Why the GOP Congress Should Welcome More Immigrants (Even Illegals!)

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Why the GOP Congress Should Welcome More Immigrants (Even Illegals!)

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Here are a few reasons why immigration is GOOD for the U.S.:

• Immigrants make up 13% of the U.S. population, but represent 18% of small business owners
• Immigrant businesses employ 1 in 10 Americans 
• 18% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants, generating  $1.7 trillion in revenue
• Immigrants are three times more likely to file a patent than native citizens
• 75% of farm workers are foreign-born
• As consumers, immigrants pump over $2 trillion into the economy
• Without immigrant labor, milk prices would increase by 61%
• Immigrants on average pay $1800 more in taxes than receive in benefits
• 66% of ILLEGAL—ILLEGAL!--immigrants pay Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes via payroll withholding
• Immigrants (legal and illegal) are less likely to commit crimes or be on welfare but more likely to work than similarly situated native-born Americans

So instead of trying to reduce immigration by "securing the border," "completing the dang fence," and forcing ALL residents to show work papers and ALL employers to become agents of the federal government, why don't we just…

 Let (a Lot More of) Them In…

In the new Congress, immigrant-friendly lawmakers in both parties can pass laws "that enjoy bipartisan support…to start fixing the system…. These include a GUEST WORKER PROGRAM for low-skilled workers and DEREGULATION of the high-skilled visa program."—Shikha Dalmia, in the February 2015 Reason.

Read more at reason.com/policyagenda2015

About 1 minute. 

Written by Nick Gillespie and Amanda Winkler. Produced and edited by Winkler. Graphic art by Jason Keisling. 

Comments

[TheTaxState]

I thought America was almost all immigrants? How do you figure immigrants only make up 13% of the population? Illegals may make up 13%, but then all of your other figures don't apply.

[Scarecrow Repair]

(For the googlers out there who find this and think it's a serious question, "immigrant" in this article refers to people who were born as foreigners and does not include descendants of said immigrants who were born in the US.)

[Ted S.]

Wow, it's not a Shikha Dalmia article!

I presume this thread is the weekend derp trap?

[Fist of Etiquette]

We had a contractor we'd employed before back in working on a mail server upgrade. Turns out, he's Canadian. That opened the door to a lot of new things we could make fun of him for.

Immigrants are three times more likely to file a patent than native citizens

THEY TOOK OUR PATENTS! THEY TOOK OUR FARM JOBS! Half these reasons are reasons immigration opponents could use.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Wow, this article, pretty standard fare in libertarian circles, is going to be like whacking the hornets nest of Republitarians that post here with a stick. Too early for popcorn?

[Crusty Juggler]

Douche chill

[PM]

2.5 hours later and the crypto-Republicans don't seem to have materialized. Kind of strange, wouldn't you say? It's almost as if they're intentionally remaining silent just to make Bo look like a tin foil hat wearing jackass. That's how nefarious these people are!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I guess calling them out ahead of time works. It's not like it's uncommon to have threads on immigration where about half the commenters seem to be more comfortable with the GOP's position than the LP's.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

I guess calling them out ahead of time works.

Way to keep that gate, man.

[The Bad Captain Madly]

That probably goes a long way in explaining why there are more libertarians in the GOP than the LP, too.

[sharmota4zeb]

Other than amnesty, the Dems agree with the Republican immigration policy 100%. Senator Menendaz tweeted that Republicans are offering no solutions to fix our broken immigration policy. I tweeted back to ask what reforms he suggests. He never replied to my question even when I repeated it two more time. After that, I unfollowed him.

[DJF]

Immigration Reform is like Health Care Reform, you are suppose to blindly support it and not ask any questions of what's in it.

[Gordilocks]

OT - if the government takes all of our guns, we'll have to let this Dane in to teach us how to use a bow.
This video is fucking deadly and worth the watch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BEG-ly9tQGk

[Agammamon]

And we don't have to worry about body armor making weapons ineffective - bows'll cut right through that shit.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

+1 Agincourt

[Bam!]

That was pretty awesome.

