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If only the party that historically supported those two things would treat their country like a community rather than an economic zone.
There's been a realignment. Trump (a pretty standard '80s New York liberal) reunited the FDR coalition. It started with Bill's (sold as "temporary, for the sake of winning") economic "triangulation," and evolved into this.
It is OK to think a community's culture needs time to adapt to change; it is OK to think this means immigration sometimes needs pauses; it is OK for a country to control immigration; it is OK for a country to decide how much immigration it wants right now; it is OK for that amount to be different at different times. (Runaway "none of that is OK, all of it is racist" is what led to this; but I'm sure you've heard that before.)
People have repeatedly voted to control immigration and had politicians not act on that. Members of the political class will sometimes allow that they are unshakably convinced that the economy needs immigration, needs more and more immigration, or else it will crash, period--and that's why they ignore the will of the people. Thus complaints about treating the community like an economic zone.
Not to mention the repeated "This will economically help more people worldwide than it hurts, and we'll have social programs to help out those it does hurt." Reality: We got the "giant sucking sound," we did not get the social programs. I'm old enough to have seen that happen over and over. I know that's frustrating when the party intended to do both, but there comes a point where intent doesn't matter. Right-wing (libertarian) economics without the left-wing social programs to ameliorate their effect is just...right-wing economics. Thus, again, complaints of treating a community like an economic zone.
We are in a predicament: We have an economic system designed around constant growth, yet actually, constant growth is not physically possible (see, you know, The Limits to Growth?). The political class' attitude has been to accept the former but not the latter. And to hope that immigration can prop up continued growth. Regardless of any negative externalities it...becomes clearer and clearer it does have (Bowling Alone etc.) Because if not, well, then what?
It still has those negative externalities, so.
What does that have to do with immigration?
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