If they had decent jobs at home, why would they be coming to the US to pick lettuce and wash toilets?
Nice.
'Merica!
[Picture of Flounder flashes across the screen, largely to hoots of derision. Then, from somewhere in the back: “We need the dues, man.”]
Not just menial labor.
If as the OP suggest, the borders were completely open to everybody, there would also be an influx of doctors and engineers and all other professions. There are currently about 1.5 million such foreign citizens in the US,who had to apply for visas to enter the country for a temporary stay.
( 420,000 people working on H1b visas which expire after 3 or 6 years
and over a million university students using F-1 visas which expire after graduation.
If there were no border controls and no visas, there would be many more, and the invisible hand would affect other labor markets,too.
Both your scenarios mention keeping out the terrorists and bad guys. How do we vet all the immigrants if they can come into the country at will? Would we just wait and see if they commit crimes, and deport them if they do? How do we keep them out if they are deported?
Would immigrants be eligible for SSIafter they have been in the country for a month?
Regards,
Shodan
Your scenario, your call. Really, ignore the prologue and answer the question at the end of the OP based upon what you think Open Borders means.
Have you considered there might be a difference between “Able to come to America visa free” and “Able to collect government benefits”?
First thing is that we would have to eliminate the minimum wage in order to combat growing unemployment.
Gotta tell you, these predictions are a lot less apocalyptic than the current hubub about immigration implies. Get rid of the minimum wage? I may be incorrect, Omar, but isn’t that something you would support?
Eliminate it? I can think of no better way eradicate the lower middle class. And the upper lower class. It would cause the market to settle at the price that the least demanding people will pay, for any and every unskilled and low-skilled position. Those people, for the most part, won’t be white.
And seriously, you can’t combat unemployment that way - it won’t cause that many more jobs to open up, since no matter how cheap it to hire them is you don’t need fifty servants/slaves unless you run a farm/plantation. Which means that you won’t reduce unemployment; you’ll just change who’s hired, and whether they can afford housing.
Your wages will go down. You won’t just be getting unskilled laborers you’ll be getting people with degrees flying in from India, China, Philippines, and South Korean who will suddenly be competing for American jobs. And you’ll likely see skilled laborers coming into the country to become plumbers and mechanics.
This will depend to some degree on what field you’re working in, of course. (And whether you’re making minimum wage, obviously.)
Presuming the foreign talent is coming here because we have higher wages, this would also put pressure on the other countries you mention to raise their wages too, lest the US market steal all their talent. One wonders what they’d think of this.
Because bigotry is far more important to most people than profit. Hundreds of millions of people in the West would prefer to starve under a bridge rather than let “those people” in.
Wellll, it’s more complicated than that. Even with all bigotry aside, different countries have different standards of living, and different valuations for different commodities. (Like gasoline! And health care!) Letting cheap labor flow in would mostly help america because we have lots of jobs that people here are too stuck up to do, and the current efforts to crush immigration are hurting those industries. But as has been noted, if borders stayed open it would allow an external workforce to come flowing in to compete for our jobs - without letting us flow into their country to do the same. This would first show itself in the terrible jobs we don’t want, but would start to effect other job markets over time, as wages started to be dragged down towards those countries whose people are visiting us. (It would have to be down or they wouldn’t come here.)
The different valuation thing can put undue burden on, say, canadian health care if everyone in the states comes up, gets health care, and goes back home - those using the system wouldn’t be paying taxes into it, draining the country’s coffers. If that becomes a major thing, it could, well, become a major thing.
Is there anything in the current tax code that says you can’t decide to, say, different tax rates on immigrants? Equal protection or something?
Not really, since those people would be boosting the economy by being here and consuming. Real life doesn’t work like the xenophobes want it to.
And depressing wages; adding to pollution, water depletion and loss of open land. The 21st century economy needs fewer blue collar workers, not more. Now if these were STEM immigrants…
If they were STEM, they’d still be “adding to pollution, water depletion and loss of open land.” Are STEM folk immune from having a carbon footprint, contributing to crowding or polluting?
STEM folk are worth the pain. Adding millions onto the welfare rolls is moronic and will lower the standard of living to those already here. We have learned nothing from our failed immigration policy of the last fifty years. Smart immigration policy leads to a far better immigrant experience and immigrant acceptance.
Legal immigrants in the form of h1b visa holders depress the wages of American IT/IS workers by about 4% by some estimates. To hire an h1b visa holder, the company needs to jump through a lot of hoops to demonstrate that they can’t find an American (or someone already authorized to work in the US) in addition to paying fees. Assuming the government doesn’t ask for a request for more evidence, that is additional proof that the job requires a college degree and an American can’t be found to fill the position, we’re looking at at least $6,000 dollars and that doesn’t include the time HR or some other employee has to spend gathering the right documentation. It might be $12,000 or more once you factor in the cost of the RFE. And that’s assuming the employee gets through the lottery which is only a 1 in 3 chance.
Now imagine those barriers are gone. IT/IS from South Korea, India, and China have unrestricted access to work in the US. That’s going to depress the wages of American workers. And you won’t just see those foreign workers coming for the jobs that require a great deal of education. They’ll also be coming for many other jobs.
Why isn’t that happening now? Currently we get many talented people from South Korea, China, and India especially. And if you think those countries might raise their wages to keep their talent don’t you think our employers might lower their wages because more talent is available on the local market?