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This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue.

This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. Republicans get to use ‘illegal immigrants taking jobs’ as a stick to beat democrats with, and progressives use cries of racism to rally support amongst Latino voters. Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
Could you explain the connection you see between illegal-immigration policies and legal-immigration policies?
addicted 8y ago
Umm reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for. The only difference is that the conservatives want to somehow deport everyone who is here and has been here for decades to somewhere while the “progressives” recognize that they are an integral part of the economy and want them to pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recognized status so they can live in the country legally in the meanwhile. This isn’t both sides not wanting to do anything. This is both sides having very different solutions. All of which is irrelevant to the article since this is discussing legal immigration.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  > reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for. It might be what progressives are calling for, but it's not what Democrats are calling for when they are in power. Additionally, I'm not sure how progressive it is to prefer elite immigrants with "advanced degrees" over other immigrants.
- ta76567656 8y ago
  Conservatives (the politicians) pretend to want to deport illegal immigrants to get votes. They don't actually want to do it because a lot of businesses depend on them for cheap labor. You don't even need to deport anyone, just start actually enforcing laws that require employers to check employee eligibility. Fewer jobs for illegal immigrants would mean less incentive for them to come. That nobody has tried this shows IMO that nobody (in power) actually wants it. They just want a few examples to grandstand about for votes. pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recognized status so they can live in the country legally in the meanwhile. This is basically amnesty/open-borders. Not arguing for or against, but it is. There is no "line" for citizenship, after five years of permanent residency anyone qualifies. The "line" is for the permanent residency (green card), and you have to qualify to even get in the line, that's why people come illegally. So what's the new qualification? "already in the country"? Then what about the people here 20 years from now? Is it a rolling admission? If not then you have the same problem as before. If yes, then the policy is 'open borders' possibly with a qualification of "can avoid getting caught for X years". If you don't find open borders acceptable the only reasonable compromise I can think of is a capped category that anyone can apply for, where the cap is adjusted as needed. Somewhat ike the current Diversity Visa (Green Card lottery) which is capped at around 50K per year, though that cap rarely changes.
  - UncleEntity 8y ago
    > That nobody has tried this shows IMO that nobody (in power) actually wants it. Sheriff Joe tried this and ended up with a federal indictment, a pardon from Trump and (apparently) is now running for congress.
HarryHirsch 8y ago
And the Latino Caucus insists on family-based immigration. This is a trans-party issue, consequently any kind of point system will never get off the ground.
fzeroracer 8y ago
Can you explain what you mean by 'reforming our immigration policy', because there is a wide range of options when it comes to said reform ranging from sensible to separating children from their family and putting them in camps.
toast0 8y ago
I think it's clear that the immigration system could use reform. It's not at all clear what the reform should be. The quoted 150-year wait doesn't quite exist, but real waits of 10-20 years are common for immigrants with lower priority from countries with large numbers of applicants (which are often simply countries with large numbers of people). That people still want to come here despite having to put up with that is a testament to how powerful the draw to living here is. I can't blame someone for illegally immigrating when they see that the legal path will take so long, and that they could be building a better life in the meantime, despite the struggles that come from living here without papers.
berthe 8y ago
> This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. This is a legal immigration issue. There are no illegal immigrants on H1Bs waiting for a green card. This could definitely be fixed or reformed without touching the illegal immigration issue.
ajross 8y ago
> Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’. First: total strawman. Second: not even relevant to the issue at hand. There is, to first approximation, exactly zero undocumented immigration among "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" so I'm having a very, very hard time imaging how this is an "enormous penalty" we have to pay for failing to solve the "illegal immigration issue". So... enlighten us. What's your common sense idea that would address the problem here? I'll only call you a racist if it's a racist idea, I promise.
- coldtea 8y ago
  You kind of already made the parent's point for them. You didn't call it out explicitly, but you're already implying they are racist. >Second: not even relevant to the issue at hand. There is, to first approximation, exactly zero undocumented immigration among "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" so I'm having a very, very hard time imaging how this is an "enormous penalty" we have to pay for failing to solve the "illegal immigration issue". The "issue at hand" the parent discussed is immigration in general. Not "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" immigration only, even if TFA is about that. Posts on HN are taken with liberty as starting points of a discussion, and the parent never mentioned that they constrain their observation to only concern "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees", so your response is disingenuous.
  - fzeroracer 8y ago
    He was making an inherently disingenuous claim that anyone arguing for immigration reform is called a racist. I have discussed with people the issues in our immigration system and ways to fix it and not once have I been called racist. Whenever I see someone make that claim, in my experience it's because they've been in favor of racist policies and when called out on it, tend to try and shift the argument into people being against immigration reform period.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >He was making an inherently disingenuous claim that anyone arguing for immigration reform is called a racist. He was making a claim based on his experience with people asking for the kind of reform he'd like to see (e.g. stricter rules). In casual conversation absolute statements ("anyone") are not to be taken at face value, but (through the principle of charity) as the person meaning "in many -or most- cases". >Whenever I see someone make that claim, in my experience it's because they've been in favor of racist policies and when called out on it One can be an isolationist ("no more immigration", "we have enough people already", "priority to local workers and building a local skilled workforce as opposed to importing cheaper foreign labor") without being motivated by racial concerns -- and yet in many cases they will still be labelled a racist.
mygo 8y ago
> anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’. bold statement. source?
- mygo 8y ago
  2 downvotes yet not a single source. Hasty generalizations such as “any time someone does x, y happens” aren’t enough to convince everyone, but they do make for a strong emotional response for some. Such as knee-jerk anonymous downvotes when anyone asks for any piece of real data to back up the claim, without giving explanations why.
scarejunba 8y ago
Haha, absolute bullshit. If “illegal immigrants” stopped being a thing, everyone knows conservatives will move to the next brown target. Spare us the “if only we could kick the Mexicans out” narrative.
- merpnderp 8y ago
  Weird and here I thought a path to citizenship had broad Republican support, they just want it tied to stronger checks on who enters. But keep winning votes and changing minds by calling your opposition racists and bigots. That will win your votes.
  - fzeroracer 8y ago
    How do you feel about separating families at the border? Because as part of the Republican's push for 'stronger checks', it does nothing to solve the current absolutely abhorrent treatment of people seeking asylum in the US. I'll consider not calling them racists and bigots when their policies stop being the policies of racists and bigots.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    "stronger checks" is an escape valve to stick practically anything in there. Give me a break haha.
    - merpnderp 8y ago
      People like you mocking the children killed by the likes of MS-13 gangs are what drives a lot of the push for the wall at all cost. Tribalism at its worst because they get so angry at calloused voices mocking the innocent dead, they just want to stick it to the opposition at all cost.
nomocrypto 8y ago
> Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’. Federal policy is hardly ever “common sense”. Have those people actually tried not saying racist things? Because I swear, 99.999% of the “common sense” reforms I hear about I nvolve deporting basically everyone who isn’t super white..
xellisx 8y ago
'Taking our jobs' is an outright lie, since the opertunity to use undocumented workers as a way to spend a lot less on a given task/job and have to hide that fact, so they also have skip out on taxes for said work. My opinion is that the people claiming this use this statement to missdirect the core issues becuase they are the one giving jobs to non citizens becuase they are greedy.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