[Harold Falcon]

That's fucking amazing. Is that real? No CGi or photoshop or shit? I'm impressed if it is.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

OT: Pro-life 'experts' get caught lying to courts

"It should not take witnesses actually being caught lying on the stand for courts to recognize the overwhelming evidence that these restrictions serve no medical purpose. Pretending these laws are intended to do anything other than make it more difficult for women to get legal abortions makes a farce out of judicial review."

http://www.slate.com/articles/.....t_rue.html

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Having read the article, the best thing I can say about it is that I read the article.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

If there's one thing judges hate, it's people who publish things under their own name which were written by others! Which is why judges don't use their clerks to draft their opinions.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

What's a little dishonesty when you're averting a Baby Holocaust?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I never heard of any of these "experts," and I don't agree with referring to the guilt many women feel over their abortions as a "syndrome."

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I guess you should take that up with the Pro-life AG's that call them to the stand for their side.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I have no investment in these sellout Republican politicians. I expected no less from them. They consistently act as the Cleveland Browns to the prolifers, just like Republicans who trumpet their supposed support for free markets.

[PM]

In other contexts, in criminal cases or civil disputes, state attorneys would consider it shameful and unethical to fabricate evidence or stretch the truth in this way. They feel no similar remorse nor hesitancy to do so when the issues involved are labeled "controversial" and involve highly charged ideological views or religious orthodoxy. But it is precisely such circumstances that require lawyers and courts to base arguments on real evidence?not conjecture or faux science. Without that check, we give government unlimited power to mandate harmful laws, with no recourse for those whose lives or health are jeopardized.

This was published in Slate.

I guess it's nice to see they finally discovered a case where the precautionary principle doesn't apply and exaggerating risk to the public for the sake of passing onerous regulations that put suppliers out of business is wrong. I suspect they probably won't internalize the lesson. Any more than their loyal readers.

[sharmota4zeb]

I started reading Slate when it republished the Je Suis Charlie cartoon, but stopped reading it several days latter when a Slate columnist urged Millennials to get more involved in politics and reminded them that "there is an election every two years, not every four years."

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

a Slate columnist urged Millennials to get more involved in politics and reminded them that "there is an election every two years, not every four years."

BUT THERE'S NO PRESIDENT IN SOME OF THOSE YEARS!

[sharmota4zeb]

Yeah. Now that Republicans have control over the Senate and the House, Slate writers are realizing that there is more to the government than the president. They still don't realize that local office holders, who get elected every year, also matter.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Volokh Examines Case of Civil Rights Complaint Filed Against Baker that Refused to Make 'God Hates Gays' Cake

"Jack, told reporters this week that he believes Azucar Bakery "discriminated" against him "based on my creed," which is Christian. He filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division...Jack walked into Azucar Bakery last March and asked for two cakes, both in the shape of Bibles. That wasn't a problem for Marjorie Silva, the bakery's owner. It was what Jack wanted her to write on the cake: Anti-gay phrases including "God hates gays"...while Jack has succeeded in getting publicity for his cause, he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. Colorado law bans discrimination by a wide range of businesses, but only when the discrimination is based on "disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, or ancestry."...nothing in the law bans discrimination based on ideology more broadly. A store can refuse to sell to someone because he's a Nazi, or a Communist, or pro-life, or pro-choice, or pro-gay-rights, or anti-gay-rights. A store can likewise refuse to inscribe cakes with Nazi, Communist, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, or anti-gay-rights messages, if it's discriminating based on the ideology of the message, rather than the religiosity of the buyer."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ates-gays/

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"A store can likewise refuse to inscribe cakes with Nazi, Communist, pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gay-rights, or anti-gay-rights messages"

That's a relief - so a baker doesn't have to make wedding cakes for same-sex ceremonies!

All this fuss for nothing!

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Oh, wait, the sentence goes on:

"if it's discriminating based on the ideology of the message, rather than the religiosity of the buyer"

No one would reject a "God hates gays" cake or a "God bless our same-sex marriage" cake based on the buyer's religiosity!

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Keep reading in the article...

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Oh, you're right, there's a very significant sentence in there:

"The civil rights division will have to decide, as many LGBT advocates are arguing, whether those differences are significant enough to warrant treating each case differently."

In short, they'll need extensive, and expensive, administrative (and perhaps judicial) proceedings before the case is resolved.

I wonder if Prof. Volokh ever ran a small business. If he did, he failed to assimilate the lessons.

To defend this case, the business owner will have to spend legal fees over several years.

