Why Liberals* are Wrong on Immigration

[desertadapted]

The election season has given me cause to ponder how liberals* have missed the boat on immigration.  I’ve culled these ideas from others. The American people are right, not just “racist,” for being angry about Biden’s immigration policies. Liberals need to develop a positive philosophy on immigration that is solidly different than Biden’s policies. First, why the Biden policies are wrong.

1.   Chaos.  The U.S. immigration “system” is chaotic, with lots of unlawful entry, and the overwhelming abuse of the asylum system.  As humans, we abhor chaos; we create civilization to dampen chaos. An orderly system of immigration based on clear policy priorities would be less offensive than a chaotic one, even at similar immigration rates to those under a chaotic system.  Canada vs. the U.S. illustrates the example (though even there, the system can be strained).

2.   Line jumping.  A cousin to the Chaos issue.  Most are offended by those who cut in line.  The current immigration “system,” irrespective of immigration volumes, offends deeply held notions of fairness (e.g., the person who waits in line and plays by the rules should win out over the person who cuts the line).  Most of the immigration in the last four years has involved line jumping, making it both unfair and politically toxic.

3.   A Failure of Liberal Empathy.  Many liberals take an Emma Smith Lazarus view of immigration, thinking they are being empathic to the world’s tired and poor.  But they are showing a lack of empathy for the working class and poor with whom those immigrants compete.  Most liberals, buttressed by liberal academics, will cite Mariel Boatlift studies (and their ilk) to kindly explain that mass immigration has no negative impact on native working-class wages, or even a slight positive impact.  These observations are cheap, because the knowledge economy liberals (of which I am one), have no skin in the game, once again due to a failure of empathy. 

   If we are so confident that massive immigration will benefit native born workers, then we should be opening up our borders to knowledge economy competitors, not people who compete with janitors, roofers, framers, etc.  Many liberals at this point will reflexively say that sounds great – the more the merrier.  But they will do so without wanting the make the critical additional change that would make their faux empathy real.  That is, eliminating the professional protections we have built up around ourselves.  Professors, doctors, lawyers, etc., have all erected massive barriers to entry (tenure, AMA and ABA requirements beyond passing the Bar and passing Boards, etc.).  We’ve all heard stories about the immigrant who was a doctor (lawyer, etc.) in the old country who drives a cab in the US because his/her qualifications didn’t transfer.  Let’s get rid of those protections so that cabbie can compete with us, so long as he/she passes an appropriate skills exam.  Then we can admit the 2 million immigrants a year who will compete directly with “us”.  Not compete with “them”.   

   We might find that our wages actually go up and that our economy explodes with potential.  Great, then we’re right.  But we’ve got to step lecturing those further down the food chain about how immigration is in their best interests when we categorically refuse the same exposure.  But spare me another tenured professor (or an adjunct gunning to become tenured) who writes scholarly articles about how the poor should jolly up about increased competition from immigrants while those in academia erect massive walls to anyone competing with them.  If an immigrant can do your job for 50% of the pay, why shouldn’t your university be able to fire you?  If the Mariel-style research is right, you should swiftly be able to make more money elsewhere (what a great opportunity for you!). 

4.   It’s a Lot.  There has been a massive uptick in immigration under Biden, averaging 2 million a year up until his administration recently started cracking down.  Net immigration as a percent of population is the highest it has been since the 1850’s.   At 15.2%, the percent of foreign-born residents is the highest it has been on record, with the previous high of 14.8% being in 1890.  This also comes after historical lows of under 5% in approximately 1980, making it even more jarring for those who didn’t come of age in the Gilded Age.  Pretty much no matter the circumstances (chaotic or orderly, impacting the top or the bottom of the income spectrum), there will be a backlash to a huge increase in immigration.  If you’re going to open the floodgates, you’re going to pay the price politically. 

5.   Sometimes you Have to Touch the Stove.   I’ve heard much clucking about how those monsters in Texas, as they slobber over mass deportation, will suffer higher prices for housing, yard care, home care, etc.  Well that may be true, but there’s more learning to be had in touching the hot stove a single time than in being warned 100 times.  California passed Proposition 187 in 1994.  To my reading it began a generational realignment within California that ended up making California much more open to immigration.  Trump’s immigration policies are bound to be unevenly applied, just because the immigration politics (and resultant State support for Fed enforcement) are different in TX, than in CA, NM and AZ.  If TX gets scalded, then maybe it’ll teach them something.  But if TX continues its relatively robust economic growth, and determines the stove wasn’t actually that hot, maybe we will have learned something from that.

   In sum, liberals need to take a hard look at immigration and develop a positive vision where liberals allow their own ox to be gored, rather than asking the lower classes to stand in the way.  Trumpists will demagogue on immigration irrespective of facts because they want to run on the issue rather than solve it.  Obama deported more than Trump year after year, after all.  That shouldn’t stand in the way of developing a positive vision that acknowledges the political realities of immigration.


* Yeah, not all liberals.  I know. I am conflating Biden’s policies with the liberal view, largely because his policies appear to have reflected the liberal consensus.

[Ron Scott]

Our politicians don’t want to fix immigration because it’s a great issue to raise money on. When the problem is solved those donations dry up. The governing process has been captured by the parties and we suffer.

Those who continue to argue this issue as right vs. left, with all the incumbent talking points, have lost the ability to solve the problem because they’ve been co-opted by those who benefit financially by maintaining the problem.

[nereo]

* Yeah, not all liberals.  I know. I am conflating Biden’s policies with the liberal view, largely because his policies appear to have reflected the liberal consensus.

For the sake of clarity, are you saying that the Biden administration is liberal (at least in terms of their approach to immigration)?

[bacchi]

Our politicians don’t want to fix immigration because it’s a great issue to raise money on. When the problem is solved those donations dry up. The governing process has been captured by the parties and we suffer.

Those who continue to argue this issue as right vs. left, with all the incumbent talking points, have lost the ability to solve the problem because they’ve been co-opted by those who benefit financially by maintaining the problem.

Exactly. It's not like this immigration problem suddenly came about in the last 4 years.

"OMG Everyone! Illegal immigrants started crossing the border in 2021 when the liberals took over!"

[desertadapted]

For the sake of clarity, are you saying that the Biden administration is liberal (at least in terms of their approach to immigration)?

At the risk of setting myself up for a semantic fight, yes. I am not saying that if the Biden administration views the current structure as an optimal expression of all of its policy ideals - the immigration system is too complex for that.  But on the whole, I'd say that 'lots more immigration' was the Biden administration view until recently, and that I would characterize that as the liberal view.

[bacchi]

If we really want to stop illegal immigrants, it's straight forward.

* Require every employer, without exception, to use e-verify.  Make the fines large and scale them by company size.
* To stop companies such as WalMart from hiring contracting companies who use illegals, require them to certify that the contracting company has used e-verify. Put some money on the line if you're going to hire a janitorial service to save money.

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.



Edit: This doesn't solve the nannies and other self-employed we use to watch our children, cut our lawns, hang a ceiling fan, but it takes care of most of them.

[Psychstache]

If we really want to stop illegal immigrants, it's straight forward.

* Require every employer, without exception, to use e-verify.  Make the fines large and scale them by company size.
* To stop companies such as WalMart from hiring contracting companies who use illegals, require them to certify that the contracting company has used e-verify. Put some money on the line if you're going to hire a janitorial service to save money.

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.



Edit: This doesn't solve the nannies and other self-employed we use to watch our children, cut our lawns, hang a ceiling fan, but it takes care of most of them.