Could you explain the connection you see between illegal-immigration policies and legal-immigration policies?

addicted 8y ago

Umm reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for. The only difference is that the conservatives want to somehow deport everyone who is here and has been here for decades to somewhere while the “progressives” recognize that they are an integral part of the economy and want them to pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recognized status so they can live in the country legally in the meanwhile. This isn’t both sides not wanting to do anything. This is both sides having very different solutions. All of which is irrelevant to the article since this is discussing legal immigration.

pessimizer 8y ago
> reforming the immigration policy is exactly what progressives are calling for. It might be what progressives are calling for, but it's not what Democrats are calling for when they are in power. Additionally, I'm not sure how progressive it is to prefer elite immigrants with "advanced degrees" over other immigrants.
ta76567656 8y ago
Conservatives (the politicians) pretend to want to deport illegal immigrants to get votes. They don't actually want to do it because a lot of businesses depend on them for cheap labor. You don't even need to deport anyone, just start actually enforcing laws that require employers to check employee eligibility. Fewer jobs for illegal immigrants would mean less incentive for them to come. That nobody has tried this shows IMO that nobody (in power) actually wants it. They just want a few examples to grandstand about for votes. pay a penalty, and stand in the back of the line for American citizenship while they are provided recognized status so they can live in the country legally in the meanwhile. This is basically amnesty/open-borders. Not arguing for or against, but it is. There is no "line" for citizenship, after five years of permanent residency anyone qualifies. The "line" is for the permanent residency (green card), and you have to qualify to even get in the line, that's why people come illegally. So what's the new qualification? "already in the country"? Then what about the people here 20 years from now? Is it a rolling admission? If not then you have the same problem as before. If yes, then the policy is 'open borders' possibly with a qualification of "can avoid getting caught for X years". If you don't find open borders acceptable the only reasonable compromise I can think of is a capped category that anyone can apply for, where the cap is adjusted as needed. Somewhat ike the current Diversity Visa (Green Card lottery) which is capped at around 50K per year, though that cap rarely changes.
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  > That nobody has tried this shows IMO that nobody (in power) actually wants it. Sheriff Joe tried this and ended up with a federal indictment, a pardon from Trump and (apparently) is now running for congress.

