It helps that a decent portion of the population hates and/or is fearful anyone different from themselves. That is what's allowed for these even more draconian and brutal measures.

My personal preference would be to allow nearly unlimited legal immigration but strip welfare programs for all. In this way we allow anyone and everyone to become an economic participant, voting participant after the naturalization process, and mitigate those immigrating purely for handouts.

But I haven't thought through this policy well. Maybe there is something this seemingly solution is missing.

If the US is so "exploitative", we should be keeping illegal immigrants out for their safety.

And democrats only halfway want to fix it. If they actually succeed, they also lose a drum. And have to pay more for chicken and oranges.

Making non-immigrant visa or work permits easy to obtain would be trivial (relative to other gov endeavors). But we don’t. I’m left to conclude the political elite on both sides like it this way.

It take tremendous effort to immigrate, legally or illegally. Anyone telling you that they are lazy is obviously lying.

What about long term immigrants who end up disabled through no fault of their own? Or who get cancer? Or who end up having a child (who is an American citizen) and that child is special needs and the immigrant can't manage a full time job and care for their child? If they get pregnant and end up on bed rest or with a traumatic birth that takes them out of the workforce for a period of time?

There are ways to end up needing to rely on welfare that aren't due to laziness or a desire for handouts.

If the answer is 'kick them out', I'd be worried about what we're teaching our American kids watching. There are two lessons they could pick up, and neither is good for their moral development or sense of self. The first is that anyone who lacks the ability to work has no value, and that will engender greater alienation and isolation as they place all of their self-worth on their ability to earn money. They'll look upon the elderly, children, and caretakers with disdain (Interestingly, this probably won't help the birth rates either...). The second is that they are protected but those people should be disposed of when they're not useful. This will make them arrogant and introduce the idea of dehumanizing other groups, which will further the cracks of division in our society.

Poor choice of words. Illegals are not citizens. That's the whole point.

> have no recourse if they're exploited

The recourse is to go back. In the era when you could just immigrate to the US just by getting on a boat (before the Immigration Act of 1924), about 1/3 of immigrants went back to their home country if they did not make it in the US.

See:

> From 1908 to 1932, 12 million individuals migrated to the United States. Over the same period, four million returned to their source country.

-- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144... (you have to pirate it to view the full thing)

But now, the expectation of leftists is that the government is somehow supposed to help the failed immigrants.

The idea that the US is composed of true Americans that have been here since the beginning is an outright Republican fantasy. A delusion to make white immigrants feel better about themselves. But it's just not true.

This has always been a country composed of immigrants, and it's always something we've been proud of. We have long been the melting pot. To think otherwise is anti-American, and you do not belong here.

If they were born in America they aren’t immigrants.

> To think otherwise is anti-American, and you do not belong here.

United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790:

> Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law to support the Constitution of the United States, which Oath or Affirmation such Court shall administer, and the Clerk of such Court shall record such Application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a Citizen of the United States.

"To think otherwise is anti-American, and you do not belong here." is just a useless emotional thought-terminating phrase.

I say this as an immigrant to the US myself.

What is different this time is that, for the first time ever, we have people who believe that immigration, as a concept, is not a net-benefit. We can disagree on the amount of immigration, sure.

But never, in our history, has "none" been an acceptable viewpoint. It is fundamentally incompatible with everything this country stands for, going back to our inception. And, before anyone says anything, yes the far-right is trying to stamp out all immigration. They might not say it, but their actions certainly do.

Even if true (and it's not), what even is your point? Do you not think people that work and pay taxes should get any benefits? Do you think it's ok that people are exploited if they're immigrants?

It's not like undocumented immigrants even get welfare or other social programs, but they do have to pay taxes. Interesting enough, they even commit 50% less crime than citizens.

To think these people can't be exploited and that it's trivial to return to their home countries shows a lack of critical thinking.

For example, many of these people flee countries that have dire situations directly caused by US interventions over the past decades including most of Central and South America.

The list of countries that have had their democratically elected leaders overthrown or were otherwise destabilized by the US and its corporate elite is long and well documented.

False. Medicaid is US state-subsidized health insurance, which undocumented immigrants are eligible for:

"Children (0–18 years old) can get full Medi-Cal coverage, no matter their immigration status. Adults (19 and older) are currently eligible for full Medi-Cal coverage, regardless of immigration status. Starting on January 1, 2026, adults who do not have Satisfactory Immigration Status (SIS) will no longer be able to enroll in full Medi-Cal. If you already have coverage, you can keep it; just make sure to renew your coverage during your renewal month."

https://www.dhcs.ca.gov/medi-cal-immigrant-eligibility-faqs/

(Medi-Cal is the California version of Medicaid)

>For example, many of these people flee countries that have dire situations directly caused by US interventions over the past decades including most of Central and South America.

Not everything is the fault of the USA.

Chile, one of the most famous examples of American intervention, is now one of the wealthiest countries in Latam: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-mean-income?mapSele...

Polls showed most Panamanians approved of Operation Just Cause. You can see after the operation in 1989, Panama's median income started ticking upwards: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-mean-income?tab=lin...

And when the US intervened in Venezuela recently, Venezuelans were dancing on the streets.

As an isolationist, I'm against American interventions. Our track record is mixed at best. But the idea that every world problem, or every South American problem, can be blamed on the US somehow is a vast oversimplification.

Federal medicaid funds do not go to illegal immigrants. If a state wants to cover them they have to do that out of state revenue.

Since medicaid is partially state funded and mainly federally funded that's what opens up the door for states to have different rules for eligibility (expanding beyond the federal standard). However, the states have to cover the excess when they decide to do that.

I agree that bad faith presentations on how things work is definitely a problem. But I think the reason immigration is a disaster is because both republicans and democrats have decided to be xenophobic. There's no political party pushing an alternative narrative. But further, the current system works for big corporate donors. The broken immigration system makes it easy for a company to exploit H1B workers or farm laborers/construction workers.

That, IMO, is why the system is so broken. Our politicians used 9/11 as a way to ramrod in draconian border policies "to fight terrorism" but really because they benefit those that own big businesses.

Until either party decides that immigrants are our neighbors and not scary "criminals" the system will remain completely busted.

I'm not even sure how I feel about immigration restriction. But I do want to get the facts straight. Be careful about assuming that anyone who mentions facts which are inconvenient for your worldview is "writing in bad faith" or "being stupid on purpose". That's a fast-track to epistemic closure like we see in religious cults.

Hahahahahhahagahahhahagaggahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha!

Brother, we're the 4th largest economy in the world. We hold up an outsized percentage of the US economy.

> But I do want to get the facts straight

Oh do you now? You're the one that believes countries are better off after the US overthrows their democratically elected leaders and that the Venezuelans were celebrating in the streets (most of those were AI videos btw).

You just want to defend US imperialism and to scapegoat hard working immigrants.

Why hasn't the pandemic loan been paid back? Why do so many in Silicon Valley want to relocate to Austin or Miami?

>most of those were AI videos btw

Source? Most of the discussion on the venezuela subreddit seemed pleased about the intervention

https://old.reddit.com/r/vzla/comments/1q2yxsb/trump_acaba_d...

https://old.reddit.com/r/vzla/comments/1q4nfzm/opiniones_kam...

You believe Maduro was "democratically elected"? I don't think any serious observer believes he won a free and fair election.

You claimed the dire economics in South America was a result of US intervention. I gave 3 data points indicating that it's not that simple. You haven't given a single data point in support of your position.

