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Conclusion: "The administration should loosen all the restrictions that it has imposed above and beyond what Congress has required, and Congress should overhaul

Conclusion: "The administration should loosen all the restrictions that it has imposed above and beyond what Congress has required, and Congress should overhaul the system to open legal immigration for any person willing to work to contribute to the success of the United States." In other words, we should "promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come," according to the 2018 survey cited. Left out of the article is an explanation for why the US would be better off it that were to happen.

tombert 2y ago
The Cato institute has actually written a lot of stuff about why they believe that admitting in more immigrants would be beneficial to the US. A quick search came up with this [1], but they've written a lot more. You don't have to agree with them, but I'm just saying that they actually have done a fair bit of work in this field and they have given some amount of justification to why they hold these views. [1] https://www.cato.org/testimony/unlocking-americas-potential-how-immigration-fuels-economic-growth-our-competitive https://www.cato.org/testimony/unlocking-americas-potential-...
dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
All immigration is GDP additive and increases the market for goods and tax income for governments. It offsets low birth rates. If there is a labor shortage it will reduce inflation. Of course there many considerations but generally it's a good thing.
- jalapenos 2y ago
  It's a good thing for those classes of people you just mentioned (governments, business owners). For everyone else it's just increased competition.
  - tombert 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's a pretty reductive take, and if you believe that then you should be ok with decreasing birth rates as well? Every baby born today could be competition for you or your kids in ~16-30 years.
    - quantified 2y ago
      I'll bite. Quality of life in terms of natural resources available only goes down with more people. I'd be much happier with maybe 25% of current population level.
      - tombert 2y ago
        That's fair enough, but it would require a pretty radical restructure of our economy to do that. Most of our economy sort of depends on a growing population; this has been an issue with Japan (and their slowly-shrinking and aging population) for quite awhile. Eventually, of course, we will all have to have a neutral or negative population growth rate, but I have to believe that there's an advantage to being the last country with a growing population, though I don't have data to back that up off the top of my head.
        quantified 2y ago
        Certainly on all counts there. And enough people believe explicitly in demographic competition to make fair leveling and reduction a problem. But this is what leads to long-term sustainability.
      - dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
        Your comment is a common anti-immigrant trope: we're full/out of water/out of land/out of X! Where there are shortages why should the solutions be focused on restricting immigration? Should people having children also be penalized?
        quantified 2y ago
        I didn't say penalized. I think the same is true for everyone worldwide. We're not out of anything. Plenty of room to cram more in. You don't need high standards for clean water, you can tolerate some sewage and dissolved heavy metals. You don't need more than a 10x15x7-ft box to live in with a bathroom at the end of the hall. You definitely never need to have solitude anywhere for your enjoyment, you can be in a crowd of thousands whenever you are awake. You'll live. I'd live too, but I'd curse the prior generations that left it this way. But we're not far evolved from chimpanzees and we will grow until we collapse.
  - JackFr 2y ago
    The business owners don’t get rich from the reduced wages, the consumers do.
    - quantified 2y ago
      Only if the consumers are independently wealthy. Ask any business owner if they will make more money with reducing their workforce wages.
    - jalapenos 2y ago
      That was a solid chuckle, thank you
  - dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
    Hardly, they're also customers and employers. Also governments are the people, they spend taxes for their benefit.
  - financetechbro 2y ago
    Competition in the context of capitalism is considered a feature and not a bug
- afpx 2y ago
  Given the great benefits, I wonder why there is no country on Earth that has open immigration.
brailsafe 2y ago
> In other words, we should "promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come," according to the 2018 survey. Seems like an alarmist and selective pull. There's a difference between having a more broadly viable path for legal immigration and instantly admitting anyone who filled out a survey. The context was just making a comparison to frame a previously established inaccurate comparison with other countries, by hypothetically inviting everyone. > If all 32 million immigrants who attempted the U.S. process in 2018 were added to the U.S. population, it would only bring the immigrant share of the U.S. population to 22 percent—in line with Canada (21 percent). The only way to rival countries like New Zealand (28 percent), Switzerland (29 percent), and Australia (30 percent) would be to promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come. On a more reasonable time horizon for natural inflows that accounted for the population growth of U.S.-born Americans, that scale would also be insufficient.
