Immigration

[Weave]

We've talked about this in the President thread.  I think it deserves its own topic.

Most of the immigration hawks complain that potential immigrants need to stand in line and wait their turn and emigrate legally.  I've countered in the President thread that there is no legal path, so waiting in line is not an option.  If you don't give someone a path, a motivated individual will make one.

Simple, open immigration IS a conservative concept, and a free market concept.  It's the concept this country was founded on, and for most of its existence was practice.

I've mentioned before that legal immigration is only really possible for the wealthy and the highly educated.  Here's a link to a Reason magazine article describing it in more detail.

https://reason.com/2019/12/18/there-is-no-line/
 

Quote

 

There are vanishingly few paths to being legally able to live and work here. The two main roads to legal immigration are the family-based visa program and the employment-based visa program. The family-based visa program is only freely available to the parents, spouses, or unmarried under-21 children of a U.S. permanent resident or citizen. (Those two classes of people are grouped together under the legal term "U.S. persons.") There are more-limited slots available to siblings, married children, and adult unmarried children. There are no slots for nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, or stepchildren if the marriage creating that relationship occurred after the child was 18.

What if you're not related to a U.S. person? It's still possible for you to legally move to America, but it's unlikely. To qualify for an EB-1 employment-based immigration visa, you usually need a job offer from a U.S. employer. Nobel laureates, Olympic gold medalists, and other rare creatures can qualify for the elusive "persons with extraordinary ability" visa without a job in hand. But for the rest of us mortals, a U.S. employer must have made us an offer of a job. And not just any job.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), there are two main types of qualifying workers: "outstanding professors and researchers with at least three years experience in teaching or research, who are recognized internationally," and "multinational managers or executives who have been employed for at least one of the preceding three years by the overseas affiliate, parent, subsidiary, or branch of the U.S. employer." Those are high bars to meet. But if you're one of the few with extraordinary qualifications and have an offer from a U.S. employer, you could get the green light to immigrate to the United States.

 

 

[SABRES 0311]

I agree we need speed up the process so Frolik can get here. 

I don’t pay as much attention to the immigration issue so I can’t speak fluently on it. Shame on me. From the little I know it seems the system is overloaded. I have seen people in other countries lined up at our embassy applying for access to the U.S. I thought it was demonstrators but turns out a lot of people want to come here. That said hiring more immigration people to deal with the workload is a good idea IMO. 

However I do not support coming into the U.S. through a non official port of entry. Besides breaking U.S. law it is extremely dangerous. Specifically I hate the idea of little kids and pregnant mothers going through that. 

IMO the root cause of illegal immigration is not on our laws or procedures. Our system is overloaded because so many people are fleeing their home country due to corruption and organized crime. If I had to guess these people would rather lead happy lives in their country of origin instead of making the long trip here.

 

[Weave]

How did you pull that out of the article?  Speed of the process isn't the problem.  Total lack of a process for all but the wealthy and certain areas of academics is the problem.

 

Our laws are the cause of illegal entry.  If they had a reasonable opportunity to get a visa they wouldn’t take the risk.  Not certainty, but opportunity.

 

Right now illegal entry is the ONLY path for 90%+ of potential immigrants.  That’s ridiculous.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Weave

[SABRES 0311]

45 minutes ago, Weave said:

How did you pull that out of the article?  Speed of the process isn't the problem.  Total lack of a process for all but the wealthy and certain areas of academics is the problem.

 

Our laws are the cause of illegal entry.  If they had a reasonable opportunity to get a visa they wouldn’t take the risk.  Not certainty, but opportunity.

 

Right now illegal entry is the ONLY path for 90%+ of potential immigrants.  That’s ridiculous.

So then what’s the fix?

[Weave]

57 minutes ago, SABRES 0311 said:

So then what’s the fix?

I like the authors thoughts.  Turn immigration into “shall grant” instead of “shall not grant” as a baseline.  Perform thorough background checks at application.  And let staffing levels determine the pace of immigration.  There is a real pathway to entry so the risks of illegal entry are no longer worth it for most.  That way we are actually controlling immigration instead of having the immigration theater that we have now.

[SABRES 0311]

8 minutes ago, Weave said:

I like the authors thoughts.  Turn immigration into “shall grant” instead of “shall not grant” as a baseline.  Perform thorough background checks at application.  And let staffing levels determine the pace of immigration.  There is a real pathway to entry so the risks of illegal entry are no longer worth it for most.  That way we are actually controlling immigration instead of having the immigration theater that we have now.

