“The reality is Joe Biden let more than 10 million people into our country,” said Donalds. I think they pulled this number out of their rear orifice. However many immigrants did arrive during Biden's administration, our economy fared far better than any other in the world and the enlarged labor pool — especially when so many Americans ha…
“The reality is Joe Biden let more than 10 million people into our country,” said Donalds. I think they pulled this number out of their rear orifice. However many immigrants did arrive during Biden's administration, our economy fared far better than any other in the world and the enlarged labor pool — especially when so many Americans had their health destroyed, died, or were forced to take time off to care for ill relatives — likely had something to do with that.
Removing those workers will have the opposite effect. States like Florida and Georgia that passed harsh anti-immigrant laws in the past already saw that trend in their agricultural economies.
To those of us who oppose unlimited illegal immigration, the economics are not the most important question. National sovereignty and our right to determine our own future is.
I oppose all illegal immigration as well. That being said, our political leaders have failed us for years by being unwilling to agree upon sensible, much-needed bipartisan immigration reform. They would rather keep it as a political cudgel, to everyone's ultimate disadvantage.
This means that under our current system, almost all legal immigration opportunities have been eliminated, and this has many more impacts than you may realize. Anti-immigrant pols look the other way while their corporate donors hire undocumented workers. In many cases, they have no alternative, as many are doing jobs Americans do not want to do. The lack of immigration reform gives those employers the power to exploit and abuse those workers. That's as much a moral and safety issue as it is an economic one.
You point out concerns about national sovereignty and borders, and I fully agree. Bipartisan immigration reform would address these, and make it possible for us to have the workers we need for our critical industries like agriculture, construction, food processing and healthcare — several of which are staffed with roughly 50% undocumented workers!
There are solutions to be had that address security, sovereignty, morality and economics, but they won't be solved without the will on both sides to solve them.
I agree with everything you've said. I strongly favor more legal immigration; notionally, I'm pretty well aligned with Matt Yglesias's idea of "One Billion Americans" within maybe two generations, maybe less.
For me, that certainly means a lot of skilled immigration, but it can also include non-skilled immigration, as long as we guarantee that it won't be at starvation wages. Americans should not be permitted to import an underpaid underclass just to have artificially low prices at the supermarket, or to support farmers whose crops don't make economic (or environmental) sense. If there are crops that cannot be raised economically in the US while paying a living wage, that for me is an indication that we should be importing them from places where they CAN be raised economically, not importing people to exploit in the US.
We should be rigorous and consistent in fulfilling our asylum obligations under international law and the treaties we have signed to shelter those who have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" by state action or with state connivance. No one from places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, or Myanmar should ever be deported against their will to those places, unless they come to the US under false pretenses. On the other hand, victims of natural disasters and citizens of failed states should not be considered for asylum, although Congress should always be free to grant them Temporary Protected Status, if it judges that to be warranted. Merely economic migrants who enter the country illegally under color of asylum are trying to game the system and should be ejected summarily.
I'm an immigrant myself -- an American immigrant in Brazil. Brazil is one of several countries -- I would also include Canada and Australia -- from which the United States could learn a lot to come up with a fair, welcoming system that has broad political support. Of course, the US is the world's #1 migrant target, and not every policy is scalable, but many are. It doesn't all have to be invented all over again: it's ok to copy and adapt.
“The reality is Joe Biden let more than 10 million people into our country,” said Donalds. I think they pulled this number out of their rear orifice. However many immigrants did arrive during Biden's administration, our economy fared far better than any other in the world and the enlarged labor pool — especially when so many Americans had their health destroyed, died, or were forced to take time off to care for ill relatives — likely had something to do with that.
Removing those workers will have the opposite effect. States like Florida and Georgia that passed harsh anti-immigrant laws in the past already saw that trend in their agricultural economies.
To those of us who oppose unlimited illegal immigration, the economics are not the most important question. National sovereignty and our right to determine our own future is.
I oppose all illegal immigration as well. That being said, our political leaders have failed us for years by being unwilling to agree upon sensible, much-needed bipartisan immigration reform. They would rather keep it as a political cudgel, to everyone's ultimate disadvantage.
This means that under our current system, almost all legal immigration opportunities have been eliminated, and this has many more impacts than you may realize. Anti-immigrant pols look the other way while their corporate donors hire undocumented workers. In many cases, they have no alternative, as many are doing jobs Americans do not want to do. The lack of immigration reform gives those employers the power to exploit and abuse those workers. That's as much a moral and safety issue as it is an economic one.
You point out concerns about national sovereignty and borders, and I fully agree. Bipartisan immigration reform would address these, and make it possible for us to have the workers we need for our critical industries like agriculture, construction, food processing and healthcare — several of which are staffed with roughly 50% undocumented workers!
There are solutions to be had that address security, sovereignty, morality and economics, but they won't be solved without the will on both sides to solve them.
I agree with everything you've said. I strongly favor more legal immigration; notionally, I'm pretty well aligned with Matt Yglesias's idea of "One Billion Americans" within maybe two generations, maybe less.
For me, that certainly means a lot of skilled immigration, but it can also include non-skilled immigration, as long as we guarantee that it won't be at starvation wages. Americans should not be permitted to import an underpaid underclass just to have artificially low prices at the supermarket, or to support farmers whose crops don't make economic (or environmental) sense. If there are crops that cannot be raised economically in the US while paying a living wage, that for me is an indication that we should be importing them from places where they CAN be raised economically, not importing people to exploit in the US.
We should be rigorous and consistent in fulfilling our asylum obligations under international law and the treaties we have signed to shelter those who have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion" by state action or with state connivance. No one from places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, or Myanmar should ever be deported against their will to those places, unless they come to the US under false pretenses. On the other hand, victims of natural disasters and citizens of failed states should not be considered for asylum, although Congress should always be free to grant them Temporary Protected Status, if it judges that to be warranted. Merely economic migrants who enter the country illegally under color of asylum are trying to game the system and should be ejected summarily.
I'm an immigrant myself -- an American immigrant in Brazil. Brazil is one of several countries -- I would also include Canada and Australia -- from which the United States could learn a lot to come up with a fair, welcoming system that has broad political support. Of course, the US is the world's #1 migrant target, and not every policy is scalable, but many are. It doesn't all have to be invented all over again: it's ok to copy and adapt.
Completely agree, Al. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Be well :-).