# Every Immigrant Suddenly Vanishes from the USA... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 3, 2009, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828 "2009-12-03T08:28:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/21 "2009-12-03T16:06:45Z")
The first thing that would happen would be a diplomatic shitstorm as other countries start to wonder where their citizens and diplomatic staff have gone. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/22 "2009-12-03T16:10:53Z")
Orphan City. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/23 "2009-12-03T16:14:06Z")
We’d be left without a president! (ducks and runs) ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/24 "2009-12-03T16:16:01Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > We’d be left without a president! Ah, there you go. It’d prove the birthers right or wrong. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/25 "2009-12-03T17:00:32Z")
That’s sort of whats been happening around here ever since the housing bubble popped. When the landscaping, roofing and construction jobs dried up they simply started leaving. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/26 "2009-12-03T17:43:38Z")
Since the OP is talking about legal immigrants, Silicon Valley would collapse. I suspect 90% of the people who work in my building were born overseas. A good chunk of computer engineering faculty at our universities would be gone, as well as a good chunk of graduate students in EE. A very large chunk of the part of my town with the most expensive houses would be deserted, as well as a very large chunk of our high school population. And I would have to write all the papers for the conference I’m involved with by myself. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/27 "2009-12-03T17:45:23Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Lou Dobbs has a massive orgasm. > > Price of produce goes through the roof without cheap labor to harvest it. Ethnic restaurants close due to lack of staff. All restaurants close due to lack of staff. Ever read **Kitchen Confidential**? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/28 "2009-12-03T17:46:13Z")
Note that illegal immigrants have a net positive effect on things like Social Security: > [@](#): > > Not only has Congress enacted no recent legislation granting Social Security benefits to illegal aliens, but Social Security officials themselves have noted that undocumented immigrants have a positive net effect on the Social Security system: > > _In its 2008 annual report, Social Security officials said undocumented immigrants actual benefit the Social Security trust fund. One reason is that many of them pay Social Security taxes but never collect benefits. In previously published reports, Social Security officials have said undocumented immigrants paid about $7 billion into the trust fund in 2005, the latest year for which numbers are available._ > > SOURCE: [No Social Security for Illegal Aliens Petition | Snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/petition.asp) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/29 "2009-12-03T17:51:22Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > God help gingers! Um…😕 If you mean “gingers” in the UK sense, this comment makes no sense. Lots of redheads are born in the US every day - with the exception of a long-dead great-grandmother all the redheads in my family were born here. And if you don’t mean it in the UK sense, what _do_ you mean? I don’t buy the lack of cheap produce argument. Here locally grown produce is less expensive than imported produce, not more, and given we don’t have many immigrant workers (only [64,000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_hampshire#Demographics) NH residents are not US-born, and a fair number of those people are in tech and medical fields) up this way picking fruit & veggies you would expect the costs to be considerably higher given what everyone “knows” about the relationship between produce and immigrant workers. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/30 "2009-12-03T18:00:03Z")
My girlfriend disappears. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/31 "2009-12-03T18:05:01Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Since the OP is talking about legal immigrants, Silicon Valley would collapse. I suspect 90% of the people who work in my building were born overseas. A good chunk of computer engineering faculty at our universities would be gone, as well as a good chunk of graduate students in EE. A very large chunk of the part of my town with the most expensive houses would be deserted, as well as a very large chunk of our high school population. > > And I would have to write all the papers for the conference I’m involved with by myself. Thank you for this. We don’t all work in construction, fast food joints or picking produce. Hell some of us aren’t even in scientific jobs… ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/32 "2009-12-03T18:05:56Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Um…😕 > > If you mean “gingers” in the UK sense, this comment makes no sense. Lots of redheads are born in the US every day - with the exception of a long-dead great-grandmother all the redheads in my family were born here. And if you don’t mean it in the UK sense, what _do_ you mean? > > I don’t buy the lack of cheap produce argument. Here locally grown produce is less expensive than imported produce, not more, and given we don’t have many immigrant workers (only [64,000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_hampshire#Demographics) NH residents are not US-born, and a fair number of those people are in tech and medical fields) up this way picking fruit & veggies you would expect the costs to be considerably higher given what everyone “knows” about the relationship between produce and immigrant workers. I suspect he meant that in the absence of many visible minorities, more subtle differentiated people would begin to bear more of the brunt of discrimination. Obviously, native born visible minorities would still be around, but a chunk of visible minorities would be gone, so red-haired people would no doubt step up to the plate and fill the void in the discrimination industry. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/33 "2009-12-03T18:10:56Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > I suspect he meant that in the absence of many visible minorities, more subtle differentiated people would begin to bear more of the brunt of discrimination. Obviously, native born visible minorities would still be around, but a chunk of visible minorities would be gone, so red-haired people would no doubt step up to the plate and fill the void in the discrimination industry. I doubt it. There’s nothing culturally alien about red-haired people. Most of them are of Irish or Scots-Irish or English descent, in other words part of the majority. Real discrimination is about more than just how someone _looks._ I don’t think that all the anti-immigrant racists would suddenly just turn their hatred against someone else. I don’t think it works that way. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/34 "2009-12-03T18:12:57Z")
The Governors of California and Michigan would vanish. As would Sen. John McCain. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/35 "2009-12-03T18:18:25Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I doubt it. There’s nothing culturally alien about red-haired people. Most of them are of Irish or Scots-Irish or English descent, in other words part of the majority. Real discrimination is about more than just how someone _looks._ I don’t think that all the anti-immigrant racists would suddenly just turn their hatred against someone else. I don’t think it works that way. Sure - if you look at the history of areas that were 100% white, such as Scotland, for example, discrimination was non-existant. It isn’t that sectarianism took its place, with different housing estates, unions and football teams for Catholics and Protestants. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/36 "2009-12-03T18:21:57Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > The Governors of California and Michigan would vanish. > > As would Sen. John McCain. No birthers have mentioned Obama yet? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/37 "2009-12-03T18:23:22Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > The Governors of California and Michigan would vanish. > > As would Sen. John McCain. Well, at least if this all happened magically and immigrants in the US went _poof_ overnight we’d know for sure if Obama was really a Kenyan. So one problem put to rest. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/38 "2009-12-03T18:24:26Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > I don’t think that all the anti-immigrant racists would suddenly just turn their hatred against someone else. I don’t think it works that way. I don’t know if it would be sudden, but it might happen eventually. It feels good to be able to blame somebody else, somebody who is different from you, when your life isn’t going the way you’d like it to. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/39 "2009-12-03T18:41:50Z")
I’d love to answer this question, but half my family just disappeared and…\ -XT ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828/40 "2009-12-03T18:49:07Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Thank you for this. We don’t all work in construction, fast food joints or picking produce. Hell some of us aren’t even in scientific jobs… Kal Penn and M. Night Shyamalan I believe both immigrants. I’m not positive - Kal Penn may have been born here. And yes, there are so many immigrant Indians in comp sci…I thank you too, Voyager. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-immigrant-suddenly-vanishes-from-the-usa/519828.md?page=3)