4 ms·

> America's immigration system gets more and more rickety It's completely insane that we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills and make it

> America's immigration system gets more and more rickety It's completely insane that we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills and make it incredibly difficult for the most valuable immigrants to get in.

nordsieck 2y ago
> It's completely insane It makes perfect sense when you understand the principal-agent problem and the current political landscape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...
- panick21_ 2y ago
  If the policy was the opposite you could also argue that. Its basically a fundamental problem of government, whatever the outcome. You have to be way more specific when you want to actually be insightful about the topic.
pjc50 2y ago
> we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills You don't? There's no visa for that category.
- teitoklien 2y ago
  you do, if you have sanctuary cities and entire states openly claiming they will not arrest people who break immigration law, it reduces the ability of USA to actually pass policies to take in more skilled immigrants who'll be a net benefit to America as a whole.
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Like the War On Drugs, the human cost, violence, and intrusiveness of enforcement is worse than the alleged problem. The much-vaunted localism of America lets states and cities decide that it's not a problem for them to allow people to live there, and they don't want to help the big bad Federal government disrupt that. (it's still no picnic being in that category, unable to register for social security or even take an internal flight)
    - teitoklien 2y ago
      World isnt some amazing la la land, I hope people who break laws to immigrate to America, will continue having the same sympathies towards you, when they become majority, and start dominating over you with their culture. It feels bad to say this, but to build a good well integrated state, integration is key, you cannot integrate people into a society, if you cannot even control the immigration rate. You can't just let people come to your country illegally, setup shop, and then tell everyone 'Cant do anything about it folks'. The human cost is paid in everything, the cost americans need to worry about, is whether the safety and future prospects of americans is safeguarded, not of people who break laws to illegally immigrate. It's like having sympathy for a next door neighbour child who is uncared for, and serving him/her food, while you're own child cries and starves to death. America isnt a country, with limitless resources, and enough food,housing,healthcare to feed everybody, stop treating it like it. Also, I'm not sure the people who arrive here illegally are as ready to integrate with America's culture, as some americans are ready to integrate with illegal migrants. I understand life is cruel, and maybe america should even do good things for it, but not at the cost of watching americans starve to death, veterans getting overdosed on the streets wishing after years of suffering to just die and be at peace, and watching them not being able to help them, because our resources are too stretched, Charity starts at home. Even the people who migrate illegally here, they'll help their own first, before even sparing one thought towards you. One needs to be realistic about certain things, it's perfectly doable to protect your own borders, Singapore does it against Malaysia, India does it against Pakistan and Bangladesh (big borders), China does it against neighbouring countries, most Asian countries can protect their own borders. Why can't america?
      - troyvit 2y ago
        > I hope people who break laws to immigrate to America, will continue having the same sympathies towards you, when they become majority, and start dominating over you with their culture. I don't know how many folks around me broke the law to immigrate to America, but whether or not they broke the law to come here they faced a lot of racism, classism, and suspicion. I've been in the same area for about 20 years, and if I'm not a minority in my neighborhood it's close. It's the immigrants who are kind to me, help me keep my house secure, and trade goods and services with me. They even help me practice my awful Spanish with them. So in my case, yeah it's working out. > America isnt a country, with limitless resources, and enough food,housing,healthcare to feed everybody, stop treating it like it. America doesn't have limitless resources, but with 5% of the world's population it uses 25% of the world's resources [1]. To anybody's eyes that's going to look limitless. I think simple laws of diffusion say that people are going to go where the resources are available. Whether it's politically tenable doesn't matter, this is human nature since we started walking. [1] https://www.re-sources.org/2020/05/online-lesson-material-world-part-1/ https://www.re-sources.org/2020/05/online-lesson-material-wo...
- fallingknife 2y ago
  They are allowed in without visas
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Not having a visa is the opposite of "allowed".
    - fallingknife 2y ago
      No. Being kicked out is the opposite of allowed.
sn41 2y ago
It's quite understandable, imho. Immigration is being allowed precisely for cheap labor, especially when citizens are not prepared to go through the extra hardship - for example, I remember reading that the fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore around 1 am, were all immigrants, all on duty at that hour. For specialized labor, there is always a question of possible espionage and back-channel tech transfer. This is not so much perhaps for India as opposed to other technological rivals, but it may be one of the considerations in the immigration policy being counterintuitive.
- pjc50 2y ago
  > fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore As an example of how strict immigration policy is, the crew were made to stay on the boat throughout, including while parts of the bridge were blown up.
  - axus 2y ago
    I'd inferred that it was the company keeping them there, after hearing stories like this: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.6002269/after-nearly-4-years-stranded-on-cargo-ship-in-egypt-a-syrian-crew-member-finally-goes-home-1.6002473 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-ed... This article goes into the actual reasons, the visas only came into play during the second month: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship-crew/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship... Basically the company would get in trouble if the crew left, and they are too cheap to hire replacements, so they threaten them.
  - qp11 2y ago
    pfft people who want to find a way around what anyone "allows" will do so. To desperate people rules dont matter. There are more than 50 countries right now standing with begging bowls outside the IMF cause their economies have no hope of growing without help. As long as that list has no hope of shrinking, people who live there and recognize that reality, are going to find ways to get out by hook or crook. Immigration is a symptom of growing global inequality. Without inequality reducing no rules or walls are going to stop the incoming waves.
nathan_compton 2y ago
I wouldn't defend america's immigration system (in my opinion the world should be borderless and you should be able to vote in any location where you can demonstrate that you've performed work for a wage or something like that), but if anyone should be allowed to seek labor by moving freely, it is the unskilled, who are already tremendously disadvantaged by globalization. Skilled labor is unlikely to be tremendously impoverished by being unable to move to the absolute optimal location. In other words, one could say its insane that we draw imaginary lines on paper and then confine human beings to those lines based on the accident of their birth location.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
  Those lines are not imaginary per se. It means that the people living within those imaginary lines have come together with similar ideals and unity, arrived by many years of co-operation, to bestow certain rights and privileges to their fellow neighbors. Those rights were paid in blood, sweat and tears. The reason people organized as tribes matters. Its part of our very nature. And those tribes also respected imaginary lines. Even animals respect some imaginary lines. Eventually, some may be accepted in the tribe. But no one would just walk in to the tribe. Its not how nature works.
  - nathan_compton 2y ago
    Hardly. The lines are basically drawn by aristocrats of one kind or another and the rest of us have to deal with it. They are expressions of power and very little else, and mostly not the power of the people. The rights paid for in blood, sweat, and tears, as you say, were wrenched from the hands of the kinds of people who draw borders and consist entirely of statements that are borderless assertions of the value of human beings, not citizens. You may be right that there is some kind of fundamental tribal mentality in human beings, but that doesn't mean that enshrining that reality in law or even nurturing it is morally right. The idea that borders benefit the common person better than, for example, a system which genuinely respected the dignity and right of human beings regardless of their geographical coincidences, is bullshit.
hindsightbias 2y ago
valuable immigrants are going to take my jerb and not flip my hamburger, pick the crops or mow my lawn.

