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Shock poll: Americans want massive cuts to legal immigration

KevinKohler said:
That's because the farms owners have no incentive to raise wages, as those losses won't affect them...they have insurance against it, and they're heavily subsidized.
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Although I do not like farm subsidies, it makes economic sense given the global market for food products. If we think farm labor is cheap here, then we should look at how farmers have to compete in a global market that includes labor markets that the yearly cost of a farm laborer is comparable to the monthly cost of US farm labor, even an illegal immigrant farm laborer in the US, as well as socialist farming schemes like those in Asia and parts of Europe.

Crop insurance by the USDA, on the surface, makes sense to me for economic reasons as well because of the overarching cost increases that would hit food stuffs if crop insurance were privatized. One thing many people don't know, is that you can only get crop insurance on certain crops, and only in certain quantities. It's not a free-for-all farmer bailout.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Why should they raise wages? Those hiring for McJobs don't - they rely on the "safety net" to make up the difference.
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Wages are on the rise for McJobs.
 
Crovax said:
There are 20,000+ ICE employees and there are another 60,000+ Customs and Border Patrol employees. How much more govt do we need?
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That 20K is total ICE staff not just the ERO portion of them and, even within ERO, not all of them are field agents.

Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)

ERO is responsible for enforcing the nation's immigration laws and ensuring the departure of removable aliens from the United States. ERO uses its deportation officers to identify, arrest, and remove aliens who violate U.S. immigration law. Deportation officers are responsible for the transportation and detention of aliens in ICE custody to include the removal aliens to their country of origin. Deportation officers prosecute aliens for violations of U.S. immigration and criminal law, monitor cases during deportation proceedings, supervise released aliens, and remove aliens from the United States.[11] Deportation officers operate strategically placed Fugitive Operations Teams whose function is to locate, apprehend, and remove aliens who have absconded from immigration proceedings and remain in the United States with outstanding warrants for deportation. ERO manages the Secure Communities program which identifies removable aliens located in jails and prisons. Fingerprints submitted as part of the normal criminal arrest and booking process will automatically check both the Integrated Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) of the FBI’s Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division and the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT) of the Department of Homeland Security’s US-VISIT Program.
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Immigration_and_Customs_Enforcement


ICE, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, has about 20,000 employees, including an estimated 5,800 deportation officers who identify, apprehend and remove deportable immigrants.
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Trump-O-Meter: Triple ICE enforcement | PolitiFact
 
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Beaudreaux said:
Although I do not like farm subsidies, it makes economic sense given the global market for food products. If we think farm labor is cheap here, then we should look at how farmers have to compete in a global market that includes labor markets that the yearly cost of a farm laborer is comparable to the monthly cost of US farm labor, even an illegal immigrant farm laborer in the US, as well as socialist farming schemes like those in Asia and parts of Europe.

Crop insurance by the USDA, on the surface, makes sense to me for economic reasons as well because of the overarching cost increases that would hit food stuffs if crop insurance were privatized. One thing many people don't know, is that you can only get crop insurance on certain crops, and only in certain quantities. It's not a free-for-all farmer bailout.
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And yet....without migrant labor, their crops rot?

Should my taxes cover their losses for failing to attract legal workers?
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
I actually think we should go to an immigration system like most modern Western countries have that is skills based primarily rather than family based. Basically, I think our immigration system should look more like Canada's. A skills based immigration system won't mean more white people coming here though, it will be many more Asians and South Asians.

The wall is a moronic idea though as even if we built it, it would involve giving the Rio Grande to Mexico.
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Good point. So many questions surrounding the idea of the Wall, so few answers.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
The Great Wall of Trump is absolutely necessary when you amp up the magnet for attracting illegal immigration by granting amnesty for those already here and further cutting the opportunity for legal immigration. We had about 3 million illegal immigrants when the 1986 amnesty occurred - we now have 4X that many.

