It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies.
That sounds like a grossly inaccurate generalization to me. A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc. Interview farmers in the south and ask them how many American born workers are willing to even take many farm jobs.
These people most definitely are not "sucking the system dry". And a system that can be "sucked dry" has a design flaw which should be rectified anyway.
> A lot of "illegal immigrants" are an absolutely essential part of the economy, performing jobs like picking oranges in the Florida heat/humidity, doing roofing work, washing dishes, etc
This is what kind of gets me though. Supporting illegal immigration is supporting indentured servitude. I've especially noticed it in NYC, it boils down to "I'll support your right to stay here as long as I can still find a $6 burrito and a cheap nanny".
That's not entirely fair. If the immigrant feels that they have a better life as a low-wage worker in the US (keep in mind many are escaping violent or oppressive surroundings) then I won't be the judge of that by imposing artificial limits on livelihood. We can at least acknowledge that we are improving the lives of those immigrants for whom this is the case.
I don't know why its so uncomfortable for conservatives to admit that illegals play a role in our economy[1]. If they didn't they wouldn't be here as the market would choose against them. This is why Democrats have been fighting for amnesty programs for long time illegals, to keep this labor and the work it does here. Native borns aren't fighting to pick oranges for 12 hours a day at minimum wage, but these guys will and do.
On top of the moral argument that these people have kids here and are rooted in our culture and schools and dragging their parents off to Mexico and breaking up families is just inhumane.
Thus far Trump has not addressed any of this. He has a "jail and deport 'em at high noon" attitude that does no one any good. Disregarding the labor they do is foolish just as Trump supporting California farmers are starting to learn.
[1] The only people I know who are definitely employing illegals are a white wealthy couple with an illegal Mexican nanny. Funny how that works.
>I don't know why its so uncomfortable for conservatives to admit that illegals play a role in our economy[1].
I guess I'd call myself a conservative (I think) and I don't get uncomfortable at all admitting that, but that doesn't mean that the fact they do "play a role" is right or correct. You're implying something that I think is quite dangerous: that the US economy can't function unless we allow people to break our laws to be here. That sounds like a caste system by another name. I genuinely don't understand arguments from the left that attempt to minimize the importance of State Sovereignty in the context of these debates. "Native borns" used to be able to find that work...until we started importing illegal immigrants willing to work for fractions of the cost.
> Native borns aren't fighting to pick oranges for 12 hours a day at minimum wage, but these guys will and do.
An economist would say it's because the wage being offered is too low. Businesses don't get to have access to unlimited labour at whatever wage they choose in a market economy.
Yet they're not all illegals. Natives of Mexican heritage and others of the poorest class perform this work at this wage.
Regardless, why aren't we jailing those who hire these people and cause these problems then? Oh right, they're Trump loyalists, political donors, and white.
My grandfather owned many apple orchards, and he said without migrant labor, he would have had to go out of business years ago. He could not hire US citizens as workers because nobody that is born here wants to climb trees all day picking fruit for minimum wage. This was back in the 80s. He also had very good things to say about how hard-working and dedicated the migrant workers were.
Now, you might argue that without migrant labor, he should just pay a decent wage, but what is a decent wage for hard manual labor? Would you be ok with paying $10 an apple at the grocery store because someone was paid $30-40 an hour to pick them?
The narrative that illegal immigrants are all criminals is deeply flawed and inaccurate.
No. The numbers don't work. A typical apple picker (the most labor intense/apple part of the work) can do 1000 lb/hour [1]
So even if you had to pay domestic workers $30/hour, and you could pay migrants nothing, that still only comes to charging 3 cents a pound more. Not $8.
It makes me wonder to what extent migrant labor features in the other parts of that apple's value chain, though.
Much of the price of that apple comes from the farmhands who loaded the truck, the truckdriver who drove it, the gas that the truck burned, the warehouse that stored it, the shopkeeper that stocked it, and the cashier that sold it. I don't know the prevalence of migrant workers in each of those industries - but looking around, I'd guess that lots of cashiers, lots of farmhands, and maybe a few truckdrivers and gas station attendants are also immigrants. If you had to pay them $30-40/hour, would the apple still cost a dollar?
Only a few of those are labor cost issues, and most of those are not typically migrant labor (truck drivers and grocery employees). That leaves the truck loaders, which is much less work per apple than picking.
Point being, this "$10/lb" is extreme exaggeration.
Now, it's probably true that orchard owners would love the free 3 cents a pound (or 2, or 1). And they're not going to leave money on the table when others can get away with hiring cheaper illegal labor. But the idea that apples have to be that much more expensive is pushing it.
I'd love to see a formal study on how often Americans "go out" for food rather than buy from a grocery and cook it themselves. In Scandinavia, the cost difference between eating-in and going-out is much, much larger than here in the USA.
how many apples per hour does a worker pick? If you paid a worker an extra $20/hour you don't get $10/apple at the store unless the worker only picks two apples an hour, now, does it?