HarryHirsch 8y ago

And the Latino Caucus insists on family-based immigration. This is a trans-party issue, consequently any kind of point system will never get off the ground.

fzeroracer 8y ago

Can you explain what you mean by 'reforming our immigration policy', because there is a wide range of options when it comes to said reform ranging from sensible to separating children from their family and putting them in camps.

toast0 8y ago

I think it's clear that the immigration system could use reform. It's not at all clear what the reform should be. The quoted 150-year wait doesn't quite exist, but real waits of 10-20 years are common for immigrants with lower priority from countries with large numbers of applicants (which are often simply countries with large numbers of people). That people still want to come here despite having to put up with that is a testament to how powerful the draw to living here is. I can't blame someone for illegally immigrating when they see that the legal path will take so long, and that they could be building a better life in the meantime, despite the struggles that come from living here without papers.

berthe 8y ago

> This is one of the enormous penalties we as a nation have to pay because neither of our political parties actually wants to solve the illegal immigration issue. This is a legal immigration issue. There are no illegal immigrants on H1Bs waiting for a green card. This could definitely be fixed or reformed without touching the illegal immigration issue.

ajross 8y ago

> Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’. First: total strawman. Second: not even relevant to the issue at hand. There is, to first approximation, exactly zero undocumented immigration among "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" so I'm having a very, very hard time imaging how this is an "enormous penalty" we have to pay for failing to solve the "illegal immigration issue". So... enlighten us. What's your common sense idea that would address the problem here? I'll only call you a racist if it's a racist idea, I promise.

coldtea 8y ago
You kind of already made the parent's point for them. You didn't call it out explicitly, but you're already implying they are racist. >Second: not even relevant to the issue at hand. There is, to first approximation, exactly zero undocumented immigration among "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" so I'm having a very, very hard time imaging how this is an "enormous penalty" we have to pay for failing to solve the "illegal immigration issue". The "issue at hand" the parent discussed is immigration in general. Not "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees" immigration only, even if TFA is about that. Posts on HN are taken with liberty as starting points of a discussion, and the parent never mentioned that they constrain their observation to only concern "Indian immigrants with advanced degrees", so your response is disingenuous.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  He was making an inherently disingenuous claim that anyone arguing for immigration reform is called a racist. I have discussed with people the issues in our immigration system and ways to fix it and not once have I been called racist. Whenever I see someone make that claim, in my experience it's because they've been in favor of racist policies and when called out on it, tend to try and shift the argument into people being against immigration reform period.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >He was making an inherently disingenuous claim that anyone arguing for immigration reform is called a racist. He was making a claim based on his experience with people asking for the kind of reform he'd like to see (e.g. stricter rules). In casual conversation absolute statements ("anyone") are not to be taken at face value, but (through the principle of charity) as the person meaning "in many -or most- cases". >Whenever I see someone make that claim, in my experience it's because they've been in favor of racist policies and when called out on it One can be an isolationist ("no more immigration", "we have enough people already", "priority to local workers and building a local skilled workforce as opposed to importing cheaper foreign labor") without being motivated by racial concerns -- and yet in many cases they will still be labelled a racist.

mygo 8y ago

> anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’. bold statement. source?

mygo 8y ago
2 downvotes yet not a single source. Hasty generalizations such as “any time someone does x, y happens” aren’t enough to convince everyone, but they do make for a strong emotional response for some. Such as knee-jerk anonymous downvotes when anyone asks for any piece of real data to back up the claim, without giving explanations why.

scarejunba 8y ago

Haha, absolute bullshit. If “illegal immigrants” stopped being a thing, everyone knows conservatives will move to the next brown target. Spare us the “if only we could kick the Mexicans out” narrative.

merpnderp 8y ago
Weird and here I thought a path to citizenship had broad Republican support, they just want it tied to stronger checks on who enters. But keep winning votes and changing minds by calling your opposition racists and bigots. That will win your votes.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  How do you feel about separating families at the border? Because as part of the Republican's push for 'stronger checks', it does nothing to solve the current absolutely abhorrent treatment of people seeking asylum in the US. I'll consider not calling them racists and bigots when their policies stop being the policies of racists and bigots.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  "stronger checks" is an escape valve to stick practically anything in there. Give me a break haha.
  - merpnderp 8y ago
    People like you mocking the children killed by the likes of MS-13 gangs are what drives a lot of the push for the wall at all cost. Tribalism at its worst because they get so angry at calloused voices mocking the innocent dead, they just want to stick it to the opposition at all cost.

nomocrypto 8y ago

> Meanwhile anyone who espouses common sense ideas such as reforming our immigration policy gets called a racist and ‘anti-immigrant’. Federal policy is hardly ever “common sense”. Have those people actually tried not saying racist things? Because I swear, 99.999% of the “common sense” reforms I hear about I nvolve deporting basically everyone who isn’t super white..

xellisx 8y ago

'Taking our jobs' is an outright lie, since the opertunity to use undocumented workers as a way to spend a lot less on a given task/job and have to hide that fact, so they also have skip out on taxes for said work. My opinion is that the people claiming this use this statement to missdirect the core issues becuase they are the one giving jobs to non citizens becuase they are greedy.