Not saying make it easy. Trust me, it is already extremely hard. But I am replying to GP's argument which is basically saying that you should shut up because you are coming from a country which has worse. 2 different things. And yes, there are people who make the argument that if you become a naturalized citizen, you have no right to criticize the Govt or the country since you came from a much worse place. I am tired of that BS. Google "Amy Wax India" and you will know what I am talking about.

Wow this "professor" is a fine piece of work!

you’re looking at this from the wrong angle.

ask yourself: why would the US allow these people to come and work here in the first place?

it’s because they NEED them. from highly skilled tech workers to “unskilled” low wage workers. Immigration and pumping human capital into our economy is the way the US stays/stayed? dominant and a superpower.

Close the pipeline and in 10-20-30 years innovation is gone ,the edge we have us gone. The American dream fuels the growth. Act shitty toward the fuel, scratch your head why things fall apart.

We've already closed the pipeline. The talent is going elsewhere. We're in decline now.

i would say we have strangled the pipeline. we still have some flow but not for long.

Unless you are a native Indian I am going to assume if your grand parents immigrated to this country and become citizens here, yes?

Not necessarily. My forebears came to this continent before there was a country, roughly 400 years ago.

For what it's worth, 400 years is about 14 generations, and would constitute several thousand direct ancestors (~ 16K). Even accounting for pedigree collapse over the generations, for the vast majority of (non-Native Americans) Americans only a tiny sliver of those ancestors would have been on the continent at the time, if any.

And they massacred the people who lived here before them and started a new country. You must be proud.

You see, countries are formed by white people. What existed before can be safely ignored.

Really shocking how an immigrant describing his decades long naturalization process has triggered so many white men!

When did overt racism become socially acceptable?

You should know, you practice it every day.

And? Personal anecdote has no bearing on the question of whether or not foreigners are ethically or morally entitled to immigration and citizenship, or whether the process should be made easier.

Well, if your ancestors did not go through the immigration process then it was "easy" for them.

Legally, the US doesn't have an obligation to to do anything other than comply with the treaties it signs. It would be within its rights as a sovereign nation to require that everyone within its borders wear a rainbow wig and hop around on one leg. However, that would be a stupid policy that would make people's lives harder for no reason.

Were Europeans entitled to American land 500 years ago? What did Columbus' visa application look like?

So present-day immigration is a punishment for the founding sin of the USA?

Immigration is what is propping this country's economy up. It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.

The idea is to not look at a gift horse in the mouth. And stop punishing the most productive people in your economy. You don't want brexit thinking if you want to have an economy.

>Immigration is what is propping this country's economy up.

That's debatable.

>It is a tremendous gift, not a punishment- unless you are alluding to some wierd racial monoculture thing.

Immigration is not free. There are social costs which are being dismissed with shallow accusations of bigotry as an alternative to engagement (as you are implicitly doing with your monoculture reference). All peoples are entitled to preserve their cultures, that a particular nation happens to have a predominantly white population does not erase this entitlement.

Cultures clash. Immigrants vote and potentially originate from countries with incompatible cultures, many of whom have no interest in assimilating, yet their votes influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow. If democracy is meant to represent the will of the people, then it is unfair to dilute representation with immigration from nations with totally different value systems. Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern treatment of women; how much influence do you want such beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms? Not even getting to the statistically proven increase in sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on behalf of immigrants in certain European countries. Consider it the paradox of tolerance.

> That's debatable.

No, its not.

> votes influence the laws that natives are obligated to follow

Natives? You might want to think again before using that word. Trust me, none of the new immigrants have any violent intentions or intent to steal from earlier immigrants or native Americans.

> Not even getting to the statistically proven increase in sexual assaults that native women have to suffer on behalf of immigrants in certain European countries.

I thought we were discussing US immigration. Columbus was an accomplished rapist too. Or do rapes by white men not count?

> Case in point is the ubiquitous middle eastern treatment of women; how much influence do you want such beliefs to have over your laws and cultural norms?

The post is by an Indian Hindu. Keep in mind that not all brown people are the same. Especially considering the kind of racist violence some white men inflicted on the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps, it is unsafe to let white people dominate a culture. The risk of holocaust and genocide is ever present. It's great if some non white culture is introduced in the society to keep the keep the genocidal tendencies of "white" culture in check.

> shallow accusations of bigotry as an alternative to engagement

You can do your part by not making the bigotry so easy to spot. A highly productive brown immigrant describing his 2 decade long naturalization process really really ticked you off, innit?

Nothing in the realm of socioeconomics is settled science. It very much is up for debate. Look at where our current economic framework has taken our present economy.

>Keep in mind that not all brown people are the same. Especially considering the kind of racist violence some white men inflicted on the Jews in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps, it is unsafe to let white people dominate a culture. The risk of holocaust and genocide is ever present. It's great if some non white culture is introduced in the society to keep the keep the genocidal tendencies of "white" culture in check

Your post is predictably combative so I don't know if you're being ironic here or if you are acknowledging these increasingly common and overt intentions, but in any case you are generalizing all of Europe and today's culture based on the actions of Germany 80 years ago. This is textbook racism. I'd remind you that some 50MM+ white european allies died opposing the nazis.

>You can do your part by not making the bigotry so easy to spot.

This poor substitute for an argument demonstrates my point.

>I thought we were discussing US immigration. Columbus was an accomplished rapist too. Or do rapes by white men not count?

Again, textbook racism. Generalizing all of modern day Europe based on the actions of a small minority from a selection of countries. In any case this is another deflection and says nothing about the modern day increase in documented rapes and assaults. An academic who tried to report on it was placed under investigation [0], so it seems that institutions really do share your fervor in denying inconvenient truths. Almost like people are using equality as a trojan horse for petty revenge.

You're missing the source for [0] - I'd like to know more.

So because this land was colonized 500 years ago (as it was before Europeans arrived as well by the way, native Americans were not pacifists), we shouldn't enforce borders?

How much time must pass after a land is conquered before nations are morally justified in enforcing sovereignty over borders? Particularly when the border belongs to a welfare state with finite resources and a host of internal issues that require fixing.

In this context of legal immigration, the point here isn't about sovereignty. It's simply documenting one persons experience - I don't see it as a call for open borders. Also, does the US recognize a country's sovereignty when it conducts its foreign affairs? It constantly meddles in the internal affairs of other countries, not to mention the countless military interventions over the years.

We are talking about a less than 2 decade time horizon for citizenship for immigrants who are propping up your welfare state of birthright citizens with 100K$+ payments in income tax every year.

the standard response here is to ask which native american tribe you're a member of.

The standard counter to that is "come and invade".

The immigrants are here in the millions already. Look around you - unless you are in some bumfuck county with no economy.

>Written ‘in sorrow and anger,’ this is a brilliant and urgently necessary book, eloquently making the case against bigotry and for all of us migrants

If you have to hide your arguments behind accusations of bigotry, you don't have a very good argument. Border enforcement is about far more than blind xenophobia. Such accusations are reductive appeals to ethos over logos.