Why is immigration considered an obligation of a country?

[brothern]

There are no reliable numbers because those who break the law are pretty good at not broadcasting that they are breaking the law.

That's not true. I know many people who are in the US illegally. There's no immigrant who routine walks down the street with a sign (unless it's a protest), or shows up at a police station to self-report themselves.

However both in my social life, and in my volunteer work as a math/English tutor, I know plenty of people who are willing to "come out" as illegal immigrants. Heck, in Illinois we've granted 85,000+ temporary driver's licenses to immigrants. You can't do that if you don't share that you're here illegally.

Of course that may be different where you live. In the conservative parts of the country, where it's okay to be racist or xenophoic, then I can see how illegal immigrants would have to hide their status.

And give me any good reason how this helps our current very high unemployment situation or the lower wages plaguing many if not most American families.

5% is 'very high' unemployment? Huh?

 

[Tigerace117]

And all that is my problem how? Never mind.

How many of those who "need the cash to provide for their families" are you willing to admit here?

There are 6 billion waiting for your verdict.

Actually, nobody is waiting for my verdict; nor are there six billion people waiting for said verdict.

 

[Fishking]

That may be true for some, but not for most. Their here because they want to get their families to America, so their brother or cousin or kids aren't the next headless corpses hanging from the bridge or floating in the river, to get out of a place where a good half the time there's no point reporting a crime because the police are on the cartel's payroll and won't do ****, to get to a country where even the most desperately poor still have better living standards then many other countries.

Question (prefaced with a statement):

If it is the obligation of a country to take in the citizens from a different country, due to safety concerns, what obligation exists for those people to improve their own country? Is not that obligation greater?

 

[Tigerace117]

Question (prefaced with a statement):

If it is the obligation of a country to take in the citizens from a different country, due to safety concerns, what obligation exists for those people to improve their own country? Is not that obligation greater?

That's a valid point. Many immigrants, however, have no real ability to help improve things in their own countries, especially seeing as often times speaking out gets you a bullet.

 

[Visbek]

The citizens of this country have the right to punish people breaking our laws. Citizens of this country have the right to determine who will be allowed into this country....

Congratulations on not reading.

I never said that the US does not have any right to control immigration. What I said was that a) allowing immigration is a virtue and b) even if someone crosses a border illegally, they still have basic human rights, such as the right to due process.

I have no problem granting temporary asylum to refugees. However, temporary asylum is not immigration.

Yes, it is. Many who receive asylum are granted permanent residency. Please try to keep up.

That does not give criminals the right to break our laws and circumvent our immigration policy. People who break our laws and enter illegally are the very people we do not want in this country.

1) Thanks again for not reading. I never said that we should eliminate all immigration laws.
2) I for one don't have a big issue with people who've crossed the border illegally -- and I'm hardly the only one. So spare me the "we" nonsense, as "we" are clearly divided on the issue.

Wrong. The rich would be forced to pay decent wages for yard work, maids, and such.

lol... No, the wealthy would still pay crap wages. They'd either pay minimum wage, or pay under the table.

More to the point, I will happily side with actual research as opposed to nativist nonsense with zero empirical backing.

....if they were paid a fair wage they would not need government subsidies and would also buy more goods and services.

News flash! Illegal immigrants do not qualify for any government benefits, and those benefits pretty much suck anyway. No one is going to risk their life crossing a border, and spending thousands on coyotes, to get $30 a week in Food Stamps. (Note: Their children, if they are natural-born US citizens, can qualify for some benefits.)

Legal immigration has always been good for this country. Criminals, gang members, terrorist, drug dealers, and such are not. Without a secure border and responsible immigration system a great thing becomes a cancer.

Egads... More nativist nonsense.

I don't know if you missed it, but the illegal immigrant community has grown since 1991 -- and during that time, crime rates were cut nearly in half. The economy has done fairly well for much of that time; and when it has fallen down, it has had NOTHING to do with illegal immigrants. We certainly didn't face an explosion in crime or decimation of the economy after the Reagan amnesty.

By the way, a lot of that gang and drug activity? It's not happening in a void. It's happening because Americans want drugs. I realize it's convenient to blame all those other people for our problems, but they aren't creating a demand, they are filling it. Perhaps that particular finger ought to be pointed somewhere else.

