Fine, I’ll amend my assertion to include the caveat “in modern history”. I don’t think what went on in the pre Civil War era is relevant in assessing this proposal either from a political or policy angle…
That’s just the thing. If we will not deport illegals if they are otherwise law abiding then there’s no functional limit on immigration.
Sure there is–it’s a form of prosecutorial discretion.
There’s a route I sometimes walk in my neighborhood that has a corner I have to go around or cut through. Cutting through means going across part of someone’s yard. But they have no fence, no flowers or hedge, and they have a huge yard and their house is really far from that corner. So I do cut it, keeping a respectful distance from the house. Now, technically that’s trespassing. But no one’s likely to get the law involved so long as it’s just the occasional person walking across. If, however, there was just a constant stream of people walking through that yard, like it was a concert grounds or something, they would most likely get involved–and that would make sense.
But we don’t have a law that says one person can trespass per X hours and it’s legal. It’s all illegal, and you enforce it if it gets too out of hand. That’s the way it should be, and the same goes for immigration–which is why I strenuously reject the proposal to have completely open borders, but also support President Obama’s immigration policies, as well as the ones Hillary Clinton has been proposing.
But again, if only criminals are to be deported, then we have open borders already. And since we can’t deport 11 million people, we certainly can’t deport 300 million. Once we say we won’t deport immigration violators who are otherwise law abiding, the gig is up. The incentive to overstay your visa now is pretty good these days. As long as a Democratic administration is in office, you’ll not only be shielded, you’ll also get a work permit.
And let’s be clear, this is not prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutorial discretion is used to go after the highest priority offenders because resources are limited. The problem isn’t limited resources, we have enough to go after felons and plain old immigration scofflaws. Not all immigration scofflaws, but a couple million of them over the course of a decade. The President just doesn’t want to enforce the law, which is at minimum an abuse of the prosecutorial discretion concept. I wonder if DAs and police officers can now refuse to enforce laws they don’t agree with. I recall when some sheriffs said they wouldn’t collect illegal guns if new laws were passed, some liberals called for their firing. But the police indisputably have enforcement discretion. Previously, we had thought that was only because their resources were limited, but if the new definition is that you can refuse to enforce any law you don’t like, then that changes things.
If the President doesn’t want to deport people, then why is he doing it, and at a significantly higher rate than his predecessors?
That was then. Which raises the question of what the problem was. The President was having no problems deporting people in large numbers. There was no prosecutorial discretion reason to stop.
Two big-ass oceans, and the cost of transportation >100 years ago.
This is an awfully either-or model for immigration: those people who want to immigrate are already doing so (often illegally), and those with resources wouldn’t come even if we opened up the border.
The thing is, it doesn’t work like that. More obstacles and dangers involved in entering the country change the point at which it makes sense to try to come north from Mexico and the rest of Central America. If you’re scraping by at home, you may think that it’s better just to sit tight than to cough up your life’s savings to a coyote who may quite possibly leave you stranded in the desert without water. But if that risk goes away, and the risk of deportation once you’re there goes away, then it’s all opportunity, the way it was for my ancestors who came in through Ellis Island.
I think I’ve made this point before: The best deal for the USA’s blue collar workers involves collective organization with Mexican blue-collar workers, not a black-market labor force.
The cry of “They took our jobs!” divides constituencies that would be smarter to work together.
The only way that I see the white anglo USA blue-collar worker able to *both oppose the Mexican worker and coming out ahead is race war and genocide on the Mexicans. Any US blue-collar agenda which leaves the Mexican working class alive on any *side of *any *border has to work *with *them not against them.
If they had the boats and the will, it’s not like we could even stop them.
And yet, somehow, Iceland (which is tiny) has not been overrun by (to pick a nation at random) France. Puerto Rico hasn’t been colonized and Anglicized, not even in 115 years as a US possession, when it really could have been.
As a native North American, I find it very easy to believe that no one in Asia wants this patch of land with its deadly summers and killer winds all that much.
So, I’m not sure our immigration laws make that much difference, or have to be particularly harsh.