Force schools and landlords to use e-Verify would bar access to schools and housing, which would take care of the rest. Not suggesting this or the above because we (as in society at large) actually love the benefits of Illegal Immigration more than we hate the downsides.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

3.   A Failure of Liberal Empathy.  Many liberals take an Emma Smith Lazarus view of immigration, thinking they are being empathic to the world’s tired and poor.  But they are showing a lack of empathy for the working class and poor with whom those immigrants compete.  Most liberals, buttressed by liberal academics, will cite Mariel Boatlift studies (and their ilk) to kindly explain that mass immigration has no negative impact on native working-class wages, or even a slight positive impact.  These observations are cheap, because the knowledge economy liberals (of which I am one), have no skin in the game, once again due to a failure of empathy. 

There are jobs in the U.S. that Americans won't do, like picking fruits and vegetables.  When Georgia scared away workers a decade or so ago, they lost their tomato crop.  Prisoners refused to do the work in exchange for reduced sentences.  There are agriculture jobs Americans won't do, where illegal/undocumented immigrants will.

I found this study of undocumented/illegal immigrant jobs in New York, which mentioned cooks, taxi drivers, delivery, and health care workers.  Unlike agriculture, Americans are willing to do jobs like that.  If existing undocumented/illegal workers have "high unemployment", as the study mentions, that could indicate the market is saturated.
https://cmsny.org/high-growth-occupations-reliant-undocumented-immigrant-workers-nys/

[desertadapted]

Our politicians don’t want to fix immigration because it’s a great issue to raise money on. When the problem is solved those donations dry up. The governing process has been captured by the parties and we suffer.

Those who continue to argue this issue as right vs. left, with all the incumbent talking points, have lost the ability to solve the problem because they’ve been co-opted by those who benefit financially by maintaining the problem.

Exactly. It's not like this immigration problem suddenly came about in the last 4 years.

"OMG Everyone! Illegal immigrants started crossing the border in 2021 when the liberals took over!"

I find cynicism that “the fix is in” understandable, but ultimately unsatisfying.

I will admit I come at this question as part of what I view to be an intra-party debate on immigration policy.  On one end of the spectrum are voices that assert that national borders are meaningless and on the other, those who argue we should emulate Trumpism in substance if not in tone. I believe a positive vision falls somewhere between those two poles, but that it is critical that liberal elite (of which I am a part) expose itself to some danger -- to have some skin in the game.

I reject that we simply shrug our shoulders and say that “both sides” benefit from a lack of solution.  I would submit that the right benefits far more than the left.  Obama was “tougher” on immigration than Trump in many ways, but not style.  He cruised to two successive presidential wins.  Trump embodied an almost cartoonish villainy abhorrent to liberals (and others), but I would submit liberals massively overcorrected and were blind to the many ways in which it was politically terrible for the party (which impacts furthering all sorts of liberal values, including re immigration).  It is true that Trump might be cartoonishly evil again and swing the pendulum back.  But my prediction is that we will get the villainy, but a much more muted swing of the pendulum. 

I want liberals to have a vision that is coherent and politically saleable. Generally, I think more in terms of the Canadian model that at least attempts to treat immigration as an accordion that expands in areas of need and contracts where there isn’t need, and provide a coherent pathway to lawful status.  I get that the Canadian model has folks PO’d there, but that upset lacks the breadth of nativistic vitriol and xenophobia evident in the States.  I also suspect that if you increased Canadian housing stock substantially, that the upset would moderate just as substantially.

[Kris]

If we really want to stop illegal immigrants, it's straight forward.

* Require every employer, without exception, to use e-verify.  Make the fines large and scale them by company size.
* To stop companies such as WalMart from hiring contracting companies who use illegals, require them to certify that the contracting company has used e-verify. Put some money on the line if you're going to hire a janitorial service to save money.

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.



Edit: This doesn't solve the nannies and other self-employed we use to watch our children, cut our lawns, hang a ceiling fan, but it takes care of most of them.

Force schools and landlords to use e-Verify would bar access to schools and housing, which would take care of the rest. Not suggesting this or the above because we (as in society at large) actually love the benefits of Illegal Immigration more than we hate the downsides.

100% this. Every time I have a conversation with a conservative who is obsessed with illegal immigration, I say that this is the solution. And I have never not had the person I am talking to try to wiggle out of agreeing with me, suggest reasons it wouldn’t/hasn’t worked (by using examples that are *not* doing this) and then eventually change the subject.

[desertadapted]

There are jobs in the U.S. that Americans won't do, like picking fruits and vegetables. 

Your observation is a critical part of any discussion about immigration issues. There will always be a tension between "immigrants take our jobs" and "immigrants take jobs we don't want to do."   There is no reason that the H-2A visa program (re. migrant farm workers) could not remain a part of a reasoned immigration system.  It is not chaotic, it involves a coherent set of values, there does not appear to be a large constituency arguing against it, etc.  But I would submit that your observation is a straw man to the extent it would be used to oppose a more discerning approach to immigration policy. 

A clarifying example.  I’ll out myself as a lawyer by training.  When I talk about liberal empathy I’m emphasizing that people like myself need to be humble about the impacts of immigration on other Americans.  If I’m for immigration, I should likewise be for any individual authorized to practice law in their home country who can pass my state’s bar exam being allowed to practice in my state without further barriers, and that folks with, say, and H1B visa to practice law should have a sure and swift path to citizenship.  That person can then compete with me.  If we are right about immigration, the extra lawyer will be part of a rising tide that lifts all boats.  If we’re wrong, s/he might get me fired for being willing to accept “back office” pay at half my rate.  Further, as a lawyer, I might be tempted to say “we have enough lawyers, so keep my salary safe, but we don’t have enough software engineers, so just let them in.”  But that would once again reflect a self-interested lack of humility.  Those in power who are exposing (or are benefiting from our exposing) our more marginal citizens to competition should themselves face competition.

The elite must be willing to face the competition they so blithely accord others.

[wenchsenior]

If we really want to stop illegal immigrants, it's straight forward.

* Require every employer, without exception, to use e-verify.  Make the fines large and scale them by company size.
* To stop companies such as WalMart from hiring contracting companies who use illegals, require them to certify that the contracting company has used e-verify. Put some money on the line if you're going to hire a janitorial service to save money.

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.


Edit: This doesn't solve the nannies and other self-employed we use to watch our children, cut our lawns, hang a ceiling fan, but it takes care of most of them.

Husband used to be a border patrol agent back in the day. And we've lived near/worked on the border for years on and off.

It's impossible to completely control undocumented immigration without full DMZ-style militarization of the border and massive resources invested unless you enact severe penalties for employers who hire them and consistently enforce those penalties. Massive fines far bigger than the profit they make off hiring undocumented workers for cheap, loss of operating licenses, etc. Otherwise it is permanent attempts to plug a leaking sieve with incredible amounts of money wasted. Without the demand for workers, supply will dwindle to the truly asylum-seeking desperate.

But the reality is that, for reasons other people have noted, while many voters consider stopping undocumented immigration a crucial voting issue, neither party really wants to stop illegal immigration. It's too profitable, and it keeps prices low and undesirable and difficult jobs filled. For the conservatives, it's also a reliable rallying point (and a powerful one; I suspect that if the Dems don't adopt a much more hardline stance, at least in terms of lip service, on immigration, they will start consistently losing the presidency as time goes on).

