US Immigration politics

Politics & Elections
1

There have been enough contentious topics on the board lately, so I figured I’d start one where we could all agree.

But then I started this one instead.

Anyway, here’s where we stand:
-Immigration in the US is at an all-time high. Almost one in seven people living in the US is an immigrant (cite). In December 2023, 300,000 immigrants were processed at the Mexico border (cite).
-Undocumented immigration also appears to be at an all-time high, with roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living here in 2023 (cite).
-I’m having trouble finding good information on whether these immigrants comprise a net economic benefit or net economic drain for the US economy; maybe others can chime in?
-In any case, “net” isn’t the experience of any person. Some people find their lives positively impacted by the increase in immigration (and here I’m including everyone from a dude in Wisconsin who gets certain consumer goods at lower cost, to the family from Venezuela whose kids are no longer malnourished). Others find their lives negatively impacted (and here I’m including everyone from the person whose wages are depressed by increasing immigration, to someone who watches way too much Fox News and is constantly freaked out).
-Republicans just broke precedent by impeaching Mayorkas.
-Republicans in the House are refusing to consider the bipartisan immigration bill coming out of the Senate, mostly due to Trump’s cynical political move.
-Speaking of, Trump is not remotely hiding the fact that he wants immigration to remain a crisis in the country through 2024, because he thinks it’s his best chance at the White House, so he’s torpedoing any solution to the crisis.
-Speaking of which, to what extent is this crisis actually a crisis, and to what extent is it xenophobic nonsense?
-Finally, ICE is apparently considering releasing about 16,000 immigrants from imprisonment because they’re underfunded, especially given House Republicans’ refusal to consider the bipartisan bill (cite).

I guess my questions, distilled, would be:

  1. To what extent is this a crisis that must be solved by tighter border control? I’m uninterested in “BUT IT’S TEH PRINCIPLE!” arguments, or in recitations of raw numbers of immigrants–I’m much more interested in specific examples of harm that are best addressed by border control (and not by, for example, more efficient and available paths to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the country).
  2. Is there anything that can be done prior to January 2025 to address whatever crisis folks are talking about in #1?
  3. What will the political fallout of the immigration debate be on November’s elections? From my perspective the Republican position – yell xenophobia about immigration, engage in a theatrical impeachment, torpedo a bipartisan bill–is some of the most cynical politicking I’ve seen about anything outside of transgender issues; but cynical politicking is often way more effective than it has any right to be.
2

I think the answer unfortunately is that logic doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it.

Most of the opposition stems from a combination of nativist and racist ideas that undocumented immigrants are criminals, here to leech off our social services, or here to steal our jobs. None of which is actually true, but that doesn’t stop certain political ideologies from pushing those angles for their own gain. If logic was in the picture, some sort of guest worker or easier path to citizenship would be the obvious way to go.

That said, I can definitely understand the hostility toward an easier path to citizenship from those who are navigating our immigration system to do it the “right” way. I can see how it would feel like "I got a visa, I worked here, I applied, I hired a lawyer, and I did all this nonsensical bullshit to work toward my citizenship, and that asshole just managed to swim the Rio Grande, and he’s got a smoother path than I do?"

Everything I’ve read implies that illegal immigration isn’t something that’s dramatically higher right now than in the past, but to the GOP, one is too many, so this is a CRISIS. To which I can’t roll my eyes enough.

So answer to #1 - I think it’s only a political crisis insofar as the GOP is making it one.

#2 - the only things that would put a dent in their rhetoric would be something draconian- sealed borders or the announcement of some sort of absurd policy like ANYONE caught immigrating without papers is beaten with reeds and launched over the border with a trebuchet, or something like that.

#3 - I think the fallout is what the GOP is trying to engineer right now. They’re setting up now to make it a huge wedge issue come November, and to give Trump more absurd talking points about his Wall, and about how he’s going to get tough on those Mexicans or something like that, while simultaneously making Biden look weak (in the eyes of those who believe the hype about the “crisis”) because he’s not cracking down on it with vigor.