legitster 2y ago
We don't ask of every baby that is being born in the US how they will make the country better. But if given the option to bring in a fully grown adult, who already saves us the cost of an education, is of prime working age, and wants to be in this country, we suddenly care?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  When every US citizen who wants a job in the US has one, one they can live off of with a living wage, sure, it’s up for a conversation (when legitimate labor shortages exist vs faux shortages leveraged as labor cost controls). Why am I going to support immigration that drives down wages for capital returns? Because it makes “the country” more wealthy by making a select few wealthier? Ineffective policy imho. I am never going to be super wealthy, so why would I advocate for such policy? I will always be closer to a minimum wage worker. Some may call the rhetoric “class consciousness”; I think it’s simply being macro economically rational.
  - legitster 2y ago
    By that logic we should restrict the number of children being born. But the growth of our country from a population of 50 million to 300 million did not result in a job loss of 250 million jobs. If anything, immigrants create many more jobs than they take. The deadweight to an economy is it's non-working population (retirees, children) so an influx of young, working families increases wages overall for natives.
    - programjames 2y ago
      I mean, you've just invented eugenics. Restrict the number of children being born that would not help the economy out. The government did do this once upon a time, but there are tradeoffs like riots you have to take into account. The difference between immigrants and babies is the immigrants can't riot within the US, so the US has no need to cater to their desires. However, immigrants that create more jobs than they take, or raise wages and innovation do have a pretty easy time immigrating to the US (e.g. investor and o1/e1 visas).
TMWNN 2y ago
> Left out of the article is an explanation for why the US would be better off it that were to happen. Cato is also the source of the perpetually reposted chart that similarly asserts that the single most valuable credential on Earth—one which provides full employment and financial access to the world's largest economy, consular aid from the world's largest diplomatic corps, protection from the world's most powerful military—ought to be easy to get for anyone regardless of background, qualifications, or willingness to follow instructions. (Inb4 "It costs thousands of dollars to naturalize!" and "It takes years to become a citizen!" Again, read the above. There is nothing in the US Constitution or the UN Declaration of Human Rights or the holy book of your choice that says that the process of becoming the citizen of any country ought to be anything other than lengthy and demanding. A process which 700,000 billionaire super-geniuses <https://www.uscis.gov/archive/archive-news/naturalization-fact-sheet https://www.uscis.gov/archive/archive-news/naturalization-fa...>[1] are nonetheless able to follow each year for US citizenship, mind you. (There's also a process for having the fee waived <https://www.us-immigration.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-apply-for-us-citizenship/ https://www.us-immigration.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to...> if you can't afford it.) Still don't like it? Feel free to try your luck in Switzerland, which requires a mere ten years of residency <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_nationality_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_nationality_law> in country. [1] Including yours truly—who confesses to being a super-genius, if not yet a billionaire—once upon a time
dangus 2y ago
Maybe it would be better to explain why the US would be better off with a declining population? Because that’s the status quo if immigration were to be cut off. On top of that, US economy depends way more deeply on undocumented or migrant labor than most people realize. Good luck getting strawberries or a new roof on your house without immigrants. I say the US is uniquely well-adjusted to integrating immigrants compared to most other countries and should effectively make its borders open with an instant/automatic documentation process. Get immigrants and migrants out of the under the table cash economy and make them citizens or something close to it ASAP. Of course Republicans act like immigrants are a bunch of freeloaders despite the US literally denying basic needs like healthcare to you unless your employer gives it to you. Even the most idyllic interpretation of this American Dream involves very hard work. You literally can’t survive in the US without work, the US system really doesn’t allow freeloading. There’s no such thing as dawdling around in free college forever or collecting inflated welfare checks and living large off the government’s dime in the US. Alternatively, perhaps we should explain why immigration should be disallowed in the status quo where the occupants of America stole the land. My ancestors stole this land from its precious inhabitants, who am I to say no one else is welcome?