Last but not least, the amounts of legal immigration are essentially arbitrary. We didn't have any caps on immigration until 1921, and the subsequent 1924 law placed no limits on immigrants from the Western Hemisphere.

Perhaps another way to put it is: Don't confuse legality with morality, especially when "what is legal" is built largely on arbitrary numbers, and originated in unethical concepts such as irrationally denigrating people solely because they were born in a nation with a worse economy than the US.

 

[Fishking]

That's a valid point. Many immigrants, however, have no real ability to help improve things in their own countries, especially seeing as often times speaking out gets you a bullet.

Sometimes you have to be willing to stand up, as a people, and put that bullet into others first. That's how the U.S. government was formed, the modern French government, the British government.

There are more generally good/victims than there are drug cartels or government workers. If they rise up as a people they can enact change. Yes, some or many will die in the process but sometimes things are worth fighting for, right?

 

[legalimmigrant]

Question (prefaced with a statement):

If it is the obligation of a country to take in the citizens from a different country, due to safety concerns, what obligation exists for those people to improve their own country? Is not that obligation greater?

It is greater but it involves effort and risk.

It's a lot easier to come here and drag the U.S. into the gutter they left, that gutter being the only system they know. To expect an admiration for the rule of law from the people who come from lawless s***holes is ultimate in stupidity.

Will never happen.

 

[legalimmigrant]

I don't know if you missed it, but the illegal immigrant community has grown since 1991

Now, you are getting on my nerves. I am an immigrant. Illegals are criminals.

 

[Tigerace117]

Sometimes you have to be willing to stand up, as a people, and put that bullet into others first. That's how the U.S. government was formed, the modern French government, the British government.

There are more generally good/victims than there are drug cartels or government workers. If they rise up as a people they can enact change. Yes, some or many will die in the process but sometimes things are worth fighting for, right?

True. It's a lot easier said then done, and every movement like that needs leaders--- an officer corps of sorts.

 

[Visbek]

"My argument"? Since when a romanticized grade school feel-good pablum deserves to be called "argument"?

:roll:

Let's see. From my post, you focused exclusively on one sentence that wasn't particularly critical, and ignored:

• The idea that a nation allowing immigration is a virtue, not an obligation
• The further virtue and possible right to asylum
• Brief mention of the practical benefits of immigration (legal and illegal), including how they increase consumption, and will fund Social Security at a time when we really need that funding
• Criticism of the deeply flawed and empirically questionable nativist claims that "immigrants harm the economy and/or local workers"
• Criticizing the nativist, xenophobic and racist rhetoric and mentality that frequently underlies the rank hatred of immigrants (legal and illegal)

By the way, neither vitriol nor repetition of stock phrases constitutes an argument. If you bother to come up with anything substantial, feel free to let us know.

 

[Ntharotep]

Enough! Stop all immigration!??? Should we throw out a few from years back too?

Definitely. Throw out anyone who has ever had sick parents. Since none of us are true natives many of us would get the boot.

For the same reason why I allowed some people into my new house and closed the door when the last one permitted walked in.
What you are pushing is the law of the jungle. Well, newsflash! The U.S. in no longer a jungle.
It has a legally recognized government, its laws, and defined borders which it is allowed to control to the exclusion of anyone or any group the president does not like.
BTW, to prevent a lengthy discussion of this subject, the president is authorized by Congress to discriminate against any immigrants on any basis he sees fit and the would-be immigrants have absolutely no rights to legally challenge his decisions.
Hopefully, you can now better see the difference between a jungle and a sovereign country.

Yeah, sovereign countries are even ****tier, morally, than jungles.

The obligation is purely moral. Ignoring it is akin to creating a colder, more callous country. If you want that. Move to Russia. Especially for the cold.

 

[dimensionallava]

Now, you are getting on my nerves. I am an immigrant. Illegals are criminals.

if you make immigration illegal than only criminals will immigrate.....

....it works just like guns

 

[dimensionallava]

The existence of government, at any level, necessarily results in people being told what to do in certain areas.

your not the government

 

[Visbek]

There are no reliable numbers because those who break the law are pretty good at not broadcasting that they are breaking the law....

By that token, anyone claiming to know the numbers of illegal immigrants should be ignored. Maybe it's not a problem at all.

Reported in 2013:

...About 11.7 million immigrants are living in the United States illegally, a population that has not varied much over the last three years but may recently be increasing again, according to new estimates published Monday by the Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends Project. . .

