co-worker to work hard to support them.

 

[SimpleDon]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/upshot/trump-america-full-or-emptying.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

President Trump has adopted a blunt new message in recent days for migrants seeking refuge in the United States: “Our country is full.”

To the degree the president is addressing something broader than the recent strains on the asylum-seeking process, the line suggests the nation can’t accommodate higher immigration levels because it is already bursting at the seams. But it runs counter to the consensus among demographers and economists.

They see ample evidence of a country that is not remotely “full” — but one where an aging population and declining birthrates among the native-born population are creating underpopulated cities and towns, vacant housing and troubled public finances.

Local officials in many of those places view a shrinking population and work force as an existential problem with few obvious solutions.

And that, in turn, is reflected in the national fiscal outlook. There are now 2.8 workers for every recipient of Social Security benefits, a rate on track to fall to 2.2 by 2035, according to the program’s trustees. Many state pension plans face even greater demography-induced strains.

In smaller cities and rural areas, demographic decline is a fundamental fact of life. A recent study by the Economic Innovation Group found that 80 percent of American counties, with a combined population of 149 million, saw a decline in their number of prime working-age adults from 2007 to 2017.

Population growth in the United States has now hit its lowest level since 1937, partly because of a record-low fertility rate — the number of children born per woman. The United States increasingly has population growth rates similar to slow-growing Japan and Western Europe, with immigration partly offsetting that shift.

I would ask what the fuck is wrong with Trump, but I think most of us know what the fuck is wrong with Trump! Who is going to fill the jobs that we need filled if we don't start being more reasonable about immigration? Sure, we need to screen immigrants, but the vast majority of them are productive people who are just looking for a better, safer life.

A low native birth rate is why the Christian Democrats, the conservative party, in Germany is taking in so many immigrants mainly from the Middle East and North Africa, to provide workers for Germany's industries. This is why we have so many immigrants from Mexico. It is a case of supply and demand. We have a significant need for workers and Mexico has a large number of unemployed or under-employed workers. The most logical solution to illegal immigration is to increase the number of legal immigrants that we accept. What is standing in the way of this solution is the widespread xenophobia of our no-nothing conservatives who are terrified by foreigners.

Anyone who has met any of our recent immigrants knows that they are highly motivated and hard workers. Until you do it, you don't realize how hard it is to leave the country of your birth and to start over everything in a new country.

 

[DBT]

Some argue that the US is already overpopulated in terms of ecology and consumption;

''The United States is already overpopulated in the sense that we are consuming our national ecological resources at an unsustainable rate. Our growing dependence on foreign energy supplies is a prime example. We now depend on foreign imports for 28.8 percent of our energy consumption: two-thirds of our petroleum products and about one-sixth of our natural gas consumption.1Because of the abundance of our nation's resources, we have long been careless about our level of consumption, but it is the precipitous rise in the U.S. population over the last four decades that has resulted in our outstripping of our national resources. We are living beyond our means and are doing so increasingly as our population expands. This is a serious problem with major implications for future generations.''

''Nations with high consumption levels generally have large ecological footprints, i.e. environmental impact. Add to the equation a large population with a high level of consumption — as is the case with the United States — and the situation becomes unsustainable. Population growth is steadily diluting the U.S. biocapacity, leaving only about 5 hectares [about 12.4 acres] of productive land available per person. Meanwhile, the steady rise in consumption has increased Americans’ per capita ecological footprint — in part because of our growing dependence on imported energy resources — to more than 9.4 hectares [about 23.3 acres].3 In the last four decades, the U.S. has gone from a positive net ecological surplus of 2.1 hectares per capita to a deficit of -4.4 hectares per capita.4 Another aspect of this same trend into unsustainable consumption is that the U.S. per capita ecological footprint has increased gradually — six percent since 1980 — while per capita biocapacity has decreased rapidly — 26 percent — due to a 30 percent increase in the U.S. population.5''

 

[RVonse]

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/upshot/trump-america-full-or-emptying.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

President Trump has adopted a blunt new message in recent days for migrants seeking refuge in the United States: “Our country is full.”

