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So what's the deep, unresolved tension surrounding keeping noncitizens in the country?
Is there any reason other than "it helps us win elections?"
The competing interests and preferences of nativists, anti-nativists, employers, consumers, etc... combined with a deadlocked political system that effectively leaves immigration policy up to the caprices of executive discretion.
What is that supposed to mean? Illegal immigrants can't vote, so the "importing voters" theory doesn't hold up so well, and their mere existence alienates the xenophobe vote, so it's hard to call it a winning electoral strategy. Even if you think they're wrong, you should probably take immigration advocates at their word when they offer humanitarian and economic justifications for supporting immigration.
Illegal immigrants aren't supposed to vote. That doesn't mean they do not. Many states give them DLs and auto-register everyone with a DL. In addition, many jurisdictions dont actually check ID (as in photo ID or any other) when people vote, particularly by mail.
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I do not like @Fruck's antagonism (borderline, but saying your argument is dishonest is allowed even if I wish he'd be more charitable). However, while I think immigration advocates mostly do believe in humanitarian and economic justifications, your arguments that there can't possibly be any self-serving motives seem either naive or, well, the less charitable option Fruck pointed at.
I will make three counterarguments:
*. "Illegal immigrants can't vote." This is true, and I tend to mostly think claims of widespread voter fraud are unsupported. That said, to claim it absolutely does not or could not happen, and cannot be an intentional policy, is to ignore history. I've mentioned this before (because it's one of my favorite books) but Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson talks a lot about his 1948 Senate race in Texas. It was quite eye-opening. At that time, shipping large numbers of Mexicans across the border to vote illegally was in fact something party bosses did routinely (both parties). Everyone knew this. And it certainly wasn't happening only in Texas.
I'm going to say this probably doesn't happen today, at least not on a large scale, but the fact that it did happen within living memory, and clearly there are politicians who would be quite happy to game the system like that if they could find an exploit, means I do not think you can so casually dismiss the possibility, and the concern. I don't know if pro-immigrationists are finding ways to get illegals to vote in significant numbers, but I believe they absolutely would. Especially given that many pro-immigrationists basically believe in open borders and we've seen more than one politician openly advocate for letting illegals vote, since they literally don't think anyone should be "illegal."
*. Even charitably assuming most of them aren't angling to get illegal immigrant votes, most of them do expect anyone who comes and settles here illegally to eventually be legalized. They don't want anyone to ever be deported, and again, they don't actually believe anyone should be illegal. So yes, people who can't technically vote now are very much seen as future votes, at least.
*. "The xenophobe vote." This assumes they would not advocate for more immigration and illegal immigrant rights because it would hurt them electorally; the "xenophobes" would vote against them. Sorry, but Fruck is right here. The xenophobes are already not going to vote Democrat (or Green, or Peace and Freedom, or Socialist). They aren't losing any votes they might otherwise have gained. Maybe if the Democrats were actually the party of the working class again they'd have to worry about blue collar and farm workers worried about their jobs, but they don't actually care about those people anymore, and haven't for a generation.
It's not that I think there couldn't be self-serving motives, but I don't think the actual reality of American politics actually support any of them. All in all, I just don't think there's a very good reason to believe that opposition to mass deportations or other restrictive immigration policies is a cynical ploy as opposed to a fundamental values difference.
I have no idea why @Fruck is accusing me of being dishonest, other than that they have totally misread my argument.
I'm not saying that the incident rate is literally zero, but I am saying that it is not high enough to be political relevant or be a serious motive for immigration advocates. As a self-interested motive it lacks substantial payoff (and would be risky to boot).
I don't think the historical point has much relevance. It strikes me that when you're talking about mid-century American politics, there's a lot more general bad behavior when it comes to election integrity. I don't really know enough about Texan politics in the 40s and 50s to fact-check you, but it doesn't strike me as especially distinct other forms of election manipulation that were common then and are far less common now.