>defend US imperialism

As I said, I'm an isolationist. I just get tired of people blaming the US for everything.

That would still mean runtime_terror made a false claim: "It's not like undocumented immigrants even get welfare or other social programs" They didn't specify whether the money for welfare or social programs came at the federal vs state level.

Do they pay income taxes if they're getting paid under the table in cash? If so, please explain how.

Stripping away all wefare because of immigration is a bad bad bad idea.

Given that we make these judgements, the problem with your argument is that you paint the GP as some sort of monster for making the judgement and picking a spot on the scale. It's a valid thing to disagree with where he picks on the scale; it is invalid to argue that there should be no scale.

And to put that into policy gets rid of the scale for everyone. You can see it with abortion restrictions in various states. Instead of the doctor's expertise, the lawyers are the ones to decide.

Then again this is very much on point for the US. There are no experts other than lawyers. /s

What do you mean seems too. The biggest proponents of immigration routinely ask "who's going to work the fields?" As a call to allow immigration. I don't know how to interpret that as anything but importing an underclass.

So, whenever you think about purely capitalistic policies with no social policies, we just have to be okay with having a large number of babies and toddlers starving on the streets in front of us.

When you hear about republicans cutting $900 billion from Medicaid, and millions of families losing coverage, that means children. Almost 50% of Medicaid recipients are children. Most of the other 50% are their parents. So millions of children now do not have healthcare. Your post advocates for millions more to lose coverage. That translates to children dying and having lifelong disabilities from otherwise preventable illnesses.

The other inevitable outcome of policies like this is exploitation of women. It might start with “voluntary” sex work, but it becomes a bigger business that invites true exploitation and rapidly leads to human trafficking. Btw, that “voluntary” is there because it’s usually a choice between sex work and spiraling into homelessness and poverty - so not super voluntary to begin with. And we’re not even counting women more women who stay in abusive relationships because they are fully dependent on their partner for sustenance and shelter.

All that is to say that anytime advocate for a certain set of social policies over another, it’s usually informative to look at how they impact the most vulnerable in our society. Start with kids, then consider disabled and women. And finally ask why we’re generally okay with men starving on the street but not toddlers.

That doesn't make any sense. If you want "cheap labor [that] can't complain about mistreatment," you want a weak border, not a strong one, because a weak border creates a larger pool of illegal immigrants to draw from.

A strong border, at a minimum, reduces the supply of illegal immigrants, and may even push the employer into hiring people with legal immigration status who can complain and sue over mistreatment.

> It helps that a decent portion of the population hates and/or is fearful anyone different from themselves. That is what's allowed for these even more draconian and brutal measures.

I'd put it another way: a large part of the population has been put under a lot of stress and pressure, while simultaneously being intensely conditioned to not blame the people actually responsible. That stress has to go somewhere. Don't blame the little guys, even if you find them contemptible because they're not from your culture. Blaming the little guy (for "hat[ing]...anyone different from themselves") is another aspect of the conditioning that protects those actually responsible.

A larger pool with more rights and less fear of being deported. That means it's easier for them to pick and choose the jobs they do or even to start their own businesses.

They could, for example, form a union without the fear of deportation.

Look, if this were all about stopping illegal immigration, there are very fast paths to doing that. A prime one would be punishing not the immigrant, but the employer of the immigrant. Fine every farm in the US that employs an illegal immigrant and you'd quickly see the number of those jobs being worked drop.

But that's not what ICE is about which is why they and legislators haven't done that really basic enforcement.

Heck, at the start of this admin, Trump had to pull back ICE from raiding farms because the business interests of the farmers collided with the xenophobia of Steven Miller.

They have "flooded" the US borders because in the first Trump term, Trump instituted a policy of having applicants for all sorts of reasons to have to stay in Mexico before they can be accepted.

That's the primary reason why there are now huge encampments at the border. They weren't there under Obama, Bush, or Clinton.

> why don't people stay in their own country or go somewhere else?

A lot of people are asylum seekers, and a lot of that reason they are seeking asylum is US policy which has destroyed their home nations. The best example of this being the likes Venezuela, Cuba, and Haite. The US putting international trade embargos on governments it doesn't like, plunging them into poverty, creates a bunch of refuges.

Some people are simply seeking a better life. Some have bought into american propaganda about how awesome the US is to live in. Some people are simply trafficked into the US for the explicit purpose of being exploited. (In fact, that's the majority of human trafficking in the US [1]).

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/human-trafficking-quick-facts

Also, allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor is a reason for a weak border, not a reason for a strong border.

It's all over the map. A lot of countries are easier to visit. Becoming a citizen, however, is difficult for most countries.

> Also, allowing farms and construction companies to find cheap labor is a reason for a weak border, not a reason for a strong border.

You are mistaken in thinking this is a normal labor market. The reason it reduces prices is because it weakens the ability for labor to negotiate. A strong border with internal enforcement makes it easier for a farmer to tell a day laborer "do this, or I'll call ICE on you". How well do you think a day laborer can negotiate a raise in that circumstance?

Consider, for example, the fact that farmers aren't employing US citizens or documented workers even though they are infinitely more abundant than undocumented workers. Why do you think that is? What mechanism is making the undocumented worker cheap and the documented one expensive?

A fast path to documentation and more rights lets more people in, but it also increases the labor costs because the workers are able to negotiate in the market.

If you aren’t lucky enough, you’re just screwed.

Given that they’re underwater for approval rating on immigration it seems both you and they have misread the room. Most people’s objections have to do with immigrants who are violent criminals that are going around neighborhoods hunting for cats and dogs to eat. This is what their campaign was highlighting as a problem. They have not been cracking down specifically on those immigrants. For this, they have no mandate.

There never were "violent criminals that are going around neighborhoods hunting for cats and dogs to eat." That was a baseless, racist caricature and it's unfortunate that anyone took it seriously.

And we all still remember "the wall," and Trump complaining about immigration from "shithole countries" like Haiti (versus Norway and Sweden, gee I wonder what the qualifying factor is there) and how Mexico was sending drug dealers and rapists across the border. The immigration policy of this administration has always been that immigrants (specifically any non-white immigrants) are an existential danger to American culture and safety. You don't try to wall off your entire southern border because you think the problem is a minority of bad actors. The DHS doesn't deploy white nationalist anti-immigrant propaganda[0,1] because it's just concerned about a criminal element.

And they didn't misread the room. Trumpism is first and foremost a white nationalist nativist movement. People wanted the wall. They wanted immigration stopped. "The immigrants were taking our jobs." "Muslims can't assimilate into civilized society." "Europe is basically a war zone because of all of the Muslims and low-IQ sub-Saharan Africans." These are all things Trump supporters have been saying for years and that the American right has been saying since at least 9/11. "Borders, Language Culture" as Michael Savage used to say. It's all been out in the open.

White Christian conservatives still support Trump's immigration policies by a wide margin. He speaks to the people he intends to speak to. I don't know why so many Black people and Latinos signed up for the "Leopards eating your face" party thinking the leopards wouldn't eat their face, but that's on them. But pretending Trump doesn't have a mandate to purge the country of immigrants is just naive - that is the only mandate he actually has.

[0]https://newrepublic.com/article/199094/dhs-neo-nazi-memes-no...

[1]https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/dhs-white-nati...