And since the key question will be whether the defendant's motives were "ideological" or "religious," the plaintiffs will go all out to find religious bias on the defendant's part. They'll aggressively depose him, demanding that he reveal any words or actions indicating that she dislikes religious views like those of the plaintiff. The defandant's employees and associates could be deposed, too, not to mention examination of the defendant's emails and social-media postings in search of incriminating remarks.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Hopefully, the defendant won't get caught in a years-ago remark that "the Religious Right distorts the word of God," or that "God loves gays." And hopefully he never donated to Americans United for Separation of Church and State. And hopefully he won't forget the time he called Jerry Falwell a "loony," allowing the plaintiff's lawyers to scream "perjury!" and "cover-up!"

And if after several years the defendant finally "wins," he will win in the sense that Pyrrhus won - "another such victory and I am undone!"

Prof. Volokh speaks from his ivory tower above the clouds, and his remarks bear little relation to the way things work on Planet Earth.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

As I suspected:

"In accordance with rules adopted by the commission, discovery procedures may [if mediation fails] be used by the commission and the parties under the same circumstances and in the same manner as is provided by the Colorado rules of civil procedure"

http://www.lpdirect.net/casb/crs/24-34-306.html

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Oh, let's not forget the lost work time from spending time answering attorneys' questions, or losing his employees' services while *they* answer attorneys' questions, or the time spent complying with subpoenas (and obsessively checking to make sure she didn't miss anything, which would get her in very deep trouble)

I think many business owners would just say, "screw it, I'll pay off the plaintiff and do the two-hour re-education seminar, and promise to bake all the God Hates Gays cakes they want."

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Not sure the funniest thing about your rant-a-thon here: that you're ignorant of who Volokh is, what he does and his stances (here's a hint, he's working for the photographer who was fined in NM for refusing to work a SSM ceremony) and launch into a by-the-script attack on libural ivy tower academics, or you nearly incredible inability to understand his analysis.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

So, this proceeding *won't* be burdensome to the baker?

[Notorious G.K.C.]

But don't worry, the gay-baiting plaintiff "while Jack has succeeded in getting publicity for his cause, he doesn't have a legal leg to stand on."

So after a few years he'll lose, and all the baker has to do is dip into her bank account to defend herself, and submit to extensive discovery about her religious views.

And note, from Volokh's own article, that it's the SoCons who are offering to give the baker some legal protection.

And it's your fellow SoLibs, like Volokh, who want this baker, an ideological ally, to go through lengthy litigation.

Pathetic.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Jeff Johnston of Colorado-based Focus on the Family, an organization that opposes same-sex marriage, told the Christian Post that "just as a Christian baker should not be required to create a cake for a same-sex ceremony, this baker should not be required to create a cake with a message that goes against her conscience."

"Colorado state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt (R) told the Fox affiliate that he is sponsoring legislation to protect Azucar.""

I think this baker would be well-advised to rely on Focus on the Family rather than on some Laputan* intellectual floating comfortably in the sky above the real world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laputa#Inhabitants

[Notorious G.K.C.]

I think Prof. Volokh's commendable zeal for religious freedom nevertheless illustrates the limits of the RFRA approach - which, though it may be the least-bad answer to the problem under current circumstances, still maintains legal uncertainty and could deter people from exercising their freedom because they don't know what's permitted and what's not until they get sued and the courts are through with the case.

See Prof. V's defense of the "common law" RFRA-style approach in Volokh, Eugene, Common-Law Religious Freedom. UCLA Law Review, Vol. 46, June 1999.

[Kuwanki]

Ummm, so; a guy comes in from God Hates Black Presidents, and he wants a cakes showing the dismembership and cannibalism of the First Family. The owner of the bakery refuses to make such a cake. The result is that DOJ closes his business and fines him 59 trillion dollars for racist, fascist and homophobic hate speech. So he makes the cake and the DOJ closes his business, and confiscates all his assets, and finds him 459.301 quadrillion dollars for assisting in hate speech, and sends a drone out to Wales to execute distant relatives. Am i missing something here?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

NM Court Says State Switchblade Ban Does not Violate 2nd Amendment

The Court said "Viewed from any approach, the switchblade statute is a modest infringement."

So they admit it's an infringement, albeit a 'modest' one, but the 2nd Amendment isn't violated...How does that 2nd Amendment go again?

[Brian D]

The right to bear arms shall not be significantly infringed.

DUH!

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Only state militias can have switchblades.

[Rich]

"Why does anyone *need* a switchblade?"

[GregMax]

State-ism

[Ken Shultz]

"Without immigrant labor, milk prices would increase by 61%".