I don't think this is true. Hopes might be high, but expectations for a general amnesty are generally pretty low. I think there is an expectation that 2nd gen children of illegal immigrants will lean left, but - again - I don't think it constitutes a significant motivating factor for pro-immigration advocates. Pushing a controversial position now in the expectation that it's going to pay off for different people in a generation is a level of long-term planning that I do not buy from people who will throw allies out of the tent for 75% agreement.
There's a feedback loop were pro-immigration/anti-immigration parties (reasonably) expect that immigrants will vote for/against them. That doesn't tell you much about their reasons for being pro/anti in the first place. (Ironically, both views appear to be at least partially incorrect.)
Margins matter. Indeed, in the current political environment they matter quite a lot. Diehard nativists are not going to vote for the Dems no matter what (both because they won't trust them on immigration and because hardcore nativist is strongly correlated with other conservative beliefs), but the typical anti-immigrant voter isn't nearly that committed.
I agree that there's a significant body of immigration advocates who think any immigration skeptic is a write-off. Probably more than there are people pushing for moderating on immigration on the basis of marginal electoral gains, but I think that points away from cynical motives and towards ideological ones. It's taking on board the added risk of losing an election (and thus all your other issues of concern) because you prefer to avoid compromising on this particular issue when you could safely move right.
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That wasn't antagonism, it was exasperation. The specific topic of the paragraph in question is honesty. He tanked it immediately by using that argument. If I was being antagonistic I would have also attacked the illegal voting argument for the reasons you mentioned, but in my experience progressives pretty sincerely believe illegal aliens don't vote. But there's no way he thinks they want the xenophobe vote, there's just no way. That's important when we're talking about taking immigration advocates at their word.
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But they add to how much the votes of people around them count. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evenwel_v._Abbott
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At a bare minimum, they can use it as a wedge issue, as with abortion or gun control.
Like they're doing now.
If there was minimal illegal immigration to speak of, what would be their case for increasing it.
That would make vastly more sense coming from the right, where we've repeatedly seen conservative elites push back on certain kinds of immigration enforcement while also avoiding comprehensive immigration reform. YMMV if this is because they want it as a wedge or because it would it would implicate them and hurt their economic interests.
Like, who are the Dems wedging with immigration?
That would depend a great deal on the counterfactual. A scenario where there's minimal illegal immigration because there's de facto open borders, not much. Illegal immigration is not a first preference for immigration advocates (hence, for example, efforts to route immigrants through the asylum system). In "death penalty for illegal entry" scenario, you're back to the humanitarian appeal. Not that either of those scenarios are likely, but I hope it illustrates the point.
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Come on man you know that the dems explicitly don't want the xenophobe vote. Why should I take you at your word if you are being dishonest?
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They can't (legally) vote, but they do count towards apportionment.
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Yes. Some people believe the US is infinitely wealthy and we can afford to take in all of the downtrodden of the world fleeing poverty and oppression and the only reason you could be against this is because you're racist.
It does not compute that this could bankrupt the entitlements systems they are so fond of that are mostly paid out of high earner taxes. Or they believe money is magic and the classists are causing fake scarcity or whatever.
Or- what most educated people believe- that illegals mostly pay taxes but don't collect much benefits because they aren't eligible and like to retire to their home countries(which are cheaper). This leaves stuff out like the cost of their children's public school education but there are true things in it and the actual numbers don't seem to have ever been crunched in an unbiased way. There's also the take that illegals are necessary because somebody has to pick strawberries and kill chickens and Americans are too spoiled to.
A family of illegals with two kids in public school consumes $4000 a month in taxes from that alone and I don't think the taxes raised or economy activity generated by their strawberry picking even comes close to recouping that cost.
It's true the poor Appalachian white family that's been here for eight generations doesn't either, but we can't really argue over whether or not they should have been allowed in.
I mean, we then have to compute 'how many illegal children are in public schools'.
I'm totally willing to believe illegals are consuming more in taxes than they pay in. Just want to point out that the math hasn't been done.
Children that are themselves illegal is probably in the low million, children OF illegals in the high single or low teen millions.
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