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Have you seriously not gone through the thought exercise of why some thoughtful + well-informed people would oppose your opinion on the subject? (1) in previou

Have you seriously not gone through the thought exercise of why some thoughtful + well-informed people would oppose your opinion on the subject? (1) in previous centuries, the US accepted as many immigrants as could arrive “on Ellis Island” and it only took a few weeks. All of the immigration barriers that you overcame were added by American legislators many centuries after my ancestors came to America. I don’t view “illegal immigrants” any different than I viewed my own ancestors who came to America in the 1500s. (2) US law affords legal pathways to residency/ citizenship for refugees and political asylum claimants. Just because you used one slow legal workflow doesn’t mean you should look down on people who used a faster legal workflow. They aren’t “gaming” the system — they are using the fast lane that was installed purposefully. If anything, we should use the legislature to revisit the fast lane (the refugee and political asylum claims) (3) an infant didn’t have any volition in this situation. Maybe they were born here as an “anchor baby” (which the Trump Admin is trying to redefine as not-a-citizen, breaking with all of the jurisprudence). If they were pushed over the border by their parents or someone else, we have a duty to make sure their life is handled with care, not malice. (4) there are political and media interests in making “legal immigrants” like you hate other immigrants. It makes native born Americans feel like they have cover for their hatred of immigrants. You should sit with the thought experiment of whether it’s actually relevant to the conversation that you “spent years getting here the hard way” or whether the conversation would be more productive without it. (5) the reason the “immigration system is broken” is because there are multiple factions in America who can’t agree on what kind of changes to make to it. Famously Obama tried to force Congress to deal with it around 2013, but the “Gang of Eight” couldn’t come up with even broad guidelines for changes that both parties would agree to. There are simply too many people who have strong opinions and yet believe untrue things about American immigration. Are you perhaps in this category?

remarkEon 1y ago
Re point (5), the "gang of eight" bill would've been the de facto process (illegally entering, having children or marrying, attempting to bring family over via chain migration) the de jure one via advertising to the rest of the word that violating US immigration law does not matter. We ended up running an experiment over the course of the last 4 years to see what that looks like and the results are grim. >There are simply too many people who have strong opinions and yet believe untrue things about American immigration. You appear to be operating from a different premise than people who are skeptical of past efforts to "reform" immigration law. "Permanent legal mass migration" is not the bargain the country wants to make, and thus far every attempt to "reform" immigration operates from that initial premise.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  Our economy, ability to feed ourselves, and ability to sustain our population is fundamentally dependent on "Permanent legal mass migration."
  - throwaway48476 1y ago
    Wages are too low to incentivize investment in automating these jobs, precisely because of illegal immigration.
    - digitaltrees 1y ago
      What? China has dark factories now. Did their wages pass ours without anyone noticing? Please show your homework because the underlying logic seems exactly opposite of the facts.
      - throwaway48476 1y ago
        In some places Chinese labor is at price parity. However the reasons why China has dark factories is government investment and an abundance of mechatronics engineers. People build factories in China because all the other factories are in China just down the road. None of this contradicts my previous comment though. We don't invest in automation because we have cheap labor. China is an aging society with a shrinking workforce. Here we have cheap labor and offload the cost to the taxpayer. Illegal immigration is just another part of corporate welfare which is why socialists like Bernie sanders used to be against it.
        digitaltrees 1y ago
        Your counter argument clearly cuts against your initial argument. Low wages isn’t preventing automation. It’s lack of an ecosystem of similar suppliers, lack of highly trained talent and lack of government and market investment. Liberals aren’t against immigration because it is corporate welfare but because of the strain it places on the social safety net and effects on jobs but both of those could be overcome with a rational policy on special economic zones.

remarkEon 1y ago

Re point (5), the "gang of eight" bill would've been the de facto process (illegally entering, having children or marrying, attempting to bring family over via chain migration) the de jure one via advertising to the rest of the word that violating US immigration law does not matter. We ended up running an experiment over the course of the last 4 years to see what that looks like and the results are grim. >There are simply too many people who have strong opinions and yet believe untrue things about American immigration. You appear to be operating from a different premise than people who are skeptical of past efforts to "reform" immigration law. "Permanent legal mass migration" is not the bargain the country wants to make, and thus far every attempt to "reform" immigration operates from that initial premise.

BobaFloutist 1y ago
Our economy, ability to feed ourselves, and ability to sustain our population is fundamentally dependent on "Permanent legal mass migration."
- throwaway48476 1y ago
  Wages are too low to incentivize investment in automating these jobs, precisely because of illegal immigration.
  - digitaltrees 1y ago
    What? China has dark factories now. Did their wages pass ours without anyone noticing? Please show your homework because the underlying logic seems exactly opposite of the facts.
    - throwaway48476 1y ago
      In some places Chinese labor is at price parity. However the reasons why China has dark factories is government investment and an abundance of mechatronics engineers. People build factories in China because all the other factories are in China just down the road. None of this contradicts my previous comment though. We don't invest in automation because we have cheap labor. China is an aging society with a shrinking workforce. Here we have cheap labor and offload the cost to the taxpayer. Illegal immigration is just another part of corporate welfare which is why socialists like Bernie sanders used to be against it.
      - digitaltrees 1y ago
        Your counter argument clearly cuts against your initial argument. Low wages isn’t preventing automation. It’s lack of an ecosystem of similar suppliers, lack of highly trained talent and lack of government and market investment. Liberals aren’t against immigration because it is corporate welfare but because of the strain it places on the social safety net and effects on jobs but both of those could be overcome with a rational policy on special economic zones.