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I don't understand why we even give the right an opportunity to speak on immigration. Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving inc

I don't understand why we even give the right an opportunity to speak on immigration. Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? I understand that there may be around 5% of people who are genuinely trying to escape dictatorships, but if 95% are just gaming the system, it's going to look very bad.

balarjin 1mo ago
> Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? Illegal immigrants are a source of cheap labor. Business interests tell politicians that without a pool of cheap workers, costs will go up, voters will feel inflation, and the politicians will get the blame. The overall cost is not low. Some illegal immigrants get benefits. Some illegal immigrants commit crimes. Almost all illegal immigrants will use the healthcare system eventually. But those costs are not seen by the businesses that push illegal immigration.
- hn_acker 1mo ago
  > The overall cost is not low. Some illegal immigrants get benefits. > But those costs are not seen by the businesses that push illegal immigration. Do you have a source about the cost? As of 2023, noncitizen immigrants generally and illegal immigrants specifically were a net positive to fiscal burden [1]: > Illegal noncitizens were only somewhat less fiscally positive per capita than noncitizens generally, and they likely reduced the deficit by at least $1.7 trillion from 1994 to 2023. Illegal immigrants of all educational attainments are also likely to have paid more in taxes than they received in government benefits. Although we adopt simple assumptions, it is difficult to arrive at a conclusion significantly different from the one below. Even if illegal immigrants used benefits at the exact same rate as all noncitizens, they would still be, on average, fiscally beneficial to the United States—both by reducing the debt in real terms and by lowering debt-to-GDP. > Almost all illegal immigrants will use the healthcare system eventually. If by almost all you mean that most illegal immigrants get pathways to permanent residence/citizenship (unclear to me whether that's true), it's not very relevant unless you propose that after becoming legal residents illegal immigrants burden the economy/budget more than always-legal residents do. Otherwise, I would wonder whether the national birth rate issue [2] is as urgent as I've heard. [1] https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-government-budgets-1994-2023#why-illegal-immigrants-were-fiscally-positive https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-g... [2] https://phys.org/news/2026-06-birth-declining-world.html https://phys.org/news/2026-06-birth-declining-world.html
majorchord 1mo ago
> I don't understand why we even give the right an opportunity to speak on immigration "People I disagree with should not have a right to speak" I don't know about you, but to me this sounds exactly like the type of fascist rhetoric everyone warns about.
- customguy 1mo ago
  Giving them an opportunity to speak on immigration by handling it so badly. If I don't put out a fire, you can come along and suggest pouring kerosene on it, and if I handle shit badly enough, people might say hey, why not. But if I put the fire out while you're still a toddler, what can you do? Suggest to start a fire and pour kerosene on it? > to me this sounds exactly like the type of fascist rhetoric everyone warns about Well going by what you just did, I would have to guess you would say this about just about anything except fascist rhetoric. To try to twist something to harmless and banally true as the above into some sinister fascist ideology, while shrugging off people calling the Holocaust a "Fliegenschiss", who plan to abolish education about that time, does have a Gschmäckle.
  - majorchord 1mo ago
    What is harmless about telling people they shouldn't have a right to speak?
    - customguy 1mo ago
      Nobody said that, as I just explained to you. You putting words into the mouth of others is not you speaking, it's you making noises to drown out the speech of others. So fuck this pretense of caring for free speech. You are what you do.
- lelanthran 1mo ago
  You really should have read the rest of that extremely short comment.
- general1465 1mo ago
  You have completely misread what he is saying. See Denmark - mainstream parties started to be harder on immigration and all the right wing parties in Denmark essentially evaporated.
tim333 1mo ago
In the UK I think the issue is the European Court of Human Rights say you can't send them back and so it costs the taxpayer about £200k a head to house and feed them. The answer is probably to leave the court and send them back but only Reform + Reclaim I think are pitching that. It's kind of a shame - if the mainstream politicians followed the views of the mainstream voters you wouldn't have the far right lot getting in. For me it's a shame because I believe in democracy, human rights and rule of law and most of the anti - immigrant parties also believe in letting Russia trample those, probably because Russia funds them.
Izkata 1mo ago
> Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? Suggesting they abandon a core part of their platform is a non-starter. At least in the US, the left isn't silent or neutral on illegal immigration, they are enthusiastically pro illegal immigration. One of the biggest reasons centrists have drifted to supporting the right is realizing the left no longer supports their values.
- Timon3 1mo ago
  The people on the left who are "enthusiastically pro illegal immigration" are a tiny minority of all leftists. The majority does think that illegal immigrants shouldn't be mistreated deliberately, which conservative media outlets condense into "enthusiastically pro illegal immigration".