Link?

I'd like to know how much of an impact illegal immigration has on the cost of childcare for working mothers. How many working mothers, single or otherwise, can afford to go to work because of inexpensive childcare provided by illegal aliens?

How many elderly people, single or otherwise, can afford to stay in their homes and live independently because of inexpensive lawn mowing services, senior home care services, etc. provided by illegal immigrants?

Certainly, the idea of the state prosecuting single mothers for hiring whomever they please to watch their children while they're at work offends my libertarianism, and the state prosecuting elderly people on a fixed income for hiring whomever they please to mow their lawn offends my libertarianism, too.

Yeah, people using social services offends my libertarianism, too, but we really don't want access to those services to be an attribute of citizenship. Being an American citizen shouldn't entitle you to mooch off of the taxpayer, and there isn't anything about being an American citizen that makes me feel better about you stealing money out of my wallet either. If you want to cut spending on social services, go ahead--do it to everybody. But don't cut off access to all that economy boosting, cheap, unregulated labor--when cutting social services directly is the only effective solution to the problem of welfare queens anyway.

[PM]

But don't cut off access to all that economy boosting, cheap, unregulated labor

Ironically enough, granting illegal immigrants legal status would, to one extent or another, do precisely that. Being unregulated is a major part of what makes black market labor cheap. Not to say currently-illegal immigrants granted legal status couldn't continue to operate in the black market, but they'd be risking a lot more by doing so - the incentives change.

That there is such high demand for labor on conditions that the government has proscribed might just be an indication that labor regs are harmfully distorting the market and should be reconsidered. But that's a less politically expedient conversation to be having.

[Ken Shultz]

"Being unregulated is a major part of what makes black market labor cheap."

I think you're absolutely right about that.

If only the American job market were as unregulated for everyone as it is for illegal immigrants...

[PM]

If only the American job market were as unregulated for everyone as it is for illegal immigrants...

Exactly. Both governments and the businesses who should know better seem to miss the forest for the trees when it comes to labor.

[sharmota4zeb]

Ken.

My local county hospital charges the feds over $2,000 per day to lock up psychiatric patients against their will. Disability payments are in the range of $10,000 per year in direct payments. Psychiatrists and their staff are the biggest welfare queens by a long shot.

[Ken Shultz]

Also, somebody should point out that illegal aliens tend to undermine entrenched unions.

The reason so many unions favor amnesty is becasue they see illegal immigrants as a threat.

Anything that entrenched unions see as a threat--can't be all bad.

[Crusty Juggler]

another libertarian-tard who hates the working man.

[Ken Shultz]

I don't know if this is supposed to be sarcastic, but I know that labor unions seem to hate the working consumer.

If a union's idea of a "working man" is someone who gets overpaid by as much as possible for doing as little as possible based primarily on how long he's been there--rather than what he's accomplished? Then, no, can't say I'm much of a fan.

...especially when those slobs' jobs are mostly made possible by the government. Yeah, the labor unions seem to hate the American taxpayer, too.

P.S. Doesn't the UAW still owe us taxpayers some money? Fuckin' scumbags taxing working Americans, who get paid a fraction of what they do, to keep their lazy asses overpaid--and then they want to talk about how they're out to help the working man? They must think we're as stupid as they are.

[PM]

Everybody hates the working man when they're a consumer - nobody more so than the working man himself. What they intuitively understand from one side of the sales counter they immediately forget when they go on the other side.

[lap83]

"Anything that entrenched unions see as a threat--can't be all bad."

Nice logic. So you must think Obamacare is pretty good because unions hate that too.

[Ken Shultz]

Does the term "tongue-in-cheek" mean anything to you?

http://www.merriam-webster.com.....e-in-cheek

Being able to spot these things is important. It's what separates us from the animals Objectivists!*

*Just in case, that wasn't meant to be taken literally either.

[KevinP]

You cannot have open borders and a welfare state at the same time:

Pew Research Center: Hispanic Politics, Values, Religion

Support for a larger government is greatest among immigrant Latinos. More than eight-in-ten (81%) say they would rather have a bigger government with more services than a smaller government with fewer services.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

Nope, nope, nope. WRONG. Immigration has ZERO drawbacks. What are you, some kind of racist?

EVERYONE WHO COMES HERE WANTS TO REDUCE GOVERNMENT AND INCREASE LIBERTY.