Sounds like what I was saying in my first post. More people to deal with the workload.

[Weave]

27 minutes ago, SABRES 0311 said:

Sounds like what I was saying in my first post. More people to deal with the workload.

Well no, not as things currently stand.  Right now you could quadruple the staff and it wouldn’t matter.  Current rules only allow for very specific scenarios to have a legal path onto the country.  Everyone else is excluded.  The rules need to change first.

 

Edit to add:

Here’s a good test if there is real immigration opportunities in this country.  If you were a citizen of, say Poland, or Romania, with your current education and vocation, with no family in the US, could you successfully, legally obtain long term entry into this country.  For nearly every member of this forum the answer is no.  That’s not real immigration policy.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Weave

[LTS]

When it comes to the topic of immigration, I tend to shoot a bit higher.

Do we need more people coming into this country?  It has nothing to do with who they are or where they come from for me. It simply is a matter of sustainability. If we already have so many below the poverty line.  If we have so much homelessness and starvation. What is the point of letting MORE people in?  

Why should people be allowed to come to the United States to work?  

The romanticism of United States immigration needs to die.  It served a purpose when the country was growing.  At some point, there is a limit to what an economy and a geography can sustain.  I think United States is well past that point, especially given that we've eliminated so many jobs that solidify an economic base. 

I realize that comes across as highly nationalistic.  I don't intend it to mean it that way.  Even if I were not a US citizen I would question the concept.  Why should anyone be allowed to go anywhere they please to live and work? 

To me it's like saying I want to work at Company X and I should have the right to do so.  Just stand in line and get a job.  But it's not how it works, if I don't add value to that company they aren't going to want me.  I suppose you could argue that it should be easy for anyone to apply for a spot in the United States, but that doesn't mean you ever make it past the automatic screener.

My mind is hardly set in these ways...  but my first thought is that before we go making it easier for people to come into the country that maybe we should put more effort into fixing what is wrong with us first.

 

 

 

[Weave]

I don't believe for a minute that our economy wouldn't grow with an influx of immigration.  Every study I've ever seen shows immigrants as way over represented in small business statistics.  Immigrants make up 14% of the population yet own 18% of small businesses, and account for 30% of all small business growth.  Those businesses account for 14% of the private sector employment.  Simply put, immigration drive economic growth.

 

I'm certainly not advocating a let them all in policy.  There should be some level of assurance that they will be contributing to the economy. I'm sure someone better learned than I can devise a screening to identify the potential contributors.  But right now we have an immigration policy that makes it impossible for all but an elite group to get in.  And that has resulted in uncontrolled immigration and cries for a wall.  We don't need a wall.  We need real immigration policy.

[Weave]

Here's a good example

of the problem, and a potential fix.  Again, uncontrolled immigration is happening.  That's a fact.  A wall isn't stopping it.   The current rules aren't stopping it.  The correct response is to provide a real pathway and CONTROL it.

https://magicvalley.com/business/agriculture/the-fix-for-ag-s-labor-woes-farm-bill-would/article_67a7021b-09b8-5a7c-9a09-af0e499b2384.html#tracking-source=home-top-story
 

Quote

 

WIN FALLS — Idaho dairies rely almost exclusively on foreign-born labor since few domestic workers are willing to take jobs in agriculture. But dairy farmers aren’t eligible to hire through one of the few available legal avenues, and, to stay in business, they must rely on workers with ambiguous legal status.

The system creates high turnover costs and a general sense of uncertainty for dairy farmers, said Willie Bokma, who owns a dairy in Twin Falls County.

“We have a stressful enough life as farmers and especially as dairy farmers,” Bokma said. “We can’t afford to have an irregular workforce.”

 

 

Quote

 

The farm bill moving through Congress would allow those who have worked in agriculture for six months to receive five-year renewable visas for as long as they remain in agriculture. It would also create a voluntary option to earn lawful permanent resident status if the worker pays a $1,000 fine, and works either four and eight more years in agriculture, depending on their work experience.

Simpson said that provision is intended to create a gradual process for legalization that would allow farmers to hire new workers to replace those who will likely leave agriculture after a few years.

 

Quote

 

In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, providing amnesty for more than 1.1 million farmworkers and imposing the first federal sanctions on employers who knowingly hired unauthorized workers.

