While I was visiting my uncle, we talked about immigration. (married, birth)
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I went to Dallas last weekend, stopped in at my uncles house. He is married to a woman from Guatemala, really sweet lady.
Anyway, I ask her about Guatemala a lot when I'm there. She has mixed opinions about Guatemala, obviously she is from there, and has family there. So she holds a certain amount of nostalgia and bias for the place of her birth, but gets a little frustrated sometimes by the relative state of society there.
She wishes her family could come to the United States, but Guatemala is one of the poorer countries in the Americas, so it is nearly impossible to legally immigrate to the United States from there.
So I asked her what she thought should be done about immigration, which might enable her family to come to the United States. Well, she basically replied that they should just be able to move to the United States. She proclaimed that her family members were good/hard-working people.
So I replied, that is all well and good, but everyone believes the same of their relatives. And when we are talking about immigration policy, we have to understand that it must be applied consistently to the entire nation, and to some extent to the entire world, not simply to your family. So then the question is, how might you structure the government of the US and its policies, that would enable basically all families all over the world to be able to move to the United States, without there being any overall negative effects on the quality of life of the people who already live in this country?
Before you reply. Keep in mind, the three largest obstacles to open-immigration, are cultural incompatibilities, crime, and government per-capita spending/welfare.
Keep in mind, this isn't only about immigration policy itself, the real goal is for you to create a new US Government from scratch, which could hypothetically allow everyone in the entire world to move to the US tomorrow(if they wanted to come), which wouldn't destroy our quality of life.
Is it possible, and how would you do it?
PS : Please no partisan politics and attacks. I intend this to be a serious discussion. I don't want to hear the word Republican or Democrat used in a derogatory way. Thanks.
Immigrants want laws to change to suit them. We don't have enough jobs for "good hard working people". We have plenty of Americans that are good hard working people who are unemployed. We are not in the year 1850. While immigration exists, what we do need are good hard working educated people.
I am curious - did she enter the country illegally or did she become legal through marriage to an American?
We don't need to move up the time line on looking like a third world country. We can still be saved.
The only way it would work is to remove our current underclass, which continues to grow with both a lack of blue-collar jobs (other than minimum wage service) and more people on welfare/disability who see no reason to change. Immigrants tend to appreciate the opportunities which our country has to offer more than our own citizens more often than not, but there's simply not enough of those opportunities these days.
We need highly educated, highly skilled foreigners who will invest in the country and make it stronger. The industrial age has long passed.
The United States needs to be able to control illegal immigration. Legal immigration is not the problem.
We need to enforce our laws. And since illegals don't respect our laws (first law broken, coming here through improper channels) we need to build bigger and better fences along the entire Mexican border, and increase patrol guards.
Just letting anyone who wants to come here (Al Qaeda for example) by any means does negatively effect this nation.
Some people may have family outside the U.S. and try to tug at your heartstrings about it, but we can't fix everyone's problems. We have enough of our own.
Immigrants want laws to change to suit them. We don't have enough jobs for "good hard working people". We have plenty of Americans that are good hard working people who are unemployed. We are not in the year 1850. While immigration exists, what we do need are good hard working educated people.
I am curious - did she enter the country illegally or did she become legal through marriage to an American?
We don't need to move up the time line on looking like a third world country. We can still be saved.
She came here for school, she met my uncle through the Catholic Church, and then they got married and she became a citizen because of that marriage.
You talk of the year 1850 in regards to immigration. But did the immigration policies of the 1800's turn us into a third-world country? How could we have such open-immigration in the 1800's, but not now? What has changed?
When you say we need "good hard working educated people". The question is, for what purpose? Most likely you'll reply "to contribute to society and pay their fair share of taxes". But, what does that mean exactly?
Contribute to society for what purpose? What if someone neither contributed to society, nor took away from society, would it really matter if they lived here or not? What if there were no taxes? Then no one would need to "pay their fair share". Or at least, what if taxes and social-spending were so low, that paying your "share" of taxes was nearly nothing. Then would we still need "educated" people only? Why would it matter?
Why would open-immigration turn us into a third-world country? What percentage of third or second-world countries have open-immigration? On average, do third and second-world countries have more open immigration policies, or do first-world countries have more open immigration policies? You may separate the answer into both more recently, and historically.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Natural510
The only way it would work is to remove our current underclass, which continues to grow with both a lack of blue-collar jobs (other than minimum wage service) and more people on welfare/disability who see no reason to change. Immigrants tend to appreciate the opportunities which our country has to offer more than our own citizens more often than not, but there's simply not enough of those opportunities these days.
We need highly educated, highly skilled foreigners who will invest in the country and make it stronger. The industrial age has long passed.
I'm confused on your statement "the industrial age has long passed". What do you mean? That the world is no longer industrialized? That industry is no longer a primary driver of our economy? What exactly does drive our economy then?
You might argue that this is a "service-based economy". Well, what kinds of educations are necessary for providing those services exactly?
What do you mean highly-skilled foreigners who will invest in the country and make it stronger? I suppose what you really mean is, we need highly-skilled foreigners who will have high incomes, which we can tax at high rates, to pay for our social welfare programs? I mean, for what other purpose would we "NEED" these foreigners anyway?
How many "opportunities" are there in this country anyway? Is there a finite amount of jobs, and so by increasing our population, we necessarily increase our unemployment rate? Or is there an almost infinite potential for jobs, and absolutely no correlation between population growth and unemployment rate?
Lets just pretend hypothetically that you brought an uneducated/unskilled person into this country. Why does it matter? Be as specific as you possibly can.
