Banning all immigration

Considering that we have high unemployment rates, welfare dependency, and foster homes full of children - what if we were to put a complete ban on all immigration for awhile until we sort our problems out? No one has an entitlement to immigrate here anymore than a stranger has a "right" to enter your own house and eat your food just because it's a "better life" than being homeless.

I mean what's the worst that could really happen from this (aside from fewer future Democrat voters)?

 

Charity begins at home would be a good and proper slogan to get the momentum going to stop the influx of immigrants.

 

Honestly, I don't see a downside. I'm not sure how immigration translates to Democratic voters though. Aren't many immigrants well-to-do or conservative who would identify most with Republicans?

 

Unless you're a doctor or engineer or other science we're lacking, there is absolutely not a single reason we should be letting ANYONE into the country. If we have a job shortage, how can we justify bringing MORE people in? Random family members or ANYONE who can't prove they have a large enough bank account to support themselves shouldn't even be looked at. The charity HAS to end and NOW. Its getting ridiculous already. We don't have the medical staff to handle caring for the people we have now. We don't have the water in many places. What the FRACK is going on with our leadership? EVERY sign points to them wanting to destroy us. What other explanation is there?

 

It would be redundant if I said that illegal immigrants all vote democratic; but legal immigrants often vote democratic and even socialist. Seattle saw the election of an Indian immigrant who ran under a socialist platform. Many Indians are imbued with communist ideology. Many of the apartheid movement in South Africa were Indian immigrants with communist ties. Legal Asian immigrants also vote democratic. Seventy-eight percent of this group voted for Barack Obama. The reason for this might be because family members who are sponsored, are often on some form of social assistance.

Immigration is a bonanza for both dems and repubs. Repubs get cheap labor, and dems get the votes.

 

No, bad idea. You can't just think of immigration as a whole. Some have good education, why would you want to keep those out? And in general, the more the merrier. More people equals more people working which means more money which means a stronger country. Provided they assimilate well into the culture that is, but the USA doesn't have much problem with that, as european countries can have. Yes, the economy might be down now, but that isn't solved restricting immigration. Just fix the economy instead, and when you do, those immigrants will be working and contributing.

 

How about we allow people to enter who have skills and who provide labour and taxes to the economy.

Just like how you let someone into your home who fixes something or pays rent for money and then uses that money to patronise a struggling local business.

 

We should put a paddle lock on Americas doors, for atleast a decade.

 

The more the merrier has been the US immigration policy since 1965, and it's left us with the highest rate of foreign born in history, extremely high income inequality and greater poverty. If we were only taking educated immigrants you might have a point but the vast majority of US legal immigrants are family visas, not skilled ones.

 

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The problem with your idea is that other than a few strays, no one in congress is addressing this issue. Congress (and the president) has been ignoring the will of the people for far too long.

 

So? Is there anything particularily bad about many people being foreign born? It's around 13% now, but it's been higher before, in the late 19th and early 20th century. So no, not the highest rate in history right now, but why would that even matter let alone be a bad thing? If they were hostile to america and hard to assimilate it would be bad, but that can hardly be said of cuurent immigrants in general. The USA has a good record of assimilating people, and immigrants have a long record of contributing. And quite frankly, education doesn't really matter much. You took in the irish didn't you? The jews, the poles? All poor uneducated people from backward places of europe, fleeing poverty and persecution. Even without education they can be entrepreneurs, or simply do some honest hard working jobs like anyone else. And education isn't hereditary, so their children might come very far, which is certainly true for the jews, but many other groups as well. Same goes for IQ. Jews had lower than average when they arrived, higher than average after a few generations in the US due to access to good education and opportunities.

Income inequality and poverty? I would have thought a conservative would do better than to use that "argument". Do you care about the gap or about how well people are actually doing? Are you worse off because someone is better off than you? Would you rather have everyone equal in poverty or unequal in prosperity? Yes, if many poor people arrive in a rich country, that will widen the gap and of course increase poverty there, but in reality they will be making both themselves and others better off, provided the county offers them opportunities, which the USA does. Why are you alarmed at a statistical illusion like that?

 

Perhaps we should build a asylum seekers living facility on Wake Island where they can wait for entry to the U.S. The island is perfect.



It's already equipped with a 10,000 ft runway and the Navy could bring supplies when needed. When they pass the vetting process they can take the next supply ship to Terminal Island in Los Angeles to start the immigration process.

