That means their best talent is here, paying US taxes, contributing to US companies, making the US more powerful, all the while contributing almost nothing to their home countries. How is that a bad thing! I don't get it!

I don't know a single person, and I know a good number of Trump voters, who is opposed to legal immigration. What many people, myself included, are opposed to is the illegal part.

Yet I consistently see this stance twisted to mean opposition to all immigration. This conflation is patently ridiculous but it makes for a nice straw man.

(edited for clarity)

Trump outlawed legal visa holders from Iran from entering the US when he signed the first immigration executive order. I don't think Trump voters were against that.

If you are only opposed to the illegal part and not the immigration part, it's relatively easy to fix: just better align the supply of visas with demand. There's a number of obvious things you could do to achieve that:

(1) Keep by-category caps but eliminate per-country caps within each visa category entirely, or

(2) Keep existing caps, but allow immigrants qualified in existing immigrant visa categories to pay an (initial and annual) additional fee to skip the line and get a "supernumerary visa".

(3) Allow people who aren't barred entry but who aren't qualified in a y existing immigrant category to pay an (initial and annual) additional fee to enter on a special visa.

Obviously, if what one has a problem with is immigration and the "illegal" part is a smokescreen, then one will be less likely to support reforms which address illegality without aiming to reduxe overall immigration.

It's important to judge someone the most by what they do, and not just by what they say.

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.

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.

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".

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/us/california-farmers-bac...

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Then he may have to pay over minimum wage!

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.

[1] Just an example, but others say the same: https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/jobs-making-money/side-gigs/...

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?

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.

If you compare food prices in nordic countries where labor is more fairly priced, you'll see how dramatically more expensive everything is.

Not paying farm workers acceptable salaries otherwise things at the grocery store will cost 5x don't seem to pass the math smell test...

Illegal immigrants are, by definition, all criminals.

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.

Without subsidies or this cheap labor, a lot of agr. would cease to be profitable.

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.

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?

If you are going to make an argument, make one.

Are you seriously suggesting that immigrants of all backgrounds are equally likely to be beneficial to this country?

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.

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?

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.

Police officers have a completely different view of immigrants than do people on college campuses.

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 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).

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'll be very clear. Immigrants and non-immigrants are not equally beneficial to the country. No one is equally beneficial to the country.

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.

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. ;)

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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Or we could eviscerate the welfare state and be richer, freer, happier, and healthier! [1]

[1] Gratuitous Milton Friedman plug: https://www.amazon.com/Free-Choose-Statement-Milton-Friedman...

"[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.

[1] http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/how-denmarks-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

[4] http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/life-expectancy-c...

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.

[1] http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

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.

#1. Academia and non-profits do get H1-Bs that are cap exempt

#2. There are people who got jobs in FB et al. who did not win lotteries and went home.

#3. A significant portion of the 85K are people working for "sweatshops", there are enough charts out there

So, yes, its actually a good thing to return to the original intent of extra-ordinary talent.

In the mean time, some conflation to chew on.. http://www.epi.org/blog/new-data-infosys-tata-abuse-h-1b-pro...

So let's therefore demonize the majority smart diligent legitimate immigrants by lumping them in with the less than stellar ones!

That's the sentiment that is persisting with this trumpkin mess of epic proportions.

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 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.

BI just noted that the problem is a bit more widespread, it also affects the affluent "masses" in the Hamptons:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-hamptons-are-facing-an-op...

(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.)

Heck, that's what they say about undocumented migrant workers in agriculture. But seeing them in positions in the "intellectual elite" is even more threatening to them because such positions are seen as a position of power.

The government defunded the schools and created a culture of anti-intellectualism. Fixing education is just about as perfect a solution you can get to the myriad of problems this country faces.

Germany, even at its scientific height was racist and nationalist. Hitler didn't come to power in the 30s without generations of Germans being the foundation.

The US is very far from that.

I don't understand the massive overreaction. The United States in the 60s was a place where there were sundown towns that blacks dared not travel. In 2004 they were seriously considering a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. Now?

We can't lose sight of progress and we can't overreact to the sway of government. All progress has not been lost and the US is not in the dire state some act like it is.

But a bit of nationalism has crept up in the politics of the United States and several other European countries. Bringing up what happened when nationalism ran wild is relevant.

After all, even with the current policies Trump enacted, it is not impossible that our nation will lose out on being the home of the next Einstein, just because they were born in the wrong place.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...

