US Immigration Policy

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Lokrian

Not at all. I am saying that it is not exactly doing someone a favor to let them have a choice between working for next to nothing at textiles at home, or else coming here and working for a little more than next to nothing on your cotton farm or plumbing company.

But that is not the choice they have available to them. The choice they are actually faced with is no job at all in Mexico (or one that pays 1/100th or less) or a job in the US. The US job is enormously superior. It is not "next to nothing" versus "a little more than next to nothing". It is nothing (or almost nothing) compared to an enormous bounty that is equivalent to a fortune for them. As an added bonus, they aren't getting murdered by drug lords or a brutally corrupt police force when they work here in the US. As a SUPER added bonus, if their kids are born here, they are citizens.

It is sort of like when some American gets a bug up their ass to go raid some Nike factory in Thailand or something. The activist flies into a frenzy over people making $1 a day to make shoes. Then some more level headed person interviews the actual workers and finds out they LOVE their job because before the Nike factory they either made 0 dollars or the equivalent of 1 cent per hour.

Originally posted by Lokrian

How you are going to go about discerning who is and is not living up to their obligations as an immigrant regarding not going on welfare? What differences if any there should be legally between citizens and immigrants still on work visas trying to become citizens? Should work visas be offered in any large number to people who flatly admit to not wanting to live here permanently? Things like that...

Frankly, this kind of minutiae is not important since we haven't even solved the first problem. The first problem is getting our country to accept and REMEMBER the fact that immigrants make us strong and we should encourage them to come here.

It is a slick debaters tactic to try and get mired in irrelevant details that are 10 steps down the road in order to distract from the far more important Step 1.

On the welfare issue, it is pretty simple: if you are here on a work visa, you get zero government benefits. No food stamps. No WIC. No DFACS. You get to work and you get to pay taxes.

Other than that, there are no "obligations" on an immigrant. If they come here and do nothing, they are just going to starve or die. The fact that they came here for a job makes it pretty unlikely that is going to be a serious concern.

As for whether they intend to stay here long term or not, I could care less. It is up to US to make our country attractive enough that they will choose to stay here. Trying to hold them hostage by requiring them to live here if we let them work here for a few years is not the way to go about it.

Honestly, all of those little questions are extremely trivial. Those are things best resolved by experts in the field. Normal people, even people who have studied the issue, can really only hope to understand the larger, big picture issues. The big picture here is that far too many Americans think their citizenship is some kind of special divine right like old medieval kings who claimed it was God who annoited them regent. That's malarkey. Immigrants are what made us strong. Immigrants are what made us great. The sooner we remember that and embrace it, the sooner we can get back on track. Otherwise, we'll be the next France 50 years from now, looking back on our days of gradeur with bitterness and looking at India and China with envy.

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Aristotle
But that is not the choice they have available to them. The choice they are actually faced with is no job at all in Mexico (or one that pays 1/100th or less) or a job in the US. The US job is enormously superior. It is not "next to nothing" versus "a little more than next to nothing". It is nothing (or almost nothing) compared to an enormous bounty that is equivalent to a fortune for them. As an added bonus, they aren't getting murdered by drug lords or a brutally corrupt police force when they work here in the US. As a SUPER added bonus, if their kids are born here, they are citizens.

It is sort of like when some American gets a bug up their ass to go raid some Nike factory in Thailand or something. The activist flies into a frenzy over people making $1 a day to make shoes. Then some more level headed person interviews the actual workers and finds out they LOVE their job because before the Nike factory they either made 0 dollars or the equivalent of 1 cent per hour.

I'm not aware of the exact statistics, but I worked with these guys, like I said, and it is not as if they consider it some sort of favor we are doing for them, letting them come here to work for less than we pay our own. They are aware of exactly what their position is. I earned their respect over time by being willing to get down in the dirt with them, digging in the 12' holes in Houston clay, not letting some of the more aggressive of them bully, me, etc, but they knew the real reason I got paid more is I was the juerito. The point is they KNOW they are being exploited, whether the situation is as bad as I made it out or not. But these men do what they have to do, like men anywhere are going to do, and I don't fault them for that.

