Mikey wrote:This is either accidentally tangential or intentionally red-herring-ish. The point has nothing to do with convincing people of anything; rather, that your prior argument that "America considers the American way to be best" isn't in fact an argument for uncontrolled immigration, but simply a natural quality of humanity. That very fact is why people do vote and do engage in debate.
However, the fact that I say "I'm an American and I like America" is not the same as "please emigrate to America and expect no control over the issue at all."
At what point have I ever said no control? I said no quota on the number of people we allow to immigrate. If a guy's got a rap sheet a mile long and a kilo of coke in his jacket we're not going to let him in. This is about not turning away people just because we reached an arbitrary number.
Personally I think that if we're going to export our way of life and government, brag about how great it is, we are going to have to accept that people might listen and want to join. Why should we turn them away?
SolkaTruesilver wrote:It's a very good argument, but it also clearly points out what is the real problem: unemployed people would rather sit on their arse rather than go do these jobs they feel is beneath them. I do not think making up for the lack of unskilled willing labor with immigration is a good thing, as the 2nd generation of these immigrants will just be as poor and probably as unlikely to get off their arse to do the work, since they will be cleared for social welfare.
Once the first generation are citizens they're cleared for social welfare. If they just wanted to go on the dole they could, but they don't. And from what I've seen they usually teach their children the same work ethic.
Again, from what I have seen the problem isn't with immigrants, or children of immigrants, if fifth, six, eighth generation Americans who just say, "Fuck it," and go on handouts. I don't see that as an immigration problem so much as issue with welfare. And lets not kid ourselves. We're paying for many services for illegals already, the difference being that if they were legal they'd be paying taxes.
Hmm.. no, what I meant is, I don't believe the US should automatically be a country with more open borders when it comes to immigration than other countries. That's the basic principle. Now, the US might want to open or close their border because of circumstancial economic motivations (ex: massive labor shortage/overflow), but not based on "The US should be a land free for immigrants!". You don't run a country with nice slogans.
No you don't, but you do run a country based off your principles and let those guide your policy decisions. Once again I also have to point out that I never said an open border just let whoever wants to come over. I'm saying the quotas should be removed. The quotas are directly responsible for illegal immigration because we make it almost impossible for people to do it legally.
that being said, as you pointed out, there is a need of labor in the US right now for the immigrants coming over from the mexican border. I do not know exactly what is the economical reason (need of competitiveness on the part of business owner motivates paying smaller salaries?), but the point is: there is a paradoxal unbalance of available jobs. The people come to the US for find job, which they DO, even if the country is running as very high unemployment rate at the moment. That is a big problem, as uncontrolled and unreported labor is tax income loss for the government, and these workforce are more likely to be treated like dirt, which is simply disgusting.
The people are coming. We know they are. The presence of quotas doesn't prevent people from coming illegally it encourages it. And like you say, when they come over illegally they don't enjoy the protections that a legal worker does, they don't get paid like one does, and they don't get taxed like one does. The people who want to come aren't coming and going on the dole, THEY CAN'T. They come and get shit jobs working long hours for little pay because they want to be here. Someone willing to bust their ass in an orchard picking oranges for $3 an hour isn't the kind of person you want to keep out of the country they're the kind of person you want coming.
Yes, because at the time, you badly needed the additional population and labor pool over most spectrum of labor avalable (factory worker, land owner, farmer, entrepreneur, etc...). It's not the case anymore, as your country changed its economical fundamentals.
We're not an agrarian country anymore, or even a manufacturing country, we're an IT country but that doesn't mean that every job in the country can be done sitting in front of a computer or requires a college degree. You still need people who are willing to pick grapes, scrub toilets, build houses, lay carpet, or any one of numerous other professions that immigrants
Mark wrote:Wow, I can't believe I'm chiming in on this.
Ok, here is my personal take. The USA is not "public property". Why should we accept people who are going to immediately go onto public assistance, so the country can support them?
I really need to find some statistics as right now all I can do is argue from personal experience. My experience with immigrants has almost always been good, even exceptional. The guys who work for me during mainteance outages are almost all Central and Southern European immigrants and they are the hardest working sons of bitches I have ever met. They come out, they bust their asses for six hours straight, take a half hour lunch, then six more hours of busting ass. They get done in a shift what a union crew would take a week to do. I've got a lot of family in construction and they have the same thing, the immigrants are just plain harder workers. Where I used to live I'd drive by the welfare office to and from my way to work, not a lot of hispanics standing outside.
Lets be real, we can argue morality later. Who would contribute more to the country as a whole?
Depends on what you consider contributing. Yeah, your cardiologist is going to make more money, but I need my work crews to keep my power plant running. If I don't have those crews I have to use people who take longer and cost more. Those costs go back to the consumer. So while my insulation guy might only make $35,000 a year he's saving everyone in my service area a couple bucks a year.
A family of five with no education, skills, family, or place to live wants to move to the US. What is gonna happen? The father and mother pack up and leave and become US citizens. What's gonna happen when they get here? At best they go into the system and get government assistance, which to some poorer countries make them feel rich, so why work? At worst, they become homeless and potentially risk a life of crime.
Here's the thing Mark, they're coming. Our current way of doing things isn't keeping these people from immigrating. All it's doing is preventing them from doing it legally, removing any safety net, making them a net drain on our resources, and making the life of crime scenario more likely.
Deepcrush wrote:So can I ask what the point of this thread is?
Information, spark a debate, pretty much what it's done.