What is the problem with immigration?

[Alive]

It is very rare to hear an actual rational argument for why immigration is harmful to the US. I don't see the problem; we have jobs for immigrants to do and they want the jobs. Seems like a win-win situation. So why are some people so strongly against immigration?

[Milton Bradley]

I only oppose illegal immigration.


We have enough criminals here now.

[Alive]

Quote by: Milton Bradley I only oppose illegal immigration.

Would you support open borders then?

I suppose I can understand the opposition towards illegal immigration, though I can hardly fault people for trying to improve their own impoverished lives.

[Milton Bradley]

No way.


Six billion people, many of who hold opposing viewpoints. You do the math.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Milton Bradley I only oppose illegal immigration. We have enough criminals here now.

Some crimes are clear. Theft, murder and so forth we all agree on. "Illegal" immigration is whatever xenophobic legislators decide at the moment. Opposing illegal immigration is opposing immigration as "legal" immigration is so difficult and elitist.

The sad irony is that throughout our history, America has benefitted immeasurably from immigration while many Americans have opposed the influx of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants who seem to always want to close the door behind us.

[Alive]

You really think everyone would want to come to the US? :confused:

[Alive]

Quote by: RickSp Some crimes are clear. Theft, murder and so forth we all agree on. "Illegal" immigration is whatever xenophobic legislators decide at the moment. Opposing illegal immigration is opposing immigration as "legal" immigration is so difficult and elitist.

This is a very good point. I think with all supposed "crimes" we should ask ourselves, who does this harm? And if the answer is no one, or only the person making the decision, then it falls under the category of freedom and should not be forbidden. Immigration is such a matter.

So I don't see why we should oppose any immigration, legal or illegal, unless someone can demonstrate some kind of harm that comes from it.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: Alive You really think everyone would want to come to the US? :confused:

Enough to worry me about the societal implications.


I not ready to convert to Islam, or Hinduism just yet, thanks.

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: RickSp Some crimes are clear. Theft, murder and so forth we all agree on. "Illegal" immigration is whatever xenophobic legislators decide at the moment. Opposing illegal immigration is opposing immigration as "legal" immigration is so difficult and elitist. The sad irony is that throughout our history, America has benefitted immeasurably from immigration while many Americans have opposed the influx of immigrants. We are a nation of immigrants who seem to always want to close the door behind us.

I never implied who should, or should not be let in. I only went on record as opposing people who break the laws to get here.


I am anything but an elitist.

[tman_ndsu08]

Open immigration has very good benefits and very bad flaws.

The obvious benefit is that immigrents provide a cheap labor force. This drives down prices as costs go way down when you don't have to pay everyone minimum wage.


The flaws, of course, are that in socialist states like California, immigrents are allowed to cross over and receive government welfare without having to work. It's the worst type of free ride. Hell, if I know one thing it's this: if the government is going to steal my money away and give it to someone else that I don't even know, he/she better damn well be working.

And, like it was mentioned earlier, a minor flaw is that it would be easier for a terrorist to get into the country. But really, this is almost a non factor. If the FBI would do its job and track possible terrorists, then we wouldn't have to worry about them blowing stuff up.

[SteveA]

Once again (Don't you love how I always post the same thing ), most of the issues with immigration aren't that we can't benefit from people wanted to live and work here, it's due to the entitlements granted by living here.

The only real concern for screening the border might be to at least keep out known criminals but I think an open border policy could work fine .... once we've made changes elsewhere in the system.

We all enjoy a lot of free services - police, fire, freeways, medical (yes, you can free medical services if you know how), schools, libraries, legal protections, welfare and social services, low income housing etc.

All of these forms of assistance have costs. When we give them away too freely, we end up paying other ways (freeway congestion, if too many vehicles are on the road, hospital closures if it must provide too many free services, higher taxes for education, libraries, police, fire and courts etc.)

So, the main issue isn't that people want to come and live here and work. It's that we have a system that benefits the lower classes in many ways in comparison to other countries and this causes a pressure to come here.

I know need some of these services, and some of them need to remain free of cost (especially police and legal protections) but placing a small army on the border to keep people out, then giving them free services when they come is a rather schitzo view.

If someone came to America, worked and paid for their costs and didn't abuse public services, it's not a probalem and is actually a benefit to the U.S. We need more people like that :) If someone works in construction to earn money to buy a home from you, it's not an invasion ... they built a house or two elsewhere for you to take the money and live somewhere else if you wanted.

Anyway, I believe if we reformed much of the social services and possibly moved some government services to at least be partly fee based, we'd remove a lot of the abuse of these "free" services. This would lessen the burden on taxpayers and our infrastucture and provide a market in which private individuals could compete (you can't compete with a free government service, so no industries grow to supply more of that product).