We now have about 5K ICE agents responsible for patrolling the entire US interior. To put that into better perspective, that is about the size of Boston, MA and Baltimore, MD police departments combined or only 10% of the 50K federal airport nannies.
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I think the problem is no one has a clue what's meant by the Trump "wall." If it's a 30 foot monstrosity all along the border, that's insane and just isn't going to happen because it would be insane. On the other hand, we already have miles of "walls" of various kinds, and bolstering those or adding some in some high traffic areas might make sense.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Why should they raise wages? Those hiring for McJobs don't - they rely on the "safety net" to make up the difference.
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If they can't get them into the fields so that $13m of crops rot, then raising wages is the only alternative to raising migration. Unless you draft people into the fields like Pol Pot did.
 
Bottom line.

Does anyone actually believe Americans go about their days worried about the plight of illegal immigrants who have broken the law?

Of course not. Democrats have stupidly hitched their wagon to this issue, and not even most Democrats agree with them on it.

But by all means, carry on. And thanks!

The wall isn't expensive by government waste standards, but it needs to be built as much for symbolic reasons as practical ones. It's part of an overall border security plan, but certainly not an answer in and of itself.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
I agree with all of that except the bounties on the illegal immigrants themselves. And I will cop to being a tree hugging liberal sap on this particular charge. I just can’t bring myself to hunt down people who are, for the most part, desperate people just trying to survive in an unfair world. On the other hand, I can get almost downright giddy in targeting those who would exploit the labor of those desperate people. The end result of those two options may be similar, but the toll on my conscience is quite different.
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Where that breaks down is with folks like me, a self-employed handyman, that must directly compete with them. My bids can't be too much higher than their bids or I won't get the job. Therefore my standard of living can't be much higher than that of an illegal immigrant. After all, we are all just replaceable cogs in the same machine.
 
KevinKohler said:
That's because the farms owners have no incentive to raise wages, as those losses won't affect them...they have insurance against it, and they're heavily subsidized.
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If they raise wages, someone is eventually going to pay for it: namely you and me. I mean that's fine, if you're OK with it. I am just saying these policies are not without consequences.
 
ecofarm said:
Family chain migration is a big problem? No family values for immigrants? Best to keep them without a family support system?

The GOP is for family values, but only for born citizens?
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Where have you been?
 
Manc Skipper said:
If they can't get them into the fields so that $13m of crops rot, then raising wages is the only alternative to raising migration. Unless you draft people into the fields like Pol Pot did.
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That (bolded above) is a fact thus we have sanctuary cities and states.
 
ataraxia said:
If they raise wages, someone is eventually going to pay for it: namely you and me. I mean that's fine, if you're OK with it. I am just saying these policies are not without consequences.
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All part of income disparity. You always think of farmers as salt of the earth, hard working, blue collar folks. Truth is, the owners and managers of large farms (the ones that employ more migrant workers) are rich. Making, on the low scale, 200k per year, up to over a million per year.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/27/news/economy/farming/index.html
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Where that breaks down is with folks like me, a self-employed handyman, that must directly compete with them. My bids can't be too much higher than their bids or I won't get the job. Therefore my standard of living can't be much higher than that of an illegal immigrant. After all, we are all just replaceable cogs in the same machine.
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And I completely empathize with you as well. It is easy for me to sit on my high horse on this subject. I too am self-employed but it isn’t in an industry in which I am undercut by illegals. Everyone is just trying to get by and perhaps give their children a better life than they had.

Empathy can be a bitch sometimes.
 
Erod said:
Bottom line.