 So only very rarely are common sense discussions had in public/congress about whether we should increase or decrease immigration, change status of immigrants, how to enforce laws, etc. It's always been this way. I think the last time there was a comprehensive overhaul was under Reagan. One of the few things to his credit, G W Bush tried to spearhead a comprehensive overhaul and got shot down by his own party.

[bacchi]

Our politicians don’t want to fix immigration because it’s a great issue to raise money on. When the problem is solved those donations dry up. The governing process has been captured by the parties and we suffer.

Those who continue to argue this issue as right vs. left, with all the incumbent talking points, have lost the ability to solve the problem because they’ve been co-opted by those who benefit financially by maintaining the problem.

Exactly. It's not like this immigration problem suddenly came about in the last 4 years.

"OMG Everyone! Illegal immigrants started crossing the border in 2021 when the liberals took over!"

I find cynicism that “the fix is in” understandable, but ultimately unsatisfying.

I will admit I come at this question as part of what I view to be an intra-party debate on immigration policy.  On one end of the spectrum are voices that assert that national borders are meaningless and on the other, those who argue we should emulate Trumpism in substance if not in tone. I believe a positive vision falls somewhere between those two poles, but that it is critical that liberal elite (of which I am a part) expose itself to some danger -- to have some skin in the game.

I reject that we simply shrug our shoulders and say that “both sides” benefit from a lack of solution.  I would submit that the right benefits far more than the left.  Obama was “tougher” on immigration than Trump in many ways, but not style.  He cruised to two successive presidential wins.  Trump embodied an almost cartoonish villainy abhorrent to liberals (and others), but I would submit liberals massively overcorrected and were blind to the many ways in which it was politically terrible for the party (which impacts furthering all sorts of liberal values, including re immigration).  It is true that Trump might be cartoonishly evil again and swing the pendulum back.  But my prediction is that we will get the villainy, but a much more muted swing of the pendulum. 

I want liberals to have a vision that is coherent and politically saleable. Generally, I think more in terms of the Canadian model that at least attempts to treat immigration as an accordion that expands in areas of need and contracts where there isn’t need, and provide a coherent pathway to lawful status.  I get that the Canadian model has folks PO’d there, but that upset lacks the breadth of nativistic vitriol and xenophobia evident in the States.  I also suspect that if you increased Canadian housing stock substantially, that the upset would moderate just as substantially.

You've created a strawman argument about what so-called "liberals" believe and then when it's pointed out that you're being fooled by a cultural war issue, you respond with putting a whataboutism argument in my mouth.

Liberals in the US aren't "PO'ed" about the Canadian model. Oh, I'm sure you can find some who are, in some far off part of the internet, but that's another strawman. [My bad, you stated that Canadians are PO'ed about their system.]

The reality is that no one in power truly wants to fix illegal immigration. If we did, we'd do it.



Edit: What wenchsenior wrote. ^^

Edit2: I agree that a sensible system is best. Work visas, worker protections, and a longish path to citizenship are all worthwhile things to consider.

[Ron Scott]

Thank You Joe!

[desertadapted]

You've created a strawman argument about what so-called "liberals" believe and then when it's pointed out that you're being fooled by a cultural war issue, you respond with putting a whataboutism argument in my mouth.

Liberals in the US aren't "PO'ed" about the Canadian model. Oh, I'm sure you can find some who are, in some far off part of the internet, but that's another strawman.

The reality is that no one in power truly wants to fix illegal immigration. If we did, we'd do it.


Edit: What wenchsenior wrote. ^^

My apologies for the confusion:  It is my understanding that Canadians are currently frustrated about the sharp uptick of immigration in recent years and its perceived impact on Canadian housing prices in particular.  So I didn't intend to convey that US liberals were opposed to the Canadian model.  I don't recall any major proposed legislation in the last couple decades that proposed something along the Canadian model. Certainly I don't remember the Biden administration advocating anything like it.

Separately, I'm not sure what it means to say immigration is a "culture war issue."  It seems to me that immigration has massive economic and social impacts (both potentially good and potentially bad).  Immigration was objectively much higher under Biden than under the previous two administrations.  It is a real issue that needs to be resolved politically, and I'm worried if liberals do not have an approach to meaningfully addressing it (even if that approach isn't codified into law) that, as Wenchsenior noted, it's going to hurt liberals at the polls for the foreseeable future.  And I, for one, have lots of liberal priorities that having a Democratic president would likely help.

Finaly, while I’m not advocating a particular approach to border enforcement, I believe it is unfair to just shrug and conclude that “it has always been this way.”  When Biden changed his approach and sharply restricted his border policy earlier this year, border contacts plummeted.  Policy matters and policy can (and does) change.  Yeah, we will never have a complete “solution,” but when do we?

And I agree with your Edit 2. 

[desertadapted]

I really appreciate various posters raising E-Verify.  I think it’s a more complicated issue than we give credit for, and that it is appropriate to be ambivalent or even agonized about it.  I think its really nuanced as a balance of harms and benefits.   

We have millions of law abiding (but unlawfully present) immigrants who have been here for a LONG time and are tied up in the fabric of our lives.  I know that a path for citizenship for them lies somewhere between hard and impossible – we haven’t even gotten the dreamers a pathway to citizenship yet. But I hold out hope.  When we tout E-Verify, potentially as a means of owning the conservates, I worry it may be from a perspective that conservatives are in hock to the business elites so they’re just being hypocrites.  And on some level it makes sense that we should have strict E-Verify and ever stricter penalties on employers to serve as a deterrent.  But be careful what you wish for.

Other than at the border itself, it appears that immigration enforcement is heavily weighted towards immigrants who get themselves noticed, mostly in the context of criminal violations.  And there isn’t a huge constituency for convicted felons to get a path to citizenship.  But if liberals get solidly on the E-Verify train thinking that they are going to stick it to the business owners and their palls in the Republican party, we risk running headlong into really negative impacts on long-time illegal immigrants who I think most (not all) would rather stay here than be deported.  The eye of state is mostly focused in one direction right now, E-Verify has the potential of creating a lot more targets.   

I see wisdom in the counter-argument that relates back to the “hot stove” concept:  Universal E-Verify (with strict business sanctions) would cause massive disruption for millions of illegal immigrants who I think most Americans (not just most businesses) actually want to have in the US.  The disruption might change the political calculus and force a “path to citizenship solution.”  But I think it  “might” change the political calculus but that it “will” be at great cost to lots of people.  This could solidly land in “be careful what you wish for” where liberal and humanitarian values lose out hard.

Win or lose, I think there is a case to be made in a positive vision for immigration reform that law abiding long-time residents have a path to citizenship.  So while I think I understand the E-Verify argument, I view it more from a “if the conservatives push it, make sure the penalties are on business more than employee” than a “cry E-Verify from the rooftops” perspective.  Bottom line, I think E-Verify is a really hard issue.  For me at least.

[seattlecyclone]

   If we are so confident that massive immigration will benefit native born workers, then we should be opening up our borders to knowledge economy competitors, not people who compete with janitors, roofers, framers, etc.  Many liberals at this point will reflexively say that sounds great – the more the merrier.  But they will do so without wanting the make the critical additional change that would make their faux empathy real.  That is, eliminating the professional protections we have built up around ourselves.  Professors, doctors, lawyers, etc., have all erected massive barriers to entry (tenure, AMA and ABA requirements beyond passing the Bar and passing Boards, etc.).  We’ve all heard stories about the immigrant who was a doctor (lawyer, etc.) in the old country who drives a cab in the US because his/her qualifications didn’t transfer.  Let’s get rid of those protections so that cabbie can compete with us, so long as he/she passes an appropriate skills exam.  Then we can admit the 2 million immigrants a year who will compete directly with “us”.  Not compete with “them”.   

