4 ms·

There’s also a third group, who believes that if someone’s country has become unlivable (e.g., Honduras today), the United States of America would be honored to

There’s also a third group, who believes that if someone’s country has become unlivable (e.g., Honduras today), the United States of America would be honored to have them. /s/, descendant of Potato Famine Irish Immigrants

romaaeterna 7y ago
What quantity of people are you talking about exactly, and what price are you willing for poor black/Hispanic/white people with only high school degrees to pay in low-skilled labor competition, in order to assuage your racial guilt? Do you have any idea what has happened to the wages for non-skilled labor since the 1970s? While you and I may have nice cushy jobs and live in nice houses, the largest employer in this country is Walmart. Most people in this country don't have college degrees. They are poor, and mass immigration has made them poorer, and continues to make them poorer. A lot of the "Abolish ICE" support comes from people in highly gentrifying areas of the country, living in cities that are in the process of driving out their historic minority residents from their homes to go live in the Midwest, all to make way for wealthier white people. Not that this would be your situation, of course! But it can make that sort of person's cheap grace very cheap indeed.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  I don't think 'mass immigration' is to blame for wage depression post-1970s, considering that era also consisted in the destruction of workers rights, unionization and considerable increase in corporate bargaining power. This also ignore two other big parts of the picture: The fact that in the pre-1970s America still had historically high immigration with the same complaints you bring up now (that the 'dirty' Irish for example were poor, uneducated and a drain on society) just with different color slapped on top. New York was quite literally a city of immigrants. And then you have automation, which means even if you were to completely stop all immigration would mean the loss of jobs as companies further reduce their bottom line. I'm not a fan of this sort of historical revisionism where the history of immigration in the US is sort of paved over to make way for new fears of immigrants destroying the fabric of society somehow.
- jonstewart 7y ago
  I live in Washington, DC, where I own a house in a neighborhood that was ranked as the hottest market in the country a couple years ago. So, I’m one of those privileged coastal elites who lived in a highly gentrifying area. That gentrifying neighborhood is also home to DC’s Central American diaspora. My daughter’s classmates’ families fled violence in Honduras and El Salvador (both in the 80s and now, with renewed unrest). I’m also from rural Iowa, lived on a farm during the 80s farm crisis until my dad threw in the towel. I go back regularly. I have a very personal understanding of rural depopulation and economic stagnation. Your accusation of cheap grace is indeed cheap. You want real grace? Love thy neighbor, every one of them. Do you have any idea what life is like in San Pedro Sula?
  - romaaeterna 7y ago
    What do you want me to say? That you're going to heaven by taking the bread out of poor black people's mouths in order to help Hondurans? I don't think it works that way. You aren't making any personal sacrifice whatsoever here. You're just hectoring people about neighbor-loving while you get rich and they get poorer. And if your interest in immigration is especially asylum law, I would be extremely worried about the people now deploying asylum fraud as a mass immigration wedge. It's going to wind up hurting the people who need it the most, and in fact already has.
masonic 7y ago
What makes Honduras/Guatemala/Salvador increasingly "unliveable" is (1) the flight of its most industrious people to the US, and (2) the resulting indebtedness of those smuggled to the gangs that smuggle them and arrange illegal, subminimum-wage, off-the-books employment for them. Persistence of the status quo flow of illegal entrants would doom the Triangle countries forever.

romaaeterna 7y ago

What quantity of people are you talking about exactly, and what price are you willing for poor black/Hispanic/white people with only high school degrees to pay in low-skilled labor competition, in order to assuage your racial guilt? Do you have any idea what has happened to the wages for non-skilled labor since the 1970s? While you and I may have nice cushy jobs and live in nice houses, the largest employer in this country is Walmart. Most people in this country don't have college degrees. They are poor, and mass immigration has made them poorer, and continues to make them poorer. A lot of the "Abolish ICE" support comes from people in highly gentrifying areas of the country, living in cities that are in the process of driving out their historic minority residents from their homes to go live in the Midwest, all to make way for wealthier white people. Not that this would be your situation, of course! But it can make that sort of person's cheap grace very cheap indeed.

fzeroracer 7y ago
I don't think 'mass immigration' is to blame for wage depression post-1970s, considering that era also consisted in the destruction of workers rights, unionization and considerable increase in corporate bargaining power. This also ignore two other big parts of the picture: The fact that in the pre-1970s America still had historically high immigration with the same complaints you bring up now (that the 'dirty' Irish for example were poor, uneducated and a drain on society) just with different color slapped on top. New York was quite literally a city of immigrants. And then you have automation, which means even if you were to completely stop all immigration would mean the loss of jobs as companies further reduce their bottom line. I'm not a fan of this sort of historical revisionism where the history of immigration in the US is sort of paved over to make way for new fears of immigrants destroying the fabric of society somehow.
jonstewart 7y ago
I live in Washington, DC, where I own a house in a neighborhood that was ranked as the hottest market in the country a couple years ago. So, I’m one of those privileged coastal elites who lived in a highly gentrifying area. That gentrifying neighborhood is also home to DC’s Central American diaspora. My daughter’s classmates’ families fled violence in Honduras and El Salvador (both in the 80s and now, with renewed unrest). I’m also from rural Iowa, lived on a farm during the 80s farm crisis until my dad threw in the towel. I go back regularly. I have a very personal understanding of rural depopulation and economic stagnation. Your accusation of cheap grace is indeed cheap. You want real grace? Love thy neighbor, every one of them. Do you have any idea what life is like in San Pedro Sula?
- romaaeterna 7y ago
  What do you want me to say? That you're going to heaven by taking the bread out of poor black people's mouths in order to help Hondurans? I don't think it works that way. You aren't making any personal sacrifice whatsoever here. You're just hectoring people about neighbor-loving while you get rich and they get poorer. And if your interest in immigration is especially asylum law, I would be extremely worried about the people now deploying asylum fraud as a mass immigration wedge. It's going to wind up hurting the people who need it the most, and in fact already has.

masonic 7y ago

What makes Honduras/Guatemala/Salvador increasingly "unliveable" is (1) the flight of its most industrious people to the US, and (2) the resulting indebtedness of those smuggled to the gangs that smuggle them and arrange illegal, subminimum-wage, off-the-books employment for them. Persistence of the status quo flow of illegal entrants would doom the Triangle countries forever.