nordsieck 2y ago

> It's completely insane It makes perfect sense when you understand the principal-agent problem and the current political landscape. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_proble...

panick21_ 2y ago
If the policy was the opposite you could also argue that. Its basically a fundamental problem of government, whatever the outcome. You have to be way more specific when you want to actually be insightful about the topic.

pjc50 2y ago

> we allow mass migration of people with no money and no skills You don't? There's no visa for that category.

teitoklien 2y ago
you do, if you have sanctuary cities and entire states openly claiming they will not arrest people who break immigration law, it reduces the ability of USA to actually pass policies to take in more skilled immigrants who'll be a net benefit to America as a whole.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Like the War On Drugs, the human cost, violence, and intrusiveness of enforcement is worse than the alleged problem. The much-vaunted localism of America lets states and cities decide that it's not a problem for them to allow people to live there, and they don't want to help the big bad Federal government disrupt that. (it's still no picnic being in that category, unable to register for social security or even take an internal flight)
  - teitoklien 2y ago
    World isnt some amazing la la land, I hope people who break laws to immigrate to America, will continue having the same sympathies towards you, when they become majority, and start dominating over you with their culture. It feels bad to say this, but to build a good well integrated state, integration is key, you cannot integrate people into a society, if you cannot even control the immigration rate. You can't just let people come to your country illegally, setup shop, and then tell everyone 'Cant do anything about it folks'. The human cost is paid in everything, the cost americans need to worry about, is whether the safety and future prospects of americans is safeguarded, not of people who break laws to illegally immigrate. It's like having sympathy for a next door neighbour child who is uncared for, and serving him/her food, while you're own child cries and starves to death. America isnt a country, with limitless resources, and enough food,housing,healthcare to feed everybody, stop treating it like it. Also, I'm not sure the people who arrive here illegally are as ready to integrate with America's culture, as some americans are ready to integrate with illegal migrants. I understand life is cruel, and maybe america should even do good things for it, but not at the cost of watching americans starve to death, veterans getting overdosed on the streets wishing after years of suffering to just die and be at peace, and watching them not being able to help them, because our resources are too stretched, Charity starts at home. Even the people who migrate illegally here, they'll help their own first, before even sparing one thought towards you. One needs to be realistic about certain things, it's perfectly doable to protect your own borders, Singapore does it against Malaysia, India does it against Pakistan and Bangladesh (big borders), China does it against neighbouring countries, most Asian countries can protect their own borders. Why can't america?
    - troyvit 2y ago
      > I hope people who break laws to immigrate to America, will continue having the same sympathies towards you, when they become majority, and start dominating over you with their culture. I don't know how many folks around me broke the law to immigrate to America, but whether or not they broke the law to come here they faced a lot of racism, classism, and suspicion. I've been in the same area for about 20 years, and if I'm not a minority in my neighborhood it's close. It's the immigrants who are kind to me, help me keep my house secure, and trade goods and services with me. They even help me practice my awful Spanish with them. So in my case, yeah it's working out. > America isnt a country, with limitless resources, and enough food,housing,healthcare to feed everybody, stop treating it like it. America doesn't have limitless resources, but with 5% of the world's population it uses 25% of the world's resources [1]. To anybody's eyes that's going to look limitless. I think simple laws of diffusion say that people are going to go where the resources are available. Whether it's politically tenable doesn't matter, this is human nature since we started walking. [1] https://www.re-sources.org/2020/05/online-lesson-material-world-part-1/ https://www.re-sources.org/2020/05/online-lesson-material-wo...
fallingknife 2y ago
They are allowed in without visas
- pjc50 2y ago
  Not having a visa is the opposite of "allowed".
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    No. Being kicked out is the opposite of allowed.

