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Yes it does. The point of immigration law is to limit the total number of foreign people coming into the country, to maintain it within the nation's capacity fo

Yes it does. The point of immigration law is to limit the total number of foreign people coming into the country, to maintain it within the nation's capacity for americanizing immigrants and the economy's capacity to employ them. If you want to have immigration, it should be low enough so you're turning Indians or Guatemalans into Americans faster than they're turning America into India or Guatemala.[1] Ultimately, the fairest thing to do is to actually enforce the immigration laws by targeting companies that hire illegal-alien labor. That will reduce the incentive of people to immigrate illegally, and reduce the need for future deportations. [1] https://www.sup.org/books/economics-and-finance/culture-transplant https://www.sup.org/books/economics-and-finance/culture-tran... ("In The Culture Transplant, Garett Jones documents the cultural foundations of cross-country income differences, showing that immigrants import cultural attitudes from their homelands—toward saving, toward trust, and toward the role of government—that persist for decades, and likely for centuries, in their new national homes. Full assimilation in a generation or two, Jones reports, is a myth.").

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
> Yes it does. [paragraphs of stuff that don't reflect a need to raid factories in order to seize legal workers] No. It does not. Raiding factories of legal workers does not improve my life. Creating a state of persistent fear for legal residents - this also does not improve my life. It does however degrade the lives of legal residents and citizens I know and care about.
- rayiner 1y ago
  > Raiding factories of legal workers does not improve my life. They're illegal workers who broke the law not only by immigrating illegally, but by using stolen identification to get past the federal employment verification system: "In his experience, E-Verify was good at checking numbers, not people. The government maintained that Glenn Valley employees had been using IDs that were stolen. One number belonged to a nursing student in Missouri, who lost her student loans as a result of the identity theft. Another came from a disabled man in Texas, who could no longer get his medications." And if the article is correct in suggesting that illegal workers are getting past the eVerify system, that suggests that identity theft and identity fraud is a much bigger part of the issue than anyone realized previously.
  - WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
    > They're illegal workers who broke the law not only by immigrating illegally, but by using stolen identification to get past the federal employment verification system. So, some boundaries here to establish perspective. Since the mandate of seizing and exporting 3000 people/day, we've had a series of disingenuous and patently false statements from the relevant USG agencies. Further, the acts committed in this pursuit have exhibited extreme bad will by this administration and commonly disregard constitutional boundaries. If this isn't a baseline you accept as factual and useful to the discussion, there's little point in continuing beyond this point. If you do not see these violations as harmful to the integrity to rule of law and to the trustworthiness of US Gov's authority, there is little point in continuing this conversation. If you feel current US Gov justifications are trustworthy by default, we are likely at an irreconcilable point. That said, we know US Gov's verification system validated these workers. US Gov justifies seizing these workers based on fraudulent identities - after saying they are valid. The trustworthiness of the latter claim isn't well established given the agencies' recent history. Given it's most recently earned reputation, it is especially likely that the claims of false identity are at least partially false and probably trend higher. If you do not see this as a reasonable supposition, I believe we are done here.
  - mcphage 1y ago
    > They're illegal workers who broke the law not only by immigrating illegally This being a misdemeanor, on par with speeding—something I’m sure none of us have ever done today.
    - rayiner 1y ago