[ipolitics123]

"EVERYONE WHO COMES HERE WANTS TO REDUCE GOVERNMENT AND INCREASE LIBERTY."

Either you forgot the /sarc tag or this is pure troll bait, right? No one except a Berkeley graduate could believe this.

[Ken Shultz]

If that's true, why do you assume that it's the immigration side of the equation that has to give?

I'm all in favor of slashing the welfare state. A lot of us are. Let's get rid of the welfare state right now!

If you want to start privatizing the public school system tomorrow, you'll find plenty of libertarians lining up behind you on that, too.

[Bill Dalasio]

Ken, I generally agree with you that too many opposed to immigration have a failure of imagination with regard to slashing the welfare state. On the other hand, what reason is there to think that continuing mass immigration won't just mean its re-introduction?

[Ken Shultz]

I think the world would genuinely be a better place without the welfare state, and the facts of improvement without it would be hard to deny.

Just like I think a privatized school system would be better than the public school system we have now, and once people started to enjoy the benefits of a privatized school system, that satisfaction would lend itself to further support.

Like satisfied Uber users not wanting to go back to using regulated taxicabs or public transportation.

No question, the bureaucrat parasites that benefit from the welfare state will cry and moan and lie--but that's always going to be a problem.

Still, even now, as illegal immigrants who support the welfare state become legal, start paying taxes, start suffering the burden of the welfare state, etc., I bet their support for the welfare state fades to something more along the lines of the rest of us taxpayers.

Why would they be any different?

[Bill Dalasio]

This video makes a good case that more open immigration would make for great policy (although I have to admit that it's not particularly clear that the profile of the additional immigrants let in would match what's described in the video; are we really blocking out the new small business owners and patent developers or are we blocking out unskilled labor). What it fails to address, particularly in light of the fact that it is identifying one political party, is whether it would make for good politics. On that front, the evidence seems decidedly less optimistic. By and large, even absent the immigration issue, immigrants tend to be much less sympathetic to Republican (or even libertarian) thinking or views. Now, I'll grant, recent immigrants can't (legally) vote. But, it seems like a losing strategy to import an electorate more hostile to your views.

[Harold Falcon]

Strategy, perhaps. But principles matter. It's why some of us support gay marriage even though it will grant gay couples tax breaks, SS benefits, and the like. Sometimes, when the principle is important enough, you have to stand on it and take the bad along with it. Freedom of association, freedom of contract, and freedom of movement are important enough to take a stand on this even if the great progressive and conservative welfare state will hurt.

[Tony]

Um, but they're brown.

[Harold Falcon]

Racist asshole. Go fuck your mother. Fuck her in the asshole. Then take the dick out of her ass and have her give you a blowjob. Then after you cum in her mouth let her spit it in yours. You are a reprehensible piece of shit.

[F. Stupidity, Jr.]

+1 The Aristocrats

[MelvinUdall]

Unfettered immigration in welfare state.

Unregulated immigration in a world of terrorism.

Reason gives me less reason to support the daily. It's too often dogma rather than reason.

[Ken Shultz]

Unfettered immigration in welfare state.

Reason isn't arguing for a welfare state.

[ipolitics123]

"Reason isn't arguing for a welfare state."

Yeah, but that's what we happen to have right now. Can you fix that for us, and then we'll talk?

[Ken Shultz]

Why not fix the welfare state problem, since immigration isn't a problem by itself?

The welfare state is a problem by itself. If there weren't a single illegal immigrant in all of the United States of America, we'd still need to do something about the entitlement society and the welfare state.

If there were no welfare state, then who would give a damn about illegal immigration and why? Before the government started providing cradle to grave social services, did anybody but the "Dey terk er jerbs" brigade give a damn about illegal immigration?

[Ken Shultz]

"Unregulated immigration in a world of terrorism."

Different Reason writers support different positions for different reasons.

While Reason staff generally support the free flow of people across borders, some of them have written in the past about it being necessary to check that immigrants don't have a communicable disease, that they have some documentation so we can check where they're from, that they don't have criminal records, etc.

Thing is, that's hard to check when so many immigrants are sneaking in through the desert. If they were allowed to cross the border whenever they wanted, the only people sneaking around out there in the dark desert would be the drug smugglers and the terrorists.

Open borders would let all the people just looking for work to come in and out through our border checks. Why would they risk their lives in the desert if they can just walk across the border?

