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

[Larry]

39 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

The solution to the immigration problem from a US border stand point is to go after employers.  If you have to pull people off the border and just continually go into work places that are likely to hire illegals and fine the employers.  If companies have to keep paying fines and keep having their work disrupted, they'll quite hiring illegals and if there aren't jobs, people that come illegally will stop coming.  Then you don't have to worry about the border.

 

During the great recession, there was net self-deportation because there weren't jobs.  Start going to farms, construction sites, etc. and look at the paper work of the people working there.  You don't need to arrest them or anything, just fine the employer.  Then go back two weeks later.

 

As those companies start to deal with loss of cheap labor, they'll also line up behind some reasonable immigration policy, and we can have a real discussion of how is the best way to handle the situation.

 

 

At least from what I've read, (and I believe it), That's the way things traditionally go.  

 

A Dem takes over, and enforcement ignores the border, and focuses on employers.  

Then the R's take over, employers get ignored, and they throw people at the border, and deportation.  

 

6 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

American citizens aren't going to do the jobs that migrant workers do

 

Untrue.  

 

American workers won't do it, for the same money.  

 

(Although I suppose you could argue that maybe if all the illegals went away, there would be more jobs than the total US working population.)  

 

Now, if you want to assert that there's a national benefit to be had from keeping the wages in some industries artificially low, then I agree with your position about how to do it.  

 

Sorry.  It's just a talking point that triggers me.  Just like the phrase "law abiding illegal immigrant".  

Edited March 30, 2021 by Larry

[TheGreatBuzz]

10 hours ago, NoCalMike said:

Immigration will continue to be a messy situation until both political parties actually want to fix the situation.  I don't think it will ever be fixed in the way some idealists would like, but it can still be improved vastly over what it is currently.

No one came even agree on what “fixed” means.

[Riggo-toni]

23 minutes ago, Larry said:

American workers won't do it, for the same money.  

 

(Although I suppose you could argue that maybe if all the illegals went away, there would be more jobs than the total US working population.)  

 

How much would you have to be paid to work 10 hrs a day in the hot Alabama sun picking raspberries? Farmers were offering $15-20/hr ten years ago in rural Alabama and getting no takers. The loss to the state iirc was estimated at a billion dollars.  The governor even at one point tried to make convicts work the fields with predicably bad results. People love to blame immigrants for stealing jobs they don't want, but everyone's grocery bill would probably double without them, and new housing costs would soar.... effects that would hurt the poor the most.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2011/11/17/10565/top-10-reasons-alabamas-new-immigration-law-is-a-disaster-for-agriculture/

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/

Since 1950 the U.S. labor force has roughly doubled in size, but there has been no long-run increase in unemployment. Most economic studies also find little evidence that increased immigration depresses the wages of U.S. workers.  At worst, it might push down the wages of high school dropouts, but even there the effect is small.

 

Simple supply and demand analysis would seem to indicate if you increase the supply of labor, wages will decline. But immigrants don’t simply increase the supply of labor. They supply skills that most Americans don’t have. As such, they don’t replace American workers so much as free them up to do other, typically more-skilled, things. This symbiotic relationship benefits immigrants and native-born alike.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Riggo-toni

[Larry]

3 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

How much would you have to be paid to work 10 hrs a day in the hot Alabama sun picking raspberries? Farmers were offering $15-20/hr ten years ago in rural Alabama and getting no takers. The loss to the state iirc was estimated at a billion dollars.  The governor even at one point tried to make convicts work the fields with predicably bad results. People love to blame immigrants for stealing jobs they don't want, but everyone's grocery bill would probably double without them, and new housing costs would soar.... effects that would hurt the poor the most.

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/2011/11/17/10565/top-10-reasons-alabamas-new-immigration-law-is-a-disaster-for-agriculture/

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/

 

 

Which i9s an excellent argument for why allowing the free market to work might not be desirable, in this case.  