Does anyone actually believe Americans go about their days worried about the plight of illegal immigrants who have broken the law?
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Yes. Most Americans oppose the idea of the wall, and don't think it would do anything useful. With DACA, most Americans think it would be wrong to call them illegals and deport them.
Most Americans continue to oppose U.S. border wall | Pew Research Center

The wall isn't expensive by government waste standards, but it needs to be built as much for symbolic reasons as practical ones. It's part of an overall border security plan, but certainly not an answer in and of itself.
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I really have not understood why this illegal immigration has become such a hot issue now. We as a nation have far bigger problems. Illegal border crossings have been dropping since the 1990s by themselves, and illegal immigrants have a lower crime rate than the average in the US.

illegal.jpg

So I don't see how all of a sudden this has become such a critical issue now. Most experts on the subject agree that building the wall will do nothing to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, or drugs, or crimes committed by them. So building the wall is really just PURELY symbolic. It's like building the statue of liberty, which welcomed immigrants with a message of acceptance, hospitality, openness, and refuge. Except this one will be a giant monument to fear, exclusion, bigotry, and racism.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
And I completely empathize with you as well. It is easy for me to sit on my high horse on this subject. I too am self-employed but it isn’t in an industry in which I am undercut by illegals. Everyone is just trying to get by and perhaps give their children a better life than they had.

Empathy can be a bitch sometimes.
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I find it amusing that those who claim to be for higher wages for the working stiff and less income inequality are the first to champion that which keeps wages lower than they otherwise would be. Both immigration (legal or not) and the "safety net" serve to keep wages lower than they would be without those factors. Some things simply defy explanation.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
I find it amusing that those who claim to be for higher wages for the working stiff and less income inequality are the first to champion that which keeps wages lower than they otherwise would be. Both immigration (legal or not) and the "safety net" serve to keep wages lower than they would be without those factors. Some things simply defy explanation.
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Yeah. Lots of people hold conflicting ideologies and seem to be completely blind to those conflicts. So much of the time I spend thinking about such hints or just chatting on this forum is actually just me trying to resolve my own conflicting ideologies. It can be extremely difficult, which is probably why so many people fail to even try.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
I don’t really have a problem with any of that other than the wall. And that is mostly because the wall as previously described sounds like a waste of money to me. Granted, there are lots of things the government wastes money on.
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I 100% agree on "The Wall." I don't disagree with keeping immigration laws strong. I don't disagree with deporting people who have committed crimes here in the US. I don't oppose our vetting process for refugees and people seeking amnesty. If you want a strong social democratic system, and I want that, you have to keep your borders strong, but that's metaphorical not literal. We have airplanes, boats, etc, much more than we have physical borders; more than >70% of undocumented immigrants are people who flew here and overstayed their visa. Deal with that, first. Obviously.

I strongly oppose agreeing to any these things while racist assholes run around trying to crucify undocumented immigrants who're otherwise obeying the law, have a stable job, and contributing members here in the US. Frankly, I think we should legalize as many of them as we can, and then I'll discuss how we should limit immigration. Not before then, not until the racism and xenophobia is completely off of the ****ing table.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
Yeah. Lots of people hold conflicting ideologies and seem to be completely blind to those conflicts. So much of the time I spend thinking about such hints or just chatting on this forum is actually just me trying to resolve my own conflicting ideologies. It can be extremely difficult, which is probably why so many people fail to even try.
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I don't think you will ever resolve such conflicting ideologies: in societies, or even in your own heart. We humans want different things, and no one said all of those things should come together like pieces of a big pre-fabricated jigsaw puzzle to make a big coherent whole. We want career success, yet we want time with our families. We want to be honest, yet also tactful, we want to do something we love, and yet also make lots of money, we want freedom, yet we also want stability and security, we want to be loving and hospitable, and yet we don't want to be a push-over and have people walk all over us. Well, you can't have it all. Sometimes these things are irreducibly conflicted, and you have to make painful compromises from one to try to have a little bit of the other. It's a bad puzzle. So don't kill yourself too much trying to figure it out perfectly. It wasn't designed that way. Just do the best you can.

If this is an interesting issue for you, you may want to read the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who writes a lot about such conflicts of ideals and values. He calls is "objective pluralism". He's great to read, if for nothing other than a sort of therapy, realizing there may not be perfect answers to such conflicts of ideals and values. It can make you more moderate, more understanding, and more willing to accept less than perfection for yourself or others.

