The immigration thread: American Melting Pot or Get off my Lawn

[Why am I Mr. Pink?]

Mohamed Bzeek knew that. But in his more than two decades as a foster father, he took them in anyway — the sickest of the sick in Los Angeles County’s sprawling foster care system.

He has buried about 10 children. Some died in his arms.

Now, Bzeek spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a bedridden 6-year-old foster girl with a rare brain defect. She’s blind and deaf. She has daily seizures. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.

Mohamed Bzeek knew that. But in his more than two decades as a foster father, he took them in anyway — the sickest of the sick in Los Angeles County’s sprawling foster care system.

He has buried about 10 children. Some died in his arms.

Now, Bzeek spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a bedridden 6-year-old foster girl with a rare brain defect. She’s blind and deaf. She has daily seizures. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.

Bzeek, a quiet, devout Libyan-born Muslim who lives in Azusa, just wants her to know she’s not alone in this life. 

“I know she can’t hear, can’t see, but I always talk to her,” he said. “I’m always holding her, playing with her, touching her. … She has feelings. She has a soul. She’s a human being.”

 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-foster-father-sick-children-2017-story.html

[balki1867]

12 hours ago, Larry said:

 

Maybe not enough to respond to sudden, unexpected, demands.  After all, producing those kinds of people does take years.  But we've been in the business of producing, say, doctors, for a long time.  (In fact, we produce a whole bunch of the doctors who now want H-1Bs.)  

 

 

There's a pretty huge dearth of doctors in the rural parts of the US. I have multiple exes who are doctors who've told me that they've been offered multiples of their salaries to move to smaller towns because of the shortage.  The biggest issue is is that most people who become doctors end up marrying someone who is fairly educated, in a professional career. That spouse isn't going to pick up and move to a tiny town and give up their own career, so moving a small town is off the table.

 

The solution is offering green cards to foreign-educated doctors to work in those small towns.  This isn't some touchy-feely liberal "American dream" type of story. It's hard economics- the US has to offer up something real to encourage highly qualified (and in-demand) professionals to move here and fill a hole in the economy. 

 

From what I've read, ~25% of the practicing doctors in the US are foreign-born. That's not a tiny gap. Given those numbers, i have to think that limiting green cards and legal immigration is going to affect our healthcare system, and it'll hit small towns the hardest.

[bcl05]

I'm a physician.  I get job offers nearly every week to at least double my salary to move to a small town and be a generalist.  Not tempting (I like my current job and location) but medical talent is definitely not distributed evenly across this country.  There are federal programs that will repay med school debts to new grads who will go to underserved areas.  Those tend to be tough jobs - lots of sick patients, minimal back up, minimal access to specialists, etc.  Even with those programs, there are many gaps.  Foreign-born docs fill a lot of those gaps - usually very well.  

 

There are a huge number of excellent foreign-born doctors here.  I work at the Mayo Clinic, and I have colleagues from all over the planet (including quite a few from the 7 countries in the EO).  Many of them are amongst the finest physicians in their field.  We are lucky to have them.   

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2017 by visionary

[TheGreatBuzz]

Did I miss something?  Did the appeals court give its ruling yet?

[visionary]

It's supposed to be sometime this week.

They had the (initial?) hearing last night.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2017 by visionary

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[balki1867]

NYT: "Trump’s Travel Ban, Aimed at Terrorists, Has Blocked Doctors"

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/health/trump-travel-ban-doctors.html

[LD0506]

2 hours ago, skinny21 said:

 

 

Stoke fear by empowering our enemies - check

Attempt to cripple the media - check

Attempt to erode any checks and balances to the Executive branch - check

Create news to push potential corruption to the back burner - check

 

 

Get caught in lies constantly- check

Throw a twitter tantrum regularly- check

Embarrass yourself internationally- check

Show your utter ignorance on subject after subject- check

Step on your dick on a daily basis- check

 

Somehow, in spite of the open venality and complete lack of scruples on display by this buncha clowns, I am not @ DefCon 1 yet.