[PeterMP]

4 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

American citizens aren't going to do the jobs that migrant workers do, so the solution isn't to go after employers but rather to set up things like guest worker programs for migrant farm labor and the like. One of the redneck states (I have forgotten which one... maybe Alabama) set up draconian laws a few years ago against immigrants and lost a fortune in agriculture.

Trump, Buchanan, and all the other demagogues love to blame everything on immigrants while ignoring the tremendous benefits they bring to the country, while hardcore liberals sour average American attitudes by championing coddling initiatives like bilingual education or multi-cultural sensitivity.

Let, hell, even encourage foreign students who get advanced stem degrees to stay in the US and put them on a slow path to citizenship. Repeat Reagan's bill where those who have worked here for more than 5 years and have not committed any felonies can get green cards and pay taxes. End the drug war, at least against mj, to reduce, if only slightly, violence in Central America.

Our population is ageing and the simplest solution to keep entitlements solvent without crippling tax increases is to bring in more qualified youth. Our best weapon against China could be a return to the brain drain where their best and brightest come here.

 

I never said Americans are going to do the work.  I said those industries will start to support some sort of reasonable immigration policy.

 

(Though, I'm not sure the answer isn't to allow those industries in the US largely go out of business.  At some level, we're trying to support an economy that scales multiple economic/technological/industrial revolutions and I'm not sure that makes sense.)

[PeterMP]

6 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

How much would you have to be paid to work 10 hrs a day in the hot Alabama sun picking raspberries? Farmers were offering $15-20/hr ten years ago in rural Alabama and getting no takers. The loss to the state iirc was estimated at a billion dollars.  The governor even at one point tried to make convicts work the fields with predicably bad results. People love to blame immigrants for stealing jobs they don't want, but everyone's grocery bill would probably double without them, and new housing costs would soar.... effects that would hurt the poor the most.

 

Simple supply and demand analysis would seem to indicate if you increase the supply of labor, wages will decline. But immigrants don’t simply increase the supply of labor. They supply skills that most Americans don’t have. As such, they don’t replace American workers so much as free them up to do other, typically more-skilled, things. This symbiotic relationship benefits immigrants and native-born alike.

 

A few thoughts from somebody that grew up at a time and in a place where field work was done by Americans and lives next door to a field where migrants work:

 

1.  I'm doubtful anybody is really working 10 hours a day in the hot sun in Alabama.  I worked in a field after my senior year in high school.  I started at 5 am and finished at 11am.  Another crew came back in late afternoon/early evening and worked at night.  Where I live now, they start in the morning before I get up, don't work through the middle of the afternoon and go back out not too long before we start working on dinner most evenings.  (I'm not sure if it is the same people).

 

2.  A lot of these jobs were being done by low skilled Americans (the other job I had in high school/college was working in restaurants at beaches, which seems to have also been heavily taken over by immigrant (though they mostly seem European and so are likely here on temporary work visas)) that were low skilled because of their age.  I was low skilled in high school and college because I didn't have experience doing high skilled work.

 

3.  In the late 1980's I made about $6/hour (under the table and we weren't paid per an hour, but my recollection is that's about what I averaged) doing field work.  An inflation adjusted calculator says that's $12.69 today.  But I was preparing for my major cost, which was college tuition.  My first semester in college, my tuition was $1497.  Adjusted for inflation, today that's $3166.64.  Where I went to college (in state) tuition is over $10,000 today.  So that's over triple.  The comparable thing then would be over $36.00/hour to do field work.

 

(I think this is a fundamental issue that gets lost here.  For many unskilled people in the US today, paying their biggest expense with low skilled work isn't very practical and so that drives down their interest in doing so.  They are better of taking other work that MIGHT impact their longer term earning even if that work doesn't pay (i.e. unpaid internships).  If you told an 18 year old, they'd be able to pay their bills (gas, etc.), a semester of tuition, and have money left over working 36 hours a week during a summer that might change things.