balarjin 1mo ago

> Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? Illegal immigrants are a source of cheap labor. Business interests tell politicians that without a pool of cheap workers, costs will go up, voters will feel inflation, and the politicians will get the blame. The overall cost is not low. Some illegal immigrants get benefits. Some illegal immigrants commit crimes. Almost all illegal immigrants will use the healthcare system eventually. But those costs are not seen by the businesses that push illegal immigration.

hn_acker 1mo ago
> The overall cost is not low. Some illegal immigrants get benefits. > But those costs are not seen by the businesses that push illegal immigration. Do you have a source about the cost? As of 2023, noncitizen immigrants generally and illegal immigrants specifically were a net positive to fiscal burden [1]: > Illegal noncitizens were only somewhat less fiscally positive per capita than noncitizens generally, and they likely reduced the deficit by at least $1.7 trillion from 1994 to 2023. Illegal immigrants of all educational attainments are also likely to have paid more in taxes than they received in government benefits. Although we adopt simple assumptions, it is difficult to arrive at a conclusion significantly different from the one below. Even if illegal immigrants used benefits at the exact same rate as all noncitizens, they would still be, on average, fiscally beneficial to the United States—both by reducing the debt in real terms and by lowering debt-to-GDP. > Almost all illegal immigrants will use the healthcare system eventually. If by almost all you mean that most illegal immigrants get pathways to permanent residence/citizenship (unclear to me whether that's true), it's not very relevant unless you propose that after becoming legal residents illegal immigrants burden the economy/budget more than always-legal residents do. Otherwise, I would wonder whether the national birth rate issue [2] is as urgent as I've heard. [1] https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-government-budgets-1994-2023#why-illegal-immigrants-were-fiscally-positive https://www.cato.org/white-paper/immigrants-recent-effects-g... [2] https://phys.org/news/2026-06-birth-declining-world.html https://phys.org/news/2026-06-birth-declining-world.html

majorchord 1mo ago

> I don't understand why we even give the right an opportunity to speak on immigration "People I disagree with should not have a right to speak" I don't know about you, but to me this sounds exactly like the type of fascist rhetoric everyone warns about.

customguy 1mo ago
Giving them an opportunity to speak on immigration by handling it so badly. If I don't put out a fire, you can come along and suggest pouring kerosene on it, and if I handle shit badly enough, people might say hey, why not. But if I put the fire out while you're still a toddler, what can you do? Suggest to start a fire and pour kerosene on it? > to me this sounds exactly like the type of fascist rhetoric everyone warns about Well going by what you just did, I would have to guess you would say this about just about anything except fascist rhetoric. To try to twist something to harmless and banally true as the above into some sinister fascist ideology, while shrugging off people calling the Holocaust a "Fliegenschiss", who plan to abolish education about that time, does have a Gschmäckle.
- majorchord 1mo ago
  What is harmless about telling people they shouldn't have a right to speak?
  - customguy 1mo ago
    Nobody said that, as I just explained to you. You putting words into the mouth of others is not you speaking, it's you making noises to drown out the speech of others. So fuck this pretense of caring for free speech. You are what you do.
lelanthran 1mo ago
You really should have read the rest of that extremely short comment.
general1465 1mo ago
You have completely misread what he is saying. See Denmark - mainstream parties started to be harder on immigration and all the right wing parties in Denmark essentially evaporated.

tim333 1mo ago

In the UK I think the issue is the European Court of Human Rights say you can't send them back and so it costs the taxpayer about £200k a head to house and feed them. The answer is probably to leave the court and send them back but only Reform + Reclaim I think are pitching that. It's kind of a shame - if the mainstream politicians followed the views of the mainstream voters you wouldn't have the far right lot getting in. For me it's a shame because I believe in democracy, human rights and rule of law and most of the anti - immigrant parties also believe in letting Russia trample those, probably because Russia funds them.

Izkata 1mo ago

> Is it really that hard to allow only legal immigration and stop giving incentives to illegal immigrants? Suggesting they abandon a core part of their platform is a non-starter. At least in the US, the left isn't silent or neutral on illegal immigration, they are enthusiastically pro illegal immigration. One of the biggest reasons centrists have drifted to supporting the right is realizing the left no longer supports their values.

Timon3 1mo ago
The people on the left who are "enthusiastically pro illegal immigration" are a tiny minority of all leftists. The majority does think that illegal immigrants shouldn't be mistreated deliberately, which conservative media outlets condense into "enthusiastically pro illegal immigration".