 

Finish the saying: Give someone enough rope................

[visionary]

 

[Riggo-toni]

39 minutes ago, LD0506 said:

Finish the saying: Give someone enough rope................

And it will slip through his tiny little girly hands.....?

[LD0506]

21 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

And it will slip through his tiny little girly hands.....?

 

[The Sisko]

16 hours ago, Corcaigh said:

Another anecdote for you ... in affluent northern Virginia my son was the only non-Asian kid in his class taking AP Computer Science. And he is an immigrant too.

It's definitely the Mexicans' and Moozlums' fault. Praise the Lord that Dump is restoring white, Xtian 'Muricuh to greatness!!

 

5 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

Peer pressure has a lot more to do with academic success than most are willing to admit. Asian students compete with each other for bragging rights. White kids make fun of and/or bully the nerdy kids, and the best African-American students are subjected to being called traitors and Uncle Toms.

It may be splitting hairs a bit but I don't think most black kids consider other black kids who do well in school as traitors or Uncle Toms. What they do often do is accuse them of acting "white" or being Oreos. I got a lot of that sort of thing growing up, hence why I and a lot of us identify so much with Donald Glover and despise this mindset. It really sucks to be too white for the black kids while also being ostracized for being black by the white kids.

I had a conversation with some of my B-I-L's friends in which I lamented the idea among black kids that athletics is the only way to get ahead. They responded by saying that athletics are often the only objective, purely merit-based arena in which we get the opportunity to excel. They also mentioned that they never saw anyone like me or my wife growing up. One of these days I'd like to start a nonprofit to do just that.

 

Finally, closer to the point of the OP, this is an excellent analysis of exactly what's afoot. Forgive me if it was previously posted - don't have time to read the entire thread.

Quote

Government by White Nationalism Is Upon Us

Before the election, when Donald Trump was still just an unlikely presidential nominee, a conservative under the pseudonym “Publius Decius Mus,” wrote a remarkable essay in support of Trump. The pseudonym alone gave a glimpse into the writer’s thinking. The real-life Decius was a Roman consul who sacrificed himself to the gods for the sake of his embattled army. And in the same way, our internet Decius called on conservatives to embrace Trump—to back the vulgarian who mocked their ideals—for the sake of saving the country as they knew it. “The ceaseless importation of Third World foreigners with no tradition of, taste for, or experience in liberty means that the electorate grows more left, more Democratic, less Republican, less republican, and less traditionally American with every cycle,” he wrote, hailing the real estate mogul as the only figure who understood the stakes, who would beat back these “foreigners” and preserve America’s democratic tradition as Decius saw it. Not a tradition of pluralism, but one of exclusion, in which white Americans stand as the only legitimate players in political life. A dictatorship of the herrenvolk...

 

...America still has white supremacists, and they still terrorize nonwhites with harassment and violence. But now that most Americans share a nominal commitment to racial equality—such that the country celebrated at the election of its first black president, more than eight years ago—explicitly racist ideology has cloaked itself in a kind of “nationalism,” outside the mainstream, but not far from its borders...

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

What the hell is "EASY D"?

[Llevron]

3 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

What the hell is "EASY D"?

 

Careful who you ask that lol

[Corcaigh]

6 hours ago, balki1867 said:

 

From what I've read, ~25% of the practicing doctors in the US are foreign-born. That's not a tiny gap. Given those numbers, i have to think that limiting green cards and legal immigration is going to affect our healthcare system, and it'll hit small towns the hardest.

 

And if the state is picking up a significant portion of the cost of education it's a fantastic deal. Get all these doctors and engineers at no cost!

[visionary]

 

[China]

4 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said:

What the hell is "EASY D"?

 

Your prison nickname?

[Dan T.]

4 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said:

What the hell is "EASY D"?

 

West Coast rapper?

[JSSkinz]

[The Sisko]

4 hours ago, Corcaigh said:

 

And if the state is picking up a significant portion of the cost of education it's a fantastic deal. Get all these doctors and engineers at no cost!

Pinko Stalinist commie!