I work in an industry (software) with none of the licensure requirements that you mention. An existing visa program (H-1B) brings in over 100,000 people each year, most of them sponsored by employers in the tech industry. The threat of companies "offshoring" their software development function to countries with cheaper labor has been around longer than I've been working in the field. This thing you're suggesting "liberals" would oppose out of self-interest has essentially been the reality of our industry for decades. And you know what? It's fine. I've worked with numerous H-1B visa holders who were quite qualified for their jobs. They would be doing that same sort of work elsewhere, and doing it well, if we didn't give them a visa. IMO it's better for America to let them move here and contribute to our continued dominance in the tech industry than it is to keep them out and let them contribute to foreign economic growth. Bottom line in this industry is if you want to earn "US tech money" (more than people with the same titles are paid anywhere else) you need to provide better value to your employer than your counterparts elsewhere. This would be true even if the H-1B program didn't exist. Software can be written anywhere with computers and an internet connection and software made abroad costs essentially nothing to import.

In other regulated professions (such as medicine)...we have some of the highest prices for medical care in the world, and some of the best paid professionals. These two things go hand in hand. The protectionism that benefits our doctors works against the best interests of our patients. Perhaps a better balance should be sought there as well.

From a purely self-interested perspective, I'd sure love to have the right to move to another country whenever I felt like it. It would be unrealistic to expect other countries to welcome me in if the US was unwilling to extend the same courtesy to their citizens. I'd love to see more governments working on bilateral treaties to allow freer movement of people across borders. I don't believe greater immigration would harm me more than I would benefit from the increased freedom to emigrate.

[RetiredAt63]

As an aside. Canadians are not all that PO'ed about immigration.  The big concern is housing, since immigrants tend to settle in cities and our most popular cities are the ones with high living costs, especially housing costs (think Toronto and Vancouver).  Housing construction has not kept up with demand.  But with a birth rate of 1.3, immigration is important.

We do get people who keep very strong ties with their home country, which affects their integration into Canadian society.  We had a lot of dual citizenship people needing extraction from Lebanon several years ago when things got bad there.  That was an issue. 

But generally people arrive and settle in.  We are used to lots of variety in the cities, not so much in more rural areas, because the people coming in are people with professional skills.  Not farmers, because it is so expensive to buy a farm.

For example, my most recent doctors and other health care workers that I see regularly have been African (or maybe Caribbean, but from the name I am guessing African, I can't pick out the nuances in the British accents), Arabic (2), Chinese, and East Indian, and generic white Canadian.  They have Canadian accents or their children will have Canadian accents.  No one blinks at yarmulkes, hijabs, turbans, whatever, even the RCMP has adapted.  And the leader of one of major parties wears a turban - and sounds like the guy next door.

We don't do the American melting pot concept, we do the cultural mosaic concept.  We all have different bits to contribute to Canadian society.  After all, a mosaic would be boring if all the tiles were the same.

[desertadapted]

@seattlecyclone
Thank you for those points.  It sounds like tech workers might be able to help clarify for the regulated professions that it’ll all work out. 

@RetiredAt63
Thank you.  Your post really warmed my heart and gave me some hope that a more Canadian-style system could form part of the basis of a more politically enduring and stable immigration system in the U.S. 

[RetiredAt63]

@seattlecyclone
Thank you for those points.  It sounds like tech workers might be able to help clarify for the regulated professions that it’ll all work out. 

@RetiredAt63
Thank you.  Your post really warmed my heart and gave me some hope that a more Canadian-style system could form part of the basis of a more politically enduring and stable immigration system in the U.S.

I hope I didn't get the impression that all is sweetness and light.  We have bigots and racists, and they are more bold and vocal with the nonsense happening to the south.  You should have seen what some of the Freedumb convoy people were saying.  But Canada has had waves of immigrants.  A good chunk of the prairies was settled by Ukrainians.  Our first non-French non-English ethnic background Governor General was of Ukrainian descent (male of course, it took a while longer to get a woman).

I'm not a social scientist, but I think that Canada at Confederation having English Protestant Ontario and French Catholic Quebec meant that the fact that more than one language and one religion were there at the start.  Of course we also had some really major bigots all through our history, Lionel Groulx (had a Montreal Metro station named after him) was really massively anti-Semitic.

[Sailor Sam]

@desertadapted, I spend a good portion of my time thinking about immigration, particularly illegal immigration, and I cannot understand your argument actually is.

The Democratic Party needs to come up with a platform on immigration that makes them seem less like bleeding-heart-fully-open-borders people?

The Democratic Party needs to “solve” immigration while being the minority party for all 3 parts of the legislative branch?

The…libtards just don't understand why the MAGA people hate illegal immigration?

I’m interested in the discussion, but it would be great if you could clarify your first principal.

[Telecaster]

1.   Chaos.  The U.S. immigration “system” is chaotic, with lots of unlawful entry, and the overwhelming abuse of the asylum system.  As humans, we abhor chaos; we create civilization to dampen chaos. An orderly system of immigration based on clear policy priorities would be less offensive than a chaotic one, even at similar immigration rates to those under a chaotic system.  Canada vs. the U.S. illustrates the example (though even there, the system can be strained).

The main problems with the immigration system are currently that in prior decades most illegal/undocumented immigrants were single males from Mexico seeking employment.  But illegal/undocumented immigration from Mexico is way down from its peak.  In recent years, there has been an enormous increase characterized by families from Central and South America fleeing political and economic turmoil.

The bar for claiming refugee status is fairly low.   Additionally, the US lacks detention facilities in general, especially facilities suitable for families, and there is a severe backlog in immigration courts.  So, someone who is seeking economic relief could enter the US, claim refugee status, and will be given a court date five years in the future.  Economic relief by itself it not a valid reason to enter the US, but again there is a low bar for refugee status.   If you likely don't qualify for refugee status, five years is plenty of time to establish yourself and become lost in the system. 

Anyone who is serious about fixing the immigration issue at a minimum would be in favor of:

1.  More rigorous requirements for claiming refugee status
2.  Additional detention facilities, especially those suitable for families,
3.  A big increase in immigration courts, such that refugee claims can be processed in a timely fashion
4. Funding for more rigorous tracking of immigrants on temporary refugee visas. 

Turns out, a bill providing all those things passed the Senate with bipartisan support and with support of the president.   It is opposed by Trump and never got a vote in the Republican house.    One of the hang-ups (they said) was lack of border wall funding.  But most undocumented/illegal immigrants enter at legal checkpoints.   

Two quotes from Ronald Reagan spring to mind:

"If you got 75 or 80 percent of what you were asking for, I say you take it and fight for the rest later."

“I’d rather get 80 percent of what I want than go over the cliff with my flag flying.”

If the conservatives were really interested immigration reform, they'd take the win right now and come back and get whatever else they want later.   Why wouldn't they? 

[desertadapted]

@Sailorsam

My first principal is that liberals, through the Democratic party, need to assert a positive vision for immigration reform that takes into account the concerns/issues raised in the original post in order to begin what I expect will be a long-term project of ameliorating immigration as a losing wedge issue, and maybe even turning it into a winning issue.  This vision would ideally move us towards a more grudging national consensus on how we “do” immigration that would make us a stronger country. 

