And that's a population of millions admittedly including many minors and major barriers to thriving, but overall far fewer elderly or disabled people than the general population. Boosting immigration is only an economic drag if you structure the asylum/immigration process to prevent people from working, which we do now seemingly to punish communities that accept immigrants.

They are concentrated in major cities not evenly distributed across all of the US.

This does nothing to change the facts of my statement.

And even then, we could choose to do something about that. We could do more to help people settle all across the US and be well supported to succeed. But we don't. So instead, we have people crowd the areas where we turn a blind eye to hiring illegal labor and have the social impacts concentrated there and then refuse to actually do anything to help those social costs.

But these are all things we choose to do. We could choose to do something else.

You make it sound so simple, they don't want to live in a small town where they will stand out; with no social support or services.

How do you decide who goes where? What stops them from moving back to the bigger cities? How to you limit demographic displacement?

The UK is doing this, and the US under Biden was trying at a smaller scale with Haitians in smaller towns. It doesn't work, and isn't so simple.

> with no social support or services

Once again, we're choosing to not have these social supports or social services. It's a choice. We could do it if we wanted, after all we're allegedly the wealthiest country on the planet but somehow can't seem to afford anything.

> How do you decide who goes where?

I'm not suggesting we force it to be a top-down forced decision. I'm often a pretty free-market and empowering people to make their own decisions kind of guy, when it makes sense. And sure, people will tend to cluster more in large cities, that happens even for non-migrants. But in the end, we're doing practically nothing to encourage people to spread out that social cost (or worse, encouraging for forcing the clustering), and that doing nothing is a choice. And then we're doing very little to support these places experiencing such large social costs, which is once again a decision.

All of this is stuff we could do differently, we just choose the status quo (or now choosing violence!) that doesn't work well for a lot of us. Sure seems to be making some people exceptionally wealthy though.

There's many towns & small cities that have been revitalized by immigrants communities. Lewiston Maine, Charleroi Pennsylvania.

America is really struggling to support & enable a people, to create a social safety net. Opportunity is low. But often when immigrants come in from other places, they will put in enormous energy, that can bring some very sad towns back to life.

Huh? Have you driven through Iowa lately? Southern Idaho?

We could’ve done something but we ran out of money, the previous generation built up too much debt and sold off the future so now we ran out of the resources.

Guess what is also true of the US population in general...

And there we go, the racism comes out. American Prosperity is for white Christians, all else are not welcome. A complete failure at being able to see the pie of prosperity can grow. Having a Venezuelan migrant neighbor isn't eliminating my identity. Having my white friends decide to not have kids because they think they can't afford it does.

But you'd be making the same arguments about the Irish and the Italians and the Germans. The family of mine that migrated faced similar kinds of rhetoric, Germans migrating in the 1800s. Even worse, they were German Catholics, my word! Truly ruining the neighborhood and cultural identity of the communities they moved to.

If we want more white Americans in the world maybe we should be doing more to encourage people to have families by offering better safety nets and family support. With birthrates as they are white America will disappear regardless of immigration. We should address the reasons why we're not having kids instead of throwing stones at others and blaming them for us letting our society crumble around us.

You should start campaigning against the ethnic discrimination happening by statute within US borders against fellow US nationals or citizens. American Samoa won't let ethnic outsiders own the vast majority of the land, and much of Hawaii non-reservation state lands are reserved to 'the blood' of the people of the right race, no matter that its to the exclusion of filipinos and other races subjugated under the Hawaiian Kingdom which was the pretext to begin with.

I definitely don't know enough about the history of such issues to make a deep and reasoned take and thus will mostly shut up until I read more about it. I only vaguely know what big news sources have said about such things in passing.

But as a quick take I think the land pressures of native Hawaiians is radically different than the land issues of white Christians in Texas. And it's not like there's any deeply historic religious connections to Arlington Texas to white Christians for a quick example is there? The worry if cultural elimination is probably radically different at a quick glance wouldn't you agree?

Cultural elimination though real is largely a fraudulent right IMO, it is imposing 'positive' rights like the right to not have your culture eliminated. That's not how rights work, you have the right to practice your culture but not force other people to be practicing yours.

I'm generally for open or at least non-discriminatory immigration. A few sticking points

1) Discriminatory settling patterns are well established as imposed law in the US, i.e. 'hawaiian home lands', American Samoa, Saipan, etc. The first step here is to make ALL US nationals and citizens equal, before we can really even hope to start making immigrants equal. Given limited political capital this would be my #1 priority to burn that capital on.