tombert 2y ago

The Cato institute has actually written a lot of stuff about why they believe that admitting in more immigrants would be beneficial to the US. A quick search came up with this [1], but they've written a lot more. You don't have to agree with them, but I'm just saying that they actually have done a fair bit of work in this field and they have given some amount of justification to why they hold these views. [1] https://www.cato.org/testimony/unlocking-americas-potential-how-immigration-fuels-economic-growth-our-competitive https://www.cato.org/testimony/unlocking-americas-potential-...

dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago

All immigration is GDP additive and increases the market for goods and tax income for governments. It offsets low birth rates. If there is a labor shortage it will reduce inflation. Of course there many considerations but generally it's a good thing.

jalapenos 2y ago
It's a good thing for those classes of people you just mentioned (governments, business owners). For everyone else it's just increased competition.
- tombert 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's a pretty reductive take, and if you believe that then you should be ok with decreasing birth rates as well? Every baby born today could be competition for you or your kids in ~16-30 years.
  - quantified 2y ago
    I'll bite. Quality of life in terms of natural resources available only goes down with more people. I'd be much happier with maybe 25% of current population level.
    - tombert 2y ago
      That's fair enough, but it would require a pretty radical restructure of our economy to do that. Most of our economy sort of depends on a growing population; this has been an issue with Japan (and their slowly-shrinking and aging population) for quite awhile. Eventually, of course, we will all have to have a neutral or negative population growth rate, but I have to believe that there's an advantage to being the last country with a growing population, though I don't have data to back that up off the top of my head.
      - quantified 2y ago
        Certainly on all counts there. And enough people believe explicitly in demographic competition to make fair leveling and reduction a problem. But this is what leads to long-term sustainability.
    - dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
      Your comment is a common anti-immigrant trope: we're full/out of water/out of land/out of X! Where there are shortages why should the solutions be focused on restricting immigration? Should people having children also be penalized?
      - quantified 2y ago
        I didn't say penalized. I think the same is true for everyone worldwide. We're not out of anything. Plenty of room to cram more in. You don't need high standards for clean water, you can tolerate some sewage and dissolved heavy metals. You don't need more than a 10x15x7-ft box to live in with a bathroom at the end of the hall. You definitely never need to have solitude anywhere for your enjoyment, you can be in a crowd of thousands whenever you are awake. You'll live. I'd live too, but I'd curse the prior generations that left it this way. But we're not far evolved from chimpanzees and we will grow until we collapse.
- JackFr 2y ago
  The business owners don’t get rich from the reduced wages, the consumers do.
  - quantified 2y ago
    Only if the consumers are independently wealthy. Ask any business owner if they will make more money with reducing their workforce wages.
  - jalapenos 2y ago
    That was a solid chuckle, thank you
- dkjaudyeqooe 2y ago
  Hardly, they're also customers and employers. Also governments are the people, they spend taxes for their benefit.
- financetechbro 2y ago
  Competition in the context of capitalism is considered a feature and not a bug
afpx 2y ago
Given the great benefits, I wonder why there is no country on Earth that has open immigration.

brailsafe 2y ago

> In other words, we should "promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come," according to the 2018 survey. Seems like an alarmist and selective pull. There's a difference between having a more broadly viable path for legal immigration and instantly admitting anyone who filled out a survey. The context was just making a comparison to frame a previously established inaccurate comparison with other countries, by hypothetically inviting everyone. > If all 32 million immigrants who attempted the U.S. process in 2018 were added to the U.S. population, it would only bring the immigrant share of the U.S. population to 22 percent—in line with Canada (21 percent). The only way to rival countries like New Zealand (28 percent), Switzerland (29 percent), and Australia (30 percent) would be to promptly admit a majority of the 158 million who told Gallup that they would want to come. On a more reasonable time horizon for natural inflows that accounted for the population growth of U.S.-born Americans, that scale would also be insufficient.