It's likely this could reduce much of the flow of immigration, as well as lower the burdens of it to people already here. It could even provide a gain, as people with more resources and possibly skills, able to provide for themselves, would still find it possible to come.

We could still screen the borders to help reduce criminal elements that might try to enter the country but we wouldn't need a massive border patrol to try to keep everyone out because we'd have fewer immigrants, and those that came wouldn't be such an issue politically either.

[Cephus]

Quote by: Alive It is very rare to hear an actual rational argument for why immigration is harmful to the US. I don't see the problem; we have jobs for immigrants to do and they want the jobs. Seems like a win-win situation. So why are some people so strongly against immigration?

What, are you insane?

We do not have jobs for immigrants, we have jobs for people who come to this country LEGALLY and become US citizens. The fact is, our entire health care system is on the verge of collapse because of all the illegals whose health care is paid for 100% by the American taxpayer. Our jails are bursting at the seams with illegals who are costing us BILLIONS every year. Our welfare system is paying illegals for NOT working and our schools are giving free education to illegal children.

So where, exactly, is this a win-win situation?

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: Cephus our entire health care system is on the verge of collapse because of all the illegals whose health care is paid for 100% by the American taxpayer.

Quote by: Cephus Our jails are bursting at the seams with illegals who are costing us BILLIONS every year. Our welfare system is paying illegals for NOT working and our schools are giving free education to illegal children.

You need to source these arguments. Then you need to show how there is a net negative effect to illegal immigration. I don't think you can...

[SteveA]

Quote by: Cephus What, are you insane? We do not have jobs for immigrants, we have jobs for people who come to this country LEGALLY and become US citizens. The fact is, our entire health care system is on the verge of collapse because of all the illegals whose health care is paid for 100% by the American taxpayer. Our jails are bursting at the seams with illegals who are costing us BILLIONS every year. Our welfare system is paying illegals for NOT working and our schools are giving free education to illegal children. So where, exactly, is this a win-win situation?

Whether someone comes legally or not doesn't mean much in itself. I agree we should screen people entering the country to deter known criminals but other than that it would be nice to just have an open border.

I agree that's impossible though, under the current system. We should fix the underlyng problems we've created via. government that make immigration a problem and then we can more or less open the border.

Also, regarding jobs, people create jobs as well as consume them. Admittedly a recent immigrant isn't likely to be bringing a company with them but if an immigrant is working and earning an income that they buy products with, then that immigrant is creating jobs as well by producing products or services and paying others through his purchases.

I do agree that many immigrants come without a valuable skill set and often take a low paying position (though that's not always the case). This doesn't help the overall state of things because the services they're providing aren't very valuable, and the infrastructure and social services effectively allows someone to live by only producing a small fraction of the resources consumed (for example, when an immigrant comes, they don't bring a house and some segment of a road with them, but need to help pay for these costs).

A side comment too: It's not only illegal immigrants that have this effect. It can be native born citizens as well. The problem isn't really over immigration. People could immigrate from one state to another yet we don't consider that to be a problem, because it's not. The issue that's a problem for immigration and citizens in that our social services promote apathy and bias the costs of things so people don't see the value of the products they consume.

Fix the social system first. Then open the borders, and it'll be much easier to screen for criminal elements trying to enter the country once much of the flow has ebbed.

Immigration isn't the problem, whether legal or not, it's how we deal with it.

[Alive]

Quote by: Cephus We do not have jobs for immigrants, we have jobs for people who come to this country LEGALLY and become US citizens.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you asserting that illegal immigrants do not work in this country?

The fact is, our entire health care system is on the verge of collapse because of all the illegals whose health care is paid for 100% by the American taxpayer. Our jails are bursting at the seams with illegals who are costing us BILLIONS every year. Our welfare system is paying illegals for NOT working and our schools are giving free education to illegal children. So where, exactly, is this a win-win situation?

If everything in this quote is true, no it isn't. But I've certaintly read reports of studies saying that illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they took from social services. Do you have any evidence for your stats here?

Quote by: SteveA Immigration isn't the problem, whether legal or not, it's how we deal with it.

I agree very much with this.

[SteveA]

Quote by: Alive If everything in this quote is true, no it isn't. But I've certaintly read reports of studies saying that illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they took from social services. Do you have any evidence for your stats here?

In California, we have a problem with government requiring hospitals to supply free emergency room services to people. Something like 40% of our emergency rooms have been closed down now and the remaining ones can hardly respond to real emergencies because they are so crowded.

I'm not claiming that's entirely due to immigration but that's a large part of it.

I found some comments regarding an article about this:

http://www.mwilliams.info/archives/004637.php

I agree very much with this.