I would challenge this. If you do believe that there are violent criminals coming through the porous border, whether it's 1% of the illegal immigrants or 100% of them, trying to seal the border off is not irrational. I'm not endorsing the physical wall itself, as I know a ton of illegal migrants are just overstaying visas, and I've heard of ladders and tunnels.

I think what's really compelling, and what the Left can't seem to relate to, is this: Everyone serious does believe the true fact that illegal immigrants have a lower rate of committing crimes than the overall population. But people who are victimized by those crimes have a valid point that those crimes are still incremental crimes - meaning that if we already had 1000 people in $BORDER_STATE who are going to commit violent crimes, letting in 1000 more people, even if only 10 of them (1%) are violent criminals, gives us 1,010 violent criminals. That's more crime than we had before. It's not like we get to trade in 10 of our own criminals for 10 immigrant ones.

Making no effort to control who comes here is irresponsible, because of course if there's a country that doesn't even try to vet you, and would feel guilty making you leave, of course criminals would be excited to go there.

In absolute terms yes, but you're forgetting that you are also increasing the victim population, so the per-capita rate is still going to drop!

Assuming criminals more-or-less randomly choose their victims, the number of immigrant criminals hitting native victims is more than offset by native criminals now hitting immigrant victims instead of native ones.

Yes it is. Building a 1900 mile long wall with moats and barbed wire and armed guards ordered to shoot on sight across an entire continent because a fraction of illegal immigrants might be violent criminals is the definition of irrational.

Particularly when the same could be said of the border with Canada but no one is concerned about that at all.

> I'm not endorsing the physical wall itself, as I know a ton of illegal migrants are just overstaying visas, and I've heard of ladders and tunnels.

But Trump was talking about a physical wall. And a physical wall is what Trump supporters voted for.

>Making no effort to control who comes here is irresponsible, because of course if there's a country that doesn't even try to vet you, and would feel guilty making you leave, of course criminals would be excited to go there.

No one is talking about making no effort to control who comes here, that's another right-wing conspiracy point not based in reality. There is a vast degree of possibility between "doing nothing" and "building a wall and sending ICE to kidnap people and shoot them in the streets." There is a degree of vetting which is reasonable and responsible and this is not it. This is paranoia and fear born of racism.

Racism is literally the point.

I do not understand why the "American First" MAGA crowd can't get it through their thick skulls that everything nice they have, including our technological lead, is built by immigrants that are just smarter than they are.

This is just an ego problem I suspect. It bruises the ego of MAGA voters to realize that immigrants actually are smarter, they actually do get paid more (and not because they're "taking the jobs" but because they are actually more desirable.)

But... the US also has not the best education, so.

and nutrition, pollution, infectious diseases, etc

Why should immigration be kafkaesque? It is in the US interest to have a pipeline of smart, hard-working, innovative people come to this country. The US is/was in many ways a great country for them to come, but we are not the only international destination for such talent. Why would we want to put up such artificial barriers to entry, if we agree on the premises I laid out?

The purpose of this is to discourage legal immigration.

TBH most immigrants I've met better embody the American spirit than most Americans.

Also, beyond the US getting the benefit of motivated workers coming here and the intelligent ones, we’re brain draining other countries.

It’s a legitimate tool to weaken other countries worldwide and we’re just throwing it away because people believe the lies coming from people like JD Vance[1] about immigrants eating their cats and dogs

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/jd-vance-spri...

You immigrant hating America First losers are going to weaken the country because you think America is the best simply for being America and not because of all the effort and statesmanship put into making us the best.

From Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) and Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (ASEC CPS):

Of Haitian immigrants ages 25 to 64, 17.1 percent have not graduated from high school, 30.3 percent have only a high school degree, 30 percent have some college, and 22.6 percent have at least a college degree. This compares to 6.6 percent, 25.4 percent, 30.4 percent, and 37.6 percent for U.S.-born Americans. (2022 ACS)

Of households headed by Haitian immigrants, 52.7 percent use at least one major welfare program. For households headed by native-born Americans it is 28.4 percent.5 (2023 ASEC CPS)

So it’s clear that the previous immigration regime that allowed this was optimizing for something other than improving America or intentionally weakening rival countries.

> Which nation state propaganda mill are you being paid from?

> You immigrant hating America First losers are going to weaken the country

> Not much more going on in that empty dome. Honestly the void your brain represents is kind of relaxing

> Fuck have you never even heard of the Jungle?

> You would be bitching and moaning just as much if Congress directly made these rules and regulations.

> You first, cultist

You've been here long enough and participated here enough that you know this is unacceptable. I don't want to ban you, but if you keep this up we have to assume that you want to be banned.

https://yaledailynews.com/articles/international-grad-school...

But America being what it is, it attracts those with most potential creating and sustaining a network effect.

But there’s nothing intrinsically good or bad of the US, and it’s quite easy to mess up the equilibrium and go back to the mediocrity you mentioned

Even if it were true, there are wider effects of immigration that you must consider. The purpose of life isn't to increase GDP. It reflects poorly on you that you must cast your opponents as being stupid and spiteful. Could it be that MAGA voters are humans with real motivations and rationales?

No, it couldn't. Trump tells them to vote a certain way, they do it. Look at Massie's primary as an example.

The Democrats squeaked out one miraculous win buoyed by the incompetence of Trump's band of corrupt idiots in the early COVID days. But now merely pointing out how incompetent and corrupt Trump is stopped working, as we saw in 2024. Do Democrats have anything left in the playbook besides derision and scorn toward those outside their tent? We will soon see, I guess.

[1] I know the talking points say that the tax cuts "only benefit the rich" but I'm far from a 1%er and can tell you that I'm paying way more taxes in a blue state than I would be in a red state, and also the OBBB improved things for me. Voters in those blue states can see their tax bills and the one thing Democrats can't say is that they don't put a huge tax burden on those who work.

Certainly if 8,000[1] years ago a tribe walked across and settled, and then 7,000 years ago another group walked across and set up camp next to the descendants of that first tribe who had been there a thousand years, the second group were actually immigrants, right?

And how do we sort it out now, millennia after those various groups arrived, after all that DNA has been mixed together?

My point is just that it's silly to label any race or group "immigrant" or "native" based on what movements we guess from their skin color that their ancestors may have made millennia or centuries ago, or even what their parents did. Yes, I'm very in favor of birthright citizenship, even if people have "anchor babies" in bad faith the baby didn't have any say in it. And no one else of any color had any say in being born in America either.

[1] please substitute correct numbers -- they don't matter

Pre-colonial North America was certainly not some idyllic pacifist utopia as people like to fetishize. However, any previous ethno-political disputes between those nations is irrelevant compared to the very recent history of the last 200 years.

The genocide of Native Americans in the 19th century happened under the unbroken chain of authority of our current government.

I'm saying that pre-colonial-age America was not a place where each tribe came in, found their own piece of virgin land, and lived in peace and harmony. They were not any different than the homo sapiens on other continents, which is to say, smart, determined, and willing to kill outsiders to improve their own tribe's chances of survival.

The only reason of course that they are viewed so sympathetically today is the tragedy of their near-complete destruction, which can be explained very thoroughly by their incredibly bad luck of having almost no domesticable native animals, and their not having gotten Iron Age technology. But in the end their destruction was mostly due to disease, traceable to early Spanish contact, which had absolutely decimated North American societies before almost any human Europeans had set foot on the mainland.[1] Europeans indeed did lots of bad things to those peoples, but I argue this is less proof that "Europeans are uniquely mean" and more proof that humans are brutal when they come into conflict over scarce resources and will press whatever advantages they have, whether it's large numbers of braves with obsidian arrowheads or muskets.

