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The Border

Caper said:
Do you want your country to turn into India?
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Caper said:
I don't know.
1.3 billion people living there.
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Well, we could do with a slightly larger population. Only about 23 million people living here.

While we may not share a border with a significantly less prosperous country like the US does (or share a border with any other country), there's still a lot of illegal immigrants trying to get in. Large numbers of them pay all they can afford to get a place on a leaky unseaworthy boat to try and sneak in...

... and end up being imprisoned at enormous expense in horrible conditions in detention centers for years on end while the bureaucracy tries to determine whether or not they're genuine refugees with a valid claim to asylum. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-harrowing-look-inside-australias-detention-centres/

It's absurd.

wrs said:
No job, nowhere to live, what are they likely to do in order to survive if they can't get a job?
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Well for starters, look for work.
 
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wrs said:
That is the least objectionable option but still, where do they live? What if they don't find work? What do they do then?
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You could ask exactly the same questions about citizens in the same position. Would you want it to be policy to kick people in that position out of the country? If not, why should it be policy to keep people in that position out of the country? Especially when the people seeking entry most likely intend to try and rectify that situation.
 
What is the clue you would get from visiting a Texas border town? I've been to Laredo--apart from the fact that the population was overwhelmingly Hispanic, it seemed like an unremarkable place to me. Not my favorite city in the world, but not as bad as Houston.

Anyway, I'd think freedom of travel/automatic work authorization between the NAFTA countries is the obvious solution here. We've incoherently liberalized two of the classical factors of production for North America while retaining strict controls on the third.
 
Brian-M said:
You could ask exactly the same questions about citizens in the same position. Would you want it to be policy to kick people in that position out of the country? If not, why should it be policy to keep people in that position out of the country? Especially when the people seeking entry most likely intend to try and rectify that situation.
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Your son loses his job, most people would have no problem letting him move back for a but until he gets on his feet.

Now would you extend this same courtesy to every person out of a job?

There is your answer.
 
When people in my circle of acquaintances complain about "the Mexicans" (yes, it's always the brown ones being complained about,) I point out that the illegal immigration rate would drop precipitously if we simply arrested the hell out of the owners of the companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Also like to piss them right off by mentioning that during the last ten years all immigration has gone down.
 
Brian-M said:
<snip>Why not just give anyone who wants to get into the US provisional Permanent Resident status? Welcome them in, give them official papers and a bus ticket.

It'd save lives (a lot of people die trying to get in) and a lot of effort in trying to keep them out. Plus it'd mean that they'd only have to worry about catching smugglers sneaking across the boarder (because immigrants would just go straight through customs along with returning tourists).

Why don't they do this? Do people think that letting prospective immigrants freely enter the country will somehow cause the US economy to collapse? That law and order will suddenly crumble and anarchy reign supreme?

What sound reasons are there for restricting entry?
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The fear is thousands of people streaming across the borders and dispersing into the general population would raise the unemployment rate, because there is not an unlimited supply of low-level jobs. Without work, these people then become a burden to society, either by ending up on welfare or in the criminal justice system.

Does anyone have a number on potentially how many Mexicans would go to the States if they were allowed unfettered access? Wikipedia indicates 9% of Mexico's 118.4 million people live in "extreme" poverty. If only half of them entered the US looking for a better life, that would be 5.3 million people. That's more people than Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Vermont combined.
 
Brian-M said:
What sound reasons are there for restricting entry?
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What sound reasons are there for restricting entry into any country? The US has some of the most welcoming and liberal immigration policies of any country on Earth, did you know that? We receive millions of legal immigrants every year from all around the world.

Is it your contention that all countries should open their borders to anyone? If so, at least you are consistent. If not, why just the US?
 
Blue Mountain said:
The fear is thousands of people streaming across the borders and dispersing into the general population would raise the unemployment rate, because there is not an unlimited supply of low-level jobs.
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But an increase in population increases the number of consumers, resulting in an increase in the number of jobs.

Doghouse Reilly said:
Is it your contention that all countries should open their borders to anyone?
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All countries, but not necessarily anyone. It might be reasonable to want to keep out people who have demonstrated a proclivity for violence, assault, murder, arson, ect.