[Larry]

BTW, to the folks posting anecdotal information about supply and demand for rural doctors, 

 

Thanks.  Yes, I understand that it's "only anecdotal".  But still.  On a scale of credibility, even anecdotal information carries more weight that "something Larry imagines, based on no information at all".  

 

And I have to say, it's certainly counter to what I imagine.  In my imaginary world, rural areas have trouble hiring doctors, because they don;t have ther money to pay them as much as the big cities.  In my imagination, they're offering them much less money, and saying things about how low their cost of living is, and things, and then announcing that "well, I'm offering the market wage" (because they're offering the same lowball pay as other rural hospitals).  

 

And while I could still fall back on the slogan I've been known to throw around in the past, when debating this subject, ("If you can't get enough workers, at the price you're offering, then you aren't offering the market price.  By definition."), I think I'm going to have to, instead, modify my position.  At least some.  

 

[Corcaigh]

52 minutes ago, The Sisko said:

Pinko Stalinist commie!

 

I think you misunderstood.

 

I'm saying the opposite ... save all that money on state universities subsidized for Americans and replace the poem on Lady Liberty to get rid of that compassionate nonsense about "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and instead say "give me your doctors, your engineers, your science PhDs yearning to start technology firms"

Edited February 9, 2017 by Corcaigh

[PeterMP]

35 minutes ago, Larry said:

BTW, to the folks posting anecdotal information about supply and demand for rural doctors, 

 

Thanks.  Yes, I understand that it's "only anecdotal".  But still.  On a scale of credibility, even anecdotal information carries more weight that "something Larry imagines, based on no information at all".  

 

And I have to say, it's certainly counter to what I imagine.  In my imaginary world, rural areas have trouble hiring doctors, because they don;t have ther money to pay them as much as the big cities.  In my imagination, they're offering them much less money, and saying things about how low their cost of living is, and things, and then announcing that "well, I'm offering the market wage" (because they're offering the same lowball pay as other rural hospitals).  

 

And while I could still fall back on the slogan I've been known to throw around in the past, when debating this subject, ("If you can't get enough workers, at the price you're offering, then you aren't offering the market price.  By definition."), I think I'm going to have to, instead, modify my position.  At least some.  

 

 

If you read much on the left, people like Dean Baker, complain about trade agreements because they say they make working class people more direct competitors with workers in foreign countries, while things like doctors are relatively protected (to be a doctor in the US you have to do a residence in the US and there are a limited number of US resident spots).

 

He argues that you could level the field and save people money, especially those most directly affected by global trade, by making it easier to be a US doctor.

 

That trade agreements hurt the working class while other policies (e.g. that you have to do a residence in the US to be a doctor in the US) protect the educated/wealthy people. 

 

Now, I think there are issues with that.  Right off the bat, I might buy a car made in Mexico, but I'm not taking a trip to Mexico for a physical exam or doing a physical exam via skype or something with a doctor in Mexico.

 

The other thing is that I know the % of GDP from manufacturing and manufacturing jobs globally is down.  While I'm pretty sure healthcare has gone in the opposite direction (increasing in GDP and and number of jobs).

 

But I do think the over all point has some validity.  Bringing in people from other countries and training them and letting them be doctors probably is good for (some) income inequality.  It makes it easier for people w/o (much) money to get a doctor and reduces the earnings of (most) doctors.

[Larry]

1 minute ago, PeterMP said:

 

But I do think the over all point has some validity.  Bringing in people from other countries and training them and letting them be doctors probably is good for (some) income inequality.  It makes it easier for people w/o (much) money to get a doctor and reduces the earnings of (most) doctors.

 

Yeah, but now you're responding to my claim that importing doctors (and such) is simply a vehicle for making American wages lower, by saying "yeah, but making wages lower is good".  

 

(Yes, I certainly agree that there are some jobs that are more easily outsourced than others.  For example, some jobs simply have to be where the customer is.  I can book a hotel room by calling a call center that's anywhere.  But if I want my lawn trimmed, the work has to be done where my lawn is.)