# At what point does someone have a right to reside in a country? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2018, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255 "2018-01-09T18:22:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/101 "2018-01-11T11:36:35Z")
Labor shortage= labor costs more than employers want to pay. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/102 "2018-01-11T11:36:38Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Let’s see what happens to the owners- this was apparently related to a 2013 investigation where 8 franchisees and managers pled guilty, apparently to charges regarding using stolen identities so they could employ illegal workers and pay them less than minimum wage. As far as I can tell, the only punishment was that they had to pay back wages. Not much of a deterrent, more a cost of doing business. Typically, politicians are afraid to shut down businesses outright (permanent loss of jobs and tax revenues). Criminally, government has to prove that the owners weren’t deceived, which is not easy. A number of 7-11’s I’ve been to, though, are owned and operated by franchisees who themselves are foreign-born. I would not want to be a foreign-born franchisee caught with undocumented immigrants in the era of Trump. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/103 "2018-01-11T11:47:37Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Labor shortage= labor costs more than employers want to pay. Not always. It can also be not having enough people on hand to keep up with the demand at peak hours, resulting in lost sales. I remember this from my time in retail during my college years. When you have long lines at Christmas time and you’ve only got one person on the sales floor and another guy at the register, the company might be saving money by not having an extra employee, but if even two or three people at the end of that line get frustrated enough to go to the other end of the mall or even next door and buy whatever they wanted, then those savings ended up costing that company lost revenue. Now each industry is different. I’m referring to my past experience in retail electronics. A frustrated customer that left the store was potentially several hundred dollars of lost revenue, easily. A fast food franchisee is a different example altogether. The most that an employer loses in that case is $5-15 per frustrated customer that walks out. It really depends, but I would be careful in making the blanket assumption that immigrants get hired because employers are cheap. Go around to your local strip where there are fast food restaurants lined up and throughout much of the country, you’re likely to see “Help Wanted” signs on the door. Working at minimum wage isn’t as attractive to most Americans as it is for immigrants (legal or not). For one thing, the wages barely cover basic necessities required to live the independent, consumerist American life that we’ve all grown entitled to. For another, it’s just not an attractive job for the Instagram generation. Migrant workers don’t give a shit about any of that - they’ll take the money. At the risk of engaging in stereotypes, they’re used to packing large families in close quarters. They share precious resources. They’re less concerned with self-image. They’ll take a job at a mini-mart, work their way up, save resources and perhaps one day own their own shop. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/104 "2018-01-11T11:56:02Z")
In rare cases, there aren’t enough employees no matter how much an employer offers, but the vast majority of the time an employer just makes a decision to lose a few customers rather than escalate their pay structure. Better yet, they just lobby politicians to import more workers so they can hold wages down. It’s true that automation is a bigger factor, because at some point it’s just better to automate than to pay more. Eventually there will be no demand for low skill labor at all, which should end illegal immigration for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/105 "2018-01-11T12:12:28Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Well, the penalties are supposed to be $10,000 per violation. And they can keep on coming back and fine that same $10,000 per employee every time employee files aren’t compliant. Employers can be hit hard financially, the tools are there. I’m not saying the tools aren’t there- I’m saying they aren’t used often enough to be a deterrent. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/106 "2018-01-11T13:16:17Z")
That’s because there are very few in power who want to deter illegal hiring. As with most regulations and laws, they harass the law abiding more than the criminal. ---
**Author:** ![mikecurtis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikecurtis/32/3284_2.png) [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/107 "2018-01-11T16:31:50Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > First of all, the Center for Immigration Studies is NOT a neutral source, though surprisingly, despite your source, I don’t think your claims are particularly biased in this case. > > What I would submit, however, is that automation and the overall restructuring of the labor force over the past decades (including the shift to global supply chains) has had much more to do with declining wages than immigration. Immigration usually follows a demand for labor that is not being filled by the existing labor pool within the country. When the demand for labor dries up, then you see competition for labor, but the natural born citizens have the advantages that immigrants (legal or otherwise) don’t. I agree with the criticism that it’s over-simplification to claim that immigrants always take the jobs that citizens don’t want - that’s not always true, I agree. But more often than not, the fill labor shortages that are caused by a multitude of factors. Yes I realize that CIS is not a completely neutral group (and being an open borders advocate, myself, they are “not on my side”) but their data gathering and analysis are solid (and they are not alone in their position on this). And if we’re gonna have an honest conversation about immigration I have to recognize that immigrants (especially the undocumented} do compete with some natives for jobs. The CIS also recognizes that Immigration provides net benefit to the economy, which, imho. is the more pertinent statistic. And as you point out, immigrants aren’t the only thing competing for wages in the economy. Rather than try and prevent competition for wages (a losing battle for sure), we should be trying to find ways for those native workers to move up the wage scale; through education, training and job creation. This thread, however, is about whether or not, and at what point, undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay; and since they are a net boon to the economy, the fact that they compete with natives in certain areas should not count against them. mc ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/108 "2018-01-11T16:48:47Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Really? I can enter America legally on a travel visa but when it expirees I am illegally living in the country. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You should notify the Supreme Court of that. They seem to be unaware of it. The Supreme Court notes that it’s not generally a crime – but it can result in an arrest, interestingly enough. An alien residing in the United States illegally – that is, “in violation of immigration law,” is subject to arrest and detention pending a decision on whether the alien is to be removed from the United States. This is not the ordinary course of action; normally the alien is issued a civil Notice to Appear (see 8 CFR §239.1(a)). But at the discretion of the Attorney General, such an alien may be arrested pursuant to a warrant. When I hear, “illegally,” in this context I think “in violation of a law,” as opposed to “a crime.” ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/109 "2018-01-11T20:42:12Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > In rare cases, there aren’t enough employees no matter how much an employer offers, but the vast majority of the time an employer just makes a decision to lose a few customers rather than escalate their pay structure. Better yet, they just lobby politicians to import more workers so they can hold wages down. > > It’s true that automation is a bigger factor, because at some point it’s just better to automate than to pay more. Eventually there will be no demand for low skill labor at all, which should end illegal immigration for the most part. On the contrary, automation makes more jobs low skill. Manufacturing jobs used to very skill intensive. Folks do not realize the skill it took to make even mass-produced products before large scale improvements to automation. Now it is very easy to plug a low skill worker into a process that is partly or largely automated and get much more consistent outputs in less time. (Though this plugin is less easy than some think, which can end quite badly) Management and scheduling work is lower skill than ever thanks to software. Even “knowledge work” is made lower skill by automation. Companies can hire many less design and process engineers thanks largely to software, which is pretty much automated mathematics. With the permeation of the global division of labor into corners of the former third-world, jobs will become easier and production will increase across the entire supply chain in every industry. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/110 "2018-01-11T22:53:43Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Yes, she is. > > Russia doesn’t make a deal with President Trump; Russia makes a deal with the United States of America. Constitutionally, President Trump is the agent who acts on behalf of the United States in negotiating and concluding the deal, but it remains a deal with the US, not a deal with Donald J. Trump. That doesn’t apply to Executive Orders, which is what DACA was. ---
**Author:** ![GulfTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e79b87/32.png) [@GulfTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GulfTiger)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/111 "2018-01-12T01:13:54Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Never. > It is a Nation-States privilege to decide who can and cannot reside within its borders. This has been the reality for centuries. And closely related, if you have a powerful military that can defeat the people occupying a landmass, you have the right to reside there. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/112 "2018-01-12T03:38:10Z")
Unfortunately, that’s the way the world still works. We are only a couple of steps removed from “might makes right” WITHIN democratic countries. Between countries, it’s still the law of the jungle. There’s actually a lot of philosophy on that subject. Back during the Civil War, the NY Times was very explicit about the fact that the South was committing treason. Unless they won, in which case they would have proved they had a right to be independent. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/113 "2018-01-12T06:29:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Unfortunately, that’s the way the world still works. We are only a couple of steps removed from “might makes right” WITHIN democratic countries. Between countries, it’s still the law of the jungle. > > There’s actually a lot of philosophy on that subject. Back during the Civil War, the NY Times was very explicit about the fact that the South was committing treason. Unless they won, in which case they would have proved they had a right to be independent. Of course one should not forget that the south was not only committing treason, but wanting to deny that blacks had rights or that they were human beings. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/114 "2018-01-12T07:32:50Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Of course one should not forget that the south was not only committing treason, but wanting to deny that blacks had rights or that they were human beings. Then the USA also was committing treason against Great Britain during the Revolutionary War. ---
**Author:** ![AI\_Proofreader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@AI\_Proofreader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AI_Proofreader)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/115 "2018-01-12T07:45:11Z")
1. The point where their country of origin will not take them back - through no fault of theirs. At that point it becomes a “human rights” issue. You’re going to send them back to a place where they will be persecuted and possibly jailed or killed? 2. When removing the person will cause demonstrable harm to their new country. IE, someone has illegally immigrated to a country. They start a landscaping business. They’re employing 10 other people, all of whom are citizens - the net effect of deporting that person will be that 10 citizens will lose their jobs. Hundreds of others will be negatively affected by a loss in business they would have had if those 10 citizens could still afford to pay. 3. When removing the person will cause demonstrable harm to a minor. Call it, in my opinion, the day a child starts school around 5 years old. They’ve now officially “entered” the system in the country their parents moved to, and have also gotten to the point where enough cultural / developmental milestones have been passed that moving them to a very different culture could be somewhat traumatic. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/116 "2018-01-12T10:24:56Z")
In Thailand, at least a hundred thousand “hill people” who have been in the Kingdom for several generations are denied citizenship. On a separate matter, [from the trivial desk] the author of the famous couplet Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason. was also the inventor of the flush toilet (and installed one for his godmother Queen Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace). ---
**Author:** ![Arizona\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Arizona\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arizona_Mike)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/117 "2018-01-12T15:27:17Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > No, I don’t see that it becomes any less wrong just because they do more of it. It is essentially unfair to those who take the time and effort to go through legal channels of immigration. It is rewarding line-jumpers. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/118 "2018-01-12T17:37:43Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > Which raised the obvious question; if kicking out the Jews were popular with voters, should the government set the immigration rules to produce this outcome? In the bizarre world that this could come to pass, if the people repealed the part of the constitution that would prohibit this from happening, then frankly I would leave the country as well. The country would not be recognizable to anyone here. Now back to reality, the electorate gets to elect representatives that decide who gets in and who doesn’t. I will repeat my question from above: What makes the illegal immigrants from Latin America who break the law to get here or to stay here so much worthier of US residency than the dirt farmers in India and China? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/119 "2018-01-12T17:39:30Z")
> [@asahi](#): > > It’s not so clear. The law of supply and demand makes it pretty clear. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255/120 "2018-01-12T18:25:31Z")
> [@AI\_Proofreader](#): > > When removing the person will cause demonstrable harm to a minor. Call it, in my opinion, the day a child starts school around 5 years old. They’ve now officially “entered” the system in the country their parents moved to, and have also gotten to the point where enough cultural / developmental milestones have been passed that moving them to a very different culture could be somewhat traumatic. The term “anchor babies” is rightfully considered a derogatory term, but what would prevent illegal-immigrant parents from using this as an intentional strategy? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-does-someone-have-a-right-to-reside-in-a-country/806255.md?page=7)