3

I started a thread with a similar question: What bad thing would occur if we resurrected the immigration policies of the early twentieth century (sans the restrictions on Chinese, etc.)? My grandparents were basically granted admission by showing up at Ellis Island without typhus. Why not now? What parade of horribles would result?

Anyway, I don’t recall that there was any substantial obstacle identified, other than the need to install the infrastructure to accommodate the immigrants. I believe, and history supports this, that less obstruction to immigration would itself create much of the infrastructure as communities of new arrivals coalesced.

When I hear that the border is a top issue in some northern state, I roll my eyes. Why? Why such concern? I know people who have this as their top election issue, and I doubt they can be certain they’ve ever seen an undocumented immigrant. When I ask them how their lives have been unfavorably impacted, I get the sort of stuff you rightly scoffed at: “It’s the principle of it, we’re a sovereign nation.” “Without an airtight border, we don’t even have a country.”

“No,” I counter, “I’m asking you to tell me one actual thing that has unfavorably impacted you in a real way as a result of our current border situation.” Crickets.

One also gets a lot of outright bullshit. Drugs are pouring across the border—don’t you care about the opioid crisis? Well, I know that 95% of illegal drugs get here through ports of entry. If that’s your bugbear, shouldn’t you be directing your concern toward U.S. customs instead of building a stupid, useless wall?

Anyway, I’m obviously in the “why not let ‘em all in?” camp. This cohort is less likely to commit crimes, including violent crimes; their children are more likely to pursue higher education (they’re here for the American dream, baby!); etc. My instincts say that as a rule, the people so desperate to come here that they’d risk everything are a net gain.

ETA: Not to mention, if you want to enjoy your SS benefits, you should be encouraging increased immigration. We need more, not fewer, peeps.

4

There is no “crisis”. This whole immigration policy vs reality is substantially unchanged from when I was in high school and I’m now on Medicare.

The “crisis” is entirely manufactured to drive the news and stampede the clueless.

Does the USA have a f***ed-up disconnect between what we say, what we do, and what we need? You bet we do.

Is any of this new or different? Not even slightly.

5

Amazing. Maybe I should look for that thread.

No one mentioned that if liberals won’t limit immigration, fascists will?

If Biden convinces enough voters that he has a balanced humane plan to deter unauthorized immigration, he wins. If TFG convinces enough voters that Democratic politicians are secretly working to resurrect the immigration policies of the early twentieth century, Trump wins.

This is a not a matter of the U.S. being inherently right-wing. Almost every country adopted immigration restrictions in the early twentieth century. An underlying cause is the reduced cost and greater safety and ease of common carrier international travel.

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  1. 0%. It’s not an actual crisis. If it were, the people freaking out would also be freaking out about those individuals who enter the country via airplane and overstay their visas, and the freaking out folks would have convoys to every international airport in the United States. No surprise it’s actually driven by racism.
  2. Other than trot out facts which will be ignored by the racists? Nope. Nothing.
  3. It’s more of playing to an audience of one, Individual One, of course. The rest of the magatoflatearth will follow him blindly. Those in office now and those seeking to get in office know they cannot afford his disdain as that will send the voters to another candidate, the one who “kissed his ring” as some media has been describing their behavior.
7

Immigration is the only thing keeping us from facing imminent demographic collapse like other developed nations. Every generation since the boomers has been smaller than the one before it, this is soon to become catastrophic in places like Japan and Germany, not to mention China and Russia. We are basically keeping afloat by stealing other countries future. The best thing we could do is solve an actual crisis, like housing, and then let any healthy person of working age that wants to come in.

8

Interesting. A manufactured crisis can lead to an actual crisis. If Democrats don’t handle the fake crisis of immigration, we may get the real crisis of a fascist president. Is that a fair summary of what you’re saying?

This, however, gets into the “But it’s teh PRINCIPLE!!!” type of argument that I find pretty uninteresting. The real underlying cause of early-twentieth-century restrictions was racism and xenophobia and religious bigotry.