Not paying farm workers acceptable salaries otherwise things at the grocery store will cost 5x don't seem to pass the math smell test...
> And a system that can be "sucked dry" has a design flaw which should be rectified anyway.
This is politics not engineering. Flaws are part of the design. Every flaw is designed to appease one group or another. Restricting access on any arbitrary basis would lead to calls of racism, xenophobia, class warfare, etc.
> Interview farmers in the south and ask them how many American born workers are willing to even take many farm jobs.
Working hard is not the issue. Working in the heat is not the issue. Plenty of American citizens do that. The issue is of pay. Southern farmers can not afford to pay above minimum wage which is why they sometimes resort to hiring illegal immigrants or prisoners.
Why can't they pay more than minimum? Because they're competing against border states, like California, who have: illegal immigrants working below minimum wage, large economies with well developed public infrastructure, and the greater take of federal and state subsidies.
They are also competing with other countries that might be better equipped to produce those goods (e.g. Chile might have cheaper labor, and better water/soil/climate) for some types of fruits.
Without subsidies or this cheap labor, a lot of agr. would cease to be profitable.
It's funny how the left is all about living wages except when illegal aliens are involved. Evidently, near-slavery is acceptable for these people. If we didn't have them, wages would rise, and Americans would in fact perform these jobs.
It's notable also that some of the worst-affected Americans happen to be black, and that wealthy liberals aren't hiring black housekeepers. It's as if there might be some fear of certain Americans, so we find foreigners to hire instead.
You make an interesting appeal. I am not sure what you are trying to prove by saying that the poster will "get" it if they just talk to cops, ambulance drivers, and immigration officers. I would assume that you are trying to say they will find that immigrants commit crime (the original poster is speaking to a cop), they get hurt more often (the original poster is speaking to an ambulance driver), and they, now I am really stretching, deal with immigration officers more (the original poster is speaking to an immigration officer?). These will all be true regardless of the immigrants status and background. You haven't made any point at all.
The original poster said that immigrants pay taxes. Do you not agree? He said they contribute to US companies. Do you not agree? He said they make the US more powerful. Do you not agree? He said they don't contribute these same things to their home country. Do you not agree?
I think the point that is really crying out to be made is that college campuses and the backs of ambulances/squad cars are two very biased sets of places to attempt to collect a representative sample of the immigrant population.
In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.
If you collected statistics about immigrants on college campuses and immigrants in the back of a squad car you'd find they got here from very different places and on very different visas (or lack of visa).
In fact, if you were to collect samples of natural born American citizens in the same two sets of places you'd reach the exact same biased conclusions about Americans.
What conclusions are you referring to, in particular?
What conclusions are you referring to, in particular?
The respective ones. If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers). That's the point: it's just about the silliest, most extreme way to bias your sample.
Are you saying that police officers, by virtue of the fact that they primarily interact with criminals, would conclude that people here on, say, student visas are a bunch of criminals?
You said "If you collected statistics about Americans in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals (shocker of shockers).".
I'm challenging you on that. I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not. Similarly, if you collected statistics about foreigners in the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that foreigners here without a visa of any kind are much more criminally oriented than foreigners here on, for example, a student visa. You seem to want to dismiss the usefulness of those statistics just because they're only dealing with a particular segment of the population.
I think your statistics would show that certain classes of Americans are comparatively very criminally oriented, and certain classes of Americans are not.
I didn't say anything about certain classes of Americans. I said that if you sampled the back of a squad car, you'd conclude that Americans are a bunch of criminals in general. That is the point. Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased. Just as asking a surgeon about athletes is biased (hint: surgeons have a lot more contact with injured athletes than the average person).
Asking a police officer about their experiences with immigrants is extremely biased.
So I ask again (and I won't use students this time, since you didn't get the point the first time): If you asked police officers about their experiences with immigrants here on E1 visas, would you conclude that people here on E1 visas are a bunch of criminals? What does that tell you about people here on E1 visas?
I did not make that statement at all. The part you quoted references an implication that if you ask cops, ambulance drivers, and immigration officers about immigrants they will talk about immigrants in the light of what they see.
I'll be very clear. Immigrants and non-immigrants are not equally beneficial to the country. No one is equally beneficial to the country.
The statement you responded to implies that cops and so on will speak negatively about illegal immigrants but will not speak negatively about (certain types of) legal immigrants.
That doesn't mean none of those types of legal immigrants cause problems for those people, it means they don't cause enough problems to draw the ire of those people.
US citizens pay taxes, contribute to US companies and make the US more powerful. US citizens also contribute a higher percentage of their income to local communities than immigrants do. It is a myth that their is an infinite supply of jobs, and that supply/demand somehow doesn't apply to immigration. You aren't really making an argument either.