2) Welfare is essentially incompatible with open immigration and pushes the populace heavily towards favoring middle age wealth foreigners -- that is basically europeans and white English speaking countries. We could probably make it a little less 'racist' if immigrants were forced to permanently disclaim any access to public funds.

3) Immigration is justified under human and properties rights, freedom to go wherever one is invited or has ownership, and basic human liberties. Immigration in practice in the US heavily relies on use of public facilities, which are paid for by the tax payers -- as property owners you would be violating their rights if US persons cannot control foreign access to the public properties they are forced to pay taxes for. i.e. there should be zero immigration controls whatsoever crossing from one ranch to the other on adjacent parts of the Mexican border, but when you use public resources you are now becoming a trespasser if the property owners don't consent.

> Cultural elimination though real is largely a fraudulent right

You start off by declaring it's a fraudulent right but then spend hundreds of words arguing for a framework for your own fraudulent right

> Welfare is essentially incompatible with open immigration

One might then question the rest of their ideals about their morals and what Christ has charged us to do and wonder if racial stability is the standard or helping people is the standard. But I guess you've already decided on such a thing.

> Discriminatory settling patterns are well established as imposed law in the US, i.e. 'hawaiian home lands', American Samoa, Saipan, etc.

I'd say laws in island territories have vastly different concerns than laws on the mainland especially when considering land and cultural concerns. They have vastly different pressures, don't you agree? Like what were going to argue only white Protestants can own land in Montana? Pretty different circumstances here than a tiny island with religious circumstances.

I'll address the third point since it is the only one I don't see as a fundamentally irreconcilable difference in subjective opinion that cannot be proven factually.

The ethnic discrimination laws in America Samoa, and to a lesser extent Saipan (I think for them more about control, they have no problem with Chinese running roughshod operating all kinds of shady and illegal business, it is probably the most corrupt place in the US) are aimed towards stopping cultural elimination. The case is compelling for Samoa, the others are just naked racial discrimination as the local populace seems to have settled on the fact their culture has pretty much been eliminated as anything beyond a footnote and they're going to cash grab all they can out of the remains which I guess is just the usual American dream.

(Hawaii used to go even further, and racially discriminate in voting, but racial discrimination in voting was struck circa 2000 with dissent written by the now deceased racist Ruth Ginsburg in Rice v Cayetano. Not long after that 'non-'Hawaiians also finally got the right to equally run for office).

American Samoa is particularly aggressive about it, their government and IIRC even the feds strongly imply or command you can enter for 30 days as a tourist without further authorization, despite the fact that established case law and the American Samoa Bar training to internal lawyers teach that US citizens have the right to permanently settle and work in American Samoa. I did some research and could not find any case of a US citizen being 'deported' from the territory unless they were wanted for crimes elsewhere but they do their damnedest to make it sound like you can be.

I'm sorry but pointing to some rocks in the Pacific as the overall idea of ethnic diversity measuring stick of the United States seems pretty pants on head kind of mentality. I don't understand how I could take anything else you argue for seriously. Thanks for continuing to show me who you really are, I'll be sure to take notes.

Amazing how fast you backtracked. Point to actual cases of parts of the USA going hard on racist policy preventing demographic replacement which based on your rhetoric is something you pretend to be against, and your response is more or less lol actually it doesn't matter, it's just some rocks.

No matter that previously you were pointing to places as small as Arlington Texas.

You don't actually care about eliminating these discriminatory policies. You just have your racist motives to apply it inequally.

I've been highly consistent in my statements. I'm in no position to pass judgement on whatever is happening in American Samoa or Hawaii as I'm definitely ignorant to the issues. I'm only speaking from a high level comparison of the issues, which is they're vastly more land constrained than the mainland US. So to me, an ignorant person not read into the debate, it seems we can't really make hard rules and comparisons. It's comparing to extremely different situations, easy to see even without me having a lot of deep knowledge on the topic.

And it really shows your ignorance too, acting like Arlington is some small place. There's tons of land around here in North Texas, ample for whoever to make a new story and new life. The people making up most of the population have only been here for like a hundred years, tops. Any kind of long historic claim to the land outside of Native American populations are a farce. This isn't true for small islands in the Pacific which probably have a vastly more complicated history.

But it sure shows your character that you bother to deeply look up such a legal basis for racist ideology. Good work broadcasting your hard work.

