We live in a different world than 1800-2000 when migration, births, and fossil fuels were the powertrain of growth. The math has changed.

Edit: I don't know what the answer is, other than to say 'it's probably not what it was before'.

>Can't we simply increase immigration when needed.

Not when you have a major political party doubling down on nativist sentiment and rhetoric. Remember "migrant caravans"? Or midwestern conservative politicians stoking fears of MS-13? Or "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us."

Immigration is scary to many people in the USA and one party deliberately stokes that fear.

Cheap labor lowers wages and undermines unions ability to negotiate. In the long term the additional demand generated by immigrants balances out and things are fine. In the short term many forms of labor are devalued and people who are already live here fine at their wages are undercut.

The idea that anti-immigrant sentiment is purely driven by racism isn't accurate.

As is typical on internet forums nuance is always lost when it comes to these kinds of issues.

My wife and her family are immigrants FYI so when I say these things I'm not some bigot. I'm just a guy that used to work in the construction industry and saw the impact on wages for lower skilled professions.

If we legitimized the immigration status of those people, why wouldn't they join the very same unions and keep wages high for everyone? The villains here are the capital class and their interest in keeping the rest of us in conflict with each other, not struggling immigrants.

> If we legitimized the immigration status of those people, why wouldn't they join the very same unions and keep wages high for everyone?

Because of this per the unions https://twitter.com/unitehere/status/1383450861595074563

Labor unions have long lobbied against legal visas for immigrants.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/biden-agenc...

They lobbied obama admin to cut these visas ( and others) by half from bush era high.

"displaces U.S. workers while suppressing industry-wide wages. "

> The villains here are the capital class

You seem to have it all mixed up. 'Capital class' lobbied hard and reversed Trumps visa bans and are major lobbiest for legal h2 visas.

I'm not talking about visas, just make them citizens with the same rights as the rest of us. Then they can join those unions on an equal footing.

Legitimizing people's status would definitely help to a degree, but not fully.

The wage to earn a significantly higher standard of living than that found in the poorest Central American nations where most of these human beings come from is significantly lower than the "living wage" that we on the left talk about frequently.

"so why not just raise the minimum wage, that'll solve the issue!" is what many say to this.

Yes, it would, if the construction, meat packing, agriculture industries were remotely capable of having enforcement against hiring "under the table" workers, which based on my experience in these industries growing up in a rural location of the southern US, isn't possible.

At the end of the day, in the short term, demand for labor is relatively fixed, and increasing the supply, even if you ensure that the human beings that are added to the supply are given the rights they deserve, is going to lower the price of labor. Supply and demand doesn't care about our morals. It's indifferent, because individual humans and businesses are going to make rational economic decisions when they rent labor from human beings, and will go for the quieter, cheaper, far less likely to complain about working conditions person than the American who they tell themselves (as they choose the undocumented person) didn't capitalize on the opportunities they were offered being born here and therefore doesn't deserve it. (This is a rationalization I've encountered numerous times, and often it was uttered by people who chose to hire undocumented folks instead of a crew from LaborReady, a short-term labor business that is compliant with the law.)

> legitimized the immigration status of those people,

> I'm not talking about visas

So only "legitimate" immigration status according to you is full citizenship? Like hand out citizenship at the port of entry ?

> Then they can join those unions

Its not about the footing. Union's main concern is high unemployment among its ranks.

" In one city where 91% of our current #union hotel housekeepers are still out of work, a major hotel company is asking for more H-2B visas.

Why is this necessary?"

edit: Looks like you are trolling here based on your flagged/downvoted comments

Over 10% of US population is estimated to be undocumented. I don't believe these census numbers are accurate at all, we are doing fine in terms of importing young population.

Census counts everyone, included non citizens, regardless of citizenship.

That’s why there was controversy adding a “are you a US citizen?” to the questionnaire.

> Census counts everyone

Census doesn't count. People count themselves in census.

Can you help me understand your distinction?

>Over 10% of US population is estimated to be undocumented.

Not even close, it's closer to 3-4%:

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/immigra...

https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/how-many-und...

https://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-immigration/2020-how-ma...

https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/interactives/u-s-unauth...

I have a hunch that any source putting it at >10% is attempting to stoke the same nativist sentiment and rhetoric I mentioned in my parent comment.

I guess 3.5% is not 'close' to 10% but it's still a very material number, and 'very unhealthy' in terms of managing civil and social infrastructure. 'Undocumented' is just an upside down way of saying 'dirty cheap labour with no rights' which is possibly the greatest guarantee of inequality etc.. They need to be on the books one way or another the issue has to be sorted out.