legitster 2y ago

We don't ask of every baby that is being born in the US how they will make the country better. But if given the option to bring in a fully grown adult, who already saves us the cost of an education, is of prime working age, and wants to be in this country, we suddenly care?

toomuchtodo 2y ago
When every US citizen who wants a job in the US has one, one they can live off of with a living wage, sure, it’s up for a conversation (when legitimate labor shortages exist vs faux shortages leveraged as labor cost controls). Why am I going to support immigration that drives down wages for capital returns? Because it makes “the country” more wealthy by making a select few wealthier? Ineffective policy imho. I am never going to be super wealthy, so why would I advocate for such policy? I will always be closer to a minimum wage worker. Some may call the rhetoric “class consciousness”; I think it’s simply being macro economically rational.
- legitster 2y ago
  By that logic we should restrict the number of children being born. But the growth of our country from a population of 50 million to 300 million did not result in a job loss of 250 million jobs. If anything, immigrants create many more jobs than they take. The deadweight to an economy is it's non-working population (retirees, children) so an influx of young, working families increases wages overall for natives.
  - programjames 2y ago
    I mean, you've just invented eugenics. Restrict the number of children being born that would not help the economy out. The government did do this once upon a time, but there are tradeoffs like riots you have to take into account. The difference between immigrants and babies is the immigrants can't riot within the US, so the US has no need to cater to their desires. However, immigrants that create more jobs than they take, or raise wages and innovation do have a pretty easy time immigrating to the US (e.g. investor and o1/e1 visas).

TMWNN 2y ago

> Left out of the article is an explanation for why the US would be better off it that were to happen. Cato is also the source of the perpetually reposted chart that similarly asserts that the single most valuable credential on Earth—one which provides full employment and financial access to the world's largest economy, consular aid from the world's largest diplomatic corps, protection from the world's most powerful military—ought to be easy to get for anyone regardless of background, qualifications, or willingness to follow instructions. (Inb4 "It costs thousands of dollars to naturalize!" and "It takes years to become a citizen!" Again, read the above. There is nothing in the US Constitution or the UN Declaration of Human Rights or the holy book of your choice that says that the process of becoming the citizen of any country ought to be anything other than lengthy and demanding. A process which 700,000 billionaire super-geniuses <https://www.uscis.gov/archive/archive-news/naturalization-fact-sheet https://www.uscis.gov/archive/archive-news/naturalization-fa...>[1] are nonetheless able to follow each year for US citizenship, mind you. (There's also a process for having the fee waived <https://www.us-immigration.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-apply-for-us-citizenship/ https://www.us-immigration.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to...> if you can't afford it.) Still don't like it? Feel free to try your luck in Switzerland, which requires a mere ten years of residency <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_nationality_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_nationality_law> in country. [1] Including yours truly—who confesses to being a super-genius, if not yet a billionaire—once upon a time

dangus 2y ago

Maybe it would be better to explain why the US would be better off with a declining population? Because that’s the status quo if immigration were to be cut off. On top of that, US economy depends way more deeply on undocumented or migrant labor than most people realize. Good luck getting strawberries or a new roof on your house without immigrants. I say the US is uniquely well-adjusted to integrating immigrants compared to most other countries and should effectively make its borders open with an instant/automatic documentation process. Get immigrants and migrants out of the under the table cash economy and make them citizens or something close to it ASAP. Of course Republicans act like immigrants are a bunch of freeloaders despite the US literally denying basic needs like healthcare to you unless your employer gives it to you. Even the most idyllic interpretation of this American Dream involves very hard work. You literally can’t survive in the US without work, the US system really doesn’t allow freeloading. There’s no such thing as dawdling around in free college forever or collecting inflated welfare checks and living large off the government’s dime in the US. Alternatively, perhaps we should explain why immigration should be disallowed in the status quo where the occupants of America stole the land. My ancestors stole this land from its precious inhabitants, who am I to say no one else is welcome?