But thank you for bringing up the point: advocating for closed borders really is carrying water for Al Qaeda and ISIS. The terrorists would much rather have all that cover of millions of people sneaking through the desert to hide behind, and the opponents of open borders are effectively doing their best to provide cover for the terrorists--whether they realize it or not.

[lap83]

Arbitrarily enforced borders do not = open borders.

[lap83]

They also don't lead there. Only a fool would think that Democrats are setting the stage for open borders by dangling the prospect of amnesty in hopes of increasing their ranks.

[Real American]

The immigration policies of this country should reflect the priorities and be to the benefit of the American citizens who are already here, not people in other countries who want to be here or the illegals that are already here. When immigrants do arrive, they need to be assimilated. That will be much easier if there are fewer of them. A wave of mass immigration makes that more difficult. These are basic principles.

[CptNerd]

I love how these things always conflate legal and illegal "immigrants." Not everyone who comes here wants to become citizen, a lot want to come here, work for far more than they can back home, send money back home, then go back home. For those who want to be "guest workers", I agree we should have an official way for them to come here, providing some incentives such as no income or Social Security tax, but also no access to the benefits that those taxes pay for. We should also look at ending the "born here citizen" rule, but there's much debate about it based on the "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" clause. Of course, there are quite a few "libertarians" who aren't "Constitutionalists" and don't give a fig about such things.

[sharmota4zeb]

First off, I think we should raise the number of Diversity Visas we offer from 50,000 to 500,000 each year and open that program up to people from all countries.

Second, it's tough to make a valid economic argument for immigration, when our immigration system is designed to funnel immigrants into the economic activities DC wants them to do. Immigrants are more likely to file patents, perhaps because we set aside visas for high tech workers. 75% of farm workers are immigrants, perhaps because we allow farm owners to pay below minimum wage and then set aside visas for farm workers.

[MarkinLA]

The diversity visa applicants are generally worthless parasites on welfare. Yeah, we need more of these.

[sharmota4zeb]

While we're on the topic of immigration, a Kuwaiti PM wants his country to allow non-Muslims to qualify for citizenship. Under current Kuwaiti law, only Muslim immigrants can become citizens.

[MarkinLA]

Yeah, they want the infidels to be beheaded in the streets not just some blasphemer.

[sharmota4zeb]

I don't see the need for amnesty. Marijuana users outnumber illegal aliens by a long shot, but no one suggests amnesty for them.

[MikeP]

I suggest amnesty for marijuana users.

[sharmota4zeb]

OK. You're the first to do so. Will you also support my idea for letting more immigrants in on diversity visas?

[MikeP]

Sure. Liberalization of immigration is a good thing.

But I think that rather than or along with expanding current visa quotas, the US should institute a quotaless and unlimited non-citizenship-track visa.

Amnesty would simply mean applying for and receiving that visa.

[raylcruz]

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[chaanjackie]

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[Cici]

Ignorance. You think its so we can oppress them to obey the immigration laws?! While you open the flood gates letting whatever unknown diseases in to wipe out our country, while your giving them our un- accounted for resources so we all starve and have no education (Minorities first you know) while you become the minority.. I'll be in Canada.Watching you destroy the country. That's a great plan. Ugh.

[userve32]

I dont think Jack NoMo is going to liek that?

http://www.BestAnon.tk

[ipolitics123]

"Immigration is good for the United States. That fact is undeniable."

That didn't work out so good for the Indians. You should ask them what they think of immigration. Maybe you should check in with Eugene Volokh too:

"Letting in immigrants means letting in your future rulers. It may be selfish to worry about that, but it's foolish not to." ? Eugene Volokh, volokh.com

http://volokh.com/2013/02/14/t.....al-aliens/

Seriously, the first two sentences of this article are about the stupidest thing I've ever read at Reason.com.

[Svenster]

From the sources:

The Skill Composition Of U.S. Immigrants Differs
From That Of Other Countries:

"Compared to countries like Canada, New Zealand, and
Australia, the United States has a greater proportion of low skilled immigrants. About 30 percent of immigrants in the United States possess a low level of education and only 35 percent possess a high level of education.

Countries like Canada attract a greater influx of immigrants with higher education levels and specialized skills through immigration policies that specifically favor visa applicants with advanced degrees or work experience. The composition of U.S. immigrants is the result of our immigration policies, which place more emphasis on family relationships and less consideration on skill or education than many other countries when granting permanent residence."