Emphasis added.

Did you really not notice that the chart I linked was from Pew? Which in your own quote was classified as the "most reliable estimates"? And that it was compiled after the NYT article you quoted...

Think of it. A record 400K deportations did not significantly reduce the overall estimated numbers. Wouldn't that suggest that a whole bunch of people are still coming across the border illegally every year?

Actually, it appears that the high rate of deportations is a big part of what has kept the unauthorized immigrant population stable. So has a drop in immigration from Mexico.

Unauthorized immigrant population stable for half a decade | Pew Research Center

And give me any good reason how this helps our current very high unemployment situation or the lower wages plaguing many if not most American families.

Errr.... wha?

We are not in a "very high unemployment situation." U3 unemployment (the "headline" rate) is at a solid 5%, and is only going up because more people are rejoining the workforce. U6 unemployment is at 9.6%, which is pretty close to normal. LFPR started declining in 2001, and most of that is people spending more time in school, and retiring.

Further, and as already noted: Immigrants in the US (legal or illegal) are not the ones driving down wages. Most of the wage pressure in the US is a result of automation and offshoring, and does not correlate to the size of the immigrant community (again, legal or illegal).

 

[matchlight]

Man, I ****ing hate politics.

President Obama is the president of the United States, for a while yet. As president of the United States, he deserves a certain amount of respect. The position, if nothing else, demands it. He is not a disgrace; he is not a socialist Marxist Muslim atheist who plans to destroy America; he is the president of the United States of America, a man in a very difficult job, and he's doing the best he can.

I do not agree with any of that. Would it were not so, B. Hussein Obama continues to disgrace the White House with his presence. He is a damned Marxist liar who resents the very country he is sworn to support, and he has been showing his contempt for the rule of law and for this country's interests in the world for more than seven years now. I have no respect whatever for him, and the mere fact he happens to be president does not entitle him to any. He is doing the best he can to wreck this country, and for that he deserves only contempt. By all rights he should have been impeached during his first term. It is a sign of just how far this country has fallen that instead, he was re-elected. Sad to say, he is just the man for the times, just as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump will be just the candidates for the times.

As I stated early, until somebody invents a machine which reads minds, there's no way to know 100. But in America, one of our key principles is "innocent until proven guilty".

In law, the presumption of innocence is usually considered part of the due process guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. That guarantee, like the rest of the Constitution of the U.S., does not apply to aliens who have not entered U.S. territory. The people of this country do not have any legal obligation whatever to any aliens abroad--including the obligation to presume them innocent of bad intent toward America.

 

[WCH]

Asian countries are for Asians.

African countries are for Africans.

America is for everybody.

You are so right. This bus is more than full. Pro-immigrant naive dupes cannot or will not connect the dots you addressed: more people = lower wages.

The law of supply and demand at work.

Duh.

Pile on trade pacts that gives a workers in a foreign country [making less money] the jobs and this is what we get.

 

[Visbek]

Now, you are getting on my nerves. I am an immigrant. Illegals are criminals.

What the dickens are you talking about?

I wasn't even responding to you in that post. PIPEWRENCH said "legal immigration good, but illegal immigrants are a bunch of criminal drug-dealing terrorists." His claim is basically sheer nativist nonsense, and a common alarmist misinformation tactic.

I never said you were an illegal immigrant (or a criminal drug-dealing terrorist). You've been clear that you immigrated legally.

You also, again, ignored 90% of my arguments. What a surprise.

 

[Fishking]

your not the government

Your response doesn't make sense and someone who identifies as a Communist seems to be coming from shaky ground when trying to lecture others on the over-use of government power.

 

[legalimmigrant]

your not the government

Are you an immigrant?

 

[legalimmigrant]

What the dickens are you talking about?

I wasn't even responding to you in that post. PIPEWRENCH said "legal immigration good, but illegal immigrants are a bunch of criminal drug-dealing terrorists." His claim is basically sheer nativist nonsense, and a common alarmist misinformation tactic.

I never said you were an illegal immigrant (or a criminal drug-dealing terrorist). You've been clear that you immigrated legally.

You also, again, ignored 90% of my arguments. What a surprise.

In my post I objected to the term "illegal immigrant". I used me as an example to show who is an immigrant and that I find the term "illegal immigrant" an insult to all the legal immigrants.

