Josef K

Okay? When your entire justification for something being wrong is that it's illegal, it's totally justified for me to say that that doesn't make it wrong.
Okay, sure. That's why having a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is a good thing - because as more people come in, they will end up paying taxes to fund the programs we're talking about. But it doesn't even matter, because undocumented immigrants aren't eligible for these public services thanks to the 1996 welfare reform law - they can use a couple things, but not Medicare, Medicaid (except in emergencies), SSI, CHIP, TANF... almost anything you think of as a welfare/public assistance program the government provides is something that undocumented immigrants cannot access. In fact, even "legal" immigrants have to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops before they can access these programs as well.

Regardless, I would argue that all people are entitled to certain things, such as healthcare, a job, and a basic income. At the point where you're ready to deny people things they can barely live without just because they were not born in America, I don't really have anything to say to you.

Josef K

Obviously he is a misogynistic pig, so I don't really understand the quotes there. I don't think he's significantly more of one than his fifteen (or whatever) competitors though.
Ahem
Maybe not "people like you", but definitely "people".

Two Spirit

All of this comes down to one question. Why couldn't they have come here legally in the first place? They willingly broke the law by coming here illegally, and people that have a problem with that are labeled the bad guys because they don't want to reward illegal behavior.

I do think we should make the immigration process a hell of a lot easier to perform legally, but supporting amnesty measures just doesn't seem right, because it's essentially saying, "You came here illegally, but oh well, since you're already here, we'll give you an SS number, driver's license, etc, because if we don't, we'll look like *******s." Imagine if a store clerk held the same attitude towards a burglar that came onto his property.

It's a tough position to be in, wanting to enforce the law while not looking like an ******* doing it.

William_the_Bloody

You do realize that illegal immigration costs American taxpayers 113 billion largely as a result of paid social services?

The cost for California alone is 25 billion, placing undue & unsustainable strain on the welfare state that was already teetering near bankruptcy. You do realize this?

You do realize that illegal immigration & mass immigration puts a downward pressure on the wages of unskilled labour? (Reducing the wage of native labours 99 to 118 billion per year)

You do realize that once an ethnic voting bloc that continually cites immigration as major issue on how they choose to vote, can determine the outcome of an election, than it becomes extremely hard to control your border policy.

You do realize all of this?

Did you grow up in a comfortable middle class household? Just curious?

Josef K

As you say, it's super hard to come here legally and lots of people don't have a better option. I don't know why crossing the border to look for a better life is something we should be trying to punish.
I'll respond to this with actual evidence and not just logic in the morning because I'm super tired right now. I've definitely seen studies that dispute the thing about downward pressure on wages though - I'm pretty sure it basically evens out in the long run - and I'd really appreciate it if you could both cite your sources and explain exactly which social services we're paying $113 billion for, given that undocumented immigrants aren't eligible for most of them.

I'd also dispute that that's necessarily a bad thing - the government should use social services as a way to help people. You say they're costing taxpayers money, but that isn't really true at the point where no politician is saying, "Well, immigrants need social services, so we're raising taxes." These things aren't really "costing taxpayers money" because the amount any given person pays is the same. Like, yeah, when they're contributing to California's budget problems that is an actual harm, but it's not like there aren't other factors there, and the solution being "Let's design policy that targets some of the worst off people in our society" just doesn't make much sense to me.

As far as this downward pressure on wages goes, a lot of it could be solved just by making it harder for employers to exploit undocumented immigrants - in other words, with more liberal immigration policy that doesn't make it so hard to live as an undocumented immigrant, the stuff you're complaining about will not happen or will at least happen to a much lesser extent. As it is, it's really easy for businesspeople to employ undocumented immigrants and threaten to report them to the authorities if they complain about, among other things, their wages being stolen (there are a bunch of other reasons for the wage stuff you're talking about that can also be solved or mitigated with less stringent policy, but that's the most obvious one). I also think that it is good for people to be employed, no matter the country in which they were born, so if there are immigrants making more money, that at least provides a counterweight to there being American citizens making less.