A good read for some perspective on what we can piece together about what pre-colonial America was like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

> "According to Keeley, among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, only 13% did not engage in wars with their neighbors at least once per year. The natives' pre-Columbian ancient practice of using human scalps as trophies is well documented. Iroquois routinely slowly tortured to death captured enemy warriors (see Captives in American Indian Wars for details)."

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11831114/

Because Literally everyone else in the US is an immigrant. Or are you referring to the Spanish that settled the west? The French in the far south? The Italians and Jews that populated New York? The British and Africans?

I’m painting in broad strokes, but to say “the American People” as if it’s somehow distinct from immigrants is just ladder pulling.

Immigrant (noun) A person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.

I'm not American, but this conversation happens a lot in Canada where I'm from too

I was born in Canada, in a Canadian hospital. I've never had any other home than this country.

I'm descended from immigrants, but I am not an immigrant. I'm not considered indigenous either, that's a whole other type of person.

What a strange thing, to be from a place but have many people say "it's not your place, it's stolen" as if I had a say in that. If I went anywhere else, I would be an immigrant there.

Very odd.

Meaning, if we time travel and apply these restrictions, you yourself would have never been a citizen. In fact, you probably wouldn't even exist. Do you see the problem?

That, my friend, is ladder pulling. When you destroy the very conditions that allow you to thrive.

>The point is your parents, or their parents, were immigrants.

Or my parents, parents, parents, parents, parents, parents were... And if they came here for a better life, obviously there was some mind virus that was going on in their home country that forced them to leave in search of a better life. Don't try and bring that mind virus here if you had to immigrate here to escape it.

There is no mind virus. People which to rewrite history to fuel their own delusions. They don't require enforcement around immigration, they require medication and perhaps a history lesson or two.

Suicidal empathy mixed with this 'idea that america is illegitimate' cause we are a 'nation of immigrants', and we 'took land from the natives' is quite frankly retarded. And i can use the word retarded because i mean it in the literal since, "a verb meaning to slow down, delay, or impede a process."

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm...

shows the USofA having much the same level of immigration as it had from 1860 through until 1920.

Also, check the definition of that chart... We have far more "illegal immigration" today than we did back in 1890. So.... egg zack ly. Don't you think that's a big problem considering our current size? I'm all for 'some' immigration, but the level we are at today is totally unsustainable when we have an absolute homeless epidemic in all of our cities?

  Holy shit, we've gone form 4.5% of the pop and 10M to 14.5% to 50M?(!)in 40 years since 1970? 

  Isn't that alarming? 

  We have far more "illegal immigration" today than we did back in 1890. 

  Don't you think that's a big problem considering our current size?

   I'm all for 'some' immigration, but the level we are at today is totally unsustainable when we have an absolute homeless epidemic in all of our cities?

Are you certain that all US cities have "an absolute homeless epidemic"?

It is truly astounding to me what lengths Republicans will go to to "win". Well, you've won. When are things going to get better? I'm waiting.

Is Kash Patel any different from Americans who have lived here for generations? Is Rishi Sunak any different from the people who lived in Britain from generations?

That's my point to get the Constitution changed (Amendment #28) to allow an immigrant to run for POTUS. We love US more than natural-born citizens. Our interests are far more aligned with the betterment of the country than anyone else's.

Generally, yes.

But then there's Elon Musk.

Peter Thiel too: while a US citizen by birth, he defacto immigrated to the US from elsewhere (as in: moved from another country to settle in the US).

Immigration for rich folks is a bit different, see.

Musk was (mostly) great until 2020; Something happened to him during the COVID timeframe.

I'd not want Musk, Thiel, or Palantir guy to run for POTUS. Probably, there should be a clause that if your net worth exceeds the threshold, you shouldn't be eligible to run until you donate all of it to the government, with no option to get it back ever. Some more clauses can be added as well.

Oops, my bad, somehow I thought his parents naturalized before he was born.

Thanks for pointing this out; this helps the point I'm trying to make.

>I'd not want Musk, Thiel, or Palantir guy to run for POTUS. Probably, there should be a clause that if your net worth exceeds the threshold, you shouldn't be eligible to run until you donate all of it to the government, with no option to get it back ever. Some more clauses can be added as well.

Edit 1: I think another clause, maybe most important, a minimum one term public office service experience required only as a Senator, Rep, Governor, or a Mayor.

Can I vote for you and your proposals somewhere?

At this point, this reads like "I have a dream". But it's one worthy of trying to make a reality.

>Musk was (mostly) great until 2020;

Aside from running the Thai cave diver's life (and slandering him as a "pedo") for daring to rescue the children instead of letting them die waiting for Musk's non-existent submarine to rescue them.

That, and being generally known for working his employees to the bone.

And the whole "I need to spread my superior seed" conveyor belt approach to having children.

And the "420 funding secured" nonsense.

Oh, and the Hyperloop hype, which he did with the sole intent to kill high speed rail in California (which he succeeded in).

And the Boring Company scam.

And... nevermind, he was a known, not OK", great asshole before* he went full Nazi, but I can agree that he was "great" in comparison to what he's become.

>Something happened to him during the COVID timeframe.

It's ketamine. Ketamine happened.

> I do not understand why the "American First" MAGA crowd can't get it through their thick skulls that everything nice they have, including our technological lead, is built by immigrants that are just smarter than they are.

Which specific Americans are kind of mediocre academically? Which specific immigrants are smarter than the average American and are therefore responsible for the nice things about America?

Not all American citizens have the same level of intelligence, nor do all people attempting to or actually succeeding in immigrating to the US. To the extent that "everything nice" including technological development is grounded in the average level of intelligence of the people currently inhabiting a country (which I think is a substantial part of but not the entirety of the explanation), this doesn't necessarily imply that immigration which isn't specifically gated on the intelligence of individual immigrants will improve a country along this metric.

And in fact the US has a huge number of legal pathways for immigration (including some like "immigrating illegally, having a natural-born-citizen child on US soil, and having that child sponsor your legal immigration decades later) that have nothing at all to do with how intelligent a given immigrant is.

And of course, immigration itself changes how "mediocre academically" Americans are, by changing who Americans are - an immigrant might eventually become a citizen; or if they don't their children born on US soil will be.

Intelligent Americans rarely go through the hazing ritual that is a PhD because its financially stupid unless you’re rich.

Having done a STEM PhD, No. STEM PhDs are merely easily exploited labor by STEM departments. The PhDs and postdocs from foreign countries are typically a notch lower than the US PhDs and postdocs (especially the postdocs, because in many foreign countries you can do a 3 year PhD). It's just that most americans won't accept 100 hour workweeks in exchange for a $50k paycheck, and won't falsify the science to stay in pursuit of the next rung on the academic ladder.

Most of these who think that wasp Americans are harmed by high skilled immigrants are admitting that they can’t beat them. Pathetic slave morality which is life denying and ontologically damnable.

This is why most ivy Ph.d holders are some kind of Asian. Peter and Paul really are dumber than the alternative on average.

Chinese, Chinese, Greek, Canadian, Chinese, Chinese, German

They were called out by:

American, Indian, American, Polish, American, American, American.

Respectively

Any justification at all for the US government to give a visa to someone - including student visas, including visas for postdocs doing ostensible research - will be gamed by people whose primary concern is access to the US. Demand for access to the US among the myriad peoples of the world is that strong.