You are also absolutely incorrect on numbers of Native Americans or blacks killed vs the Nazi actions. The Nazis killed tens of millions systematically, not even counting incidental casualties.

The Native Americans were not systematically wiped out. The vast majority died prior to contact with Europeans due to simple disease. There's really no contesting this, all you can do is contest the numbers. Something like 50+% (conservative numbers) of the NA population pre-contact was killed by disease.

Many Native American tribes experienced great depopulation, averaging 25–50 percent of the tribes members lost to disease. Additionally, smaller tribes neared extinction after facing a severely destructive spread of disease.[2] The significant toll that this took is expounded upon in the article Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas. A specific example was Cortes' invasion of Mexico. Before his arrival, the Mexican population is estimated to have been around 25 to 30 million. Fifty years later, the Mexican population was reduced to 3 million, mainly by infectious disease. This shows the main effect of the arrival of Europeans in the new world. With no natural immunity against these pathogens, Native Americans died in huge numbers. The eminent Yale historian David Brion Davis describes this as "the greatest genocide in the history of man. Yet it's increasingly clear that most of the carnage had nothing to do with European barbarism. The worst of the suffering was caused not by swords or guns but by germs."[9] By 1700, less than five thousand Native Americans remained in the southeastern coastal region.[4] In Florida alone, there were seven hundred thousand Native Americans in 1520, but by 1700 the number was around 2000.[4]

That of course does not deny the past. The US mistreated natives and exploited them, there is no doubting this.

Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions have literally never publicly made a statement supporting genocide. The gap between reactionary politics and genocide is vast. Has Trump at age 70 ever even killed a man? Where does this idea that he's going to become genocidal comes from? How can you equate his actions (no deaths) to something which killed tens of millions?

""" Himmler - "Reduce Deaths at all Costs"

Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Concentration Camps issued orders on December 28, 1942, that "The death rate in the concentration camps must be reduced at all costs" (Reitlinger, "The Final Solution"). The camps had been hit with a deadly typhus epidemic that spread by fleas and body lice. Stomach pain, high fever, emaciation and death can quickly follow. All of the camps were factories and the loss of workers was hurting war production. Inspector of the camps, Richard Glucks responded to Himmler's order on January 20, 1943, "Every means will be used to lower the death rates" (Nuremberg Tribunal Document No. 1523). """ Quote from a holocaust denial website [1]

> The Native Americans were not systematically wiped out.

""" From the earliest years of colonialism, conquistadores like Vasco Núñez de Balboa would brazenly advocate genocide against the native population.[50] In the 1700s, British militia like William Trent and Simeon Ecuyer gave Smallpox-exposed blankets to Native American emissaries as gifts at Fort Pitt, "to Convey the Smallpox to the Indians", in one of the most famously documented cases of germ warfare. While it is uncertain how successful such attempts were against the target population,[51] historians have noted that, "history records numerous instances of the French, the Spanish, the English, and later on the American, using smallpox as an ignoble means to an end. For smallpox was more feared by the Indian than the bullet: he could be exterminated and subjugated more easily and quickly by the death-bringing virus than by the weapons of the white man."[52] The British High Commander Jeffery Amherst authorized the intentional use of disease as a biological weapon against indigenous populations during the Pontiac's Rebellion, saying, "You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execreble Race", and instructing his subordinates, "I need only Add, I Wish to Hear of no prisoners should any of the villains be met with arms." """ Quote from wikipedia article on extermination of native Americans [2]

If you read the literature from that time period, Darwin, the various western diaries, ect. You will find that the desire to kill Indians, and the vision of Indians as undermench was universal. This impression of Indians continued up until very recently, when US children, when given squirt guns, would run around playing "shoot the Indian". An endeering game in which American childern would simulate the systematic extermination of the natives 50-100 years earlier.

> You are also absolutely incorrect on numbers of Native Americans or blacks killed vs the Nazi actions. The Nazis killed tens of millions systematically, not even counting incidental casualties.

I was refering to the Holocaust, the systematic cilling of civilians. There were some ten-elleven million killed in the Holocaust[3]. There were some nine or ten million killed in the slave trade [4]. And millions of natives killed by european settlers (the exact number is really hard to place). Since ten million + some unknown number of millions is greater than ten million alone, I stand by my claims.

> Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions have literally never publicly made a statement supporting genocide.