 

It has been higher, but we cut off the immigration spigot in 1924 because it was so high. That and we were importing European problems, along with Europeans. We had a series of terrorist bombings by anarchists which helped change the public mood on immigrants. You are describing immigration as if it's still the 19th Century, when the US job market could absorb millions of uneducated unskilled workers. All of those Irish, Poles, Italians and whatever else had unskilled work to do, and if they didn't want to do it, they went home. The untold story of those teeming masses is that about a third of them went back home.

But of course things are different now. We don't have a lot of unskilled work available, and we have a social safety net. That changes things considerably. For example:

In 2009 (based on data collected in 2010), 57 percent of households headed by an immigrant (legal and illegal) with children (under 1 used at least one welfare program, compared to 39 percent for native households with children.

Immigrant households’ use of welfare tends to be much higher than natives for food assistance programs and Medicaid. Their use of cash and housing programs tends to be similar to native households.

A large share of the welfare used by immigrant households with children is received on behalf of their U.S.-born children, who are American citizens. But even households with children comprised entirely of immigrants (no U.S.-born children) still had a welfare use rate of 56 percent in 2009.

Immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher rates than natives, even before the current recession. In 2001, 50 percent of all immigrant households with children used at least one welfare program, compared to 32 percent for natives.

Households with children with the highest welfare use rates are those headed by immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent), and Ecuador (70 percent). Those with the lowest use rates are from the United Kingdom (7 percent), India (19 percent), Canada (23 percent), and Korea (25 percent).

The states where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent).

We estimate that 52 percent of households with children headed by legal immigrants used at least one welfare program in 2009, compared to 71 percent for illegal immigrant households with children. Illegal immigrants generally receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children.

Illegal immigrant households with children primarily use food assistance and Medicaid, making almost no use of cash or housing assistance. In contrast, legal immigrant households tend to have relatively high use rates for every type of program.

High welfare use by immigrant-headed households with children is partly explained by the low education level of many immigrants. Of households headed by an immigrant who has not graduated high school, 80 percent access the welfare system, compared to 25 percent for those headed by an immigrant who has at least a bachelor’s degree.


As far as inequality goes, it is a pretty good indicator of something going wrong in a society. When you have a 50 year policy that increases income inequality and poverty, which we then have to turn around and subsidize via social programs, what exactly are we getting out of that expense?

And assimilation, like those millions of unskilled immigrants, is so 19th Century. Having read many of the American left on this site, you must be aware that the American left hates America, and has worked against assimilation for years. Now it's considered normal in some areas to not have the American flag at high school sporting events because the "American Students' are offended by it.

 

That would deplete the next crop of democratic clones !

 

As I've said, the problem is with your economy, not with immigration. The USA could easily provide jobs for the immigrants, provided you fix your economy by getting rid of most socialistic nonsense, taxes and regulations that have come in the latest decades. As for welfare, the obvious solution is to not give welfare to people unless they are citizens, and to also raise the requirements for becomming a citizen. It is true that if you have a more socialistic economy with welfare for all and high taxes and much regulations, high immigration of unskilled people is not feasible. Immigration is only a problem because of socialism in the economy, so Id' say you focus on getting rid of that socialism rather than restricting immigration. This is yet another example of government creating a problem, and then government stepping in to solve it. You're getting ever farther away from freedom and small government. This is the road to serfdom Hayek was talking about isn't?

Regarding illegal immigration, I must point out that I'm not a hippie leftist who doesn't see any distinction between legal and illegal immigration. In general, I think illegals should just be deported, and shouldn't get benefits or anything like that. And the border should be controlled, with a fence if necessary. In Sweden they get education, healthcare, bus and everything else for free, which is a bloody outrage. However in the american case, you've (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up too big for too long to simply deport them all. There are millions of illegals, and deporting them all is neither practical or beneficial. They have work, they have families, they are part of communities and so on. Some special measure is needed to handle them. Let them pay a fine, and then give them work visas and/or give them a way to become citizens.

It's a statistical illusion. People are becomming better off, not worse off. If you have a rich society and some poor people arrive there, they will widen the gap and increase poverty. But did they make any of the natives worse off, any of them poorer? Looking at statistics, it might look as if the entire society is made worse off because poverty and income gaps are increasing, but what has happened is simply that more poor people arrived, not that more americans were made poorer. Those two are completely different things.