sn41 2y ago

It's quite understandable, imho. Immigration is being allowed precisely for cheap labor, especially when citizens are not prepared to go through the extra hardship - for example, I remember reading that the fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore around 1 am, were all immigrants, all on duty at that hour. For specialized labor, there is always a question of possible espionage and back-channel tech transfer. This is not so much perhaps for India as opposed to other technological rivals, but it may be one of the considerations in the immigration policy being counterintuitive.

pjc50 2y ago
> fatalities when the bridge fell in Baltimore As an example of how strict immigration policy is, the crew were made to stay on the boat throughout, including while parts of the bridge were blown up.
- axus 2y ago
  I'd inferred that it was the company keeping them there, after hearing stories like this: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-edition-1.6002269/after-nearly-4-years-stranded-on-cargo-ship-in-egypt-a-syrian-crew-member-finally-goes-home-1.6002473 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-monday-ed... This article goes into the actual reasons, the visas only came into play during the second month: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship-crew/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/18/us/baltimore-bridge-dali-ship... Basically the company would get in trouble if the crew left, and they are too cheap to hire replacements, so they threaten them.
- qp11 2y ago
  pfft people who want to find a way around what anyone "allows" will do so. To desperate people rules dont matter. There are more than 50 countries right now standing with begging bowls outside the IMF cause their economies have no hope of growing without help. As long as that list has no hope of shrinking, people who live there and recognize that reality, are going to find ways to get out by hook or crook. Immigration is a symptom of growing global inequality. Without inequality reducing no rules or walls are going to stop the incoming waves.

nathan_compton 2y ago

I wouldn't defend america's immigration system (in my opinion the world should be borderless and you should be able to vote in any location where you can demonstrate that you've performed work for a wage or something like that), but if anyone should be allowed to seek labor by moving freely, it is the unskilled, who are already tremendously disadvantaged by globalization. Skilled labor is unlikely to be tremendously impoverished by being unable to move to the absolute optimal location. In other words, one could say its insane that we draw imaginary lines on paper and then confine human beings to those lines based on the accident of their birth location.

IG_Semmelweiss 2y ago
Those lines are not imaginary per se. It means that the people living within those imaginary lines have come together with similar ideals and unity, arrived by many years of co-operation, to bestow certain rights and privileges to their fellow neighbors. Those rights were paid in blood, sweat and tears. The reason people organized as tribes matters. Its part of our very nature. And those tribes also respected imaginary lines. Even animals respect some imaginary lines. Eventually, some may be accepted in the tribe. But no one would just walk in to the tribe. Its not how nature works.
- nathan_compton 2y ago
  Hardly. The lines are basically drawn by aristocrats of one kind or another and the rest of us have to deal with it. They are expressions of power and very little else, and mostly not the power of the people. The rights paid for in blood, sweat, and tears, as you say, were wrenched from the hands of the kinds of people who draw borders and consist entirely of statements that are borderless assertions of the value of human beings, not citizens. You may be right that there is some kind of fundamental tribal mentality in human beings, but that doesn't mean that enshrining that reality in law or even nurturing it is morally right. The idea that borders benefit the common person better than, for example, a system which genuinely respected the dignity and right of human beings regardless of their geographical coincidences, is bullshit.

hindsightbias 2y ago

valuable immigrants are going to take my jerb and not flip my hamburger, pick the crops or mow my lawn.