My motive in writing my original post was born of my frustrations about the Democrats losing in the presidential election. I believe that they lost for three key reasons: 1. Inflation, which was a weight on incumbent parties internationally, 2. Immigration, and 3. Biden’s insistence on running rather than letting Democrats have a true primary race. I don’t think Biden could do much better than he did on inflation (not trying to open that debate here).  Biden made his choice on staying in the race, and Harris did her best, but that damage is over and done with.  Immigration is the remaining issue and it isn’t going away.  I have observed that too many liberals have reflexively concluded that we lost because a majority of voters (the people who voted for Trump) are racist, sexist, and stupidly voting against their “real interests.”   We exist on a bell curve, so that’s surely true for some. But not for all or even most.  It does not take into account hard truths about how Biden’s comparatively maximalist approach on immigration was a critical factor in costing Democrats the election. 

I want Democrats to win because I hold values that the Democrats exemplify.  And win they win, they do lots of things that I like.  When they lose, we get stuff I frequently don’t like.

I want more legal immigration, particularly (but definitely not exclusively) in the professional space, because I want this country to be a shining beacon of prosperity and strength in an economically competitive and militarily dangerous world.  I want Democrats to take seriously the concerns many persuadable voters had about Biden’s approach to immigration, and I want Democrats to have a coherent philosophy that will persuade voters that substantial controlled and thoughtful immigration can be a boon and a strength. 

With that, I’m going into the woods for a few days.  I appreciate the many very thoughtful comments. 

[LennStar]

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.

You have illegal immigration because you make most immigration illegal.
And people migrate because of many reasons, including war, dictators and climate. All which have nothing to do with work.

For example - current events - the by far biggest immigrant numbers into Germany in the last 30 years have been Ukrainians, because of war, and Syrians, because of war. They (almost) all are, theoretically, illegal. They also get to live here because there is a freaking war going on in their country.

The problem is not immigration, the problem is the (social) media overblowing everthing, leading to a wrong perception. The problem is people believing this wrong perception far more than the real numbers.
How does "being empathetic to the workers" (which in itself is a biased view that is likely far away from the real world) change the media bubbles? How does breaking down entry barriers to high-education jobs pacify the workers if those workers don't know anything about that anyway?

[reeshau]

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.

You have illegal immigration because you make most immigration illegal.
And people migrate because of many reasons, including war, dictators and climate. All which have nothing to do with work.

This was my point with the immigration chart from the other thread; for all the decrying of immigration in the US today, the immigrant population, as a percentage of the total population, has just reached its pre-1900 normal.  And, it is for the same reasons as it was back then: persecution, and lack of opportunity.  The parallels seem pretty obvious to me.

And while pre-1900 immigrants' arrival wasn't exactly cheered by the population already here (already largely immigrants themselves) they were not deemed illegal, despite a lack of resources upon landing.

The anti-immigrant belief seems to be that immigrants consume resources for their whole lives.  The reality is that immigrants provided the growth that has led to our land of opportunity.  The obsession with blocking their way into society creates the problem that that they are blamed for.  If they were allowed to work, they would then consume goods and services that would create more jobs.

The right would have you believe that GDP growth is only achievable through productivity gains.  That's only true if your population isn't growing.  It's like they've given up on that entirely, because their racism won't allow them to accept the solution that is staring them in the face.

[partgypsy]

The last time Trump was in office, he initially said he was only going to go after the "bad" immigrants. That he would let the "good ones" in.
He had Stephen Miller run his immigration arm. Trump initially tried to ban muslims from immigrating. This was both illegal, but also points to the real "reasoning" behind anti immigration legislation.
He passed a law that made illegally crossing the border a felony. This triggered that adults who commited a felony were put in separate pens, defacto making it so families who crossed the border, the parents were separated from their children. This is considered a human rights violation. All the immigrants involved suffered psychologically especially those children. At least one father committed suicide because he could not communicate with the guards and in his distress assumed the worst regarding his child. Some were separated for weeks and months. Some children went missing. 

Trump also heavily restricted any LEGAL means of entering the country. EVEN for highly skilled workers who were offered jobs, specifically the people he said he would spare. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/02/01/the-story-of-how-trump-officials-tried-to-end-h-1b-visas/

Trump's immigration policies are xenophobic, jingoistic, and if inacted, incredibly expensive. Both in terms of financial cost to the taxypayer, in downstream effects to the economy, and the human toll.

There were immigration bills drafted that had bipartisan support from both Democrats AND Republicans. Until Trump told republicans to vote against it, and it was trashed. We can certainly improve immigration policy. But one side of the aisle does NOT want to solve it. At least in a sane, rational manner. And both sides need to admit, the US needs immigrants.

https://immigrationimpact.com/2024/02/07/senate-bill-transform-border-policy/

[Ron Scott]

My bottom line is that immigration policy should be thoughtful and done in a way that encourages real contributions to our country. I think immigration has done a lot for us and I want immigrants to continue to influence us.

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

[reeshau]

My bottom line is that immigration policy should be thoughtful and done in a way that encourages real contributions to our country. I think immigration has done a lot for us and I want immigrants to continue to influence us.

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

Ron, I'd have no problem with that kind of frame of discussion.  I would add need, as well--the immigrants' need.  We spend money abroad all the time; re-homing someone may be the most humane thing to do, and also more cost effective than pouring $billions into a failed or corrupt state.  Since they are easier to get to, this seems to be the frame of discussion for the EU on immigration.

[twinstudy]

Many liberals take an Emma Smith Lazarus view of immigration, thinking they are being empathic to the world’s tired and poor.  But they are showing a lack of empathy for the working class and poor with whom those immigrants compete. 

Well, if I have to choose between two classes of people, I am always going to favour the class who have the bravery to migrate to a foreign land, usually without social or economic capital, in the hopes of bettering their lot in life. If a native can't compete with those people then it's too bad. The alternative is me saying that some hard-working and talented people should have opportunities denied to them because they were born in the wrong country  - which is a repulsive, jingoistic and xenophobic sentiment.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

More specifically, people crossing the border know how to game the asylum system so they are allowed in while their case is processed, and then they work in the U.S. for about 10 months.  I haven't seen this documented in detail, but it could make a convincing case for changing the asylum system to prevent abuse.  I think something specific like that could cut through the two entrenched positions (need more/less) and solve a broken part of the U.S. immigration system.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

There are jobs in the U.S. that Americans won't do, like picking fruits and vegetables. 

Your observation is a critical part of any discussion about immigration issues. There will always be a tension between "immigrants take our jobs" and "immigrants take jobs we don't want to do."   There is no reason that the H-2A visa program (re. migrant farm workers) could not remain a part of a reasoned immigration system.  It is not chaotic, it involves a coherent set of values, there does not appear to be a large constituency arguing against it, etc.  But I would submit that your observation is a straw man to the extent it would be used to oppose a more discerning approach to immigration policy. 

Although I think the discussion moved on, it is my understanding half of agricultural workers are undocumented/illegal.  The H-2A visa program helps, but it also restricts the work that can be done in the off season.  When there's no agricultural work, and an H-2A visa holder is caught doing another job, they can be deported.  Significant numbers of agricultural workers haven't gotten H-2A visas, and there might be problems with it (from the worker's perspective).

