Any Americans still pro-immigration?

ORCA

Just think Pretorian...if you were to apply for and gain citizenship here you could check the box as an African-American! Wouldn't that be a hoot?
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"If everything is going well, you obviously overlooked something."

Pretorian

Nickel

Nickel · Last edited by Nickel on Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:54 pm; edited 1 time in total

I understand the goals involved in wanting to curtail illegal immigration to the United States. My principal objection to the way it's been handled is that it aims at a target that's ineffective: the immigrants themselves. Let me explain.

Suppose there were a lottery where you had to put up, say, $100, but you could win a million. And then suppose that even if you lost, you'd get your $100 back. The worst thing that could happen to you is that you'd be no worse off than you were if you'd never gambled in the first place. In a circumstance like that, only a fool wouldn't take a chance. There is everything to gain and nothing to lose. This is exactly the position a Mexican migrant working living near the US border finds himself in. When he sneaks into the US, he has every good chance of securing a more lucrative life for himself and his family than he would have in Mexico. If he's caught by the INS, they dump him back across the border within feet of being able to make his next attempt. He's lost nothing, but every trip is a chance to win big. Why? Because of that big prize: people are willing to employ him illegally.

Now look at it from the other side. Suppose you're the employer. You don't want to pay your fellow citizens what they deserve, or have to worry about payroll taxes, or benefits, or insurance, or health and safety standards, or anything else of that nature. Why? Less money in your pocket. So here comes someone who'll do the same work but for a fraction of that price. You know even if you employ him, the odds are nothing much will happen to you, and most likely he'll get deported but what do you care? At the risk of some small slap on the wrist if and when you're ever found out, you can save a whole lot of money. Again, why wouldn't someone play this game, provided their bottom line meant more to them than their country and the well-being of their fellow citizens.

So you have to raise the stakes. I think targetting the immigrants is a losing proposition because these are already people with nothing to lose. But the employer, he's got something to lose. If you realized that by employing Miguel instead of Mike to manicure your lawn you risked losing that lawn, the house that sits on it, the car parked beside it, the job that sustains it, and likely the family living there while you spend a couple of years in jail, I think you'd be far more likely to dig a little deeper and hire Mike. A few examples like that would go a long, long way. So long as people are willing to hire illegal labour, it will continue to stream north. Once the word gets out that US employers are no longer willing to take that risk, there will be no incentive for that surplus labour to cross the border anymore an it will quickly become the problem of the government it's rightly the problem of: Mexico's.
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Pretorian

Nickel · Last edited by Nickel on Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:50 pm; edited 1 time in total

Nickel

I think the US has always been about immigration, and to some extent, it always will be. I can understand closing the numbers down some, but the idea of making people born there jump through hoops just to be who they have every right to be under the Constitution strikes me as an abandonment of everything held dear from the outset.
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I can has cheezburger?

holmes · Fission Joined: Oct 12, 2004 Posts: 2414

Do not fret pretorian. All this pussy woosified talk will end soon enough. Ivory towers and cheap energy has allowed this dialog. Allowed punks and tomato cans to be world heavyweight champions. Eventually it will go back to what it was before this. Mostly just trying to get by and survive. The full force of overpopulation and this multicult BS has not even been felt let alone touched upon. Just sit back and relax. PC buffalo dung is nearing its end. RIP.
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"Crush the Cornucopians, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of the women".

charliebrownout · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 17, 2008 Posts: 272