 

I'll also point out that production costs don't drive prices.  Supply and demand does.  Certainly, for some time period changing labor costs might affect supply and demand and longer term with government limits and factors that affect imports there could be a longer term affect.  But I find it hard to believe if you adjust government interventions to protect the US agricultural industry that increased labor costs will increase US food prices.  If you drive down the labor supply in the US suddenly this summer, yes, there might be a short term increase in prices as produce isn't harvested so supply goes down.   But longer term (if the government allows) production will just shift to the countries that immigrants are coming from and prices will stabilize and might even be lower.)

Edited March 30, 2021 by PeterMP

[visionary]

 

[LD0506]

[visionary]

 

[China]

Biden lets Trump's H-1B visa ban expire

 

The H-1B visa ban introduced by President Donald Trump last year expired on Wednesday, with President Joe Biden allowing the rules to come to an end. 

 

In an update on Thursday, the US Department of State said visa applicants who were previously refused due to Trump's freeze may reapply by submitting a new application. Visa applicants who have not yet been interviewed will have their applications prioritized and processed under the State Department's phased resumption plan. 

 

The Trump administration in June 2020 stopped the government issuing H-1B visas through an an executive order linked to the coronavirus pandemic. In October, Trump then placed new restrictions on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers -- rules that were struck down by a federal judge in December who said the administration failed to show "good cause" for issuing the rules on an emergency basis. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[CousinsCowgirl84]

On 3/30/2021 at 10:27 AM, PeterMP said:

The solution to the immigration problem from a US border stand point is to go after employers.  If you have to pull people off the border and just continually go into work places that are likely to hire illegals and fine the employers.  If companies have to keep paying fines and keep having their work disrupted, they'll quite hiring illegals and if there aren't jobs, people that come illegally will stop coming.  Then you don't have to worry about the border.

 

During the great recession, there was net self-deportation because there weren't jobs.  Start going to farms, construction sites, etc. and look at the paper work of the people working there.  You don't need to arrest them or anything, just fine the employer.  Then go back two weeks later.

 

As those companies start to deal with loss of cheap labor, they'll also line up behind some reasonable immigration policy, and we can have a real discussion of how is the best way to handle the situation.

right now they are dropping their kids over the boarder because Democrats have led them to believe that the dreamers act will be expanded. I don’t think going after employers will be that effective.  Cracking down on stuff doesn’t ever really seem to control it.

[bearrock]

37 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

right now they are dropping their kids over the boarder because Democrats have led them to believe that the dreamers act will be expanded. I don’t think going after employers will be that effective.  Cracking down on stuff doesn’t ever really seem to control it.

 

Versions of the Dream Act has been kicked around since 2001, with the most recent version requiring physical presence in the US prior to Jan 2021.  What expansion are we talking about?

 

Many of these parents drop these kids across the border because they believe their children will have a shot at a better life as a illegal immigrant in the US than in their home country.

 

But I do agree that the level of draconian crackdown that will be required to have people self deport probably isn't all that feasible.  You could make their lives much worse than it is currently.  But can you make their lives worse than it would be in the ghettos of their home country that they have no real ties to?  We're gonna try to make that a reality in the US?

[CousinsCowgirl84]

46 minutes ago, bearrock said:

 

Versions of the Dream Act has been kicked around since 2001, with the most recent version requiring physical presence in the US prior to Jan 2021.  What expansion are we talking about?

 

Many of these parents drop these kids across the border because they believe their children will have a shot at a better life as a illegal immigrant in the US than in their home country.

 

But I do agree that the level of draconian crackdown that will be required to have people self deport probably isn't all that feasible.  You could make their lives much worse than it is currently.  But can you make their lives worse than it would be in the ghettos of their home country that they have no real ties to?  We're gonna try to make that a reality in the US?

I am not talking about a specific policy that the democrats are proposing just of their overall attitude that illegal immigrants are to be condoned.  

[TradeTheBeal!]

3 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I am not talking about a specific policy that the democrats are proposing just of their overall attitude that illegal immigrants are to be condoned.  

You don’t think the two Cat 5 hurricanes that hit Central America a few months back have anything to do with it?