I'm also really confused by the bolded bit. Yes - in a democracy, when a large bloc of voters want a policy adopted, it is politically useful for a party to try to adopt that policy. So?

My family is probably upper-middle class, keeping in mind that like 90% of Americans describe themselves as middle class. So there's a pretty good basis for whatever ad hominem you're try to set up.

("You do realize..." is pretty unnecessary. You can be a condescending dick without being a condescending dick about it.)

William_the_Bloody

It's common knowledge that illegal immigration costs American tax payer billions every year, there's tons of links.

The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on United States Taxpayers (2013)

In terms of wages, it doesn't effect the middle class, the "upper" middle class actually benefits. It's the native born "working class" that are impacted. Mass legal immigration has also been shown to impact native born labourers negatively.

Don't take this personally, I asked if you were middle class because whenever I encounter someone on the net giving someone else lectures on immigration or diversity, its always some politically correct middle class twat who grew up in a comfortable home environment. I often find that they are people who never got over being bullied in high school, and therefore often bear grudge against their own culture by championing every socialist agenda on the planet no matter who it adversely impacts. If they had to grind through life they would have a completely different outlook.

Bit of a rant there, but it really, really gets my goat.

Josef K

I absolutely don't trust FAIR:
But it doesn't matter because you're not responding to the substance of my argument - even if this costs the government money, you don't show me any evidence that that's causing tax increases and you don't give me any reason why this is the place we need to be making cuts. (ETA: And you never give a reason why it's not okay to have increased spending if we're giving social services to people who need them.)
Okay, yeah, absolutely. I never said anything about whether I personally benefit from immigration, and I never said it mattered whether I benefit. This is irrelevant because you aren't responding to my arguments saying that, to the extent there is downward pressure on wages, it's because immigration policy isn't liberal enough. I'm giving you a warrant that makes sense, don't try to pretend that I'm just making this debate about me.

You also refuse to provide any evidence that shows wages decreasing - I assume you got that initial number from FAIR as well, so my earlier objections apply there - so here's some evidence which says that, if anything, the opposite happens.

Look first to these two researchers who seem to have a pretty new and improved approach to the whole thing, who conclude that immigration has a small positive effect on average native wages and either no effect or an insubstantial negative effect on unskilled wages (measured as wages of workers with no high-school degree). They spend a decent amount of time (I think sections 2.5 and 5.1, plus the introduction) explaining why the studies you might find supporting your position are flawed.

Then, try the Economic Policy Institute. They say:
So, yeah, there is no downward pressure on wages for native-born Americans. This evidence is talking about both legal and illegal immigration - I would agree that there's probably a higher likelihood illegal immigration pushes down wages in the short term, but, once again, further liberalization could solve that problem.
"Don't take this personally but you're a twat." Thanks man.

This is generally sort of stupid and uncalled for, and it doesn't matter at the point where you aren't responding to my actual arguments. Good try. (I'd still love to hear an explanation for the reasoning in the bolded bit though.)

Scarlett O'Hara

Why do people think that because you're white and middle class you're not allowed to have opinions about things that may not affect you? Or opinions about racism and minorities? There is such a thing as having a factual, well researched argument not dependent on your background.

__________________

Psy-Fi

__________________

She's a Brick House

Trollheart

Well I went at it with Roxy over this and basically I got told "You're not black so your opinions don't count", or some variant of that. I let it go in the end because our friendship was starting to come under threat, but it still doesn't seem right to me.

This was, in fairness, in response to my thread about that woman getting arrested and then "hanging herself" in prison a little while back, and I understand feelings may have been a bit raw, but still, I don't see any reason why I, you or any other white or non-black person should not be allowed to express our outrage over the crimes and injustices perpetrated against those who are not our own race... not that I will stop doing that of course.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018