> US citizens also contribute a higher percentage of their income to local communities than immigrants do
I don't know, man. The state of California and the federal government take their rightful 38% share from my income. I'm not a citizen.
My girlfriend also pays her rightful 38% share of income. She is a citizen.
And my income is a bit higher so in absolute terms I contribute more as an immigrant than my girlfriend does as a citizen. Percentagewise it's the same because we're in the same tax bracket.
Anecdata, yes, but my point is that everyone who is in X tax bracket pays Y% taxes. Want immigrants to contribute a higher percentage of their income to local communities? Give them higher salaries. ;)
Also, unless a migrant stays in the US forever, they won't receive the benefits of their social security contributions.
EG: I pay 6.2*2=12.4% as social security, but unless I contribute for at least 10 years, those contributions are lost. So many H1B holders end up paying 12% more in taxes than their American counterparts...
Oh that's a good point I didn't even think of! I have to pay all those social things and will likely never see them again. Like throwing money in the furnace.
And unlike an H1B, my O-1 visa is not dual intent. That means I get to stay in constant purgatory. Haven't really looked into it, but I probably should.
Either way, legal immigrants contribute just as much, if not more, as citizens do.
Edit: Looks like they support sending social security payments to foreign countries, if you meet requirements. That's neat. https://www.ssa.gov/pubs/EN-05-10137.pdf
I for one do not. And none of my immigrant friends do either.
There's two types of immigrants in that regard. One has family back home that they support by getting a better job abroad. They might be the majority, I don't know.
Then there's the young person who moved abroad right after college or studied abroad in the first place. They're looking for better opportunities for themselves. Many start families abroad and their children are citizens.
Many if not most immigrants are hybrids of above. One family member moves abroad with the goal of sending money back home to provide for their family. But the endgame is to eventually bring the rest of the family over once the first immigrant finishes bootstrapping their new life.
I would wager that most immigrants who do have family back home, would love nothing more than to bring the rest of the family over to their new country.
Economically speaking everyone pays taxes. Also economically speaking no one pays taxes equally. I would love to see actual statics that show that immigrants do not contribute to local economies at a rate similar to others in a community at a similar pay bracket.
As for supply and demand. I believe the supply and demand of the job market as a whole is exactly what is causing immigration. I believe those market forces will continue to pull in immigration, legally or not. Market forces have a hard time understanding law.
If your supply/demand argument works, then why is rural Europe suffering from long term unemployment when European cities long-term have more open positions than unemployed? Why is it, that in southern siberia, where there is massive mining and forestry industry, there is also massive unemployment and people move cross continent to Moscow to find work, despite the fact that Moscow has almost no real industry.
Chat with an immigrate in a sanctuary city if you really want to "get" it. It's the feeder high schools (mostly Irish Catholic) that make police and fire departments fraternal, recalcitrant, racist and corrupt.
I'd called my county sheriff's office with a similar question a while back. They wouldn't agree with you. These sanctuary policies don't come from nowhere. Often they originate from law enforcement, as was the cause with my county. If you want to talk about sucking dry, it's expensive for local law enforce to enforce federal law on otherwise contributing members of society. This isn't touching on how it erodes trust in immigrant communities.
> Chat with a cop, ambulance driver, or immigration officer from a sanctuary city if you really want to "get" it.
Cities don't have immigration officers (especially sanctuary cities, which are cities that refuse to have their law enforcement act as immigration enforcers for the federal government.)
And local law enforcement is usually the biggest proponent of sanctuary city policies, because their job is made vastly more difficult when immigrant communities see them as immigration enforcers; cooperation with law enforcement in those communities (and not just by undocumented immigrants or even just non-citizens in those communities) drops radically when they are sending in that light.
It seems like we could solve the immigration problem very quickly if we started imposing harsh penalties on the people who employ illegal immigrants.
Undocumented immigrants, by definition, are going to be hard to track down. Businesses on the other hand have to have an office, be reachable, file taxes, etc. They're also probably breaking a host of other employment laws as well (easy to do when your employees can't go to the authorities). If the availability of jobs dried up, people would have no incentive to come here illegally.
Of course, that would involve arresting rich white people instead of poor brown people, so it will never happen.
Yes. Of course, there are native born citizens who suck the system dry, too. But a sovereign nation can dispense with illegal aliens. (And should.) Then we must turn to, you know, growing the economy fast enough to support this massive welfare state for the people who are constitutionally entitled to it -- both native born and legally immigrated.
