We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14153827 and marked it off-topic.
I care more about my neighbor's employment status, safety, and happiness than the family down the street. I care more about the guy down the street than the family across town... etc etc etc... I care more about some family in some US state that I'll never visit than a family over in India.
The closer they are to me, the more their success and problems will affect me either directly through interaction or indirectly through taxes or how they're likely to vote for something crazy in a future election out of desperation.
Local people even on a national level should get better chances if for no other reason than they've been here hopefully contributing to our system longer and they should be first to get some benefit out of it.
Do you think it is permissible for your town to pass a law that requires your neighborhood coffee shop to preferentially hire a barista from your town?
Let me quote the parable of Sam and Marvin by the philosopher Michael Huemer to explain why I don't think your reasoning works.
Excerpted from - http://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/immigration.htm
"Sam coercively prevented Marvin from reaching the local marketplace, on the grounds that doing so was necessary to prevent his daughter from having to pay a higher than normal price for her bread. This action seems unjustified. Would Sam succeed in defending his behavior if he pointed out that, as a father, he has special obligations to his daughter, and that these imply that he must give greater weight to her interests than to the interests of non-family members? Certainly the premise is true—if anything, parents have even stronger and clearer duties to protect the interests of their offspring than a government has to protect its citizens’ interests. But this does not negate the rights of non-family members not to be subjected to harmful coercion. One’s special duties to one’s offspring imply that, if one must choose between giving food to one’s own child and giving food to a non-family member, one should generally give the food to one’s own child. But they do not imply that one may use force to stop non-family members from obtaining food, in order to procure modest economic advantages for one’s own children."
Not at all. Because being born with skin pigmentation is not the same as building a community together, that shares local resources and markets.
Why?
Typically people belong to multiple communities, say family, city, state, world. What kinds of actions are permissible in order to secure modest economic advantages to each of the these communities? What if there is a dispute between the various jurisdictions. What if the "world community" votes overwhelmingly in favor of open borders? What if a NYC block (which is certainly a community that shares local resources and markets) votes to ban black people from living/working there? Why is this wrong but the American community banning Indians from working in America not?
I don't understand why this is such a strange concept to so many people.
gotcha!
Edited for grammar
It's a high level question. Do we want people that are governed by law or skirt it? I argue the system is more stable and thus the preferred result when people follow the law. As a consequence I believe that we should protect those that follow the over those that break it.
I do feel bad for unskilled H1B slaves. Their poor circumstances are often better in the States than if they stayed at home. Unfortunately they are here illegally. There presence is making our country worse by locking wealth in the hands of the companies rather than making it part of the local economy.
The current H1B system abuses both native and traveler when cheated.
Temporarily.
I know my next door neighbors. Not H1B holders.
Don't be an troll.
I can respect the economic arguments for it, even if I often disagree with them. This is just... not racist but it's about as foul in it's own way.
What happens to someone in India will be of less concern.
I will always put my fellow Americans first.
If you really think everyone is so equal, then why is it okay to put your family first?
? H1B holders pay as much tax as citizens do (more, in fact, given they cannot benefit off Social Security, but still have to contribute to it). AND they don't get to vote.
What's the argument in this case?
Even if you have some wacky reason for disagreeing with this logic, then take the taxes out of it. What's wrong with caring about your fellow citizens who's vote might affect your more than someone that's possibly displacing them?
1. Do you like the fact that out-of-state/country students pay more for tuition (thus subsidizing the education of the good native people)?
2. If so, do you like the fact that H1B pay taxes (thus subsidizing Social Security for the good native people)? The H1B is term-limited to 6 years, and people need to leave the country if they no longer work (or pay taxes). So the do NOT benefit indefinitely at the expense of the community who have been long-term tax payers. With respect to tax, the H1B is totally a pay-to-pay (a little bit pay-extra-to-play, even) visa.
[Edit: We already established that H1B holders can NOT vote. So they cannot affect your community of long-term tax-paying natives in that manner].
It's not about being white, it's about living in the same social and economic communities. You really do not understand why a person might care more about what happens to their literal neighbor than someone half way across the world?
From where I am sitting, you are using race as a way to be deliberately inflammatory. Not a good look.
Likewise for a country, which exists to serve their constituents. It's not about being better or more important.
A job is not a handout, it's (supposed to be, at least) beneficial to both sides of the relationship.
The cost is the difference between an American getting a job and someone who has absolutely no relationship with America getting a job. I care about my fellow citizens. I want them to succeed.