Uh, this is a terrible argument. They didn’t completely stop people from escaping, but they did massively cut down on the rate of emigration, and solved the problem the Wall was meant to address.
Over 3 million people (20% of the east german population, disproportionately the most smartest and ‘successful’ ones) left for the west prior to 1961, only 50 000 left after that.
If East Germany more or less completely shut down emigration, modern European countries can shut down the problem of people going to other way.
d) Immigration has always been the cornerstone of our country’s vitality. It’s a part of why we have remained innovative, fiercely competitive, and adaptable for so long. Immigration is inoculation against cultural stagnation.
This really begins to get at the heart of the problem.
The real problem with illegal immigration isn’t that you should stop it, it’s that you can’t. As someone on the SDMB once put it, a 20-foot wall is only going to work until someone on the Mexican side thinks to bring a 21-foot ladder.
Preventing immigration across the entire Mexican border and relevant water crossing sites AND tightening up securing across the Canadian border and airports is a logistical exercise that defies as sort of economically rational solution. In addition to costing an indebted government tens of billions, it’d damage commerce for billions more.
All the ones that European citizens don’t decide to admit and offer benefits, employment opportunities, etc., yes.
Your use of the word “desperate” gets to the heart of the problem. There is no European political will to force these migrants to stay out or return. The migrants’ desperation overcomes the Europeans’ apathy. This may not always be the case, however.
You seem to be saying that there is nothing to be done to prevent this recent wave of migrants. Do you think that this is a state of affairs which can be maintained indefinitely? This situation is not directly analogous to the US/Mexico one, in which migrants are drawn north by ample employment opportunities. The most recent EU unemployment rate was 9.6%; that of the USA was 5.5%. Of course, in the nations most directly affected by these migrants, the rates are much higher (Spain - 22.7%, Italy - 12.4%, Greece - 25.6%).
Recall the context - magellan said that securing the border “wouldn’t be that hard”. Whatever else it was, the Inner German border was hard - vast amounts of money spent and blood spilled, and it was backed by a security apparatus of internal passports, no 4th Amendment protections from searches, secret police, and the like. Neither the U.S., nor modern European countries, have that sort of police-state control over their residents, nor a willingness to murder immigrants with mines and gunfire.
This is why I asked magellan to explain what the benchmarks were for a secure border - “secure” can mean anything to anyone. To date, he hasn’t elaborated, except to clarify that total security isn’t part of it.
I support greater taxation and redistribution of wealth, particularly inherited wealth (I’m in favor of a 100% tax on estates over $1.5m in value and changes to the law to prevent passing inheritances through tax advantaged structures like trusts to avoid estate taxes.)
But we need people working in jobs that pay a living wage. While we may be able to nudge things slightly with a minimum wage hike (I’m neutral on that, I think it has marginal economic impact, but recognize its value as a political tool) we can’t just wave a wand and create jobs for unskilled immigrants that pay a living wage. We can’t do that for the people that are already here. People who lack job skills and are part of generationally poor demographics have extremely bad outcomes. Are there ways to fix it? I suspect so, I don’t know for sure what they are, but I do know that whatever they would be, they likely won’t pass the Congress we’ll have until 2022 or so anyway, so it’s almost a moot point discussing them.
Again, people forget that illegal immigration is mostly by people with few marketable skills, but lots of children. It costs Massachusetts about $19,000 per year to educate a child-much for for those who speak no english. How this is paid for by immigrants making $9.00/hour is not clear. So i guess it is ok that the taxpayers pick up the huge tab for the illegals-so that rich people can get their lawns cut for $50.00. What we have is “cheap” labor which is not cheap at all, when you count what the taxpayers pay for.
It is like the nannies from 3rd world nations that the Washington elites love so much-because they work cheap.
What you’re saying is it’s an economic benefit to essentially have some businesses profit off of people who are marginally better off than indentured servants. The point is if these immigrants were here legally they would be entitled to at least minimum wage, and the businesses using them aren’t willing to pay people that. So it’s not really a valid argument that we shouldn’t be trying to stop illegal immigration or that we should want unlimited immigration. Unless you think businesses should be allowed to exploit third world workers within the borders of the United States going forward.
Except there is little ability for people with low education and low job skills to attain wages sufficient to bequeath any realistic chance of social betterment on to their descendants.
Uncontrolled immigration and “immigration” aren’t the same thing. Further, you’re extrapolating ideas from 50+ years ago into today. America is not set up for unskilled labor to succeed, and it also isn’t set up for the children of poor people to succeed, either. So introducing more poor people just increases the number of poor people, which isn’t a net benefit to the country.
Yes, immigrants have historically had big families, but in the past society gave very little if anything to help raise kids. The jobs that immigrant parents could find with no marketable job skills were sufficient to raise a family without outside assistance–something that is no longer true.
Legal immigrants are disallowed much social benefits for something like 5 years after immigration, and I know several who had to wait to bring over their wife and children because under current laws they had to show that they had the resources to support them before they were allowed to be given permanent residence as relatives of a current permanent resident. If those laws persisted most of the people immigrating illegally would still be prone to immigrate illegally since they wouldn’t be able to satisfy these requirements.
Massachusetts has 160,000 illegal immigrants, and the number is dropping. They are barely a blip on the radar, which is rather odd for a state with huge numbers of wealthy people with lawns that need cutting.
Exactly. The wealthy have been able to privatize the benefits, but externalize the costs. We the taxpayers end up footing the bill. For most of the marginally literate poor people who come as immigrants, there’s nothing they can do that will allow them to earn out their cost to society.
As a practical matter, we can either put our efforts into lifting the poor we already have out of poverty - if that’s possible, or we can welcome vast numbers of poor immigrants. We can’t do both.
I for one am glad that every kid goes to school, even if I’m paying for it. Likewise I’m glad that undocumented immigrants can get drivers’ licenses in California now - much better for them to be get tested than to drive anyway with no license.
I do agree about the rich getting the benefit but being unwilling to pay full wages. My ex-step-sister is an example. She lives in La Jolla, and her very nice housekeeper was clearly undocumented. (The housekeeper eventually went back to Mexico to work in a factory because it was better than working for my step-sister and I don’t blame her.)
The facts show that low skill immigration from Mexico is actually making the US workforce less skilled and productive. Even after four generations there is a significant achievement gap.
McKinsey have found that the achievement gaps in education have the equivalent cost to a permanent national recession.
Let’s hope they can be closed! The thing is that unlike other groups, after four generations that hasn’t occurred. So wouldn’t it make sense to focus on high skill immigration in the meantime until gaps do in fact improve.
In the context of the question asked by the original poster though, there is no good reason why the US should not be able to enforce border control like other countries.
I didn’t say that all the leftists I know are in favour of it, just that everyone I know who’s in favour of it is leftist. I don’t think Agribiz would actually benefit from open borders - what it benefits from is closed but porous borders, where there are still plenty of people getting through, but once in they cannot demand the same wages and conditions as documented workers.