Did Hitler ever do so? The Jews didn't know that they were going to be exterminated. Otherwise, they wouldn't have packed their things and gotten on the trains to the concentration camps. They were under the impression that they were merely being deported. And Trump certainly talks about deportation [5].

Indeed, when you read what Hitler wrote, it was pretty tame compared to what Trump has said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWejiXvd-P8

Can you get more genocidal than that? Can you find a Hitler quote, from before the start of WWII that comes close to that?

[1] https://www.biblebelievers.org.au/wasthere.htm [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Americas [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust [4] http://orb.essex.ac.uk/lg/lg449/AtlanticSlaveTradeDeaths.htm [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0mOA1KAZME

I agree with you that there are instances where Europeans wiped out natives and even where that was the mindset. The fact remains that the majority of Native Americans did not die due to systematic extermination. It is indisputable.

The US had done bad things, but every single culture in the world has done evil things. That is human nature. Many native tribes engaged in torture and regular warfare of their own. The only thing we can do is learn from it and the only way to do it is being objective about history, not engaging in exaggeration.

Can you get more genocidal than that? Can you find a Hitler quote, from before the start of WWII that comes close to that?

Mein Kampf?

Hopefully when Trump does not become Hitler 2.0 you will admit you were wrong.

My point is that you are denying the systematic genocide of the Native Americans. Just as the Nazis denied the systematic genocide of the Jews. Using exactly the same arguments.

> The fact remains that the majority of Native Americans did not die due to systematic extermination. It is indisputable.

It is also true that most Jews survived the Holocaust. Your point?

I have not read the entire book, as it is very long, but as far as I know Mein Kampf does not actually talk about genocide at all. It was not untill 1941, after the war had started, that Hitler first publicly mentioned the idea http://ww2history.com/key_moments/Holocaust/Hitler_talks_of_... He was hateful. Yes. But Donald Trump is hateful too.

> Hopefully when Trump does not become Hitler 2.0 you will admit you were wrong.

I don't think that Trump will become Hitler 2.0. But his supporters may well commit a genocide and cause either totaltarianism or mayhem. If they do not, I will not be wrong, just as I would not be wrong, if I were to say that cancer can kill a patient who subsiquently survives.

No, the depressing thought is that it's far more likely to be out-in-the-open labor camps. Americans already interned their Japanese-American population during World War II; we get irrational when we feel threatened.

The US could benefit in the coming years by being more inclusionary again. It spans an entire continent and has a diversified portfolio of industries to sustain itself. It is unquestioned by its allies officially in wars that are remote and primarily benefit the industries within the US. It really could use an inclusionary policy to enhance its population wealth machine making selective immigration there to once again be a greater object of envy.

You see where the parallels to Weimar and German fascism fail? There isn't enough to extrapolate outcomes just because you see the trendiness of dietary restrictions in the US and notice that the fascist german leader had one too SO OMINOUS.

I am much more concerned about our "soft hegemony", propagated by politicians (for politicians) and accepted by a wide populace. Namely, slogans and ideals that are passed as a public policy. Instead of delivering goods, these politicians deliver slogans. California governor would talk for hours about the environment, but nothing would actually be done about the Oroville dam or building a new reservoir to store the water, to actually improve the environmental impact of millions of Californians. Take any lingering issue, from inner city blight to terrible situation of African American males, it's all political talk and nothing is done to actually fix things. That's where hegemony is, in my opinion.

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce."

I could see Australia, New Zealand, or Canada similarly benefitting if the U.S. turns towards xenophobia & warmongering.

But that's still no excuse for genocide, segregation, and treating people like shit.

Trump wants to beef up our military spending—what do you think he's going to do with all that extra hardware?

Anyway, I didn't mention political parties in my original post, and AFAIC trying to make this partisan is just projection. There are hawks on both sides of the aisle: the Democrats are milking Russophobia for all it's worth and seem to want to start a new Cold War, the Trumpists see the world as a clash of civilizations between the Judeochristian West and Islam, and old-line Republicans like McCain and Graham are very skeptical of Iran and China.

However, whether or not it becomes the top place for technologists to congregate and build things will become an open question.

That alone, while perhaps not dire to the nation as a whole, will be quite damaging. There, so far, has been an order of magnitude difference between the best technology ecosystem and the second best.

Japan is also looking to open up permanent residency rules, and it has suffered through a nearly two decades long spurt of deflation-driven economic stagnation, with incredible debt/GDP, some of it due to demographic concerns and an inverting age pyramid. Just pointing out that might not be the best counter-example.