But the Immigration Reform and Control Act didn’t offer farmers a system to hire foreign labor. Many agricultural workers who gained amnesty soon left agriculture and were replaced by undocumented workers.

Unauthorized workers now make up about half of the 1.8 million workers in agriculture. That number has held steady for nearly three decades, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

 

 

[LTS]

9 hours ago, Weave said:

I don't believe for a minute that our economy wouldn't grow with an influx of immigration.  Every study I've ever seen shows immigrants as way over represented in small business statistics.  Immigrants make up 14% of the population yet own 18% of small businesses, and account for 30% of all small business growth.  Those businesses account for 14% of the private sector employment.  Simply put, immigration drive economic growth.

 

I'm certainly not advocating a let them all in policy.  There should be some level of assurance that they will be contributing to the economy. I'm sure someone better learned than I can devise a screening to identify the potential contributors.  But right now we have an immigration policy that makes it impossible for all but an elite group to get in.  And that has resulted in uncontrolled immigration and cries for a wall.  We don't need a wall.  We need real immigration policy.

Almost immediately in your quotes the thing that jumps out at me is the reference to works with ambiguous legal status, aka, illegal immigrants.  Those who are not subjected to minimum wages or taxes.  While I see references in the article to dairy farmers saying that more H-2A visas would be a benefit even if they are paying the AEWR, if you look at the AEWRs being paid I find it hard to believe that more Americans are not looking for those jobs.

The AEWR for NYS is $14.29.  The minimum wage in NYS is $11.80 this year.

Perhaps I am misreading the way the wages work.  Those in the farming industry I've spoken to in the past commonly refer to the illegal immigrants and their ability to paid less than any government mandated wage.  

As to the value of immigrants on economic growth, I believe it, to a certain degree.  That being that I have no doubt they are responsible for those numbers, but also at the same time wishing that our own society was not so broken so that there wouldn't be a concept that you need people from outside the United States to come in and start businesses to save the economy.  Mostly because if they are coming in to start businesses and succeeding, then what do those who failed do.  We aren't shipping them out of the country.  We aren't helping them succeed.

The issue, as I see it, is that the United States natural born citizen tends to fall into two camps these days.  There are those who believe they should go massively in debt while going to college and expect to get paid well upon graduation or soon thereafter and there are those who aren't able to but feel like the government lets them down because so many foreign born workers are so successful. They gain a sense of entitlement.  There are not enough people in the United States who think a trade profession is valuable or "noble". There are so many who think they are supposed to be given something so much more.  This is a huge problem.

This is a gross oversimplification,  I acknowledge that. I think you could write 100 pages and not fully flesh out the concept.

That said, foreign workers often come here with a very different mindset on what is success and what they need in life. They work together, they build strong family and cultural units to help each other succeed (Again, I accept the broad generalization here).  This is not a bad thing.  However, I do think that there is a tendency for natural citizens to feel threatened by that. I have no doubt it plays into the nationalistic platform somewhere. We've basically become fat and lazy and entitled.  Not everyone, naturally, but I think its getting to critical mass.

So, I get curious about what the natural born citizen does when they lose even more of their chances at success to immigrant workers and end up blaming the immigrants as opposed to looking more critically at their own ideals and work ethic. I think we see some of the early signs of what that looks like today, and not just in the United States.

Perhaps there's a point where enough immigrants enter the country that the mindset of the United States finally changes.  I just worry what it looks like until it gets to that point.

I suppose that's not a reason to be against immigration, but things may get uglier before they get better.

[LTS]

An interesting Opinion piece I came across today.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-07/great-race-passing-trump

Now, I don't find any huge surprises. Immigration policy has long favored European immigrants.  That is, in fact, what our initial immigration policy was.  

But some of the references in there to Eugenics and the people who have served roles in that are pretty interesting.  I have not done much reading into the articles linked. I  started to read the article linked on Sanger regarding Planned Parenthood and the assertion that she started lobbying for birth control as a way to stem the "weeds of humanity" from procreating.

That said, natural order states that those at the top of the food chain produce less off spring.  I don't think that's much different with humans.  Those in poor economic conditions tend to have more children. There's a point where you don't have enough resources so you end up having more children just to see how many can survive. It sounds twisted, but we're not that evolved as humans.  Those who have many resources tend to cut back on their family size so as to preserve those resources.

I do think some of the rebranding of the concepts that are mentioned in this article are driving what I referred to above.  Stoking the fear of being replaced.