>And people who are living and working in America are American, they may just not be citizens.

Since when? I have literally never heard this. This is a patently absurd claim to make. Just because someone lives here does not mean they are "American", unless you think that all of the inputs to national identity are vapid, meaningless attributes that are completely transferable.

>We're talking about work visas, which means those people move here and thus become your neighbors, so you'd have to extend that "natural tribal instinct" defense beyond place of residence.

Just because someone has moved in next door does not mean they are now "part of your tribe". This has never been true throughout history, and it will not magically become true today regardless of the outcome of this immigration debate.

“American” is the demonym for the USA. Demonyms refer to natives and inhabitants of an area, or more broadly to characteristics of the area. The term is absolutely not used exclusively to refer to citizens, but I’m not interested in a semantic argument, so suffice it to say that my point is simply that citizenship is an arbitrary legal distinction, and in my opinion a horrible place to draw the line between inhabitants of the US that the government should protect and care about and other inhabitants that the government should not protect or care about.

>The term is absolutely not used exclusively to refer to citizens, ...

It absolutely is used exclusively to refer to citizens by an overwhelming majority of people who would use that term. Attempting to split off "citizens" from "natives and inhabitants" is a naked attempt at trying to redefine a word that carries significant meaning to further a specific agenda.

>...citizenship is an arbitrary legal distinction

Says who? It certainly doesn't seem arbitrary to me. There are considerable responsibilities that come with being a citizen. Men have to register for the draft. You can be called for Jury duty. This isn't arbitrary.

>...and other inhabitants that the government should not protect or care about.

I don't think anyone here is arguing the (American) government "should not protect or care" about non-citizens, but that claiming they shouldn't put American citizens first is dubious at best.

Again, I am explicitly not making a semantic argument. I made my point about citizenship clear, and it does not depend on any particular definition of the word “American.”

I am saying that the choice of legal definition of citizenship is arbitrary, not that it is poorly-defined. Legal definitions vary a lot from country to country. Again, I’m saying it’s a bad choice for the threshold at which a government should protect and care about an inhabitant of its jurisdiction.

> claiming they shouldn’t put American citizens first is dubious at best

That’s precisely the claim that I’m saying is extremely dubious. How is it reasonable to say that people who fit the precise definition of citizenship in US law (usually through no choice or action they made) should be prioritized over other inhabitants of the same country? I agree that this is a common belief, and I’m challenging people to justify the belief.

Because without some distinction of who has responsibilities and obligations to the Sovereign state then we can't have any sort of consistency at all in how we govern ourselves. This is a concept that has deep philosophical underpinnings, coming from Aristotle to Plato and elsewhere. To put in bluntly: Citizens have skin in the game in a way "inhabitants" don't. If the social fabric of a nation-state starts to break down, the Citizens are the ones that have to deal with the consequences. The only way we've come up with to denote who has to deal with this is the Citizenship marker.

I'm curious. Where is this new belief that "Citizenship" is a concept that needs to be blown up coming from? It appears to have become quite common over the last couple years. It has to be coming from somewhere.

We're not talking about tourists here. Immigrant workers routinely become married homeowners and parents with extensive personal and professional networks in the US and few links to their countries of origin. My long-tenured H1B coworkers would do no better upon moving to India or China than I would, save for language skills. But that's moot anyway. If the US decides to kick them out and they have to give up their current lives anyway, we'll move them to a third country with deterministic approval for skilled workers, like The Netherlands.

Americans can flee to Canada or any number of other countries which open their doors to us, just as the draft-dodgers did when the "social fabric of the nation-state broke down."

I agree it's weird to blow up citizenship as a concept. We should be talking about making citizenship actually possible for the people who are committed to it, not locked away behind quotas and waiting lists.

> Where is this new belief that "Citizenship" is a concept that needs to be blown up coming from?

My guess is this being a counter reaction to today's "build a wall and screw the others" mentality displayed in politics.

I do understand people are tribal. I also care more about people closer to me. But nowadays our lives are highly interconnected and profit off each other, thus i need those to do well as well. The problem is overcoming the prisoners dilemma of short term tribal benefits vs long term global benefits. The focus on citizens over others seems a obstacle to that.

Especially these days, where those "others" seem to be a great political scapegoat for all the other problems slowly breaking down the fabric of our society.

I don’t understand the “skin in the game” argument at all. How is it worse for a citizen than a non-citizen if the social fabric of the state breaks down? Besides, this seems like a bizarre argument for why citizens should have “first dibs” at jobs. What does that have anything to do with a doomsday scenario?

As for the necessity of making distinctions regarding obligations to the state, how is that relevant, particularly to job prioritization? Other than perhaps military conscription and some tax laws, I’m not aware of many significant differences in obligations between citizens and non-citizens, and especially of any with any relevance to job prioritization.

> Where is this new belief that "Citizenship" is a concept that needs to be blown up coming from?

I haven’t expressed any such belief, nor do I hold it. I just see no good reason for a government to prioritize citizens above non-citizen inhabitants, especially for job availability.

>I don’t understand the “skin in the game” argument at all. How is it worse for a citizen than a non-citizen if the social fabric of the state breaks down?

Because the "inhabitants" can just go home, while the Citizens are stuck here - this is their home.

>Besides, this seems like a bizarre argument for why citizens should have “first dibs” at jobs.

This is literally what a sovereign government is supposed to do: provide for and prioritize the needs of it's citizens. If your contention is that anyone should be able to come here and be afforded the same protections we'll just keep talking past each other (which I think we already are). It sounds like, by extension and since you don't consider "Citizen" a meaningful distinction, that "inhabitants" should have the same voting rights as Citizens. This is a recipe for chaos.

>I just see no good reason for a government to prioritize citizens above non-citizen inhabitants, especially for job availability.

Then you've missed a lot of reading on what the entire purpose of Government even is.

> Because the "inhabitants" can just go home, while the Citizens are stuck here - this is their home.

I highly doubt that most immigrants who come to the US to work are buying and maintaining a second home, and are instead making America their new home.

> This is literally what a sovereign government is supposed to do: provide for and prioritize the needs of it's citizens.

This is precisely the claim I am disputing and looking for some justification. “Most people believe this” is not a very good justification for anything, so I’m challenging people to question why they believe it and why it’s a reasonable desire. “High school textbooks say that governments should do this” is also not a great justification in my opinion.

It's true that accepting immigrants into the tribe is historically unusual, but that's why it's a distinctive and important feature of American national identity.

I think you should go back and review some of that history. Integration into the "American tribe" has been bumpy at best and downright violent at worst. It's often taken actual war to make it happen. The Draft Riots come to mind.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_draft_riots