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Following up from the discussion a few weeks ago, Democrats are trying to bring back the border bill from January: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/schumer-says-us-senate-will-try-again-pass-border-bill-2024-05-19/
I said that the bill is obviously something that Democrats want unilaterally, and is no way a compromise or concession that could be offered in exchange for aid or anything else. It seems like this is proven true by the fact that the Democrats still want this as a standalone package.
As to whether or not the package is a trap, I can't see any reason the Democrats would support this unless it furthered their objective of increasing migration. Any alternative explanations here? If it wasn't a trap, is there a reason why Republicans would turn this down?
I'm someone that generally sees the two parties as pretty close to each other in actual policy positions. Even if they loudly scream about how different they are.
Not my random opinion. It's what is predicted by public choice economics for a first past the post / two-party system. The party with the median voter wins, so that is where party behavior trends towards.
Lots of people here like to complain about the Democrats being in favor of open borders, but as someone who is actually in favor of open borders I mostly see the Democrats as ok with the current immigration situation, but not interested in opening up things any further.
If you think we have open borders right now .. I think we disagree on too much of base reality and we won't get very far talking with each other.
All of that to say, I would not be surprised if the bill looks semi strict on immigration but basically lacks any real teeth.
In some ways what we have now is the worst of both worlds. We have open borders for criminals and for low-skilled workers who are willing to work for low wages off the books, but we have tightly restricted immigration for highly skilled workers.
The US would be well served by adopting the Australian method: A relatively easy points based system to get in if you're a skilled worker plus a guarantee you'll be detained offshore and never be allowed into the US ever again if you arrive illegally.
I don't understand the focus on skilled immigration. A lot of what we need is unskilled work. Since the pandemic we've seen reduced hours and increased wages for service jobs that they still can't seem to staff. I suspect part of the reason for the price increases everywhere is that they have to pay 15 bucks an hour for someone to push a cash register, not because of change in the law but because they can't find anyone for less than that, and they're still having trouble staffing these places. US Steel is having trouble finding laborers for mills because even at 80k/year no one wants to work rotating shifts doing manual labor in a dusty environment.
The focus on immigration types is itself unnecessary. Let the market decide. The key is that migrants and their children should have no recourse to US citizenship (by naturalization or birthright), ever. Perhaps for the richest we can allow them to buy in for $5m per (immediate) family, paid in cash to the treasury dept. Everyone else can go home to retire or when the job is done. They can pay to school their children in public schools, and can’t bring over family unless they can financially demonstrate they can support them.
All we need is the Kuwaiti/Emirati system. These are countries where 80% of the population are immigrants, and yet the natives are still in charge because naturalization doesn’t exist.
If only the United States had the foresight to institute such a system a century and a half ago, before the immigrant problem got out of hand. Then they could have just used my great-grandfather's labor in the mines until he decided to retire (coincidentally right around the time Pittsburgh Seam coal started running low), and then deported him back to Galicia just in time for the German invasion. Another great-grandfather would have been shipped back to Calabria some time in the late 40s or early 50s. I don't want to think what the consequences for your family would have been. I'm not sure what the downside was of their being allowed to stay.
America is a settler country; all of us except the natives were ‘immigrants once’ (even if before independence). But it is fair for a settler country to decide that permanent settlement is finished. That involves no contradiction or hypocrisy. Manifest destiny is over. The only remaining land is either worthless or protected for nature. 330 million is enough.
Not except for the natives; the ancestors of the modern tribes (the Clovis people) killed and/or drove out an earlier wave of settlement.
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