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Depends on the job. There are physically demanding low paying work in agriculture for instance that would be challenging to fill at any wage that wouldn't resu

Depends on the job. There are physically demanding low paying work in agriculture for instance that would be challenging to fill at any wage that wouldn't result in sticker shock down the line. Americans don't want to destroy their back 12 hours a day for a short term job that will need a only a fraction of the labor after harvest is done. Many other jobs could profitably be automated away or filled by Americans. I would prefer we accept immigrants because it's the right thing to do and because long term those people and their children will enrich and add value to our society rather than hoping it will do something about the help wanted signs in the service industry.

melling 3y ago
The United States needs a million electricians https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/20/us-electricians-shortage-recruit-women https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/20/us-elect... We have the discussion on HN about how we need skilled workers. It does make the news https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1142817339/america-needs-carpenters-and-plumbers-try-telling-that-to-gen-z https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1142817339/america-needs-carp...
- mantas 3y ago
  Is US willing to pay cushy salaries and provide education to those electricians? Supply and demand and all that jazz.
doublespanner 3y ago
What ethical framework supports accepting immigration as the "right thing to do"?
- applepizza 3y ago
  [dead]
- foogazi 3y ago
  “ Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus
rayiner 3y ago
[flagged]
- ethbr1 3y ago
  As a proponent, I'd say it's founded in the basis that the United States is literally a nation of immigrants. Native Americans are ~3% of the current US population. It's hard to muster up conviction that US citizens are any more deserving of US opportunity than anyone else willing to work for it.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    That’s a retcon ginned up in the 20th century to assimilate Irish and Italian immigrants. The US was established by colonizers and settlers and enslaved people, not immigrants. Colonizers and settlers displace an existing population and create a new society in that place. In 1790, over 90% of the white American population was British ancestry. My wife’s family, which populated Oregon in the 1800s, were settlers, not immigrants. My family, which came to Virginia in the 1980s, are immigrants. It’s an important distinction. Much of the immigration of the 1800s was similarly settlement, as German and Northern European immigrants pushed west along with British settlers and established their own communities there. Mass immigration in the modern sense, such as Italian immigration to existing communities, happened long after the nation was established.
    - JamisonM 3y ago
      > It’s an important distinction. Is it? New York City grew from 60,000-ish to 3 million from 1800 to 1900 - did a person from Europe that move to New York city in 1816 or 1876 immigrate or settle? They were not getting 40 acre land grants!
      - rayiner 3y ago
        That’s a fair point. New Amsterdam is a good example of a place that has long been a “city of immigrants.” But I’d submit that it’s not representative of America, and is in fact the opposite of the America Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about.

melling 3y ago

The United States needs a million electricians https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/20/us-electricians-shortage-recruit-women https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/20/us-elect... We have the discussion on HN about how we need skilled workers. It does make the news https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1142817339/america-needs-carpenters-and-plumbers-try-telling-that-to-gen-z https://www.npr.org/2023/01/05/1142817339/america-needs-carp...

mantas 3y ago
Is US willing to pay cushy salaries and provide education to those electricians? Supply and demand and all that jazz.

doublespanner 3y ago

What ethical framework supports accepting immigration as the "right thing to do"?

applepizza 3y ago
[dead]
foogazi 3y ago
“ Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

rayiner 3y ago

[flagged]

ethbr1 3y ago
As a proponent, I'd say it's founded in the basis that the United States is literally a nation of immigrants. Native Americans are ~3% of the current US population. It's hard to muster up conviction that US citizens are any more deserving of US opportunity than anyone else willing to work for it.
- rayiner 3y ago
  That’s a retcon ginned up in the 20th century to assimilate Irish and Italian immigrants. The US was established by colonizers and settlers and enslaved people, not immigrants. Colonizers and settlers displace an existing population and create a new society in that place. In 1790, over 90% of the white American population was British ancestry. My wife’s family, which populated Oregon in the 1800s, were settlers, not immigrants. My family, which came to Virginia in the 1980s, are immigrants. It’s an important distinction. Much of the immigration of the 1800s was similarly settlement, as German and Northern European immigrants pushed west along with British settlers and established their own communities there. Mass immigration in the modern sense, such as Italian immigration to existing communities, happened long after the nation was established.
  - JamisonM 3y ago
    > It’s an important distinction. Is it? New York City grew from 60,000-ish to 3 million from 1800 to 1900 - did a person from Europe that move to New York city in 1816 or 1876 immigrate or settle? They were not getting 40 acre land grants!
    - rayiner 3y ago
      That’s a fair point. New Amsterdam is a good example of a place that has long been a “city of immigrants.” But I’d submit that it’s not representative of America, and is in fact the opposite of the America Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about.