To the degree the president is addressing something broader than the recent strains on the asylum-seeking process, the line suggests the nation can’t accommodate higher immigration levels because it is already bursting at the seams. But it runs counter to the consensus among demographers and economists.

They see ample evidence of a country that is not remotely “full” — but one where an aging population and declining birthrates among the native-born population are creating underpopulated cities and towns, vacant housing and troubled public finances.

Local officials in many of those places view a shrinking population and work force as an existential problem with few obvious solutions.

And that, in turn, is reflected in the national fiscal outlook. There are now 2.8 workers for every recipient of Social Security benefits, a rate on track to fall to 2.2 by 2035, according to the program’s trustees. Many state pension plans face even greater demography-induced strains.

In smaller cities and rural areas, demographic decline is a fundamental fact of life. A recent study by the Economic Innovation Group found that 80 percent of American counties, with a combined population of 149 million, saw a decline in their number of prime working-age adults from 2007 to 2017.

Population growth in the United States has now hit its lowest level since 1937, partly because of a record-low fertility rate — the number of children born per woman. The United States increasingly has population growth rates similar to slow-growing Japan and Western Europe, with immigration partly offsetting that shift.

I would ask what the fuck is wrong with Trump, but I think most of us know what the fuck is wrong with Trump! Who is going to fill the jobs that we need filled if we don't start being more reasonable about immigration? Sure, we need to screen immigrants, but the vast majority of them are productive people who are just looking for a better, safer life.

Why are native birth rates low? Whether you want to admit or not, birth rates are low because of the economy. Its too difficult to raise a family on a single income today and if the mother works then who is raising the kids? Anyway, that is why birth rates are low because the economy sucks for the average US citizen.

Then you want to further erode an already bad economy by importing even more cheap labor to make sure labor rates go even lower.

You would make a great spokes person for the globalists and 1 percenter elites southernhybrid. But your ideas are horrible for the average middle class with family values! Fortunately Trump is smarter than that.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Ok, what about my coworkers who are bringing over their elderly parents?

Elderly immigrants aren't eligible for social security unless they have worked in the US for 10 years. And that assumes they actually become citizens... So... they will only be a drain on your co-worker. Or should I say, an incentive for your co-worker to work hard to support them.

I know people who are not citizens but are married to citizens and collect SS.

 

[steve_bank]

On this isuue Trump is right, although as usual said it without tact.

We are overwhelmed. at the border, there is no debate. We are not equipped to deal with increasing numbers of people. Right now people are being given a court date and literally released on the streets.

The word spread in central and south America if get across the border with a kid you are home free. It used to be typically single males, now it is parents, sometimes single parent women, crossing.

The situation is out of control. Thank Congress who for decades did nothing to reform immigration. The original policy was for political refugees from conflict areas. Now it is overwhelmingly people looking for jobs.

Obama had the right idea, supply aid to reduce the desire to migrate.

A liberal on a news show said we have 20 million empty homes, therefore we can take in 20 million immigrants. Sheer lunacy.

Undoubtedly there are people south of the border instigating migration for profit. They are are undoubtedly people south of the boarder instigating caravan's solely to create a situation at the border. People are being coached on how to make a case, for asylum.

It is not new. I recently watched a 1940s movie Border Incident. It is about human trafficking at the southern border amd law enforcement from both Mexico and the USA trying to stop it..

It has been reported people from remote areas are showing up who speak neither Spanish or English for whom we have no translators.

What are we supposed to do? Provide food, shelter, education, medical care and the e4st for unlimited periods for anybody of any kind who shows up at the border?

 

[Trausti]

Workers at the lower end of the pay scale finally are getting the most benefit from rising wages

Solution? More immigration!

 

[steve_bank]

Canada does a bteer job of skills based immigration. I can say uin the 90s west coast technology could not have grown without foreign engineers. Some from Russia and eatern Europe, Mnaty Asians. But these were educated people who spoke English.

I was born in 1951 in the NYC region. Back then someone could make a living as an unskilled worker with little English. Making enough to have a family.

Those days are long gone. If we take in large numbers of immigrants witjhout at least the equivalent of a high school education and facilitymin English we may be creating a serious long term problem.

I see it in a number of Ethiopian and Somali immigrants. Those who have had a primary education pick up English and generally fit right in.