If you’ve got sidewalks, and people are walking on paths across the grass, one solution is to imprison the grasswalkers. A better solution is to put the sidewalks on the paths people are walking on.

If immigrants keep coming in ways that violate our laws, and if there’s no other problem, the solution is to write better laws.

9

I’ve had trouble finding figures as well. As best I can tell, there’s a short term cost to immigration but we end up reaping benefits in the long run. I used to handle immigration issues at work, H-1B visas for employees, and just for fun I thought I’d look into the economic impact such visas were having. Depending on who you asked, salaries for for programmers may be 5-10% less than what it should be because of foreign nationals with visas.

Good question. Is this actually a bigger problem today than it was in 1992, 1972, or 1952? Most people agree there’s a problem, but how big is it really?

10

Well, yes, that is what I strongly implied. But I’m reluctant to label Trump an out and out fascist, partly because he’s more of a middling authoritarian, and mostly because it sounds insulting to those considering a vote for him.

The Klan was a significant factor in getting U.S. immigration restrictions passed. But so was the American Federation of Labor. Support for (and opposition to) immigration restriction was neither a pure left-right issue, nor, as seen here, a Democratic Party vs. GOP issue. And many countries went in the same direction on immigration without having a Klan.

Later, the Klan declined, organized labor surged, the GOP became the party of cheap labor, and immigration restriction became a mostly liberal/progressive cause.

And after that, the power of organized labor collapsed, the GOP went in the direction of being the party of the less educated, and immigration restriction became a conservative cause, as today.

Nationalism, while not a human universal, is close to that. In a world with cheap international flights and nationalist sentiment, an immigration policy putting all the relevant decisions in the hands of potential immigrants would be wildly unrealistic. Countries where public opinion skews farther left than the U.S. haven’t done it, so I see no sense in beating up my own country for it.

There is a nationalist argument, seen earlier in this thread, that the U.S. needs more immigrants due to sub-replacement fertility. But unrestricted immigration will not work in any practical sense.

11

One very relevant point that a lot of people are ignorant of: You often hear people saying that they oppose illegal immigration because “they should just immigrate legally”, or “they should wait their turn in line”.

What most folks don’t know is that there is no line. If a Mexican farm worker wants to go to where the jobs are, so he can support his family, he can’t just “wait in line” to “immigrate legally”. There is no process, at all, for him to do that, not even if he waits his entire life. The only option for him is to immigrate illegally and hope for an amnesty.

If we want to cut down on illegal immigration, we need to create a process for legal immigration. Not reform the process; create it. Because right now it doesn’t exist.

12

I mostly agree with this part:

The rest of your post sounds so good and humane and moderate that I want to endorse it. But there’s good reason why, AFAIK, countries other than the U.S., where a lot of emigrants would like to move to, do not have such a line. We benefit most from young enthused immigrants. They should be given a quick and respectful yes-no answer, not given a congressionally reversible promise for admission years down the road.

We’ll never admit enough legally to significantly reduce the number so desperate to come here that they would walk through the Darien Gap. That should be dealt with compromise comprehensive immigration reform. This is of course impossible because the GOP does not want to defuse the issue. But I still think comprehensive immigration reform, with more legal immigration and more enforcemrnt, is the closest to an eventually realistic positive approach we have.

13

“We need the dues, man.”

14

It’s not a fake crisis. A breakdown in law and order leads to serious problems in society. Labeling border control racist is a lazy argument when every country on the planet has some form of border control.

Unless one is in favor of truly open borders than it seems like it’s a difference of degree not fundamental philosophy.

15

Again:

Do you have any specific examples? I’m not saying they don’t exist, but I keep hearing on the radio how it’s a crisis, without hearing examples of how it’s a crisis.

16

See:

Could the government of Panama avert the crisis by agreeing for the Pan-American Highway to be completed through the gap? In theory, yes, but in reality, no, because they think, probably correctly, having lots more people coming in from South America would be a crisis for their society. (Some Panamanians are also against the road for environmental reasons, but I don’t think that’s the main blocker. The gap also is in Colombia, but they seem OK with building a road.)