[partgypsy]

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

More specifically, people crossing the border know how to game the asylum system so they are allowed in while their case is processed, and then they work in the U.S. for about 10 months.  I haven't seen this documented in detail, but it could make a convincing case for changing the asylum system to prevent abuse.  I think something specific like that could cut through the two entrenched positions (need more/less) and solve a broken part of the U.S. immigration system.

our quotas are artificially low. people come here because they know they can get work, under the table. People hire them. If the quotas were actually more in line, there would be less incentive to "game" the system. Right now people who are trying to do so legally, are stuck at the border for weeks and months, where it's a beuracratic nightmare. The current system incentivizes people to "game" the system, because the system is pretty broke.

[desertadapted]

We have illegal immigrants because companies want to hire them. Full stop. Solve the "why" and you'll be able to stop illegal immigration.

You have illegal immigration because you make most immigration illegal.
And people migrate because of many reasons, including war, dictators and climate. All which have nothing to do with work.

This was my point with the immigration chart from the other thread; for all the decrying of immigration in the US today, the immigrant population, as a percentage of the total population, has just reached its pre-1900 normal.  And, it is for the same reasons as it was back then: persecution, and lack of opportunity.  The parallels seem pretty obvious to me.

I wanted to push back a bit on your gloss about “back to pre-1900 normal.”  While it is true that we had similar levels of immigrants in the back half of the 1800’s, there are other ways to frame the data to bring home how folks today could fairly describe our immigration history.  To be clear, the charts we are talking about (I also refer to one in the Times article from a couple days ago) refer to foreign born nationals as % of population, so when I mention immigration in this response, that’s the stat I have in mind.  Here are some other ways of saying what you said:

- The percent of foreign born has not been as high since before women had the right to vote. That’s a long time.
- For a person born in the 1970’s, the percent foreign born has roughly tripled in their lifetimes, from below 5% to approximately 15%.
- For a person born in the 1990’s, the percent foreign born has roughly doubled in their lifetimes.
- The high immigration rates in the late 1800’s led to significant immigration backlash, including (racist) laws in the 1870’s and 1880’s restricting Asian immigration. The persistent period of anti-immigrant sentiment that was a backlash to the 14% of foreign born nationals led to a shift in the immigration zeitgeist that saw a precipitous decline over approximately fifty years.  It took more than a century to recover from the shock of 14% foreign born.

I’m not saying that you are not correct that at one point 14% was normal, but sort of handwaving “this is normal” kind of ignores alternative readings that people could reasonably believe and experience.  People are reacting to real and significant changes in immigration that aren’t just being made up by MAGA.  And the last time immigration was this high, voters pushed back really hard, and for generations.  We need to be open to and curious about those other ways of experiencing the last half century of immigration. And my apologies if I've misunderstood where you are coming from in this or the other thread when you've pointed this "normal" thing out.

[desertadapted]

Many liberals take an Emma Smith Lazarus view of immigration, thinking they are being empathic to the world’s tired and poor.  But they are showing a lack of empathy for the working class and poor with whom those immigrants compete. 

Well, if I have to choose between two classes of people, I am always going to favour the class who have the bravery to migrate to a foreign land, usually without social or economic capital, in the hopes of bettering their lot in life. If a native can't compete with those people then it's too bad. The alternative is me saying that some hard-working and talented people should have opportunities denied to them because they were born in the wrong country  - which is a repulsive, jingoistic and xenophobic sentiment.

I think it’s helpful that you articulated things as you did here because I think it perfectly crystalizes what the right thinks liberals really mean when they push for a maximalist view of immigration.  These hard-working immigrants are more motivated than you so we want them no matter the impact on you, who are not good enough to compete with them.  With that mindset, is there any wonder why the working class largely went with Trump?

And how convenient for us, the bourgeoise, to continue to benefit from our own barriers to competition, while parts of our group show such open disdain for the working class.  And it is further convenient that we will say, “but the tired and poor need us more than the skilled do, so we should prioritize them over someone who would compete with us.”  It’s all tied up in a neat bow.  We get to feel good about ourselves by looking out for the Venezuelans who our own well-intentioned sanctions help drive here, while we express contempt for fellow citizens who can’t compete, all the while benefiting from our own barriers to competition. And we get to call people who disagree with you repulsive, jingoistic and xenophobic.  What’s not to like?  We can’t lose!  Only, we did.  And now we have Trump for four years.  And if that is our message to fellow voters, how could we be surprised?

[reeshau]

I’m not saying that you are not correct that at one point 14% was normal, but sort of handwaving “this is normal” kind of ignores alternative readings that people could reasonably believe and experience.  People are reacting to real and significant changes in immigration that aren’t just being made up by MAGA.  And the last time immigration was this high, voters pushed back really hard, and for generations.  We need to be open to and curious about those other ways of experiencing the last half century of immigration. And my apologies if I've misunderstood where you are coming from in this or the other thread when you've pointed this "normal" thing out.

14% was normal for 125 years.   We have gone down, and come back, in a similar amount of time, although without intending to.

I do agree it's understandable that there is discomfort or an adverse emotional reaction to the state of things now; it is not in many people's direct experience.  I do sincerely believe that openness to immigration is a differentiator for the US compared to many advanced economies, and a strength of our country.  We also should acknowledge the racist origins of the quota system, even as it has changed its targets over the years.  As well, immigration is a part of nearly everybody's family history, and can be accessible that way.  That's why I push back.

[desertadapted]

 I want to push back a bit on a refrain I’m seeing in the chat.  It stems from the fact that Republicans deliberately tanked the bipartisan border bill at Trump’s behest. While this observation is completely true, I believe it has less persuasive value than we’d like and can lead us down an unproductive path.

To begin, it seems obvious that Trump didn’t want Dems to have a big win on immigration.  His big issue is being tough on immigration.  He apparently concluded that he could weather the “you killed the bill” criticism and come out ahead on the “Democrats screwed up immigration” argument.  It would have been political malpractice for his party to ignore his demand.  So they killed it.  Trump and Republicans want to run on immigration more than they want to “solve” it because they win on it as the issue is currently postured. 

This is nothing new. Republicans ran on (among other things) urban disorder and the so-called welfare queen from approximately Nixon through HW Bush.  Other than a small post-Watergate blip that brough us Carter, this strategy worked for 30 years straight.  They want a new Southern Strategy and I think immigration is it.  They will do what they can to keep the issue alive for them.

So why is tanking the bill not persuasive as a rhetorical device?  Trump’s victory proves out his strategy.  It’s not like Dems weren’t pointing out the hypocrisy during the election.  It just didn’t work.  Democrats made themselves vulnerable to Trump’s strategy with the immigration surge under Biden.  Biden’s mid-2024 policy change on immigration caused border contacts to plummet.  That means he could have acted earlier (it was all through executive action), but chose not to do it.  Biden made a political gamble on immigration that didn’t pay off.  All of this is to say that the “they killed the bill” argument was tested before the electorate and it failed to persuade.  And given that Harris lost about 7 million votes that had gone for Biden in 2020, it didn’t simply fail to persuade MAGA (not knocking Harris; I think she did as good as anyone could under the circumstances).   In other words, the converted like the argument.  But the number of converted is shrinking.  I get it – I was pissed that they killed the bill.  But we have to be open a curious about why that argument failed.  This thread is partly me coming trying to exercise that curiosity (with a click-bait headline to invite debate).