(Which is why I put "provisional" in front of "permanent resident status" in the OP, so they can revoke their permanent resident status and deport them if they get in by lying about their criminal record.)
 
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Gord_in_Toronto said:
Eh? I'm not sure. What exactly is the problem with India? :confused:
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You've never been there, obviously! :p

But seriously, apart from far too many people and huge amounts of poverty ignored by a huge middle-class of comparatively rich people, their main problem is cultural: the Caste system is deeply ingrained in their psyche, and that feeds into that callous disregard from the middle class.

But luckily America doesn't have that sort of segregation of society into obscenely rich elites and underclasses of neglected and disenfranchised and exploited poor… oh, wait!
 
Brian-M said:
You could ask exactly the same questions about citizens in the same position. Would you want it to be policy to kick people in that position out of the country? If not, why should it be policy to keep people in that position out of the country? Especially when the people seeking entry most likely intend to try and rectify that situation.
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People born in the country by and large have a place to live, i.e. their extended family. They also have a first right to the jobs that are created in the country where they live. Many in the country who are already citizens have probably contributed something to the country already in the form of taxes paid. Those people who have contributed but are in need of social services should be entitled to have them and not at a diluted level.

Letting people in who don't have a job or place to live is creating an additional burden on the social network that would be taking care of people who may be homeless and jobless who are already in the country and whom the social network is meant to serve. There is also the criminal element that infiltrates the border as well which is an additional strain on the other side of the social network i.e. the law and order component.
 
mumblethrax said:
What is the clue you would get from visiting a Texas border town? I've been to Laredo--apart from the fact that the population was overwhelmingly Hispanic, it seemed like an unremarkable place to me. Not my favorite city in the world, but not as bad as Houston.
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Jump across to Nuevo Laredo and it's far different, that is the point. Even still, Laredo is closer in operation to Nuevo Laredo than it is Houston. I am not sure what comparisons you are making between Laredo and Houston that you would consider Laredo better than Houston. The infrastructure in Laredo included unpaved streets the last time I was there. Even though these are border towns and serve as points of commerce, there is still a substantial amount of poverty. Here in Texas we have a Robin Hood taxation scheme for schools whereby poorer districts receive money from districts that are better off. The biggest recipients of the money have been districts along the southern border of the state also known as the valley.
 
stanfr said:
I was talking to some long-time residents in a bar in west Kansas last week, and they were bemoaning how "illegals" had destroyed the community they grew up in.
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I just wonder if they'd be any happier if a horde of (legal) New Yorkers, or San Franciscans settled in their town/village?

Or if the residents of Boston, Lincolnshire would feel less aggrieved if, instead of East Europeans, they had had an influx of Scots or Cornish?
 
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Doghouse Reilly said:
What sound reasons are there for restricting entry into any country? The US has some of the most welcoming and liberal immigration policies of any country on Earth, did you know that? We receive millions of legal immigrants every year from all around the world.

Is it your contention that all countries should open their borders to anyone? If so, at least you are consistent. If not, why just the US?
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Not true. Per capita, the United States is 34th in the world, accepting 19,148 immigrants per million population (2005, the last year for which I could find data.) By contrast, that same year Canada accepted 33,707 per million. Source: NationMaster

The Wikipedia article on Immigration to the United States states "On a per capita basis, the United States lets in fewer immigrants than half the countries in the OECD." (See also footnote 1 to the article.)
 
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Mexico is full of hard working people with scarce economic opportunity. The US is full of lazy people with surplus economic opportunity. I blame the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and those lousy antiImperialist Whigs.
 
Blue Mountain said:
Not true. Per capita, the United States is 34th in the world, accepting 19,148 immigrants per million population (2005, the last year for which I could find data.) By contrast, that same year Canada accepted 33,707 per million. Source: NationMaster

The Wikipedia article on Immigration to the United States states "On a per capita basis, the United States lets in fewer immigrants than half the countries in the OECD." (See also footnote 1 to the article.)
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In other words, Canada allowed 4.5 million fewer immigrants than the US did last year.
Per capita is a damn silly way to measure it.
 
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