Could the United States government avert the crisis by ending visa requirements, so migrants could fly in? In theory, yes. It would be cheaper for migrants than what they are doing now. And it would totally fix the Darien Gap crisis, but, as noted in my earlier posts, only for a small time after which American politics would move far to the right.

There are other aspects to the immigration crisis. We are allowing in large numbers of people who will mostly be denied their asylum claim and deported after years in the U.S. This seems like a crisis to me. Think of what happens with their American born children. Crisis! I’ll bet that Biden spends a lot of time on immigration, and mostly on immigration issues related to the southern border. Some of that is because the Republicans are hyping the crisis, but it also is is because there are a group of interlocking real crises.

17

I am utterly failing to understand the posters that keep using the word “crisis”.

There is no “crisis”. There is a manufactured hysteria over a long-standing problem.

Choosing to use the deliberately loaded and deliberately false terminology of the dishonest side of the debate does not advance the debate. Regardless of who’s doing it to whichever goal.

18

As I said before, though, there are crises best solved by making the laws more liberal, and there are crises best solved by increasing enforcement. All of the crises you describe seem like more liberal immigration laws (specifically for immigrants from Central and South America) would be the best solutions, because the crises are only caused by the draconian nature of the law.

To extend the “walking on grass” metaphor:

  1. People keep walking diagonally across Lincoln Field Park, despite the “please do not walk on grass” signs. The only reason we don’t want folks walking across the grass is because there’s a sidewalk, and the only reason we’d enforce the signs is because we fear that–what was the phrase from before?–“a breakdown in law and order leads to serious problems in society.” In this case, we need to build a diagonal sidewalk across Lincoln Field Park, and take down that damn sign.
  2. People keep walking diagonally across Washington Square Park, despite the “No Trespassing” signs. The reason we don’t want folks to walk across the park that there’s an endangered species of wildflower that grows in this park, and we’re trying to protect it, and the foot traffic is destroying the flower. In this case, there’s a specific problem caused by the foot traffic, and greater enforcement is appropriate.

I’m asking, is there a crisis that goes beyond “we made these dumb laws, and now we have to enforce them” or “if we don’t enforce these dumb laws, fascists will win the 2024 election”? If so, what is it?

The example you gave–of sexual violence along the migration path–is a classic “prohibition brings crime” problem. When you push people into illegal behaviors, they’re unlikely to seek help from law enforcement when crimes are committed against them, and it creates a perfect opportunity for predation. The solution to such problems is almost always to repeal the laws that prohibit victimless behavior, so that the laws against crimes with victims can be better enforced.

19

Dear lurkers,

If any of you are uncertain how to vote in November, assuming another Trump-Biden race, this is for you. Having issues with both candidates makes sense. Thinking there is a border crisis is NOT racist. You are my friends, relatives, and good neighbors who jump in if I need help. I respect you guys!

As to how to solve immigration, honestly, you never solve it completely. But Reagan’s policy of increased enforcement and – gulp – amnesty, however you call it – made it less of a problem for many years. Fixes are never total, so more is needed. We have this new twist, as, now, most of the migrants are asking for asylum, so we need more legal changes in the Reagan direction.

It may seem, from some of the posts here, that Democrats are against that. That’s the internet. And that’s the squad. But in Congress, the ones who want balanced fixes are overwhelmingly Democrats. Read what Tom Suozzi, the Democrat who just won in the old George Santos district said. Read what Joe Biden says. If you are in a Democratic House district, or a state with a Democratic senator, read what they say, because it’s probably not that far from what Reagan would be saying now!

If Biden wins, and the Democrats get just a couple more house seats, and keep senate control, comprehensive immigration reform will go through. The need to get 60 voters in the Senate guarantees it will have a big enforcement component. It will include more technical border fixes AKA wall-building than you would get with Trump, who needs the crisis for a blame game. And it also will include immigrants background-checked, and pre-approved at U.S. embassies abroad, to pay into your social security.

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