Why is the “they killed the bill” argument unproductive?  It encourages an unproductive tit for tat that Dems will tend to lose.  2024 is strong evidence that a more maximalist approach to immigration loses elections.  In the next congress, the Republicans may well introduce the border bill, maybe with some billions for Trump’s favorite toy, the wall.  To me, the unproductive response is for the Dems to say, “you’re hypocrites for not voting for it when it would help Dems, so now we won’t vote for it when it will help Republicans.”  Border security is a weak spot for Dems, and keeping it alive is a mistake.  This is not about rolling over like on something like a Merrick Garland (by all means if Dems take the Senate in 2026, pull a McConnell).  This is about sanding down or eliminating a weak spot.

The Dem approach for decades has been to seek a comprehensive immigration bill whereby they sought to leverage things liberals like me wanted (Dreamers, path to citizenship) for what the Republicans wanted (generally a stricter border).  The strategy never worked and in 2024 the Dems converted to the idea that they should give in on border security and then fight the other issues independently.  This seems smart to me. Liberals should not cede the narrative on immigration.  Addressing border security takes a weak issue for Dems at least partially off the table. Addressing chaos and line-jumping is important.  It then puts Dems in a position to make a broader argument for an immigration policy that is at once humane and not perceived by the working class as a direct attack on them (it’s important to remember that college-educated Americans represent about 38% of the population – though I’d guess about 90%+ on this forum). 

[LennStar]

With that mindset, is there any wonder why the working class largely went with Trump?

And how convenient for us, the bourgeoise, to continue to benefit from our own barriers to competition, while parts of our group show such open disdain for the working class. 

The problem with this is of course, again, that it is perception, not reality. Putting aside the meaning of "the working class", those immigrants also work in "liberal" jobs.
And if, as they always say, the "working calss Trump voters" are so proud of being this, why the hell do they think they will lose on the job market to the immigrants, who are lazy and don't speak American?

Not to mention that the numbers don't add up. It's like with "rural" people. It's said it's a rural / urban divide. Rural is Trump land, where the hard working class resides, while the cities are infested with Democrats.
But only 20% of Americans live rural. I doubt every single one of them voted for Trump, including the non-voters and children.

Not to forget that the hated Biden administration did a lot more for those rurals than for the city dwellers.

Reality just doesn't add up to what MAGAs say.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

More specifically, people crossing the border know how to game the asylum system so they are allowed in while their case is processed, and then they work in the U.S. for about 10 months.  I haven't seen this documented in detail, but it could make a convincing case for changing the asylum system to prevent abuse.  I think something specific like that could cut through the two entrenched positions (need more/less) and solve a broken part of the U.S. immigration system.

our quotas are artificially low. people come here because they know they can get work, under the table. People hire them. If the quotas were actually more in line, there would be less incentive to "game" the system. Right now people who are trying to do so legally, are stuck at the border for weeks and months, where it's a beuracratic nightmare. The current system incentivizes people to "game" the system, because the system is pretty broke.

I think the 125,000 asylum quota is only for approvals.  The problem is that even if someone will ultimately get rejected, it requires 10 months for the U.S. to arrive at that decision.  So a rejected asylum seeker still gets 10 months to work in the U.S. (I don't know if that's legal, but it seems to be common practice).

Hiring more judges to decide asylum claims could reduce the 10 month wait time, and reduce the incentive to game the system in this specific manner.  A "wait in Mexico" approach would achieve the same thing.

[Greystache]

The MAGAs don't want to solve the illegal immigration problem, they want to keep it around so they can use it for fundraising and campaigning. Border security has widespread bipartisan support. The MAGAs take the concept of border security and cover it with racism and xenophobia so that the democrats who would otherwise support border security are repelled. How do we know this to be true? President Bush was able to pass a border wall bill in 2006 with broad bipartisan support. At the time, there was no talk of murders and rapists or hordes of vermin infecting us. By the way, the bill was later amended and watered down, mostly because Texas politicians were worried that it would hurt their economy.

from Wikipedia:

Secure Fence Act of 2006


The Secure Fence Act of 2006, signed into law on October 26, 2006, by President George W. Bush[35] authorized and partially funded the potential construction of 700 miles (1,100 km) of physical fence/barriers along the Mexican border. The bill passed with supermajorities in both chambers.

[swashbucklinstache]

First, my data-less narrative to expose my biases. I feel voters pretty much only care about the economy and the immigrants = more job competition plus others = change = scary message sells itself. I think immigration is a convenient talking point to rile people up about something with minimal real (and positive anyway) impact in order to divert attention from more important issues. I feel similarly about attempts to restrict LGBTQ rights and, ugh, bathroom issues. I firmly believe in a rising tide lifting all boats when the tide is accumulating relative talent at a national level and that population maintenance will require immigration including competition for immigrants soon. I could buy an argument that behind the scenes democratic leadership thought Trump would lead to lower immigration so they want to get more people in the door while they could.

But these discussions should be grounded in data. I know very little about this including veracity of the sources below. Most of them agreed with other search results, but I'm highlighting I am not qualified to google the exact right things.

<>
Do we care about chaos, line jumping, asylum abuse? A priori I hardly care at all about how these processes work when picking a national candidate to vote for. Obviously better/fairer is better. Empathy plays very little role in my pro-immigration stance.
After looking, I see this in the data:
Asylee cases filed per year jumped from 63k in 2021 to 456k in 2023. Refugee admissions from 11k to 60k. I may be missing something. We can't be too up in arms about something involving fairness & processes of 0.15% of the population? I get it for people in CA, Florida, and TX, but every damn ad in Colorado was about the border.
(first 2 are PDFs)
https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-10/2024_1002_ohss_asylees_fy2023.pdf
https://ohss.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2024-11/2024_1108_ohss_refugee_annual_flow_report_2023.pdf
https://trac.syr.edu/reports/705/#:~:text=A%20decade%20later%2C%20the%20backlog,cases%20and%20now%20totals%20787%2C882.

<>
Illegals?
Prior: I don't care about illegal immigrants at the current numbers at all.
Data: A few estimates say 10-12 million in the US and that it is a little lower than 2008 even though 30 million more people live in the US.
https://cmsny.org/us-undocumented-population-increased-in-july-2023-warren-090624/
Is 3% of the US population the right number for the country to be its best? I have no idea, but I can say with certainty it is far too low of a number for the airtime the issue gets. That stands alone, so this is not whataboutism but instead an example of opportunity cost: Around 0.74% of adults are behind bars, 4x the rate of our peers, and another 1-1.5% are on probation. We should devote our immigration airtime or at least policy making efforts to that.
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2022-statistical-tables
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2024.html
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/US.html

<>
I'll run with the estimate of 14-15% foreign-born number discussed earlier in the thread. It should be considered in context with the falling birth rate in the country, the increase in average age of mothers, and birth-related mortalities. In finding the right % we should really consider many other things like labor force participation rates and changes in disposable incomes by household which I haven't looked at.
In 1910 the fertility rate (births per 1,000 women of child bearing age) was 126.8 and the crude birth rate (births per 1,000 people per year) was 30. In 2018, 59.1 and 11.6.
Mothers age at first birth in is 3 up years since 1970. Hard to weigh this in but it has a direct impact on population growth - a 40 year old with 1 kid and 1 grandkid vs a 40 year old first time mother of one 1 year old.
A counterweight is that in 1900, per 1000 births, 6-9 mothers died due to complications and 100 infants died before age 1, down to 0.1 and 7.2 by the year 2000. I couldn't immediately find death before adulthood nor verify sources, but deaths before age 5 went from 238 to 10.
An interesting this is that most of this data is by mother and then compared against population. I didn't immediately see any meaningful differences of % of sex in the population over time. I did see this fun chart that is really hard to read but fun to watch, including seeing how the population changes over time (press play on it).
https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/055/

I'm not immediately shockingly put off by 14-15% in that context though I have no idea what the best percentage is.
https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/nchs-births-and-general-fertility-rates-united-states
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/02news/ameriwomen.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/

<>
Brain waste and who are immigrants competing with for jobs

In 2022, approximately 2.1 million college-educated immigrants in the U.S. labor market (around 20 percent of college-educated immigrants) were either unemployed or working in low-skilled jobs including as dishwashers, security guards, or taxi drivers, often because of difficulty getting their credentials recognized or other hurdles. This situation represents a waste of human capital (also referred to as “brain waste” or underemployment) that also affects approximately 7.8 million U.S.-born college graduates (16 percent of U.S.-born graduates).