Most of them. We have normalized getting Bs and Cs in our schools. Our school curricula are mediocre, and our culture around education is as well. It is distinctly uncool to care about education here.

> Which specific immigrants are smarter than the average American and are therefore responsible for the nice things about America?

Most of our best doctors, scientists, and engineers are all immigrants. Look at the ethnic breakdown of top AI researchers at the top labs.

> which isn't specifically gated on the intelligence of individual immigrants will improve a country along this metric.

It's not just intelligence. Immigrants overall have more grit, more entrepreneurial spirit, and more ambition and willingness to succeed than median Americans. It takes a lot to uproot your life and attempt to make it elsewhere. The vast majority of immigrants I've met embody the American spirit far better than most born-and-raised Americans I've met.

> And in fact the US has a huge number of legal pathways for immigration

That we are making harder and needlessly painful, which will in turn reduce the amount of highly intelligent and capable immigrants we get as well.

Would you agree that caring about school performance constitutes acting white? Would you agree that acting white is uncool? Less flippantly, how much of American culture around education is specifically driven by a desire to eliminate or avoid noticing conspicuous racial discrepancies in measured educational attainment?

> Most of our best doctors, scientists, and engineers are all immigrants. Look at the ethnic breakdown of top AI researchers at the top labs.

What is the specific ethnic breakdown of the set of people you consider to be top AI researchers at the top labs? How does this compare to 1) the current ethnic breakdown of the totality of the United States of America, and 2) what the ethnic breakdown of the United States of America would be under your preferred immigration policy.

> It's not just intelligence. Immigrants overall have more grit, more entrepreneurial spirit, and more ambition and willingness to succeed than median Americans. It takes a lot to uproot your life and attempt to make it elsewhere. The vast majority of immigrants I've met embody the American spirit far better than most born-and-raised Americans I've met.

What kinds of immigrants have you met, and not met? How many of them can you talk with in the language they are fluent in, in order to get an accurate sense of the degree to which they embody the American spirit?

> That we are making harder and needlessly painful, which will in turn reduce the amount of highly intelligent and capable immigrants we get as well.

That might be worth it, if those highly intelligent and capable immigrants would, once they are settled in the US, turn their capacity and intelligence towards making US immigration policy more open to less intelligent and capable immigrants (e.g. their less capable and intelligent family members, or just liberalizing immigration policy in general).

No, the opposite. In my experience immigrants care far more about getting good grades, whereas most multigenerational American students were happy with Bs or even Cs.

> What is the specific ethnic breakdown of the set of people you consider to be top AI researchers at the top labs? How does this compare to 1) the current ethnic breakdown of the totality of the United States of America, and 2) what the ethnic breakdown of the United States of America would be under your preferred immigration policy.

A lot more Asians. Very few Asians. A lot more Asians.

> What kinds of immigrants have you met, and not met? How many of them can you talk with in the language they are fluent in, in order to get an accurate sense of the degree to which they embody the American spirit?

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Nigerian, Mexican, etc. So many.

The only ones not fluent in English were the Hispanic immigrants, but despite this they better embody the American spirit than most Americans. I don't need to be fluent in Spanish to see that (though mine is passable).

The skilled first and second generation American immigrants do extraordinarily well. Most of my second generation Asian peers are clearing mid 6 to low 7 figures in their 30s, many working on their own ventures or at bold startups. And my Hispanic landscaper that came here with nothing, now owns a business enough to pay him and his four employees.

Now compare this to the median multigenerational American - working a dead-end job, comparatively far less grit, ambition, and risk-taking, too comfortable so there is not as much a drive to be exceptional or prove themselves.

Which group do you think the Founding Fathers would say better reflects the American spirit? To me immigrants are clearly the better reflection of the best aspects of American culture.

United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790:

> Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof on application to any common law Court of record in any one of the States wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such Court that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law to support the Constitution of the United States, which Oath or Affirmation such Court shall administer, and the Clerk of such Court shall record such Application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a Citizen of the United States.

Note: “free white person […] of good character”

US Constitution Preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Note: “ourselves and our Posterity”

If that was about any other class of people it'd be downvoted to oblivion, but for some reason Americans and white can always be talked shit on.

This is the kind of shit US AMERICANS are talking about, this xenophilia bullshit that is infecting our nation.

Go to any high school and see how little American schoolchildren care about academics vs immigrant schoolchildren. Academic excellence being uncool is baked into American culture. You're a "nerd" if you do well and care. Getting a B is "good enough." And "C's get degrees." This mentality is plainly unacceptable in most immigrant cultures.

I took almost two dozen AP classes in my day. In each one, the concentration of immigrant groups was far higher than the rest of the school at large.

Expand this out to college. Look at the admissions for top colleges without affirmative action. How do their demographics compare to the rest of the country? - MIT, 47% Asian. Berkeley, 41% Asian. UCLA and Stanford, 27% Asian.

6% of the US population is Asian, and 75% is white, and these schools don't have affirmative action. If all groups were equally competitive, admissions would reflect demographics.

(Ethnicity here is a crude approximation for immigration recency. I am not saying one ethnic group is better than another - simply that children of immigrants excel.)

The same goes for top PhD programs, the highest paying STEM jobs, even C-suite positions at big tech.

I am American and when I say that we have a problem where most Americans do not give a fuck about education, I am not being racist, I am just pointing out the truth. Over decades, our culture has bred an anti-intellectual attitude, one that prioritizes being cool and sociable over getting shit done. This is the antithesis of progress and ambition. It is great for sitting around and demanding handouts.

Immigrants more closely approximate the culture the founding fathers intended for the US. They uproot their lives to build something great. They get off their asses, do exceptionally well, and are carrying the nation on their backs. The rest of our culture could learn from them, instead of blaming our problems on them and turning them away.

Power is a function of technological superiority. The moment you it stops attracting the smartest people, a country will fall behind on military and economic power.

I'm not so sure.

I think it would play out like this:

1. 20% H1Bs leave; 2. Those migrants are now in countries of origin, looking for work; 3. Many of the big US tech companies will already have offices in those countries, and those that don't can make new offices if they wanted to; 4. many, but likely not all, of those employees are now working for the same employer (or close enough), just in a different jurisdiction; 5. as none of these employees are physically in US hotspots, all the other stuff that happened in those hotspots because of big tech pay, suffers, conversely all the stuff which was suppressed because of those wages may (possibly) return; 6. two of the things that go down are the number of people transitioning from temporary visa to citizenship, and the available talent pool for the local-to-those-places startup and VC scenes.

If you just got massively screwed over by them (having upended your entire life in hope of getting a better future, then having that rugpulled), why would you get another job at that company with significantly worse contract terms?

Considering the rest of the world is reacting to the US setting itself on fire by finally stimulating local tech, why not just join one of the local alternatives instead?

For this in particular:

> why would you get another job at that company with significantly worse contract terms?

Even if it is worse on paper (and it won't even be worse if the big tech companies do struggle to retain talent), it is likely to still be better than local companies offer.

Those that jumped through all the hoops above bar, paid their dues in a messed up system where they bit their upper lip and got through it, and have been extremely frustrated at others trying to game the system.