Choosing entrants based on skills or education? Why, that un-American!

[Ken Shultz]

Canada's and Australia's economies are more based on commodity raw materials.

At a time when the rest of the developed world is trying to stave off deflation, that's not a good thing.

China's economy is more based on cheap labor, and they've really done well with that! One of the main reasons why we trade so much with them is to take advantage of all that cheap labor.

No reason why our economy can't have the same advantage of cheap labor. It's like having access to cheap oil! ...and when we bring immigrants here, we can get the advantage of their cheap labor in service industries, too.

Cheap haircuts, cheap restaurant food. That's all good. Labor is a resource, and having more of a resource available at lower prices is a good thing for the economy. It's certainly a good thing for consumers, and for people toward the bottom of the income chart, basic things costing less is more important for their quality of life than it is for people at the top of the chart.

Since, you know, poorer people have to spend more of what they earn just to keep themselves fed, clothed, sheltered, etc. When poorer people can have some money left over for things like entertainment, that's what a rising standard of living is all about.

[unperson]

of course all of congress wants more immigrants...immigrants are the human livestock that the mega-corporations use for to depress wages and increase sales.

And whatever the mega-corporations want is what the politicians want.

But of course the congress has to PRETEND to hate immigration. Why? Because most of the people who elected them hate immigration. Immigration is the economic weapon used against them by the mega-corporations.

When are you kids going to grow up and face the real world?

[MarkinLA]

Most libertarians don't have real jobs (or lives) where they have to support a family and plan for it's future. They have their bong, their X-box, and their facebook friends.

[williamd]

I consider myself to be a small L libertarian and this is why. This whole open borders nonsense.
I bet if the illegal aliens were taking the jobs of think tank editors, you would be singing a different tune.
It used to be that American boys who did not want to go to college could go into a trade, i.e. Carpentry, Masonry, etc. and make a good living.
Now, in Florida you cannot find anyone in the construction industry ( unless you look really hard) that is not Mexican ( and don't call me a racist). This has in effect Halved the wage rates here. The developers like it because they put more money in their pockets, but it sucks for tradesmen and drove me from the field.
There are 93 million working age Americans not working and you want to let in a lot more low wage immigrants. Brilliant.
What we really need to do is to put a moratorium on All immigration until we assimilate who we have here now. "No Enforceable Borders, No Country"
I think we could get an "Immigrant" to do Nick's Job for half his Pay, how bout it Nick?

[Ken Shultz]

"Now, in Florida you cannot find anyone in the construction industry ( unless you look really hard) that is not Mexican ( and don't call me a racist). This has in effect Halved the wage rates here. The developers like it because they put more money in their pockets, but it sucks for tradesmen and drove me from the field."

This is why I'll never be a Republican again.

The purpose of the government in a capitalist society is not to protect people from competition. Libertarians are capitalists.

The Republican flavor of socialism might taste better than the Democrats', but that's not saying much.

Using the government to protect construction workers from competition is actually another form of centrally planning the economy--to protect home buyers from more affordable homes.

If there is any problem with native born construction workers having to compete with illegal aliens, it has to do with all the regulations and taxes that native born workers are subject to--and illegal aliens aren't.

But the solution to that problem isn't more and bigger government to stop people from hiring cheap labor. The solution to that problem is for the government to stop putting so many regulations and taxes on American born labor.

[MarkinLA]

Yeah there is a problem in a debt based society like ours when peoples wages go down and they can't make the payments on obligations they were well qualified to make only a few years ago. Those families end up on the streets (and on welfare) so that some collection of Mexicans living 20 to a house can send money back to Mexico.

I am sorry if this libertarian utopia isn't what the rest of the country want.

[Ken Shultz]

Other people don't exist for your benefit, and being an American doesn't entitle you to anything except the right to vote.

I don't feel sorry for anybody who has to compete.

I especially don't feel sorry for people who can't compete with Mexican manual laborers, most of whom come here with no more than an 8th grade education and can't speak English. If you can't compete with them then a) you shouldn't have dropped out of high school, b) stop snorting so much meth, or c) you shouldn't have gotten yourself convicted of a felony.

Why else would a native-born American be unable to compete with uneducated non-English speakers?

Are you handicapped? Are you insane?

Other than that, if you have to compete for work?

So what?

Get a job.