Originally posted by Aristotle
Frankly, this kind of minutiae is not important since we haven't even solved the first problem. The first problem is getting our country to accept and REMEMBER the fact that immigrants make us strong and we should encourage them to come here.

It is a slick debater’s tactic to try and get mired in irrelevant details that are 10 steps down the road in order to distract from the far more important Step 1.

This is the sort of thing that makes me tired. Maybe because I live in Texas and read more regularly about the people that die trying to cross the border, and see first hand the real effect on the labor market as compared to Philly, for example, where I worked for a while when I was in the Navy, but these things are not slick debater’s tactics. These things are the basic practical things that anyone should be thinking about where border policy is concerned. I was not trying to trick or trap you. I am just trying to get a fix on what it is you think should be done and why.

Originally posted by Aristotle
On the welfare issue, it is pretty simple: if you are here on a work visa, you get zero government benefits. No food stamps. No WIC. No DFACS. You get to work and you get to pay taxes.

Other than that, there are no "obligations" on an immigrant. If they come here and do nothing, they are just going to starve or die. The fact that they came here for a job makes it pretty unlikely that is going to be a serious concern.

Very few people are going to simply let people starve or die in the U.S. You're probably aware that this attitude towards immigrants and benefits is not one that would fly across most of the U.S. This just goes back to what I was getting at with those extraneous details. The devil is in them. You can't insure that immigrants do not take undue advantage of our welfare infrastructure without significant limitation at the very least in the rate of immigration so that people can be kept track of.

Originally posted by Aristotle
As for whether they intend to stay here long term or not, I could care less. It is up to US to make our country attractive enough that they will choose to stay here. Trying to hold them hostage by requiring them to live here if we let them work here for a few years is not the way to go about it.

Honestly, all of those little questions are extremely trivial. Those are things best resolved by experts in the field. Normal people, even people who have studied the issue, can really only hope to understand the larger, big picture issues. The big picture here is that far too many Americans think their citizenship is some kind of special divine right like old medieval kings who claimed it was God who anointed them regent. That's malarkey. Immigrants are what made us strong. Immigrants are what made us great. The sooner we remember that and embrace it, the sooner we can get back on track. Otherwise, we'll be the next France 50 years from now, looking back on our days of grandeur with bitterness and looking at India and China with envy.

I don't think the U.S. is in the same situation it has been regarding immigrants. While you're undoubtedly correct that we are nowhere near being overcrowded, we no longer need immigrants to fill the void of population in the large expanses of the Midwest and west.

Immigration is not in and of itself a good thing. Nations like India and China that you mention surely are not in need of immigrants. On a slightly different slant, I am a bit confused to see China and India mentioned by you as nations that are up and coming. They survive off their trade with us. They lack infrastructure of their own. Without us, they simply crumble again. Until they begin to see their own populations as resources and not trash, they will continue to need outside markets for their goods. The have not yet learned that money needs to circulate. They try to maintain too much control among their elites. You simply cannot release the massive power of human resources while at the same time trying to keep them under your thumb. If anything, we need to remember those lessons ourselves with a fresh new understanding that people are not just cogs in a mindless economic wheel.

This is the problem as I see it. We need to get away from the idea that we are in competition for the high performing top 5% from all over the world. If we operate on the theory that we actually want to affect 'brain drain' against the rest of the planet, we doom large populations to being leaderless and mired in bad situations. There's no reason to even try to be stuffing as many people as we can get inside the borders of the U.S. We need to be exporting healthy economic practices to the third world, not importing third world wages to the U.S.

That's just my opinion, now. I am not trying to imply 'I know better than you' or any such thing. Maybe I am wrong. But obviously, yes, we have a difference of opinion there.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by Lokrian

This is the sort of thing that makes me tired. Maybe because I live in Texas and read more regularly about the people that die trying to cross the border, and see first hand the real effect on the labor market as compared to Philly

If the locals cannot compete, they can move. This wrong headed belief that you have a right to a job, or a right to a wage, is totally unamerican and bogus.

Furthermore, if the immigrants could work here LEGALLY, they wouldn't be getting exploited and it would be easier for local workers to compete.