When I heard the crowd roar every time Trump said “we’re going to kick them out” I knew exactly what the crowd was cheering. Trump never used those moments to say “but America is a nation of immigrants and we celebrate their contributions”. He wanted to rile up a crowd while maintaining a fig-leaf of “oh it’s only illegals who are evil”

You don’t have to have a PhD to understand the appeal and consequences of nativist populism — just the slightest understanding of history.

A lot of those people had no issue with ICE bullying and detaining legal immigrants.

What the lower classes are concerned about is the value of their labor relative to others’, while the upper classes are concerned with getting a good deal by avoiding increases to the labor-cost floor. Bribes and offered scams, have worked so far.

If the federal government, as an institution, were genuinely concerned about illegal immigration, it would have a different set of tactics. Start by punishing the sources of capital, then property owners, and only afterward the laborers themselves.

What we see is a combination of class warfare and political theater, not a sincere effort to enforce the law. The law is incidental, made obvious by the exceptions the administration has had to carve out for certain industries.

Out groups are always the initial targets for these movements, but as time goes on any form of dissent will cause narcissistic wounding and will be treated accordingly.

> If I walk into your house uninvited, that’s trespassing.

Sure.

What happens if your kid invites round a friend of theirs you don't like?

What happens if you are a kid and your sibling does?

What happens if you rent out a room to a lodger, and the lodger invites someone over?

What happens if you're a tenant in a rental, and the landlord sends in an emergency plumber?

Remember, every single migrant working illegally in your country is someone that another person in your country wanted to employ; if you're in the US, most of those employers will be selling you your food and your houses, which most of you seem to like, while some were South Koreans making data centres which you personally may hate but your pension funds love.

Care to share what other policies of yours you happen to offshore to 19th century ethnic activists?

This country was built on the backs of immigrants and slaves which instills in me the belief that even more central than freedom, there is no ideal more core to the United States as a nation than immigration.

Know your place as an American. This has always been a country made up of immigrants, a melting pot. To suggest otherwise is anti-American. Anti-americans like yourself feel welcome because of who is in the white house, but make no mistake: you do not belong here with those beliefs.

There are many, many countries which aspire to a boring white hegemony. Go there, be happy, leave the Americans alone.

On HN of all places.

You do not love America. You love what you wish America would be. But what America is, is a country composed of immigrants; a melting pot. It's been that way since our very conception and continued into the 20th century.

And, given you do not love what America is, perhaps you do not belong here, and that's fine. As I've stated, there's plenty of white hegemony countries available.

I mean, frankly, I don't know how you could possibly think that's ever been America. Because where I grew up, it was always colorful, from my earliest memories.

And, to be clear, this is a second person you. This applies to everyone who holds these deplorable anti-American beliefs.

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

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

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

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls

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

Some distant family, some friends, some friends of friends back home.

Fortunately, this is more or less expected in my culture and I can be sure my family and descendants will always have this safety net.

I hope for your sake that you are never in a situation where you need help though :)

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

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

This is hideous.

In principle, I am 100% with you. Pragmatically however, it's significantly more complex.

all laws, including immigration laws, should be enforced consistently and universally, and without bias. and the laws should be changed to make it much simpler and easier to immigrate especially if you are able to already secure employment, housing, and health insurance.

I love immigration. We should have lots of immigration! But it should occur within consistently, fairly enforced laws passed by our legislative system. I get that our immigration system is arguably broken and that it's very difficult to pass meaningful legislation, but that doesn't mean we should just allow whoever is president to dictate immigration policy.

Isn’t this straw man? Who said anything about eliminating laws or being inconsistent about legal immigration? The top comment was only pointing out that slowing the flow of legal immigration does not fix illegal immigration and probably makes it worse. Some people don’t love immigration or feel we should have lots, despite the benefits, and sometimes those people say contradictory things.

If there was a legal pickpocketing, and someone claimed to only be opposed to illegal pickpocketing, then it would be reasonable to point out that unless they're lying about their intent a solution to preventing illegal pickpocketing would be to make it all legal.

The analogy falls apart because nobody argues that they are "only" opposed to illegal pickpicketing.

If people are opposed to any form of immigration, then they should just admit that, rather than pretend they're only opposed to illegal immigration.

b. Not opposed to someone taking my money in exchange for goods or services I want.

a. Opposed to someone moving into my country against my will and the law just because they want to, “for a better life”.

b. Not opposed to someone moving into my country because I married them and want them here.

There’s a whole spectrum between a and b, but I think most people are against a.

Legal pickpocketing is taxes you’re opposed to, or wages being garnished.

In theory people who say they’re only against illegal immigration are saying they completely agree with all policies regarding legal immigration, now and maybe into the future. Likely not what these people actually believe because while possible it would be a silly position. They’re probably just saying it to try to find some common ground with very pro immigration people. Likely a fools errand.

To your last paragraph, no, they are not. There is no automatic implication that people will not change their minds depending on the situation. The argument is not that they can never change their minds, but that it is deceitful to pretend to only oppose illegal immigration in current circumstances and then go on to demonstrate they are also opposed to the currently legal immigration.

Sometimes immigration is legal. Sometimes taking my stuff is legal.

There’s often overlap between legality and what people support or oppose, but not always.

“I oppose something that’s already against the rules” is a simpler/easier argument, rather than saying “I oppose the against the rules thing, and some of the stuff that isn’t against the rules currently”. I think that's why people make this argument of "only against illegal immigration". I agree it could be deceitful, taking the easier argument. It’s also not a tactic that works long term though if it just results in the immigration they were against being made legal. A stronger anti immigration stance, legal or illegal, would be a better starting point.

To be fair there may also be some people who a couple years ago really did only oppose illegal immigration but were then exposed to new information, and changed their mind to oppose some or all legal immigration as well.

~ Jean-Paul Sartre, 1944

"Never believe that far-left woke extremists are completely unaware of the absurdity of their assertions. They know that their ideological mandates are fragile, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their moderate or conservative adversary who is obliged to use language responsibly, since he still believes in universal standards of logic. The ideological zealots have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by enforcing shifting definitions and linguistic traps, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by objective evidence but to intimidate, socially ostracize, and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent or weaponize moral outrage, loftily indicating by some accusation of bigotry or systemic harm that the time for argument is past"

You are right that the Native Americans were completely misplaced by immigrants, but immigration made the US what it is today and I see no reason it won't continue to make the US a uniquely strong country.

I suppose by “all factors” I mean all factors aside from exploitation and xenophobia, but I hope we could at least move the Overton window back that far.

My understanding is that many of us, perhaps including the author of the comment to which you are responding, would like to see at lease some small, inching movement towards such a system.

For example, you want small inching movement. From what starting point? Inching movement from the near-zero flows of the mid-20th century? Inching movement from the mass flows of the 21st century? Both ideas would have major consequences, and if you are going to advocate for mass social change, you should think it out and advocate with care and thoughtfulness.

Agreed, care and thoughtfulness should be the rule, not the exception. Presently we are getting neither. I’m a software developer, I don’t work in policy; I believe our immigration position should be aligned with policy goals and I’m not sure we have any of those, either.

In any case, re-categorizing so many legal immigrants in order to imprison them strikes me as pointless and fundamentally wrong.

If I advocated abolition in the 19th century, it would be missing the point to turn around and say "oh yeah? And how many slaves would you like to free per year, and what effects do you expect that to have? Include examples of past slave rebellions"

The obvious assumption is that they mean from where we are right now. We're not going to suddenly be at the mid-20th century again. This comes off as argumentative more than curious (as do your other comments in this thread, for what it's worth).