      Illegal entry, by itself, is not even a misdemeanor. But illegal aliens typically break numerous other laws to obtain employment and evade detection: https://cis.org/Report/Myth-Otherwise-LawAbiding-Illegal-Alien https://cis.org/Report/Myth-Otherwise-LawAbiding-Illegal-Ali.... E.g. using false identification to evade eVerify probably can be charged as a felony under 18 USC 1028 or 18 USC 1001. I’d you work with a smuggler or cartel to gain entry, you can be charged with felonies under conspiracy laws. And nobody complies with 8 USC 1302, which requires aliens to register. That’s punishable by up to six months in prison. Ordinary speeding can’t carry jail time at least here in Maryland.
hellisothers 1y ago
I grew up in the Midwest and moved to the west coast for college, my opinions on all the things you listed differ wildly from a lot of my family. Is that good or bad? Are they more or less American than I am? What even would it mean to “fully assimilate”, why is that a goal?
- rayiner 1y ago
  Your point brings up two issues: (1) does American culture exist? and (2) does that culture matter substantively? The answer to both is "yes." As to (1), people have varied attitudes in every society, but they cluster around distinctive averages. And the same set of basic attitudes can lead to different specific opinions depending on priorities. Conversely, people having different attitudes can converge on the same opinion for different reasons. It's hard for Americans to understand just how "foreign" foreign people are. You don't get much insight by being a tourist, or interacting with assimilated foreign elites at arm's length in school or the workforce. As a counter-example to your's, my wife and I have almost the same opinions, but are culturally opposites. I'm quite obviously Bangladeshi while my wife is quite obviously a pre-Revolutionary War British American whose family settled Oregon during the wagon-trail era. We didn't even realize how different we were until we had kids and my parents moved nearby, and we had to navigate things like Desi face-saving culture versus Oregonian bluntness, or how our cultures have completely different norms for how kids relate to parents. And I grew up in Virginia surrounded by Anglos. I didn't even have an Italian American friend until my 30s. You wouldn't even understand half the stuff my mom (who moved here from Bangladesh at 40) thinks. She's a Trump voter--one of the 50% of naturalized citizens who voted for him last year--who is currently mad at Trump over Palestine, and associates "LGBT" with "rednecks." That seems random, but it follows straightforwardly from her culture. (I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decode it.) As to (2), these differences matter. Garret Jones's book, linked above, gets into this, addressing cultural differences in things like savings rate and how it affects the economy. As with any social issue, it's hard to prove definitively. But folks like Lee Kuan Yew believed that culture played a huge role in national social and economic development. To give a concrete example, my dad wanted my brother to go back to school to get his MBA, even though he was on track to become managing director at a bulge bracket investment bank (and ultimately did so). Why? Desi culture has an extreme focus on education and credentials compared to American culture. That's good at the individual level--in that it allows desis to rise to the top in a credential-oriented society. But that attitude also disincentivizes risk-taking and encourages excessive deference to people because of the degrees they have rather than their proven track record. So it would be bad of Silicon Valley became less American and more south asian in that regard. And the fact that you do see south asian entrepreneurs nonetheless is a good example of how assimilation into american culture is a good thing. I will also point out that, assuming you're a left-leaning American, the importation of foreign attitudes also is a reason for changes in the right wing of the country's politics. Maybe you didn't like Anglo Republicans like Romney or McConnell, but you probably like even less the kinds of folks who can win a majority in a post-Anglo America. The kind of strong-men right wingers who can win elections in Latin America are the same kind of people who can win elections in an increasingly Latinized U.S.