Others have been here for years and barley speak English. I can say the same for Latinos. There are people at my facil;ity who can not read resident medical charts and have to get someone to communicate details in Spanish.

To say there is no down side to unrestricted immigration without qualification is being Pollyannaish if that is the right word.

There is a cost to it that is reflected in taxes.

We have chronic shortages of skilled labor. Stating the obvious, pay for training and relocation of citizens from distressed areas like Appalachia and Detroit. A lot cheaper than immigration.

The cliché is we have always been welcoming to immigrants, and that is not true. Irish, Jews, and Italians.

Immigrants circa 1900 lived in NYC ghettos crowded into rooms or small apartment's. Fires were common. Disease. Near slave labor sweat shops. It still goes on today to some degree.

 

[repoman]

Some argue that the US is already overpopulated in terms of ecology and consumption;

''The United States is already overpopulated in the sense that we are consuming our national ecological resources at an unsustainable rate. Our growing dependence on foreign energy supplies is a prime example. We now depend on foreign imports for 28.8 percent of our energy consumption: two-thirds of our petroleum products and about one-sixth of our natural gas consumption.1Because of the abundance of our nation's resources, we have long been careless about our level of consumption, but it is the precipitous rise in the U.S. population over the last four decades that has resulted in our outstripping of our national resources. We are living beyond our means and are doing so increasingly as our population expands. This is a serious problem with major implications for future generations.''

''Nations with high consumption levels generally have large ecological footprints, i.e. environmental impact. Add to the equation a large population with a high level of consumption — as is the case with the United States — and the situation becomes unsustainable. Population growth is steadily diluting the U.S. biocapacity, leaving only about 5 hectares [about 12.4 acres] of productive land available per person. Meanwhile, the steady rise in consumption has increased Americans’ per capita ecological footprint — in part because of our growing dependence on imported energy resources — to more than 9.4 hectares [about 23.3 acres].3 In the last four decades, the U.S. has gone from a positive net ecological surplus of 2.1 hectares per capita to a deficit of -4.4 hectares per capita.4 Another aspect of this same trend into unsustainable consumption is that the U.S. per capita ecological footprint has increased gradually — six percent since 1980 — while per capita biocapacity has decreased rapidly — 26 percent — due to a 30 percent increase in the U.S. population.5''

https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1111280782985838593

Only white people are destructive to the environment, at least according to the "NY Post", same city where that plaque was added the French gift of the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Immigration. Wonder what the common tie is?

Bringing in lots of non whites will not be a problem for the environment.

 

[Trausti]

Some argue that the US is already overpopulated in terms of ecology and consumption;

''The United States is already overpopulated in the sense that we are consuming our national ecological resources at an unsustainable rate. Our growing dependence on foreign energy supplies is a prime example. We now depend on foreign imports for 28.8 percent of our energy consumption: two-thirds of our petroleum products and about one-sixth of our natural gas consumption.1Because of the abundance of our nation's resources, we have long been careless about our level of consumption, but it is the precipitous rise in the U.S. population over the last four decades that has resulted in our outstripping of our national resources. We are living beyond our means and are doing so increasingly as our population expands. This is a serious problem with major implications for future generations.''

''Nations with high consumption levels generally have large ecological footprints, i.e. environmental impact. Add to the equation a large population with a high level of consumption — as is the case with the United States — and the situation becomes unsustainable. Population growth is steadily diluting the U.S. biocapacity, leaving only about 5 hectares [about 12.4 acres] of productive land available per person. Meanwhile, the steady rise in consumption has increased Americans’ per capita ecological footprint — in part because of our growing dependence on imported energy resources — to more than 9.4 hectares [about 23.3 acres].3 In the last four decades, the U.S. has gone from a positive net ecological surplus of 2.1 hectares per capita to a deficit of -4.4 hectares per capita.4 Another aspect of this same trend into unsustainable consumption is that the U.S. per capita ecological footprint has increased gradually — six percent since 1980 — while per capita biocapacity has decreased rapidly — 26 percent — due to a 30 percent increase in the U.S. population.5''

View attachment 20920
https://twitter.com/nypost/status/1111280782985838593

Only white people are destructive to the environment, at least according to the "NY Post", same city where that plaque was added the French gift of the Statue of Liberty, not the Statue of Immigration. Wonder what the common tie is?