Originally posted by Lokrian

Very few people are going to simply let people starve or die in the U.S. You're probably aware that this attitude towards immigrants and benefits is not one that would fly across most of the U.S. This just goes back to what I was getting at with those extraneous details. The devil is in them. You can't insure that immigrants do not take undue advantage of our welfare infrastructure without significant limitation at the very least in the rate of immigration so that people can be kept track of.

Immigrants for the most part come here to work, not to get on our "welfare system." Furthermore, I have said every single time, allowing people to come here and work legally is contingent upon explicitly mandating by law that they are NOT eligible for welfare programs.

Originally posted by Lokrian

I don't think the U.S. is in the same situation it has been regarding immigrants. While you're undoubtedly correct that we are nowhere near being overcrowded, we no longer need immigrants to fill the void of population in the large expanses of the Midwest and west.

This has never been about filling a void of population. We most certainly DO need people to fill a void of employment in areas where American workers are unwilling to take the job. Doctors are a perfect example of this. The US currently has a system in place to give doctors CITIZENSHIP if they are willing to work in small and/or rural towns. That's how dire the situation is.

Originally posted by Lokrian

On a slightly different slant, I am a bit confused to see China and India mentioned by you as nations that are up and coming. They survive off their trade with us. They lack infrastructure of their own. Without us, they simply crumble again.

Ahhhh, how arrogantly American of you to think that. Their education systems are superior. Their rewards are based on MERIT. They help their top people excel, rather than focusing on making everyone mediocre. They crush us in math and science. Where do you think we will be 50 years from now when their populace is better educated, more technically skilled, and are the people inventing everything? Do you realize, just for example, if China had invented the internet instead of the US, they would probably already be equal to us economically. That's really all it takes. One titanic technological development (or a series of them) made outside the US instead of inside.

Originally posted by Lokrian

Until they begin to see their own populations as resources and not trash, they will continue to need outside markets for their goods.

Where are you getting this severely incorrect and racist information? India and China are not North Korea, and it is foolish to think they are the same.

I would say they understand the value of their population a lot better than we do in the United States. We pay lip service to valuing our people. They put their money where their mouths are. They do everything they can to encourage excellence. All we do is focus on the lowest common denominator to try and raise the average and cover our asses to avoid embarassment. We fail.

Originally posted by Lokrian

This is the problem as I see it. We need to get away from the idea that we are in competition for the high performing top 5% from all over the world. If we operate on the theory that we actually want to affect 'brain drain' against the rest of the planet, we doom large populations to being leaderless and mired in bad situations.

Too bad for them. If they wanted to keep their best people, they should have provided a country those people wanted to live in. That's not my problem and it is not America's problem.

Originally posted by Lokrian

We need to be exporting healthy economic practices to the third world, not importing third world wages to the U.S.

That is not only paternalistic but impossible. We cannot control other countries. All we can control is ours.

It is crazy to think we can fix other countries when currently we have been unable to fix our own.

What are you so afraid of? Let people who want to work, come here and work. That GROWS our economy and means more jobs and more economic growth for everyone. If someone expects to have their job guaranteed to them, they are a useless dinosaur in need of a wake up call.


Stop with the smoke screen issues like "working conditions in other countries" or "immigrants getting on welfare" or "fixing the economies of 3rd world countries."

Just focus on what is clearly your main concern: You don't like those immigrants coming here and taking "our" jobs or making "our" wages go down.

That kind of thinking is unamerican, and will do nothing but doom our country to France-like mediocrity.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Doctors are a perfect example of this. The US currently has a system in place to give doctors CITIZENSHIP if they are willing to work in small and/or rural towns. That's how dire the situation is.

I stand corrected on my earlier theories about smalltown doctors. Congratulations, America, that is pretty serious encouragement.

Originally posted by Aristotle
Ahhhh, how arrogantly American of you to think that. Their education systems are superior. Their rewards are based on MERIT. They help their top people excel, rather than focusing on making everyone mediocre.

