The part where I disagree with you is the notion that there's something xenophopic about feeling that current levels (depending on where you get your estimates, this ranges from about 1 to 1.8 million per year) are a reasonable limit. I do find it surprising that a nation that admits well over a million immigrants a year is so frequently accused of "anti-immigrant" policies because the annual cap isn't even higher.

You say you'd increase the quota, but you didn't mention if you'd eliminate it altogether. Suppose you felt that immigration levels should be double what they are now, say about 2.5 million a year. Does that mean someone who would make it 5 million a year can call you anti-immigrant?

I would, however, put in a quota based on the amount of education, capital, and whatever else would provide an estimate of the benefit that this immigrant would provide to the country, penalized by the difficulty that the person would have in integrating and establishing himself.

So, for example, someone with a doctorate, a job offer from an employer, significant capital, and fluency in the language should NEVER have an issue getting into the country.

Keep in mind, if I wrote a post arguing for a cap of 1.2 million a year, some people would upmod me because it's high, others would downmod be because it's too low, others would down mod me because it's too high, others would upmod me because it sets a firm limit. The number of strong opinions on this topic is bewildering (but not at all surprising).

I'm not completely sure how I feel about the issue, to be honest, but I'm an immigrant (my parents brought me when I was an infant), and I probably wouldn't have made it here under either the criteria that exist now nor the ones you are promoting.

What I know is that the dream of immigration to the US is about having a better life for you and your children. Don't the poor and uneducated deserve that dream just as much as anyone else?

Of course! The question is, how many poor and uneducated immigrants would you advocate naturalizing every year in the United States? 100K? 500k? 1.2 Mil? 4 mil? No limit? I feel that until people answer that question (and it will vary from person to person), there's no way to have a meaningful conversation about illegal immigration, which is about setting and enforcing limits.

As for "running out of land"... that's actually a little ambiguous. California could probably triple in population, and we'd still have some rural-ish areas in the extreme north. Japan, because of the density of its cities, actually preserved its rural character in some areas, and this is a country with a population density of 337.1/km2! In other ways, California has already "run out" of land. Ever drive from Orange county down to Tijuana? With the exception of a military base, it's basically sprawl all the way down. I suppose we could increase the coastal population by building high density housing on the coast...

Yes, but how do you prioritize? How do you control the drag on the social support systems of the country? How do you handle the gargantuan task of integrating these people into society?

And honestly I think that is one of America's greatest advantages. Reliance on credentialism ends up too often being just another class-based divide rather than meritocratic in any sense. Look at Andrew Carnegie, as an immigrant he had little to set him apart, but eventually he became one of the wealthiest men in the world. There are many, many more examples just like his. And yet so often we continue to say "yes, but, let's ignore that and pretend that we can filter people by merit". I don't agree that we can filter people by merit.

It makes sense to prioritize for the most productive/least diseased/least criminal/etc when possible to discriminate with reasonable certainty. Of course, this is not to imply that immigrants are neither unproductive, nor unhealthy, nor unlawful.

While rags-to-riches stories are great, riches-to-riches probably has a better expected outcome.

I don't see a lot of Canadian PhDs smuggling themselves in to the US, compared to Mexican laborers. Because there isn't demand to support the risk. The US seems far more willing to pay for laborers than PhDs.

However, even if that wasn't the case, You wouldn't see Canadian PhDs smuggling themselves in because they can get perfectly good jobs outside of the country. They don't need to go anywhere illegally, because they have plenty of options to go elsewhere. If it wasn't for the TN visa, I would be working in Europe, Asia, Canada, or nearly anywhere else, because someone from there would be trying to attract me.

It's not that there's no demand to support the risk. There's plenty of demand. There's also enough demand elsewhere -- if I had trouble getting into the states, some other company would have me, and I would be contributing to the economy there.

I know a lot of Americans who say exactly that, and none of them mean what you (or the parent poster) claim they mean. On the contrary, one of the most common statements I hear from them is "make it easier for people to immigrate legally".

In contrast, in 1907, the US population was around 87 million and there were about 1.3 million registered immigrants for about 1.4% growth through immigration--anywhere from two to four times the level today.

Keep in mind, Australia also has a very low population density, but you'd have trouble populating the interior.

New Zealand has a very low population density, and is essentially a large national park. Certainly they could up that population density of 16.4/km^2. Should New Zealand aim to increase its population five to ten fold over the next 50 years to catch up? Is New Zealand an "anti-immigrant" country for not allowing this kind of growth through immigration?

You can say "yes", but then you'd have a tough time identifying a country that isn't "anti-immigrant", and I think the US would come off as one of the more immigrant-friendly nations out there. Not the most so, but pretty high up on the list.

Yes. I do think the US is one of the more immigrant-friendly nations, but the numbers admitted can't be divorced from their context.

No immigrant is going to move into the middle of nowhere; they are going to move to cities or towns. People vs. total area is a misleading number.

In any case, this is a curious objection to raise in a thread about a story documenting the inability of rural farmers to hire a productive labor force following a change in the law. Quite a lot of immigrants work in the agricultural sector and live a good way away from major cities.

The Democrats have a standing policy of increasing the merit-based immigration. However, Republicans have always insisted that the illegal immigration be addressed as well in any such legislation...

An example, the state of Georgia wrote their own law on legal hires. Now, they are having difficulties retaining fruit pickers for the summer harvest.

For a lot of human history, we've had kids doing work. It's not great, and parents usually agree! One of the first things that families do, when they escape poverty, is to pull their kids out of jobs and put them in schools. And the money that the child earned can help a family feed themselves and be raised out of poverty. It's a negative feedback loop.

There is a large spectrum of scaryness out there. child labor making bags is better than ... the alternative.

Sometimes, child labor is the alternative to human trafficking.

Second, a kid having to work in a factory is way way better than having to be a slave. Keep in mind, these kids would be working back on the farm with their family, but their family can't afford to feed them, so they send them off. Their families are usually lied to about what their kids are going to do. My western sensibilities find this awful.

So i'm a bit curious at this point. It seems you're advocating, since the kids can't have a perfect life, they might as well be raped?

I can say much the same about your options. Granted, child slavery is worse than child labor. However child labor is still not acceptable. And if a company like, say, Nike was to use that as an excuse for having their shoes made by child labor, I'd find that unacceptable.

...and specifically selected to be offensive.

Of course. That was the point. Your argument is of the form, "We should accept A because if we don't then some people will suffer B, which is much worse." I just substituted a different pair of A and B with a relationship that is just as clear as the relationship between the things that you were describing.

The logical form of the argument is unchanged. Yet your immediate response is that both are unacceptable.

That's one of the fundamental issues with the entire topic - emotions ranked are above evidence based policy.

Strangely enough poor uneducated immigrants are easily net positive for society, and so are educated ones.

I recommend reading "The Economic Consequences of Immigration" for a good picture of the benefits and costs.

I make it a point to not buy fruit from Chile, because I am voting with my taste buds that I want good fruit not cheap fruit.

My favorite fruit is the peach, and I wait for summer and farmer's markets so that I can get some ripe fruit (ever noticed how the supermarket peaches are usually unripe and never really ripen? they seem to go directly from unripe to rotten).

Maybe you live in North Dakota or some such remote place and Chilean fruit is all you get.

Anyway, just an excuse for me to sing the praises of California peaches. :)

as for transportation - america is a big country. i am not sure "local" californian peaches on the east coast will suffer much less than chilean peaches - in both cases, significant transport is necessary.

disclaimer: i live in chile.