“The notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution in which all good things coexist, seems to me not merely unobtainable--that is a truism--but conceptually incoherent. ......Some among the great goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.”
― Isaiah Berlin, The Proper Study of Mankind

“If you are truly convinced that there is some solution to all human problems, that one can conceive an ideal society which men can reach if only they do what is necessary to attain it, then you and your followers must believe that no price can be too high to pay in order to open the gates of such a paradise. Only the stupid and malevolent will resist once certain simple truths are put to them. Those who resist must be persuaded; if they cannot be persuaded, laws must be passed to restrain them; if that does not work, then coercion, if need be violence, will inevitably have to be used—if necessary, terror, slaughter.”
― Isaiah Berlin

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, nothing completely straight was ever made”
― Isaiah Berlin

“Both liberty and equality are among the primary goals pursued by human beings throughout many centuries; but total liberty for wolves is death to the lambs, total liberty of the powerful, the gifted, is not compatible with the rights to a decent existence of the weak and the less gifted.”
-Isaiah Berlin
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ataraxia said:
I don't think you will ever resolve such conflicting ideologies: in societies, or even in your own heart. We humans want different things, and no one said all of those things should come together like pieces of a big pre-fabricated jigsaw puzzle to make a big coherent whole. We want career success, yet we want time with our families. We want to be honest, yet also tactful, we want to do something we love, and yet also make lots of money, we want freedom, yet we also want stability and security. Well, you can't have it all. Sometimes these things are irreducibly conflicted, and you have to make painful compromises from one to try to have a little bit of the other. It's a bad puzzle. So don't kill yourself too much trying to figure it out perfectly. It wasn't designed that way. Just do the best you can.

If this is an interesting issue for you, you may want to read the British philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who writes a lot about such conflicts. He's great to read, if for nothing other than a sort of therapy, realizing there may not be perfect answers to such conflicts of ideals and values. It can make you more moderate, more understanding, and more willing to accept less than perfection for yourself or others.
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I think a healthy and reasonable goal for such self-deconfliction is “progress, not perfection”. And thanks for the reading suggestion.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
Yeah. Lots of people hold conflicting ideologies and seem to be completely blind to those conflicts. So much of the time I spend thinking about such hints or just chatting on this forum is actually just me trying to resolve my own conflicting ideologies. It can be extremely difficult, which is probably why so many people fail to even try.
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Yep, many issues seem much like dealing with a pan of jello covered by plastic wrap - no matter where you push down it just rises up somewhere else yet if you stop pushing then it reverts to just as it was.
 
When the people surveyed picked an ideal Immigration number - did they know what the current numbers are?
 
haymarket said:
When the people surveyed picked an ideal Immigration number - did they know what the current numbers are?
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Do you know what the current immigration numbers are?
A million people a year come into the US legally each year. We naturalize over 650,000 to almost 780,000 immigrants a year and we have at least 12.6 million green card holders.

Naturalization Fact Sheet | USCIS
Green Card Holders and Legal Immigration to the United States | migrationpolicy.org
Marco Rubio says U.S. admits 1 million immigrants a year, far more than any nation | PolitiFact Florida
 
jamesrage said:
Do you know what the current immigration numbers are?
A million people a year come into the US legally each year. We naturalize over 650,000 to almost 780,000 immigrants a year and we have at least 12.6 million green card holders.

Naturalization Fact Sheet | USCIS
Green Card Holders and Legal Immigration to the United States | migrationpolicy.org
Marco Rubio says U.S. admits 1 million immigrants a year, far more than any nation | PolitiFact Florida
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Thank you for that information.

I was simply asking the question about the poll - did the people in the survey know what the current immigration numbers are? I guess I would also ask if they knew what the population of the USA was.
 
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