Or we could eviscerate the welfare state and be richer, freer, happier, and healthier! [1]
Richer, freer, happier and healthier than the Norwegians, Swedes, Finns and Danes? Those are among the most extensive welfare states in the world, proividing:
"[A] national system of free health care and education for everyone, job training, subsidized child care, a generous pension system and fuel subsidies and rent allowances for the elderly." [1]
And on top of that, better healthcare (#11, 14, 23 are Norics, 30 is Canada, 31 is USA [3]), low wealth inequality, low income inequality, low gender inequality and high happiness (#1, 3, 4, 5 are Nordics [2]). By all metrics, those people in the welfare states are happier, freer, richer and healthier than your average American -- some of the most in the world -- and they live longer too (#15, 18, 20, 30 vs. US at 43rd [4]).
Americans in my experience tend to equate socialism with Venezuela not Canada and the Nordics, etc. Sounds like based on empirical evidence the way to improve these metrics is to expand the welfare state not cut it back. There's a reason nobody in Canada is itching to repeal single-payer.
Additional stats that makes this even more interesting are rankings of economic freedom from places like the Heritage Foundation.[1] Canada and the Nordic countries are on par with the US, and on many important factors ahead.
It doesn't follow that a comprehensive social welfare system requires state ownership of the means of production, arduous regulation on business formation, weak property rights, weak rule of law, or anti-business labor laws. All of these countries do very well when on these factors; the citizens simply choose government services (through voting) in areas of the economy where the government performs well (health care, social insurance). Sweden was capitalistic enough to refuse to bail out SAAB during the financial crisis, you can't say the same for the US and GM.
Undocumented immigrants do not "suck the system dry". They pay taxes, for the most part, and because they are undocumented, are unable to benefit from most of the services available to legal residents (citizens or immigrants).
The Trump administration has stated it might cap H1B visas further. This move will directly impact academia and the Tech industry and the influx of top talent. By combining the issue of illegal immigration with legal high value H1B visas, the Trump administration and its supporters are not helping their own argument. There is a nuance there which the parent comment was correctly mentioning. You want the best of another country to come to the US as they have been or risk the slow spiral of insignificance that Germany faced.
H1B is currently randomized lottery, benefiting sweatshops cluttering the pipeline, Current administration is not eliminating it but at least from their talk its about restoring their original intent, to bring in extra-ordinary talent. Which might actually be good news for SV, depending on how it is implemented?
Google, Microsoft, Netflix & Facebook benefit directly from H1B visas and are most certainly not "sweatshops". Even when you consider companies that pay less than the top tech companies, no one would consider them sweatshops. So hyperbole aside, and keeping in mind that H1B also brings academic talent to universities, the hate towards the H1B program seems more rooted in a hate of immigration than a worry of the program not realizing its "original intent".
If you don't want 85,000 of the best talent in the world per year to power US companies' and academia's growth, that's fine. Go ahead and limit the visa program and risk that talent going elsewhere.
If you know where to find these H1B "sweatshops" on US soil, please take those charts and company names to the Department of Labor and report the wage crime or occupational hazards you are implying with your hyperbole. Otherwise, your statements are deeply exaggerated. Here's a link to get you started: https://www.dol.gov/whd/howtofilecomplaint.htm
> It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies.
Vast majority of illegal immigrants perhaps just keep their head low and work hard. Also, they barely get anything from welfare and work below minimum wages. It is probably the criminal aspect that is sucking the system and good solution for that is to decriminalise drugs and help American companies sell drugs for a profit instead relying on Mexican cartels.
I have never understood why Mexican citizens cant get a 30 day to 1 years temporary below-minimum wage job permit
> not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies.
I know founders who had employed 10+ American being rejected visa and sometimes entry for no good reason. I have seen cops, CBP officials and other government departments harassing these individuals all the time.
It's the police in my sanctuary city that want the "sanctuary" status. Our police should be free to prioritize using their limited resources on pursuing important threats to the safety of our community, and illegal immigration is just not the threat that flyover methlab-country is convinced it is. Our immigrants fearing using public services, fearing reporting crime to the police, that stuff hurts our city.
> You might want to take a step outside the academic setting every once in a while.
> It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry
And you apparently carry a user name that matches your posts, at least this one.
Stuff like your last sentence is something that is heard (in Germany, at least) only on the right-to-fringe-right sphere. It's long since I have seen such outspoken racism here.
As someone who grew up in a rural small town in the midwest before attending a top 15 university and starting a company in Silicon Valley, I really don't appreciate the perceived stereotype of my hometown.
BI just noted that the problem is a bit more widespread, it also affects the affluent "masses" in the Hamptons:
(Unfortunately, yours seems to be the prevailing attitude towards my "roots" here in northern California with its conflicting culture that purportedly prides itself on being free of stereotypes.)
Chat with a cop, ambulance driver, or immigration officer from a sanctuary city if you really want to "get" it.
It's the illegal immigrants that suck the system dry, not the smart, diligent, legitimate ones working in academia and top companies.