WarOnPrivacy 1y ago

> Yes it does. [paragraphs of stuff that don't reflect a need to raid factories in order to seize legal workers] No. It does not. Raiding factories of legal workers does not improve my life. Creating a state of persistent fear for legal residents - this also does not improve my life. It does however degrade the lives of legal residents and citizens I know and care about.

rayiner 1y ago
> Raiding factories of legal workers does not improve my life. They're illegal workers who broke the law not only by immigrating illegally, but by using stolen identification to get past the federal employment verification system: "In his experience, E-Verify was good at checking numbers, not people. The government maintained that Glenn Valley employees had been using IDs that were stolen. One number belonged to a nursing student in Missouri, who lost her student loans as a result of the identity theft. Another came from a disabled man in Texas, who could no longer get his medications." And if the article is correct in suggesting that illegal workers are getting past the eVerify system, that suggests that identity theft and identity fraud is a much bigger part of the issue than anyone realized previously.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y ago
  > They're illegal workers who broke the law not only by immigrating illegally, but by using stolen identification to get past the federal employment verification system. So, some boundaries here to establish perspective. Since the mandate of seizing and exporting 3000 people/day, we've had a series of disingenuous and patently false statements from the relevant USG agencies. Further, the acts committed in this pursuit have exhibited extreme bad will by this administration and commonly disregard constitutional boundaries. If this isn't a baseline you accept as factual and useful to the discussion, there's little point in continuing beyond this point. If you do not see these violations as harmful to the integrity to rule of law and to the trustworthiness of US Gov's authority, there is little point in continuing this conversation. If you feel current US Gov justifications are trustworthy by default, we are likely at an irreconcilable point. That said, we know US Gov's verification system validated these workers. US Gov justifies seizing these workers based on fraudulent identities - after saying they are valid. The trustworthiness of the latter claim isn't well established given the agencies' recent history. Given it's most recently earned reputation, it is especially likely that the claims of false identity are at least partially false and probably trend higher. If you do not see this as a reasonable supposition, I believe we are done here.
- mcphage 1y ago
  > They're illegal workers who broke the law not only by immigrating illegally This being a misdemeanor, on par with speeding—something I’m sure none of us have ever done today.
  - rayiner 1y ago
    Illegal entry, by itself, is not even a misdemeanor. But illegal aliens typically break numerous other laws to obtain employment and evade detection: https://cis.org/Report/Myth-Otherwise-LawAbiding-Illegal-Alien https://cis.org/Report/Myth-Otherwise-LawAbiding-Illegal-Ali.... E.g. using false identification to evade eVerify probably can be charged as a felony under 18 USC 1028 or 18 USC 1001. I’d you work with a smuggler or cartel to gain entry, you can be charged with felonies under conspiracy laws. And nobody complies with 8 USC 1302, which requires aliens to register. That’s punishable by up to six months in prison. Ordinary speeding can’t carry jail time at least here in Maryland.

hellisothers 1y ago

I grew up in the Midwest and moved to the west coast for college, my opinions on all the things you listed differ wildly from a lot of my family. Is that good or bad? Are they more or less American than I am? What even would it mean to “fully assimilate”, why is that a goal?

rayiner 1y ago
Your point brings up two issues: (1) does American culture exist? and (2) does that culture matter substantively? The answer to both is "yes." As to (1), people have varied attitudes in every society, but they cluster around distinctive averages. And the same set of basic attitudes can lead to different specific opinions depending on priorities. Conversely, people having different attitudes can converge on the same opinion for different reasons. It's hard for Americans to understand just how "foreign" foreign people are. You don't get much insight by being a tourist, or interacting with assimilated foreign elites at arm's length in school or the workforce. As a counter-example to your's, my wife and I have almost the same opinions, but are culturally opposites. I'm quite obviously Bangladeshi while my wife is quite obviously a pre-Revolutionary War British American whose family settled Oregon during the wagon-trail era. We didn't even realize how different we were until we had kids and my parents moved nearby, and we had to navigate things like Desi face-saving culture versus Oregonian bluntness, or how our cultures have completely different norms for how kids relate to parents. And I grew up in Virginia surrounded by Anglos. I didn't even have an Italian American friend until my 30s. You wouldn't even understand half the stuff my mom (who moved here from Bangladesh at 40) thinks. She's a Trump voter--one of the 50% of naturalized citizens who voted for him last year--who is currently mad at Trump over Palestine, and associates "LGBT" with "rednecks." That seems random, but it follows straightforwardly from her culture. (I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to decode it.) As to (2), these differences matter. Garret Jones's book, linked above, gets into this, addressing cultural differences in things like savings rate and how it affects the economy. As with any social issue, it's hard to prove definitively. But folks like Lee Kuan Yew believed that culture played a huge role in national social and economic development. To give a concrete example, my dad wanted my brother to go back to school to get his MBA, even though he was on track to become managing director at a bulge bracket investment bank (and ultimately did so). Why? Desi culture has an extreme focus on education and credentials compared to American culture. That's good at the individual level--in that it allows desis to rise to the top in a credential-oriented society. But that attitude also disincentivizes risk-taking and encourages excessive deference to people because of the degrees they have rather than their proven track record. So it would be bad of Silicon Valley became less American and more south asian in that regard. And the fact that you do see south asian entrepreneurs nonetheless is a good example of how assimilation into american culture is a good thing. I will also point out that, assuming you're a left-leaning American, the importation of foreign attitudes also is a reason for changes in the right wing of the country's politics. Maybe you didn't like Anglo Republicans like Romney or McConnell, but you probably like even less the kinds of folks who can win a majority in a post-Anglo America. The kind of strong-men right wingers who can win elections in Latin America are the same kind of people who can win elections in an increasingly Latinized U.S.