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/college-educated-immigrants-united-states
A 4% difference doesn't seem that big. 0.8% of adults in the US.
Just for reference:
Lawyers: 1.3 million
Doctors: 1 million
Faculty: 1.5 million
Coders etc: 2 million best I can tell from various BLS job titles
https://www.americanbar.org/news/profile-legal-profession/demographics/
https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/workforce/data/active-physicians-us-doctor-medicine-us-md-degree-specialty-2019
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/csc/postsecondary-faculty
An huge proportion of H1B Visas go to tech workers in big cities
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/h1b-visa-program-fact-sheet
It is nowhere near fair to compare basically any field to tech over since 2000 and gatekeeping in those fields is certainly an issue worth discussing, immigration or not. But, in tech anyway, we know most H1B visas at least are for tech jobs and the US is dominant in tech. It doesn't look like most of the rest of knowledge worker immigrants work in gatekeeper industries and most of these are knowledge fields (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/college-educated-immigrants-united-states#). I guess I'm failing to see an urgent, imminent problem, and college educated democrats are taking the brunt of increased competition right? Maybe the number of jobs requiring a degree is not increasing as fast or people feel squeezed out of those jobs requiring a degree. I haven't looked at those. This isn't rejecting a perceived lack of empathy at all, and therefore strategy, but questioning the question so to speak.
<><>

I'm even more ignorant on the farm worker angle so won't touch that. Neither will I waste breath on "not sending their best" nor "fentanyl pouring over the borders" as immigration or border issues.

I don't know the right strategy so I default to my default recommendation. Democrats should stop tip-toeing around playing nice and appeal to the right through a 'straight talking' candidate. But, ground it in data. To appeal to the right stand up and say that a majority of working immigrants take college educated people's jobs and that half of those college educated immigrants are in liberal coastal elite California, NY, NJ, VA, WA, MA, and MD (US census). Tell them that by bringing in these people we have a huge competitive advantage over other countries and that democrats are happy to take that burden. Pair that message with a tax on billionaires to give more money to public K-12 education at a federal level and (even more) money to rural white US-born people if you want.

[reeshau]

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

More specifically, people crossing the border know how to game the asylum system so they are allowed in while their case is processed, and then they work in the U.S. for about 10 months.  I haven't seen this documented in detail, but it could make a convincing case for changing the asylum system to prevent abuse.  I think something specific like that could cut through the two entrenched positions (need more/less) and solve a broken part of the U.S. immigration system.

our quotas are artificially low. people come here because they know they can get work, under the table. People hire them. If the quotas were actually more in line, there would be less incentive to "game" the system. Right now people who are trying to do so legally, are stuck at the border for weeks and months, where it's a beuracratic nightmare. The current system incentivizes people to "game" the system, because the system is pretty broke.

I think the 125,000 asylum quota is only for approvals.  The problem is that even if someone will ultimately get rejected, it requires 10 months for the U.S. to arrive at that decision.  So a rejected asylum seeker still gets 10 months to work in the U.S. (I don't know if that's legal, but it seems to be common practice).

Hiring more judges to decide asylum claims could reduce the 10 month wait time, and reduce the incentive to game the system in this specific manner.  A "wait in Mexico" approach would achieve the same thing.

The average wait time is actually 4 to 6 YEARS, depending on the process.
 

[MustacheAndaHalf]

Showing up at the border and beating the poor system we have in place today doesn’t seem thoughtful to me. There’s got to be more to it than the personal choice of the immigrant. I have no doubt many people believe they could build a better life for themselves here, but that doesn’t mean they should automatically be admitted.

More specifically, people crossing the border know how to game the asylum system so they are allowed in while their case is processed, and then they work in the U.S. for about 10 months.  I haven't seen this documented in detail, but it could make a convincing case for changing the asylum system to prevent abuse.  I think something specific like that could cut through the two entrenched positions (need more/less) and solve a broken part of the U.S. immigration system.

our quotas are artificially low. people come here because they know they can get work, under the table. People hire them. If the quotas were actually more in line, there would be less incentive to "game" the system. Right now people who are trying to do so legally, are stuck at the border for weeks and months, where it's a beuracratic nightmare. The current system incentivizes people to "game" the system, because the system is pretty broke.

I think the 125,000 asylum quota is only for approvals.  The problem is that even if someone will ultimately get rejected, it requires 10 months for the U.S. to arrive at that decision.  So a rejected asylum seeker still gets 10 months to work in the U.S. (I don't know if that's legal, but it seems to be common practice).

Hiring more judges to decide asylum claims could reduce the 10 month wait time, and reduce the incentive to game the system in this specific manner.  A "wait in Mexico" approach would achieve the same thing.

The average wait time is actually 4 to 6 YEARS, depending on the process.

Wow, this problem has gotten a lot worse from 2018 to 2024.

"With so many asylum seekers stuck in backlogs, delays can be long. If someone is before USCIS, their estimated wait time is more than 6 years. For claims in front of EOIR, asylum seekers are looking at an average wait time of approximately 4.3 years."
https://immigrationforum.org/article/explainer-asylum-backlogs/

"Applying for asylum in the US takes, on average, 6 months, 2 interviews and one big decision"
CNN article back from May 1, 2018
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/01/world/asylum-process-refugee-migrant-immigration-trnd/index.html

[JGS1980]

This thread has been interesting...

How to fix US immigration, JGS style -new thread for whomever is interested.

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/how-to-fix-immigration/

[Poundwise]

Reminds me of the following cartoon which I may have seen in MMM forums back in 2008.

[Ron Scott]

Our politicians don’t want to fix immigration because it’s a great issue to raise money on. When the problem is solved those donations dry up. The governing process has been captured by the parties and we suffer.

Those who continue to argue this issue as right vs. left, with all the incumbent talking points, have lost the ability to solve the problem because they’ve been co-opted by those who benefit financially by maintaining the problem.

Exactly. It's not like this immigration problem suddenly came about in the last 4 years.

"OMG Everyone! Illegal immigrants started crossing the border in 2021 when the liberals took over!"

I find cynicism that “the fix is in” understandable, but ultimately unsatisfying. .

We all find the truth that both parties strategically avoid fixing the problem to be unsatisfying.

When you describe this state of affairs simply as a cynical view, you need to account for decades of avoidance, during which both parties had ample power and opportunity to pass legislation, as well as the successful staying power of the negative immigration ads each party uses to raise money.

It is naive to believe the parties don’t each see this issue as benefiting them at the expense of the American people.

Now that the GOP has control of all three branches of government, I will be waiting for the legislative initiatives addressing the problem. So far all I’ve heard is talk of deporting some—which will provide red meat for the base but leave the core problem unresolved. I will likely be waiting for Godot.