Thanks. My in-laws are refugees and good people, though it's a shame to see new immigrants get hooked onto the social system. I have nothing against immigrants and personally feel most are hard working and well intentioned, even more so than the average native born citizen ... but it's tough to resist taking the easy road when it's offered. A friend of mine told me he knew a guy who immigrated here to live the american dream of collecting 8 welfare checks per month :( That's where the real problem lies. Many women get married and have children but claim they don't know who the father (while living with the guy) and collect money for that as well. And the worst part is that if you're a law abiding citizen trying to do the "right thing" it's a handicap. It's a social attitude that's propagated through government and it's what I believe is harming education and the economy. (Yes, there are a few people on the other end of the economy spectrum ripping us off too ... but the common factor is government not respecting peoples private propertys. Now that people see you can get what you want via. laws and police and economic redistribution, it's a free for all over a dwindling carcus - at least that's what I see. You don't need education, work or morals etc. You just get enough people to vote yourself a priviledge at others expense - good ole democracy in action).

[austin2011]

I can't believe none of you have no idea what these illegal immigrants are actually doing to our economy. Maybe too much CNN? Look, illegals drive done wages. When Mexican president Fox said that Mexicans were willing to do work that even blacks were not willing to do, he was leaving out an extremely critical detail- like everyone else does- blacks and whites alike are willing to do hard manual labor- no problem... but not for minimum wage... and alot of the time, even below that. It's simple.. and the American public is so dumbed down by TV propaganda that no one can even think straight to see this. Before the 1980's, 80% of the janitors in L.A. county alone were black and were making decent union wages. That all ended with the massive surge flow of the illegals around that time. Another aspect to all of this in regards to Hispanics, is that many of these people do not respect the U.S., have no intention of ever assimulating into American mainstream culture, not only have no intention of ever learning English, but actually want to push Spanish on all of you- make it the language of the U.S. (along with their culture) The difference between them and the immigrants from Europe, was that Europeans didn't have a "chip" on their shoulder about "taking back" their land, because it wasn't theirs to begin with- but as everybody knows, much of the southern U.S. used to be Mexican territory- you can read it in all the Mexican propaganda papers and books about how they're "taking over"- there's a store 5 blocks from me called "Resistia".. and no one needs a map to figure out what this all about. And yes, the Europeans coming here 100 years ago didn't get to take advantage of a welfare system- they had to work their butts off- and that makes a big difference in someone's attitude- I know these immigrants do hard work, but they're still be pandered to, and they just laugh at us behind our backs. They came here because their country is a horrible place to live- why? because it's full of people like them. So they are coming here, walking on your back and laughing you and they hate you. They are an enemy to this country because they present themselves that way, and they want to turn the U.S. into a dumpster third world country as well. If all of the Hispanics that we have now invaded the U.S. all at once, we would have had no choice but to declare war on Mexico.

[rcne]

No one has brought up the issue of diseases such as TB and the plague which are making a reappearance in this country - supposedly from Illegal immigrants.

I can say illegal immigrants because legal immigrants must have a physical and be accepted before immigration.

Just another case of us funding a larger share of he world than any other country.

[Athena]

Quote by: Alive It is very rare to hear an actual rational argument for why immigration is harmful to the US. I don't see the problem; we have jobs for immigrants to do and they want the jobs. Seems like a win-win situation. So why are some people so strongly against immigration?

The problem with immigrantion is social choas, and our present knee jerk reaction which is destroying our liberty. It isn't just immigrantion the causes social chaos. Since we replaced liberal education with education for technology, we have lost culture as a means of social control and become more authoritarian.

The whole world is under going a major shift right now, and these on line discussions are very important to us from one paradigm to the next. The old religious/culture models no longer work. I attempted to broach this subject in the thread international responsibility but that one came to a dead end very fast. When I say there is a probem with immigration, I do not mean to close the US off from the world. Today we need a new paradigm that includes our new reality, and can no longer work with a pre-industrial, pre-electricity and fossil fuel paradigm. We need to consider all people, and we need to be real about what happens when there is mass immigrantion and a failure to cultivate a unifying culture.

[Logjam]

Quote by: rcne No one has brought up the issue of diseases such as TB and the plague which are making a reappearance in this country - supposedly from Illegal immigrants. I can say illegal immigrants because legal immigrants must have a physical and be accepted before immigration. Just another case of us funding a larger share of he world than any other country.

Illegal immigrants' kids from Mexico and other South American countries aren't vaccinated. Almost ALL American kids are. So if we are having a re-emergance of disease in this country it is coming in with the illegal immigrants.

We do have resistance strains of TB here now. They are new. We do have a re emergance of Hooping Cough. I hadn't heard about an increase of the plague. We have always had small outbreaks of plague.

Illegal immigrants come in here with worms, lice and disease. It's a part of being poor in Mexico.