No, it isn't. It is a change; whether it's acceleration or velocity is an implementation detail. Whether it should be changed suddenly or gradually is the spec.

I think it’s self evident that the U.S. benefited greatly from its mass immigration inflows in the 19th and 20th centuries.

"Oh, you support immigration? Write an entire nation's immigration policy. Can't/won't do it? You must be a paid shill."

People are allowed to have opinions without regurgitating policy documents on demand.

I want to keep the US a destination for hard work and smarts and striking out on your own. Don’t shelter your lazy kid, show them the beauty of complexity and mastery. Have them master some difficult skills, whether that’s a second language or botany or math or public speaking or building things. We are all responsible to each other for excellence. Respond to the opportunities for excellence, of what we can build together, dont’t yield to sloth and resentment being satisfied with turning your back on your own potential. The future is awesome and we welcome all who want to contribute! We welcome competition - better to be second best to the best than turning your back and cutting yourself off from the course of history.

Tying this back to OP's comment, it's hard to see these policy changes as any sort of legitimate protectionism and it's just as hard to divorce them from the justifications given by people who start with "I'm not anti-immigrant".

so there a huge need to have a difficult policy discussion about what to do without cratering the economy.

but when you start removing civil liberties and running around in gangs grabbing random brown people off the streets and sending them to indefinate detention in the middle of nowhere, dumping people in Somalia, claiming you have the right kill anyone you want, you shouldn't be surprised when people start waving around the f word.

You've been propagandized to believe that is happening. Remember when we were grabbing random brown people, including Black Olympian school superintendents right off the streets and sending them to concentration camps?

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/27/us/ian-roberts-des-moines-sup...

Months later the truth comes out: illegal alien with guns in his possession, which is a federal crime. Deportation order issued under Biden's administration.

The post-truth era has made the f word effectively meaningless.

No real lawyer will ever tell you that an "administrative warrant" is a real thing that lets jackbooted thugs enter your home and detain you. It's absurd and disgusting, and you should feel dirty for defending it.

https://apnews.com/article/ice-arrests-warrants-minneapolis-...

https://ij.org/issues/ijs-project-on-the-4th-amendment/admin...

If legal immigration was at 40% of its current level and I wanted legal immigration to double from there, would that still be anti-immigrant?

Or does having any limit whatsoever mean that you're opposed to a thing?

I don't know how else to read that.

I enjoy salt/spices; there’s still an optimal amount of spices to add to a dish and wanting to hit that optimal mix doesn’t make me anti-spice.

We've chosen to stop after having two children. Doesn't make me anti-child or anti-family.

We've chosen to have only one pet dog at a time. Doesn't make me anti-dog.

1) Someone can be against illegal immigration and for legal immigration.

2) That same person's idea about who should immigrate to the country may exclude most or all of the people who are currently immigrating illegally.

It's not like you can only be against illegal immigration because they forgot to fill out some form. Legal immigration has a component of deciding who gets in.

Being "anti illegal immigrant" doesn't have to imply you let in whoever wants as long as they follow some process. You are taking away the agency of the people to select its immigrants.

If the logic is that people who are born somewhere else shouldn't have any agency over immigration laws, well, why does someone who lives in some town in my country with a negligible immigrant population get a say in who I and my colleagues can invite to work with us, and who I and my neighbors can invite to live with us?

Let's say hypothetically the UK increased its population by around 3 million since 2020, including one particular influx designed and implemented by Boris Johnson to suppress wage inflation, which had a direct effect on the lower end of the job market for the native population. You could also easily argue it led to a direct surge in popularity of the far right party Reform.

Purely hypothetical of course...

You'd consider that a good thing?

What do you think they mean by "100 million"?

1. Illegal immigration is bad, and we should do more to reduce it.

2. Immigration (any kind) is too numerous. Eg someone could say "Nashua, New Hampshire is now 17.2% foreign born and I think that is too high." Within 2. there are multiple separate reasons to have the position. One could think that its bad for assimilation, or one could be upset that the Nashua school system's budget increases are almost completely due to having to hire more ELL staff to accommodate the rapid rise in non-English speakers in a school system that used to be almost entirely English speakers. I'm sure there are more complicated examples but I hope that one is easy to understand.

3. Immigration (any kind) is used to lower wages of the working and middle class via labor and program abuses. At the low end, this used to be a leftist talking point (the kind Bernie Sanders once talked about). At the high end, it is grousing about H1B abuses. Despite many agreeing that th program has large abuses, H1Bs are legal immigrants.

Your idea of an "easy solution" doesn't remotely correspond to a solution for people who think #2 or #3. Even for #1, someone who dislikes illegal immigration does not necessarily want more legal immigration, though that used to be a very common view (eg, Bill Clinton in the 1990s, I think George Bush too). If a person believes #3, increasing the number of legal immigrants may simply increase the corresponding abuses.

n.b. the text above is descriptive, not normative.

The irony is that if anyone thinks they are going to solve this problem - I have a bridge to sell. If GoP solves this then they are going to lose of the biggest talking points in next elections. I can see this being challenged and drama played out for long time saying "other side" is not letting them move forward with it.

All the while the "extraordinary" Green Card will actually be "ordinary" - done by greasing POTUS palms. Because POTUS and his supporters are hell bent on turning America into a third world low trust country.

So, the idea of illegal immigration as a vice worth cracking down on and punishing has not been consistently applied by the people publicly condemning it (like this current administration), meaning there is a very real sense in which the distinction between illegal and legal immigration is not real.

First, a lot of the immigrants that people complain about now are only immigrants because the US fucked up their country. Venezuela is the poster child for this. There are consqeuences to destabilizing other countries for American corporate interests.

Second, companies like illegal immigration. It allows them to pay people sub-minimum wage in horrible working conditions and if the workers every complain, you just call in ICE to deport them. You pay a small fine for employing undocumented migrants and the next day hire a new batch. You probably even have avoided paying wages to the deported workers.

Third, a lot of attention is paid to people who sneak into the country. This is the minority. Also, "entering without inspection" (that's the legal term) is a civil infraction (unless you've previously been deported; then it's a crime), much like a traffic ticket. You technically aren't a criminal if you do this.

But the majority of undocumented migrants are visa overstayers. They get a legal visa to come to the US, often a visit visa, a student visa or a temporary work permit (eg J1, H2A, H2b) and just don't leave.

And to answer your implied question, it's not about illegal immigration. It's about white supremacy and the exploitation of labor under capitalism.

Yes, and that's a big part of the motivation for this policy of forcing people on temporary visas to physically leave the US in order to apply for permanent residency. It prevents people who get a temporary visa and plan to overstay that visa and nonetheless apply for some kind of pathway to permanent residency in the US from being able to do that.

There's xenophobia almost everywhere: Just look at South Africa this year.

Not really.

The answer is: have a fair, transparent and function system.

Then - yes - you can totally 'increase' (or decrease) as needed.

'Increase a bit' likely the right thing to do - but it's a completely separate question.

But throwing Green Card holders out is completely insane, grabbing people out of church and schools and putting them into detention without oversight is cruel and inhumane.

The national debate is insane.

Just basic, normal, reasonable policy and process.

That's it.

Like DMV level stuff.

Then you can adjust the numbers one way or another.

The numbers need to go up.

China, in particular, has an "elite overproduction" problem. We should be welcoming every English-speaking Chinese STEM degree holder with open arms.

Anyone, from anywhere, with a STEM degree and a job offer from a US company, should be in this country. Period.