That I'll grant you, really is a big problem. It's so ironic that leftist want more immigration, but that rightists are opposed to more immigration because of leftists. For a society to prosper it must be stable and unified, and that requires a culture to assimilate into. Leftists weaken that culture and sense of unity by actively promoting minority identities rather than the national one. I don't believe it's reason enough to stop immigration though. Many immigrants are naturally socially conservative, most just want to work and care for their families, and conservatives will just have to fight the leftists, win the culture war.

 

LOL, you are blaming immigrants now for all the social ills and high income inequality? That is just too damn funny.

 

We did that. It was called Angel Island.

 

As an employer, why should you dictate who I should and should not hire? It is not where the person is from, it is the skill that I need. And quite frankly, other countries are doing it better and more efficient than here.

 

Ah, that infamous CIS study which attempts to show that immigrants use more welfare than native born. However, that is not what the study found out statistically, just the political conclusion irrelevant to the data.

The immigrant households tend to be multigenerational whereas US households tend to be singular household. Second, of those actually receiving welfare, it is not the immigrant, but the US child, mostly medical benefits. Furthermore, those with immigrant households and no US children tend to have a much lower rate of being on welfare than those purely with no immigrants in the household.

 

It's too close to shore. The idea is to make sure the terrorists posing as refugees can't swim ashore.

 

There's not an absolute right to hire whoever you want; illegal immigrants for example.

 

I have yet to hear from any economist that says immigration is bad for the overall economy. Quite the opposite.

 

Don't think I didn't notice the irony of a Swede telling an American to get rid of the socialistic nonsense, taxes, and regulations we have in our economy. Well played sir!

The problem is, immigration has contributed to our policies. As you are no doubt aware, most of the world doesn't share the an American, or even a Western, view of a free economy or individual rights. For the majority of the world, "freedom" is about their ethnic group or religion being free of the domination of others. Individual liberties are foreign to non Western traditions and are a shrinking boutique concept even in the West now days. The US will never elect a Reagan like conservative again who actually cares about a liberty and a free economy. Thanks (in part-not the only reason) to immigration, those are alien concepts to a larger and larger number of the US demographic.

There is a moral hazard with your suggestion. If you want to immigrate from Mexico legally to the US, the wait could take years, maybe a decade or more simply because of the huge backlog of people who want to come to the US to live and work. So the idea to tell the people who are doing things the right way that they've been suckers, and pass out work permits and visas like candy to the people who actually broke our laws, seems a recipe to invite even more illegal immigration. That's what happened with our 1986 amnesty. We were told "just this once" and from now on, we're enforcing the law, never happened. The fact that people realized that they could come to the US and if they avoided law enforcement long enough, they would get to stay, seems to have been justified. So amnesty just breeds more illegal immigration. If we don't stop it now, then we've effectively not had any border control for decades and never will.

Yes and no.

In an absolute sense, people are in general better off. Living standards are higher a generation ago. The fact that rich people have more money doesn't beggar the poor or middle class (in spite of the left's slice of pie theory of economics).

But the type of jobs that supported the working class a generation ago are vanishing. A generation ago, you could get a manufacturing trades, or construction job without any sort of education above a high school and comfortably raise a family. High School kids did jobs and they were relatively easy to get. Now high school age kids working is vanishing because so many of those entry level jobs are occupied by immigrants. Our trade policies are killing off manufacturing and again, construction is going to immigrants. The nature of the economy (due to both trade and automation) is changing so that the number of low skilled jobs is vanishing at the same time we're importing low skilled immigrants by the millions. If you're in a hole, you should stop digging. Instead, we're using a backhoe (operated by an immigrant) to dig a hole for ourselves deeper and faster.

"Many immigrants are naturally socially conservative"

That's true but largely irrelevant. We in the US have been told for decades that Mexicans are "natural conservatives' but tend to vote 8 to 2 for the leftist Democrats. Muslims in America (surely the most socially conservative group in the country) tend to vote for the Democrats. The last time Republicans won the Muslim vote was in 2000, and it's a sure thing they'll never win them again. In the US, our politics is reverting from fighting over policy to taking sides based on religion and ethnicity; in other words,we're reverting to a tribal society. So adding to that doesn't seem to be benefiting any feeling of stability and unity/

 

No, not for all of them, but they are a contributing factor. When you import poor people, you wind up with...more poor people, and all the ills that go with that. I don't find that funny at all.

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I think that was pretty clear in the study. I'm not sure how you are discrediting the study by repeating portions of it.

 

Only after booting you out.