migrants, migrants, migrants. the more things change, the more they stay the same

The immigrants are coming. That doesn't mean they have to be let in.

I'm not against immigration to the U.S. I do think there should be immigration limits for each year and that, for the most part, immigration has to begin at a U.S. Embassy in their home country, not the border. As long as we don't enforce our border laws immigrants have no reason to go through the process the right way and start the immigration process at a U.S. Embassy.

And newsflash. My country being a poor war torn sh*thole country is NOT a valid reason for an asylum claim. Unless they are being politically persecuted or their life is threatened for being against the political party in power / dictator in their home country, asylum does not apply. It absurdly burns me up how the asylum system has been utterly abused.

And just to clarify, the asylum system also says you have to go to the first stable country nearest to your home country. For most that would be Mexico, so why are they not applying for asylum in Mexico? Asylum is not meant to be a "pick and choose what country you go to" type situation. It's truly meant to be an option of last resort.

 

If 1 person is gaming the system that is 1 person too many. More immigrants also mean more labor is needed, it's a vicious cycle. Or have you not seen how overcrowded the schools area in areas with a significant immigrant / illegal immigrant population? More immigrants / illegal immigrants means an area needs more school teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers and other services. It also means you need more schools, more facilities, even more retail options. So it can actually hurt an area as much as it helps.

 

So your big problem is that we might have to build more schools and infrastructure which would create jobs lol

 

Which means we won't have the people for those jobs. Which means we are right back at square one with a labor shortage. Which means are aging infrastructure will crumble even faster. Which means more traffic, longer ER wait times, longer wait times at the tax collectors/dmv offices, more overcrowded schools. More natural land and trees destroyed to make even more unnecessary strip malls and more housing. In general making life harder and more miserable for everyone. And here I thought Democrats were for the environment.

Look at Florida, the state can barely handle its population anymore. Growth just for the sake of growth isn't a good thing. When do we have too many people? Are we not going to be happy until every part of the state is bland row housing and strip malls? Because that's where we are going and that's where your mentality will take the entire country.

Maybe just maybe we don't need as many people as we think. More people isn't better. If anything we need the population in the U.S. to decrease. That's why I'm okay with the birth rate being negative amongst native U.S. citizens. We need to decrease the population, not increase it.

 

There's enough people for any job if you pay enough. Florida's population isnt exploding, there arent enough teachers because the state makes the job a very shit one that pays little and lets kids and parents police everything you say on penalty of lawsuit. Who'd want to do it?

 

The border is 2,000 miles long, much of it inaccessible by motorized vehicle. It's walking or horseback only. To truly secure the entire border would take much more than a billion dollar boondoggle wall that can be easily climbed over or cut. It would take massive amount of man power, and massive infrastructure to get these men to and from their border posts. For these reasons, the border has never truly been secure in our history.

As for the guest worker plan, one thing it would create is a pool of tax money from the immigrants that could help pay for processing, tracking, etc. At $5/week, if the 8 million undocumented immigrants pay for a guest visa to stay legal in this country, that would raise over $2 billion a year. Not only could this pay for more Border Patrol, the government could also contract with a Tech firm like ADP to help track these immigrants. Put them into the system, track their weekly Visa payments and employment, whereabouts, etc. If an immigrant stopped working and/or stops paying visa payments, then it's time to check on the immigrant and figure out why. Deport if necessary.

Speaking of deporting if necessary, if and when there is an economic downturn, the market was good at self correcting last time. During the 2008-2010 recession, the undocumented population in the country dropped around 1 million overall. Simply put, there are a number of migrants who if they can't find work in the states, would rather suffer back home instead. There would likely be little reason to have a heavy hand when it comes to recessions and the number of immigrants in the US. Let the market work itself out.

Same way for allowing those to come in. We already have processing centers along the border. We could take part of the billions a year raised and expand on these into larger centers that can house immigrants temporarily while we run background checks. Yes, there will be those from countries where doing a check will prove to be more difficult, but the majority are coming from C. American countries. We could also put processing centers near larger airports, but how many undocumented immigrants fly into the country illegally? Most who fly into the country with a proper visa, and become undocumented by overstaying the visa. If they are already here and are overstaying, they too should be eligible for the guest visa. And there would be no reason to house them, as again, they are already here.

And yes to families. The ones that have come and qualify for DACA have added billions to the economy and tax rolls already. No reason why we shouldn't have a DACA program where if the kids come here, get a high school education, and either graduate college or a trade program within six years of HS graduation, or serve a minimum 4 years honorably in the military, grant these kids citizenship. If they graduate HS and don't get some sort of degree or military, then they too should become eligible for the guest worker visa.

We can do it. It's not going to be perfect, nor will it be easy. But a plan like the Gang of 8 plan is much better than the status quo.