America needs to be the leader of the knowledge workforce world. We also need a vibrant and wealthy tax base and consumer base.

If we don't do this, China and other up-and-coming nations will increasingly start to displace us, which puts all of our workers at a disadvantage.

Frankly EO is just a sign of a developed nation.

2) "Anyone, from anywhere, with a STEM degree and a job offer from a US company, should be in this country"

Since when did citizenship become about 'Economic Production'?

The vast majority of the people of the world don't agree with this - and this is kind of one of the roots of disagreement over migration.

Yes - surely 'educated migrants' are good and helpful, but that's only part of the equation.

3) "If we don't do this, China and other up-and-coming nations will increasingly start to displace us"?

Displace you how exactly?

All of this hints of 'Nationalist Industrial Capitalism' with hints of fear mongering. "But China's Gonna Get Us!" ... listen I get it - but this card is played a bit too hard, too often.

Also absent is the fact that there's a need to help refugees etc.

The US surprisingly takes surprisingly few refugees in from conflicts zones, even those it calamities it participates in.

Consider that a 'Nation' is a 'Community' - not a 'Business Centre' and that education and economic competitiveness are just parts of that consideration.

Ultimately, it's a choice, and those points are not invalid, but probably should be contextualized in the grander scheme of how most people define their communities.

This is a bit myopic, partly because it diminishes Chinese capabilities - they're definitely ahead in a few areas, notably battery tech, advanced manufacturing, and in some product categories like robotics, (arguably EVs) and they have demonstrated leadership in industrial capacity for many others, like Solar Panels, other things. They're less than 1 year behind on AI (admittedly, they 'distill' and do a lot of copying but there's legit Engineering going on).

When you put that altogether, and the pace of progress, it's formidable.

China does it with 'domestic talent' whereas US R&D and 'Tech Exceptionalism' would literally not exist without outsiders, who make up up to 1/2 of the primary innovations, companies etc.. Tesla, Nvidia, OpenAI, Google - so many critical people from Europe, Asia etc. None of the 'Godfathers of AI' are American (which I find odd actually). Europe in particular makes a ton of primary contributions which are leveraged by others.

It's not a reason to say 'anyone from tech can be a citizen' but immigration has to be recognized as a critical ingredient, maybe the most critical.

Recent college grads have had a harder time, but is slowly improving again [1]. All college grads are around 3% which is usually considered full employment. It was so easy for so long, any reversion to normal is met with the sky is falling. We haven't really seen that yet. The job market is also much much larger than big tech.

In my own experience trying to hire people, it's hard to filter real resumes from fakes/garbage. I have to think this issue is making it slower to hire recent grads.

[1] https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...

+ "Give these people jobs before you give it to the Chinese." is just slightly racist, I'm not saying it's entirely objectionable, but you could just say 'non-citizen'.

+ It's way harder to hire someone on H1B than a local. There is a reason they are being hired. 1500+ SAT is nice but it's not magic entry point for a job.

There are definitely some kinds of jobs - 'Plain IT' where Tata and some Indian companies are just 'India First'. That's H1B abuse.

But by and large, that's not the case.

It's better to consider 'tightening up the program' if you think it should be, as opposed to making very broad considerations.

'Broad Brushstroke' stopping of these programs will definitely hurt the US.

If you can’t train a 1500+ SAT and instead need to import non citizens to fill your jobs you have failed as a society.

If they had a CS degree, and were generally decent communicators and 'responsible actors' ... and could not get a job - now that's a problem.

Stephen Miller is upset he never got to experience that.

Immigrants from Europe will some how get an exception depending on their skin color. Same goes for South Africans

E.g. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-we-ha...

> And by the way, I want to make – I want to be very clear. I’m not just talking about illegal immigration, we have way too many legal immigrants coming into this country, too. 1.5 to 1.6 million legal people coming – Ilhan Omar came in legally and she hates the country. She’s a sleeper cell infiltrator of the United States representing Congress. She hates the country. She hates the west. She should be deported back to where she came from, Somalia. Go run for City Council in Mogadishu. The country is not enriched by people like Ilhan Omar.

But an inconvenient process change has you clutching your pearls and crying "bad faith"? Yikes.

https://archive.is/QKk0l#selection-923.73-930.0

https://dgcjnpzq7j07id.archive.is/QKk0l/41e225be79dbd90e86c6...

Also, the fascism isn't enforcement, lol, and you know that. I hate people who try to be cheeky and dishonest and hope nobody is paying attention.

No, I know you've talked with people on the left. The problem is pouring tens of billions of our taxpayer dollars into ICE while they:

1. Do fuck all to improve the economy

2. Cause violence in our cities for no discernable gain

3. Have already shot and killed numerous American citizens

4. Regularly violate civil liberties because they have zero accountability

I mean, listen: you've won. We have the secret police, we've been deporting people left and right.

Well... is it better? Did it magically fix the economy like dumbass Republicans told you it would? Or is everything still shit?

Same shit as DOGE. "Ohh we just have to cut some stuff! Get those greedy Dems and their welfare state!"

Well, we cut it. Okay where's my check? Right guys?

Oh... or were we just duped. And maybe the reason you, and others, can't admit it is because your ego is bigger than your need for self preservation?

This new policy is no different and is a trap to kick out and never accept back more non-white immigrants.

You can't be serious.

Even so, you're "having trouble" acknowledging a fact that calls a claim into question? It'd be more effective to offer an actual reason.

Well, I'm apparently not in the imagined conversation you're having. Seems insecure to pre-bake an out for a hypothetical.

Never rejected systemic racism exists, but calling everything racist without substance (and accusing people of ignoring system racism without support) erodes meaning.

I suggest reviewing the HN guidelines for comments. If you disagree with them, this forum may not be for you.

Imagine if we began processing immigration applications at a rate ten- or a hundredfold of what we currently do. Imagine if just about anyone could get in, barring things like people with actual serious criminal records, etc. Imagine if when you got in via that system, you got some kind of long-term resident visa, which required you to pay an additional tax for, say, the next 10 years. Also imagine that this long-term resident visa gave you a path to citizenship, on condition of permanently renouncing all other citizenships you might hold. In other words, imagine that becoming a legal immigrant was far less onerous in process, but slightly more onerous in official requirements.

Such a plan could be framed as encouraging immigrants who want to "put down roots", and that kind of immigration is much more plausibly spun as beneficial, because people who move to a place to live permanently do not want it to be sucky. By making the process simpler but applying clear costs (e.g., extra tax), it also gives people an easy to way to demonstrate that they want to do things the right way.

Also, making the process more straightforward makes it much more politically palatable to deport people who violate it (which will still happen). A large part of the "bleeding-heart" leftist perspective towards immigrants stems from a sense that many people who immigrate illegally do so because "they had no other choice". If the bar to legal immigration is lowered so that it becomes a live option, this argument is harder to make.

People who fraudulently or illegally come in have had it easier. And I was in the top 1% earner, built things that everyone here on HN has used. I’ve contributed a lot and struggled to get recognized. People don’t know how much of a mess this is. They claim they want smart people to come to the US. The system isn’t setup for it.

Miller's ilk is ascendant in this administration and their Court has blessed their approach to discrimination.

Usually when I find out someone’s making that deceptive claim and call them out on it they quickly admit that they don’t think asylum is/should be legal

Otherwise we could just get rid of immigration law and then everyone would be a legal immigrant.