The United States needs to be able to control illegal immigration. Legal immigration is not the problem.
We need to enforce our laws. And since illegals don't respect our laws (first law broken, coming here through improper channels) we need to build bigger and better fences along the entire Mexican border, and increase patrol guards.
Just letting anyone who wants to come here (Al Qaeda for example) by any means does negatively effect this nation.
Some people may have family outside the U.S. and try to tug at your heartstrings about it, but we can't fix everyone's problems. We have enough of our own.
The real question is, why does Al'Qaeda even care about the United States? Why aren't they over bombing China or Japan?
Does restricting immigration from Latin-America have any effect whatsoever on Al'Qaeda?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big advocate for open-immigration. In the current state of our country, it is simply impossible to have open-immigration. It would flood us with people from second and third world countries, while totally destroying the welfare system. And most likely greatly increasing crime rates. While bringing down the average quality of life in this country immensely.
But my question isn't about whether or not we should simply have open-immigration right now, without changing anything. My question is about whether or not it is possible to restructure society, where we could have open-immigration while also either keeping the same, or improving, the average quality of life of American citizens.
So please, don't give me rhetoric, give me ideas. Or at least explain to me why its impossible.
If you compare percent of GDP for education in European countries for example and USA and percent of GDP for defense you will see why educated people are welcome. If you are looking who's picking tomato in California and for whom you will see why are illegal immigrants welcome...
I went to Dallas last weekend, stopped in at my uncles house. He is married to a woman from Guatemala, really sweet lady.
Anyway, I ask her about Guatemala a lot when I'm there. She has mixed opinions about Guatemala, obviously she is from there, and has family there. So she holds a certain amount of nostalgia and bias for the place of her birth, but gets a little frustrated sometimes by the relative state of society there.
She wishes her family could come to the United States, but Guatemala is one of the poorer countries in the Americas, so it is nearly impossible to legally immigrate to the United States from there.
So I asked her what she thought should be done about immigration, which might enable her family to come to the United States. Well, she basically replied that they should just be able to move to the United States. She proclaimed that her family members were good/hard-working people.
So I replied, that is all well and good, but everyone believes the same of their relatives. And when we are talking about immigration policy, we have to understand that it must be applied consistently to the entire nation, and to some extent to the entire world, not simply to your family. So then the question is, how might you structure the government of the US and its policies, that would enable basically all families all over the world to be able to move to the United States, without there being any overall negative effects on the quality of life of the people who already live in this country?
Before you reply. Keep in mind, the three largest obstacles to open-immigration, are cultural incompatibilities, crime, and government per-capita spending/welfare.
Keep in mind, this isn't only about immigration policy itself, the real goal is for you to create a new US Government from scratch, which could hypothetically allow everyone in the entire world to move to the US tomorrow(if they wanted to come), which wouldn't destroy our quality of life.
Is it possible, and how would you do it?
PS : Please no partisan politics and attacks. I intend this to be a serious discussion. I don't want to hear the word Republican or Democrat used in a derogatory way. Thanks.
Ideally,it would be nice if Guatemala was able to emulate the success of Costa Rica and they would be happy in their own country. If Costa Rica can do it,why not Guatemala? Step 1 of course is disbanding the military.
[quote=Redshadowz;26612954]She came here for school, she met my uncle through the Catholic Church, and then they got married and she became a citizen because of that marriage.
You talk of the year 1850 in regards to immigration. But did the immigration policies of the 1800's turn us into a third-world country? How could we have such open-immigration in the 1800's, but not now? What has changed?
We were a developing nation in 1850. We needed immigrants. We were creators then. Today we are not creating, we are dismantling. Outsourcing?? If we are losing jobs, we are not creating. If you speak of infrastructure which is needed since it is falling apart, we have many capable Americans who are unemployed and could do the work.
When you say we need "good hard working educated people". The question is, for what purpose? Most likely you'll reply "to contribute to society and pay their fair share of taxes". But, what does that mean exactly?
Just how educated are the majority of the people who are migrating from South American countries? How does the US benefit from uneducated people coming to this country? Our education system is already broken making it almost impossible for citizens to afford a good education. Many of our graduates cannot find jobs. More and more Americans are going overseas for jobs. Our country has been sold out to outsourcing and has become a dumbed-down nation and it doesn't need anymore uneducated people.
Contribute to society for what purpose? What if someone neither contributed to society, nor took away from society, would it really matter if they lived here or not? What if there were no taxes? Then no one would need to "pay their fair share". Or at least, what if taxes and social-spending were so low, that paying your "share" of taxes was nearly nothing. Then would we still need "educated" people only? Why would it matter?
So you are saying that immigrants need not contribute to society, nor will they take from society. Well if that is how the sytem would work, then citizens can do the same. How would people survive? Shall we go back to hunting for our own food? Chop down trees and build our own homes? Build mud huts? Cook over an open fire? Crap in a hole? Make candles? Use horses for transportation? Have a goat in every back yard and a rooster on the roof? Shall we just go back in time?
Do you understand how our taxes are spent?
Why would open-immigration turn us into a third-world country? What percentage of third or second-world countries have open-immigration? On average, do third and second-world countries have more open immigration policies, or do first-world countries have more open immigration policies? You may separate the answer into both more recently, and historically.
I'm not aware of any country that has open immigration/open borders. If things are so great in Bangladesh, Sudan, Somalia, Mexico, Guatamala, why don't people from first world countries migrate there? Why do people from second and third world countries leave and migrate to first world countries? If your uncle's wife wants her family to come to the US what is stopping them from applying for legal entry?
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