And yeah, I'm the racist for arguing anyone should have the ability to partake in American prosperity. Meanwhile you're the non-racist advocating for enforcing racial land rights across all the US. Got it.

When I want to take part in the prosperity of American Samoa, you just don't have all the facts and hey it's just a "rock." When an American Samoan wants to come to Arlington, which is far more land constrained in population density, then suddenly you lose your decision paralysis. It's exceedingly and crystal clear your ulterior motives. This is just naked racism.

Acting like Texas is space constrained as much or more than American Samoa just really shows how much you've twisted reality to try and match your racist ideas. Texas is many things, it is not space constrained.

Once again, I don't really know what's happening there. This is all conjecture based on what's obvious for comparing an island nation to a giant and mostly uninhabited Continental plain. If there's more people in North Texas, we just build more homes. We just drag the highway out a bit more. We just rezone to allow a bit more density. There is plenty of land here that's entirely empty and devoid of development. An island nation doesn't have that. If they get pushed out of what's there, where do they go? The bottom of the ocean? Seriously, think for two seconds if your racist brain will allow it. And I acknowledge, I don't know the policies, I don't know what's really happening there. But I can at least acknowledge the societal pressures going on are massively different.

> This is just naked racism.

I agree, your points are naked racism. Looking for some legal reason to put race restrictions on land generally across the entire United States is absolutely a racist position to take which seems to be the main position you're arguing for. Whether or not the policies on American Samoa are racist (they might be, I've agreed I'm ignorant to them!) isn't a valid reason for bringing such racist policies to the mainland US.

Both commenters have broken the guidelines in this flamey back-and-forth, which is exactly the kind of thing we're trying to avoid on HN. In particular you've both made swipes at each other, and engaged in ideological battle. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Just wanted to say, I agree with your warning and regret I seem to have misread some of the other commenter's statements. Sorry.

I posted this comment [1] in reply to the other participant in this subthread but it applies equally to you. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines when participating on HN.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44243768

True or not you had to wade through at least two flagged comments to get to mine. You really have yourself to blame if you didn't want to continue reading. You were warned twice but sought this, you wanted it.

So how about this: go fuck yourself, and your nauseating appeal to your ivory tower techie faux-academic attempt at guidelines. Nothing about me is 'equal' to this self righteous racist piece of human garbage, although I admit his behavior is the very best argument as to why his culture should rapidly be overshadowed in Texas.

The guidelines apply to everyone equally. We don't care what topic you're arguing about or what side you're supporting, but still we get accused of being biased in favour of something or another every day.

This is only a place where people want to come to discuss things because we and others put effort into keeping it that way. If you're going to participate here, and if you're going to expect others to be held to a high standard, we need you to hold yourself to a high standard too.

Fair enough. You have my respect.

Many thanks!

Yes, I probably would have made the same argument about the Irish, Italians, Germans, etc. Did they not demographically replace the English, Natives, Blacks? Would the percentage of the US that is English, Native, Black not be higher if there had not been mass immigration of Irish, Italians, Germans, etc. last century and before?

> Did they not demographically replace the English, Natives, Blacks?

In the 1800s? No. You realize how much happened with the great expansion and all that? The population squeeze that happened from the civil war? I find it laughable you'd be arguing for the Native American tribes in the early 1800s. Once again, showing your racist ideology. Thanks for further confirming such a thing. America is for white Protestants only. Got it.

Thanks for confirming to you, me, a white Christian American is not welcome here and shouldn't have been here in the first place. Because I'm not really the right kind of white Christian.

This is why I laugh whenever anyone lauds Singapore for stuff like public housing.

They literally have an immigration schema, if you want permanent resident to citizen track, that requires immigrants to match the ethnic makeup of the country's citizens.

So you have all these white public housing advocates, talking about how great public housing is in Singapore, but they leave out that you have to have PR or citizenship to get it, and they've accomplished making all that possible by having like half their population non-citizens who pay taxes for housing they're ineligible to get and then the people living in the public houses are ethnically guaranteed non-replacement.

> So you have all these white public housing advocates, talking about how great public housing is in Singapore, but they leave out that you have to have PR or citizenship to get it

I find such things to be incredibly backwards and abhorrent. To think if you lucked out in some genomic lottery to be allowed to have extreme privilege in society, this sounds like a fucking nightmare

There are a lot of cool and neat things about Singapore but damn do a lot of things feel like the kind of things that keep me up at night.

But honestly, the modern GOP is closer to enforcing such requirements than any opposing party.