Same for that "undocumented" crap.

 

[AlbqOwl]

Pretty much in full agreement here. I believe that there is currently no need for immigrants. Maybe in the future that will change but we are not lacking for people to fill various jobs or positions (aside from some specific trade industries [e.g. specialty welders]).

There once was--we needed railroad workers and miners and craftsmen and farmers and ranchers and people to populate the vast empty country that was once here. But now we have millions more people than paying jobs and bringing in more people at this time makes no sense.

I think we may always need some guest workers programs to bring folks in from Mexico or wherever who need the work and we need the labor for harvest, etc. But the workers or farmers should be responsible to pay for their transportation, housing, and other needs while they are here, and, when the job is finished and nobody else needs those workers, the farmer should see that they are transported back to their homeland. But when we have the highest work force in this country not working since the Great Depression, it makes no sense to keep bringing more folks in.

 

[AlbqOwl]

That's not true. I know many people who are in the US illegally. There's no immigrant who routine walks down the street with a sign (unless it's a protest), or shows up at a police station to self-report themselves.

However both in my social life, and in my volunteer work as a math/English tutor, I know plenty of people who are willing to "come out" as illegal immigrants. Heck, in Illinois we've granted 85,000+ temporary driver's licenses to immigrants. You can't do that if you don't share that you're here illegally.

Of course that may be different where you live. In the conservative parts of the country, where it's okay to be racist or xenophoic, then I can see how illegal immigrants would have to hide their status.

5% is 'very high' unemployment? Huh?

I live in one of the most liberal states in the southwest. So you can stow the ad hominem nonsense.

The 5% only represents those who have filed for unemployment benefits and are presumably actively looking for work. Take those out of the equation or even add them in, and the total number of working age adults who are not working or is extremely high. There are many millions of Americans who have given up finding a good paying job in addition to that 5% official unemployment number..
What Is the Real Unemployment Rate? Formula, Examples

All this is to say that we do not need any more immigrants until everybody already here has work when they want it.

 

[Bodi]

Asian countries are for Asians.

African countries are for Africans.

America is for everybody.

You are so right. This bus is more than full. Pro-immigrant naive dupes cannot or will not connect the dots you addressed: more people = lower wages.

The law of supply and demand at work.

Duh.

ummm... lots of American ex-pats living and working in Asia and Africa...

 

[Bodi]

Correct. I agree completely. However people who enter this country illegally are not immigrants they are criminals with no respect for our laws. These criminals should not be given the respect legal immigrants deserve. They should be punished and removed from this country.

The immigrated here illegally... hence they are illegal immigrants. Nothing wrong with a factual term being deployed.

In case you missed it, everyone who isn't Native American is an immigrant.

False. Everyone migrated to this country.

He said immigrated... not migrated. Do you know the difference?

...and Visbek... just to nit-pick but that is not correct either. Prior to the United States being created anybody that came here emigrated from their home land to a nationless land, at least in the modern sense of legal/illegal immigration. My relatives that came over on the Maflower did not immigrate to a nation.

 

[Tigerace117]

I do not agree with any of that. Would it were not so, B. Hussein Obama continues to disgrace the White House with his presence. He is a damned Marxist liar who resents the very country he is sworn to support, and he has been showing his contempt for the rule of law and for this country's interests in the world for more than seven years now. I have no respect whatever for him, and the mere fact he happens to be president does not entitle him to any. He is doing the best he can to wreck this country, and for that he deserves only contempt. By all rights he should have been impeached during his first term. It is a sign of just how far this country has fallen that instead, he was re-elected. Sad to say, he is just the man for the times, just as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump will be just the candidates for the times.



In law, the presumption of innocence is usually considered part of the due process guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. That guarantee, like the rest of the Constitution of the U.S., does not apply to aliens who have not entered U.S. territory. The people of this country do not have any legal obligation whatever to any aliens abroad--including the obligation to presume them innocent of bad intent toward America.

President Obama can't be both a Marxist and a Muslim. Fundamentally. It just doesn't work. These are two completely different things.

He is the president of the United States, and you should at the very least show a modicum of respect for the office if not the man himself. Just because you disagree with him doesn't mean he should be impeached. He isn't trying to "wreck America" either.

This country was founded on said aliens coming to said country and forming the American system of government. Without immigrants, there would be no America---it's as simple as that.