Two problems with this:
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If the supply of unskilled labor vastly outstrips demand, then unskilled labor will be very cheap no matter what you do. Mass unskilled immigration is bad in the same sense that dumping of consumer and industrial products is bad.
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Their interests do not actually align. If “fair” wages were negotiated, then mainly Americans would be hired and immigrant labor would be shut out. If you’re going to pay $15/hr, or whatever living wage liberals are demanding now, then there’s no benefit to settling for someone who can’t speak, read, or write English. That’s why there’s a farm laborers union but it doesn’t negotiate the kinds of high wages you see in other unionized industries. If they did that, then all the immigrants would be replaced by Americans in short order.
can someone please tell me what jobs do the illegals take that those who hate them really wanted? Do illegals take
- Doctor jobs
- Investment banking jobs
- Software/Computer programmer jobs
- Lawyer jobs.
- Engineering jobs
- Nursing/PA jobs
- Traveling salesman jobs
Or the lawnmower, diswasher, housemaid, and janitor jobs that the “day took 'err jobs” crowd wouldn’t touch with a $10/hour pole?
First, can I say that I really like this guy, DerekMichaels00?
Second, it’s hard to tell what the economics of those jobs entail these days because it’s been a long time since Americans held those jobs in large numbers. Are Americans steering clear because they don’t want those jobs, or because they don’t pay anything? If there was no mass immigration of unskilled labor, employers would either pay a lot more or eliminate the jobs entirely. What effects would that have on the economy? Doesn’t Europe and Australia have a lot of natives working in those jobs as well as immigrants due to the higher wages?
Construction, manufacturing, mining, meat processing, food service, that sort of thing.
I’m not sure what to make of your list. Was it a joke? Technical and managerial positions are out of reach of most blue collar workers. They’re poor, uneducated, and can’t get the necessary credentials. These are the people most likely to complain about immigrants taking their jobs.
It would be funny if artificial barriers for some of these other desirable fields were smashed. Let’s do away with AMA restrictions. Let’s bring in a bunch of foreign doctors. Doctors enjoy an artificially high status due to restricted labor markets. Plenty of foreign doctors speak English just fine. It’d be in the interest of all Americans to pay less for medical care, right? Something tells me that won’t be happening anytime soon. We’ll have to wait for robots to knock them off their perch.
Construction has always been known for illegal hiring, mafia activity (at least in the northeast). Also, with regard to manufacturing, how many illegals are down there at the Ford and GM plants? Mining is all gonna be machines in the near future anyway. My point is why are so many people in a furor about the most unskilled jobs out there when the real focus ought to be how to see to it people have the skills for the jobs where growth is. The growth fields are technology (coding, programming, tech support etc.), health science (nursing, physicial assistant, occupational/physical therapist), and aside from PA and programming, coding, nursing, can be done with community college educations. This is why I lean towards the idea community college should be free. For future generations, I think the way to fill those jobs I initially mentioned requires a serious overhaul of America’s STEM education from day 1 of kindergarten and pre-k (which ought to be free and compulsory).
It has happened already.
yes, and that’s because the doctor lobby has worked to prevent new residencies from opening up in the US, as that is regulated by Congress. That really needs to be acted upon, especially how long and hard it is to get that MD degree.
States that don’t let nurse practitioners have their own practices should also do so. Clinics are awesome too. I went to a clinic for the first time last week and I was insured, but even if I wasn’t it would have been $60.
How’s about a $20/hour pole? Illegal aliens skew the job markets and pay scales. They should stay in their own country of origin and make things better for themselves. No other 1st world country permits the free flow of illegal aliens for employment. Neither should the U.S…
Criminal illegal aliens add to the overall crime rates, including murder. Their presence should not be ignored to satisfy the egos of the sanctuary city-types.
those jobs rarely pay 20/hr pole to anyone aside from union members. Its not like Scott Walker or those with similar economic views love unions. I do agree that the border fence ought to be built but we cannot deport millions of people or expect anyone to deport themselves back into poverty. I also think there are many things more holding back American workers than illegals.
The point is that there are not jobs Americans don’t want to do, just jobs they don’t want to do for an artificially suppressed wage. Take a job you think horrible, and I bet you’d be willing to do it for X dollars, and thrilled to do it for 10X.