Bringing in lots of non whites will not be a problem for the environment.

Well, obviously. If you sincerely care about the environment and climate change, ya gotta stop immigration. The more that come here and consume, the quicker we all die. 12 years, is it?

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't have the time or desire to pick apart everyone of the posts, but I will mention a few things about some of these posts. First of all, nobody is talking about unlimited immigration. If you bothered to read the article, you would learn that one thing that is being considered is allowing people to come in, if they agree to take jobs in areas where a high percentage of jobs are unable to be filled. Even the Trump administration wants to issue more temporary visas to fill the large number of jobs that aren't being filled by Americans. It's just not something that gets much notice.

As for the claim that women aren't having children due to the expense of raising them, I'm calling BS on that one. Women have a lot more choices these days then we did in the past. I chose to have only one child. One of my sisters chose to have none and the other sister chose to have two. The cost of raising them was never an issue. My ex and I lived on very low military pay after he was drafted during the Viet Nam War, but we managed. We just lived very simply.

Do you know who is having the most children these days? If not, I will tell you. It's poor women that are having the most children. I worked for many years with poor women, some had to rely on government programs to survive, including the earned income credit, SNAP and sometimes subsidized housing. My poor coworkers had anywhere from 2 to 10 children. 4 or 5 was probably the most common. I have a friend who is now 39, who has six children. She has told me that she now regrets that she had her first two children while she was in her teens, but then she had four more with her current husband. Perhaps if we did a better job of educating and providing family planning services to more poor women, they would have fewer children. But, that's for a different discussion.

Somebody said something about bringing in elderly family members. Sorry, that only applies to Melania Trump. Most immigrants these days aren't permitted to bring in any additional family members.

The US isn't the only Westernized country with a very low birth rate. Imo, it's because women are no longer expected to just stay home and reproduce. We have more choices now. There may be some women that don't have children for financial reasons, but I've never met any like that, so I"m skeptical that those numbers are high. And, in case you didn't know it, immigrants tend to have fewer children once they are settled here.

Somebody made the claim that bringing in more immigrants would lower wages. Well, aside from that person not providing any good evidence for that, there's this thing called the minimum wage. It hasn't been raised since 2009. Raising the minimum wage would help.

In my small city, there are help wanted signs all over the place, mostly in retail and healthcare, especially nursing homes and assisted living facilities. In some parts of the country, especially the northeast, the majority of care provided to older adults is done by immigrants. In the last place I worked prior to retiring, they still only pay the care givers between 8 and 9 dollars an hour. As you can imagine, turnover is immense. I know this because I keep in touch with the nurse who replaced me. The place is a revolving door. Most long term facilities are now owned by large corporations and from what i've heard, they aren't good places to work, but that's a discussion for another time. My city government is also begging for other types of low skilled work, such as sanitation workers, etc. They are starting to post jobs in public parks. Who will fill these jobs if we don't allow more people into the country?

I imagine that some of you think you will never receive SS, but almost every one of you will be dependent on that program once you reach old age. Even with substantial savings, most of us need that SS income that we paid into our entire work lives. The article said that there are currently only 2.8 workers to support each SS recipient. We need more young workers if the program is going to be maintained. Even if you are far too young too understand that one day you will need SS, perhaps you have a parent or friend who relies on it. Only the very wealthy will be able to survive without SS or a government pension of some type, since most private pensions have been discontinued. Very few people are making enough in their 401Ks to be able to support themselves when they retire.

We're using up too much resources? How does that have anything to do with immigration? The entire Westernized world is using too many resources. Let's not blame immigrants on that problem. That's a problem related to our wasteful lifestyles. We do have serious infrastructure problems. Maybe we could recruit some immigrants to help rebuild and maintain our infrastructure. Sure, there are many problems that need to be addressed, that haven't been addressed by our current leaders, but bringing in more immigrants, who are willing to work in the areas where we need them most, isn't going to make any of these problems worse.

One of you said that Trump was smarter than those who would like to allow more people to come into the country. No, Trump isn't smart at all. He's just plays to the worst of his xenophobic base. He's playing you, and you don't even know it. That's just sad.