[bearrock]

1 hour ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

I am not talking about a specific policy that the democrats are proposing just of their overall attitude that illegal immigrants are to be condoned.  

 

Not sure how the average democrat feels, but personally, I think you have a better chance of reinstituting prohibition than completely eradicating illegal immigration across land borders.  I would rather seek a compromise solution that allows some form of authorized work with surtax for foreign workers and employers with no or highly merit based path to citizenship and public assistance eligibility based on long years of paying into the system for permanent residents.  I'd probably get flamed on all sides though.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

9 hours ago, bearrock said:

 

Not sure how the average democrat feels, but personally, I think you have a better chance of reinstituting prohibition than completely eradicating illegal immigration across land borders.  I would rather seek a compromise solution that allows some form of authorized work with surtax for foreign workers and employers with no or highly merit based path to citizenship and public assistance eligibility based on long years of paying into the system for permanent residents.  I'd probably get flamed on all sides though.

I agree stopping illegal immigrants is a fools errand. I also dont have a problem with people coming to work.... but it seems like they are just dropping off their children with the hopes that we will provide them a path to citizenship, a belief that I think has been bolstered by the democratic messaging around immigration policy. 

 

10 hours ago, TryTheBeal! said:

You don’t think the two Cat 5 hurricanes that hit Central America a few months back have anything to do with it?

Maybe, maybe not. Hard to say.  There are probably numerous factors.

[PeterMP]

On 4/4/2021 at 10:26 AM, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

right now they are dropping their kids over the boarder because Democrats have led them to believe that the dreamers act will be expanded. I don’t think going after employers will be that effective.  Cracking down on stuff doesn’t ever really seem to control it.

 

Just to be clear, the Dreams act has never been passed to be expanded.  Generally, people don't talk about the expansion of an act that has never been passed.

 

We know that if there aren't jobs, the people self-deport.  This happened through the great recession.  The majority of the "kids" coming here are teens or near teens that have the ability to work illegally in the US (and many have family that are already here).  If there are minimal jobs, then they will not come.

 

(I'm generally against illegal immigration for moral reasons.  It allows us to get goods cheaply while turning a blind eye to the people that do the work who are really victims of crimes themselves.  Let's figure out a way to do it legally so they can work legally and be paid a real wage without having to deal with the criminal components that exist in the current process.

 

To me saying I don't worry about illegal immigration is like saying, I want my stuff made in the US and what it cheaply and don't care who has to get screwed over so that I can get it cheaply.)

Edited April 8, 2021 by PeterMP

[PeterMP]

It also has to be recognized that illegal immigration to the US is likely an important part of why the countries those people are coming form is a mess.  We've created a system where it is an advantage for the most driven people to leave their country and come here illegally and then never go back (if they leave, then they have to go through the process of crossing the barrier illegally.)

 

I'd suggest that it is very likely the best way for us to improve Central American countries is to at least minimize illegal immigration.

Edited April 8, 2021 by PeterMP

[CousinsCowgirl84]

2 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

Just to be clear, the Dreams act has never been passed to be expanded.  Generally, people don't talk about the expansion of an act that has never been passed.
 

 

 

I know they haven’t specifically talked about expanding the Dream Act. My point was how their speech about illegal immigrants encourages more illegal immigration.

 

Quote

 

We know that if there aren't jobs, the people self-deport.  This happened through the great recession.  The majority of the "kids" coming here are teens or near teens that have the ability to work illegally in the US (and many have family that are already here).  If there are minimal jobs, then they will not come.

 

Near teens, so like preteens? 🤪Yeah, I agree the majority of children being sent over the board aren’t toddlers and babies....  

 

 

I think you should take a look at the pictures of the camps. They aren’t teenagers.
 

 

Quote

 

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by CousinsCowgirl84

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

Disappointing, although I wonder if there are less splashy/visible ways to do this that won't have much of a backlash and be more sustainable long term. 

Edited April 16, 2021 by visionary

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

[visionary]