Oh but... but... We can't allow that sort of notion! If you describe a select few as "top people", what does that make everyone else? And... oh horror! There might even be some "bottom people" who are in some way inferior !!! No. We have to bring those people up to standard somehow, or they'll lose Self Esteem, the most important thing we teach people in schools. Hmm, can't actually make them cleverer. All right! Let's slow down the fast ones, make the tests easier, and make sure everyone passes. There, now we're thoroughly American (or whatever other Western nation you choose), and school does what it's supposed to.

Then you go looking at some maths textbook from a hundred years ago, and it has a question like "What is the square root of this squared square-cube: 10279563944029090291760398073856" - and you probably don't even have a calculator big enough, let alone can do it with pencil and paper... but in the late 1800s that very problem was published in a maths textbook for upper primary. Of course, standards aren't dropping. Certainly not.

Originally posted by Aristotle
That's really all it takes. One titanic technological development (or a series of them) made outside the US instead of inside.

Let's see. Windows was developed in America; it's popular, but not so wonderfully great. Linux... well, Linus Torvalds is from Finland, but the development is worldwide, so you can't pin it down to one country. Many of the great Internet protocols were developed in American universities and businesses, but a good many were developed elsewhere. I can name a large number of superb German, Russian, and Danish software inventions, by such people as Henk Kelder and Daniela Engert... America has no monopoly on quality.

Not wholly sure whether that supports your argument or not, Ari, but I think it does.

[Lokrian]

China focuses a lot of its efforts to cities, locking rural workers out of the labor market. Large portions of the Chinese population need outside aid to get basic education.

http://www.ruralchina.org/files/Mate...neGeng2004.pdf

I'm not particlularly knowledgeable about India, but I suspect you will find similar conditions there.

If they only even bother to try to educate their best students, it's not surprise to me they test well. If you have information to back up the overall superiority of their educational system's let me know. I'm not all that focused on that particular subject, but I have seen news programs and so forth about the plight of the rural Chinese.

I don't see my statement as somehow egotistical or uninformed. If the news is telling me wrong things, though, I am not entirely surprised. But I don't see any real evidence that things are all that great over there educationally speaking.

[Lokrian]

Originally posted by Aristotle
Ahhhh, how arrogantly American of you to think that. Their education systems are superior. Their rewards are based on MERIT. They help their top people excel, rather than focusing on making everyone mediocre. They crush us in math and science. Where do you think we will be 50 years from now when their populace is better educated, more technically skilled, and are the people inventing everything? Do you realize, just for example, if China had invented the internet instead of the US, they would probably already be equal to us economically. That's really all it takes. One titanic technological development (or a series of them) made outside the US instead of inside.



Where are you getting this severely incorrect and racist information? India and China are not North Korea, and it is foolish to think they are the same.

"Since mid-2001, China has expanded the geographic scope of reforms to its household registration system. Formerly confined to roughly 200 pilot towns and small cities, the reforms now encompass Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Anhui, Sichuan, and Hebei. Reforms also extend to several large cities, including Shijiazhuang (Hebei) , Hefei (Anhui) , Ningbo (Zhejiang) , Ji'nan (Shandong) , Beijing, Chongqing, and Shanghai. In general, the reforms enable qualified rural migrants to register as urban residents, a change formalized by switching personal identification booklets called " hukous ." Hukous are issued for all Chinese and are inscribed to identify the carrier as a rural or non-rural, i.e., urban, resident. Each urban administrative entity (towns, cities, etc.) issues its own hukou, which entitles only registered inhabitants of that entity full access to social services, like education. "

- http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/econ/hukou.html

In other words, they don't even qualify to get an education in rural areas.

"Urban workers are free to apply for and leave jobs; they are entitled to state housing and pensions. Rural workers, however, need state permission to seek work in towns and factories. Once employed, they enter a bonded-labor arrangement in which they cannot quit unless they can pay their employer an amount plainly beyond their means. The hukou system forbids them to compete with urban workers for higher-paying jobs, and migrant workers without jobs are subject to arrest by the state's public security bureau. "

- http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/...n-h-03-22.html

Obviously this is not a major news network type of organization here, and if you find these facts are in error please let me know, but that is the sort of thing I have heard for example on shows like 60 minutes, and here it is in print, as to how China treats its citizens. Maybe not as bad as North Korea, but bad nonetheless.