[MarkinLA]

You can't compete with builders who don't care about how shitty the work is as long as it lasts until the house is sold. That is the state of Mexican construction work.

[Ken Shultz]

You think all those production houses built in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Texas since the 1970s are of poor construction--specifically because they were built with inexpensive Mexican immigrant labor?

That doesn't even make sense. It's an absurd claim.

That's like something a union would say. It doesn't have any basis in reality.

Millions of happy homeowners living all over the American southwest, decade after decade, happy as could be with their homes. ...but the construction was shoddy becasue of inexpensive Mexican labor?

LOL

[MarkinLA]

Using the government to protect construction workers from competition is actually another form of centrally planning the economy--to protect home buyers from more affordable homes.

Spoken like a true moron. Labor costs have next to nothing to do with the cost of housing to the home buyer. The costs of housing never went down when the construction industry was flooded with illegals and prices have risen significantly in California while the cost of labor has stayed flat. I wonder who got all that "saving".

[Ken Shultz]

"The costs of housing never went down when the construction industry was flooded with illegals and prices have risen significantly in California while the cost of labor has stayed flat."

Housing prices are driven by supply and demand factors.

If you don't think developers take labor costs into consideration, you're crazy. In fact, labor can cost as much or more than materials. Why does it usually cost less to use asphalt rather than concrete? Because concrete takes more labor.

Labor costs don't have to decrease because an influx of cheap labor; they just have to stay lower than they would have been otherwise.

And the influx of illegal labor in the construction industry happened in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Texas in the late 1970s and 1980s. That labor has been keeping housing costs down--in the areas with the greatest growth--ever since. And the reason so many people have moved to the Southwest in recent decades is not completely unrelated to affordable quality housing.

Again, consumers benefit from lower prices, and lower labor costs means lower prices according to--everybody.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_economics

[MarkinLA]

Housing prices are driven by supply and demand factors.

Then why did you say the low wages made houses affordable? People did not move to the southwest for cheap housing, they moved for either a job or the weather when the retired. As somebody who has relatives in Pennsylvania, I can assure you moving to Arizona would not result in cheaper housing.

[Ken Shultz]

"Then why did you say the low wages made houses affordable?"

You don't understand the difference between cost and price?

Home developers do. It's what makes them profitable. Right? The difference between cost and price is profit (or loss).

Prices are set by the market. Developers build however many homes the market will bear--that they can build profitably. If my costs drop by 10%, I can set my prices 10% lower and make the same profit.

When prices are higher, they can build more homes than they could otherwise--because it's easier to make a profit. When costs are lower, they can sell more homes to more people at lower prices than they could afford to sell otherwise.

More (poorer) people can afford a home at $150,000 than they can at $200,000, right? Lower costs means more homes are built and sold by home developers than developers can build and sell profitably otherwise.

One of the reasons homes are more affordable and more available in the American Southwest is because they were built with less expensive, immigrant labor.

[Ken Shultz]

When people can afford to buy better things for the same or less money than they could before, that makes two things happen: 1) The standard of living rises. 2) The economy grows. Right?

If an abundance of inexpensive labor caused economies to slow or the standard of living to fall, then over the past 20 years, China would have had the slowest growing economy in the world--and their standard of living would have dropped precipitously. But that isn't what's happened in China. They've had more economic growth than anybody and with rising standards of living.

They had no middle class 20 years ago. Now their middle class is bigger than the entire population of the United States--and that happened despite because of an abundance of cheap labor.

It's just like having cheap oil. Why would the economy be better if gasoline were more expensive? Why would the economy be better if labor costs were higher?

If you want a better standard of living, don't try to stick your little finger in the immigration dike. Find something more valuable to do with your labor.

[MarkinLA]

Given the intelligence in most of these Reason immigration stories, I doubt you need anything more than a chimpanzee and some paper and ink to write something that outshines these articles.

[Jerome]

If one only catches the occasional glimpse at a popular piece by Gillespie picked up by another website, one might get the wrong idea about Reason and libertarians, generally.

Then you actually read the thing and you get idiotic shit like "why Republicans should be happy about illegal immigration". STFU you nitwits.

[The Bad Captain Madly]

Gillespie is competing with Shikha Dalmia for the title of "Immigration Queen".

Perhaps their last webathon didn't quite earn them enough to cover costs, so they're counting on being able to sell "I Punched Nick Gillespie In the Face" T-shirts to make up the balance. They've certainly primed the market.

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