> There are a lot of cool and neat things about Singapore but damn do a lot of things feel like the kind of things that keep me up at night.

It's the happiest little police state in the world ;)

Yes, basically this. Americans have to hustle all day in the war against "line go down". Our agency is not allowed to be put to caring for other people but the illusion the 1% alone prop up society.

So sick of Americans empty-analysis and ignorance of externalities their society puts on others; overseas colleagues see it as white Taliban. They don't see people in streets over tariffs screwing up their lives, so they've started to tell their politicians Americans (as in the public) are not reliable actors. They don't realize it, but the American publics own credibility is shot, not just their politicians.

I have taken to cutting off friends and family and shit talking anyone in public that wants to socialize; do the politic work to put me on the hook for their healthcare, otherwise I refuse to bother with their existence. Withdrawing from people's lives is a forcing function for self reflection.

You all keep me off the hook caring you exist. I just have to help make line go up. Anything to do with you all as individuals is not my responsibility. That's the choice of the American people. I'm here to profit, not give a fuck you exist.

That's what my fellow Americans taught me through their feckless political effort. Illusory idea some invisible hand gives a shit based upon the gibberish from history they read by people who were wanking their literacy rather than inventing indoor plumbing.

My government owes everything to the people inside the borders and nothing to the people outside

I don't really care if it's 1.2% or 12%. Illegal immigrants need to go.

> In reality its probably closer to 4 or so million

your calcuation needs to account for ppl coming in on non immigrant visas too.

usa issued 10 million non-immigrant visas in 2024. not counting 5 million tourist visas.

If they were approved visa, they aren't exactly an illegal immigrant, no? That's a different issue entirely.

Also, Trump approved for. Ore H1B Visas this year.

> they aren't exactly an illegal immigrant, no?

parent and gp comments are talking about "immigrants" . where do you see illegal immigrants ?

Up the chain mentions "perceived enemy". ICE is supposedly cracking down on illegal immigration.

Are we instead saying that anyone not born in the US but comes in is an enemy?

but context was set to just 'immigrants' . Why would i go up the chain if the context was reset ?

Are you saying 'immigrants' anywhere in this thread automatically implies 'illegal immigrant' . Thats really confusing to me.

> Are we instead saying that anyone not born in the US but comes in is an enemy?

this is ridiculous twisting of my comment. I was just correcting record about population increase from immigration. population increase doesn't happen just from immigrant visas, ppl on non-immigrant visas stay in the country often for decades.

Then let me clarify, I was intending to talk mostly about illegal immigration and asylum seekers, the kinds of immigrants person I was replying to was probably mostly talking about. These are the immigrants people seem most concerned about, as they typically have a higher rate of relying on social services and welfare at least in the short term. It is these kinds of immigrants which impose the largest initial cost on society to allow in.

But sure, somewhere around 4-5 million illegal/undocumented immigrants, add another 10 million or so non-immigrant visas (which I agree, tend to have people end up staying for lots of other reasons), we're still somewhere around 15 million or so migrants with most of those having some kind of stable job lined up before they arrive. It's still less than 5% of the overall population increase with these migrants, but now a lot of these in this addition are largely economically self-sufficient from the get-go (those with work visas). You're not really changing my point at all.

In the end we're just too poor to deal with a generally pretty minor increase in population over several years while simultaneously seemingly being the wealthiest nation on the planet? How does that make sense?

Also, your claim of:

> usa issued 10 million non-immigrant visas in 2024. not counting 5 million tourist visas

is factually incorrect. The US issued around 11.5 million non-immigrant visas, of which 8.5 million were visitor visas. So not a total of 15 million visas and excluding the tourism its really about 3 million non-immigrant not-tourist visas.

> in 2024, in Fiscal Year 2024, we issued 11.5 million visas, and that’s a world record for us, breaking all previous records. Of these 8.5 million were visitor visas.

https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-s...

lets look at data for 2023. ( I mistyped 2024 instead of 2023.)

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Annual...

There were 10,438,327 non immigrant visas. Out of which there were 5,902,426 b1/b2 and 29,286 B1.

looks like i din't count ppl with BCC in visitor visas.

> In the end we're just too poor to deal with a generally pretty minor increase in population over several years while simultaneously seemingly being the wealthiest nation on the planet? How does that make sense?

again, i didn't say this. i was just trying to correct the record. I honestly have no say in "how many is too many" . i have no idea how to even think about that to come up with a framewrok to answer that question