Anyway, it's disappointing to see some of the responses on this thread. There is obviously no way to convince most of you that we have a problem that needs to be addressed and the easiest and most humane way to address it is to allow more people to come and work in the US, to fill the jobs that we don't seem to be able to fill by our current American citizens. So, I'll just leave it at that. If you have better solutions regarding how to fill these hard to fill jobs, please start your own thread it and I'll read it.

 

[dismal]

The more that come here and consume, the quicker we all die. 12 years, is it?

Well, that takes the "we need them to pay for our Social Security" argument off the table anyway.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Canada does a bteer job of skills based immigration. I can say uin the 90s west coast technology could not have grown without foreign engineers. Some from Russia and eatern Europe, Mnaty Asians. But these were educated people who spoke English.

I was born in 1951 in the NYC region. Back then someone could make a living as an unskilled worker with little English. Making enough to have a family.

Those days are long gone. If we take in large numbers of immigrants witjhout at least the equivalent of a high school education and facilitymin English we may be creating a serious long term problem.

I see it in a number of Ethiopian and Somali immigrants. Those who have had a primary education pick up English and generally fit right in.

Others have been here for years and barley speak English. I can say the same for Latinos. There are people at my facil;ity who can not read resident medical charts and have to get someone to communicate details in Spanish.

To say there is no down side to unrestricted immigration without qualification is being Pollyannaish if that is the right word.

There is a cost to it that is reflected in taxes.

We have chronic shortages of skilled labor. Stating the obvious, pay for training and relocation of citizens from distressed areas like Appalachia and Detroit. A lot cheaper than immigration.

The cliché is we have always been welcoming to immigrants, and that is not true. Irish, Jews, and Italians.

Immigrants circa 1900 lived in NYC ghettos crowded into rooms or small apartment's. Fires were common. Disease. Near slave labor sweat shops. It still goes on today to some degree.

We should be paying white women to have more white babies too. White people are the bread and butter of our country and we shouldn't be threatening their white continued existence by welcoming non-white immigrants, illegal or otherwise, from non-white countries. It is the white people who built this country and why it should be white. Even the flag has white in it, there isn't any brown or black.

 

[JohnG]

Im sure there are some smart people in the US who can figure out a solution that isn't so freakin' hamfisted as the one you are trying to implement now. It's a terrible solution.

I haven't heard one democrat call for open borders. If the right are gonna just lie their pants off because they suck at solutions, then your gonna get things like massive child separation.

The red flag in all this is that immigration is commonly used to rile up the xenophobes in a country (because it's a proven tactic). Can anyone honestly blame any real problems on immigration? The only one's who are being put out are the immigrants themselves.

You guys just need to streamline your processing, and do what you can to improve the economies of all the "Mexican Countries" via trade and foreign policy, instead of drooling over whatever you might be able to steal from them.

The right wing in Canada are doing the same thing here, because they are just as insidious as the right wing in the USA. They are trying to frighten people with tales of invading brown people set out to destroy all that is good in the world.

 

[Trausti]

I haven't heard one democrat call for open borders.

Correct. And anyone who opposes open borders is a horrible, terrible, person.

 

[repoman]

I haven't heard one democrat call for open borders.

Correct. And anyone who opposes open borders is a horrible, terrible, person.

Funny that yesterday I was watching this show, which at times I vehemently disagree with on some topics



at 1:43:35 he says that his ultimate goal is open borders, but he will tactically not talk about that now. But these folks are more socialists anyway.

Is this sort of a logical fallacy technique? Not disclosing that you have much more ambitious goals and pretending you want a 6 on any scale when you really want a 9.5?

Seems Machiavellian.

 

[dismal]

I haven't heard one democrat call for open borders.

Right, they just mainly call anyone who suggests any kind of border enforcement "racist".

Curiously the media does not ask them to explain why they aren't racists for not supporting open borders. Nor does it ask them to clarify why they are against open borders (given their propensity to make "free lunch" arguments about immigration), and what exactly it is they are for seeing happen at the borders.

 

[TSwizzle]

I haven't heard one democrat call for open borders.

There may be a few that just don't want a border at all.