Again, immigrants are a net economic (and I would argue societal) gain. You’ve just handwaved away all of the studies we’ve presented that say it, because of your “common knowledge”.
I absolutely believe that the net impact of the US immigration policy has been a positive one.
However, I am not aware of any holistic analysis of this impact that separates this impact out based on the different circumstances of their entry to the US to dive into this deeper - in fact, I believe there has been active push back against getting the data (probably with good reason given how this can be misused) to make this type of analysis even possible.
Right and the study for refugees specifically as I mentioned above which showed a large positive impact was immediately rejected by the administration because they didn’t agree (i.e. it didn’t support their entrenched position).
I read through it briefly from this link and unfortunately I think the Trump Admin has a point when they say that this study may not be fully applicable to the current situation - and the report actually helps the Trump admin’s position in some areas.
Some interesting points from the paper
The vast majority of the refugee population studied is from Asia, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (i.e. everywhere but Central/South America). Top 5 countries were Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Russia, Ukraine.
36% of refugees are at the poverty level in the first 5 years of US residency - but this goes down over time to 15% to those who stay in the us for over 10 years
If you include refugees and their families (since their children may be US citizens) - the cost to the govt is about $32.6B / year while bringing in about $34.3B in revenue, for a net gain of $1.7B/ year
I do think the paper puts forth a strong case to not deport the existing refugee population though, which I know is also a focus of the Trump Admin.
I guess a semi-reasonable takeaway you can get from this study is that if the US is trying to maximize revenue, they should focus on refugees who are 25+ with at least a H.S. degree.
An interesting story of how one Mexican National managed to defraud the SSA for 37 years. You would think there would be safeguards in the system preventing anyone from doing this.
Also I heard yesterday on a farm report that because of labor shortages the lettuce growers in California are developing a mechanical harvesting system that will be able to replace much of the labor.
In a similar vein, I think the the report makes a strong case to not deport teenage children of immigrants (regardless of status) who grew up in the US (e.g. DACA) since most of the ‘cost’ will have been already incurred and deporting such immigrants will deprive the US of their prime ‘earning years’.
EMTALA requires a medical screening exam and stabilization of any emergencies regardless of ability to pay. Most ERs will go ahead and treat people who don’t have emergent conditions, because the vasy majosity of the time/money is in the workup of non-emergent conditions, so you might as well prescribe the antibiotic for that earache.
And my personal experience is that lots of US citizens who are poor and don’t have insurance do in fact treat the ER as their own personal clinic, at crazy-high expense to everyone else. George W said as much, and then quickly backpeddled when someone with a brain was able to explain things to him.
There are times when illegal immigration has been a problem in the past. I’m pretty sure somewhere earlier in the thread somebody posted charts of illegally immigration and border crossing per year. Essentially current rates are 1/2 of what the were at the beginning of the century. The 2009 recession really burst the demand for jobs in the US, that coupled with a growing middle class in Mexico (Mexico did relatively well in the great recession), better border enforcement, we actually seen the number of illegal immigrant in this country decrease since 2009. We actually have the opposite problem right now not enough immigration.
But fundamentally your analysis is flawed that poorly paid immigrants are drain on society because you are only looking at their wages and not the large benefits to society. As you say many of illegal immigrants are exploited by employers. Let’s take a look at both of our former employee, Intel. Intel isn’t known for exploiting its workers, starting pay at chip fabrication plant is about $25/hour and you only need a high school degree (although there is a ton of training required also). Still, the company has about 100K employee and make $10/billion or $100,000/employee. Meaning that in a socialist paradise Intel could raise the pay of their employees by $50/hour or $100K/year. Of course, the exploitation of employees at Intel is nothing compared to Apple which makes ~$400k/employee per year. There is another word for exploiting workers and it is called profit. Now there is a lots of spirited discussion about how really only the rich gain from profit, but even in case of a multinational like Intel it is clear that most of the benefits of the exploited workers accrue to America and Americans.
Or let’s take a clear case of exploitation, the big chicken farmer, forced teenagers from Central America to work on his chicken farms paid them below minimum wage. He charged them excessively for rent in shitholes and food. Yes, if they got sick he probably dropped them off at the local hospital and made society pay for them. Still, the asshole chicken farmer bought Cadallics, and pickup trucks from the local dealers, sponsored little league teams and spent money in the local community. He paid taxes on the profits (the IRS hounded him). Most importantly, the region benefited from inexpensive chicken. So even though the guy may have only paid $5/hour, the value of the kids labor was far more than that.
Finally, let’s take the case of something between the extreme of Apple/Intel employees “exploitation” and true exploitation. Right now from Florida to Washington, and PA to CA there are crop in the field, and fruits on the tree that aren’t going to picked this season. For a very simple reason, there isn’t labor to pick them. Farmers have raised starting wages to $20/hour, (and top pickers can make $30/hour) added medical benefits and even 401ks, and they can’t find workers to do the jobs. The handful of native-borns whites who apply typically don’t last a week at the job before quitting. It is not just that the job, is hard physically painful sweaty work, but you also have to be willing to follow the crops and move to a different state every few months. American’s have perfectly understandably decided they’d rather make $10/hour working in McDonald’s with AC than make twice that in the field and have to move constantly. The lack of labor is a huge cost to American farmers. (Although, thanks to Trump’s brilliant tariff policy there may not be much of a market for American agricultural products soon.)
Ideally, we’d have a sensible immigration policy with guest workers, merit based immigration, while still being mindful of the words on the statue of liberty. But in a time when there are way more jobs than people looking for jobs, and there are plenty of dirty jobs that only immigrants will do, it is really crazy to pretend the illegal immigration is a big problem. It is a monster lie by the racist wing of the Republican party.
If they do that, they’ll have to pair it with an increase in the amount of legal immigration to offset the loss. Every indication is that we need these immigrants to sustain our economy. The influx of immigrants is a substantial part of our GDP growth, and they seem to be essential to many industries heavily dependent on manual labor. And, we aren’t producing enough native-born workers to fund the future needs of Social Security or Medicare.
Therein lies the problem. It would be hard enough to get Republican votes for a measure that punishes white business owners rather than brown people. Pair that with a measure to legally let more brown people in, and the idea is dead.
Not necessarily. There is a reason why the idea to triple annual H1B visa had pretty wide support for a while - big businesses were pushing for it. It’s all about power and optics.
‘For a while’ is doing a lot of work here. To illustrate that, name 11 Republican Senators you think would vote for an expansion of legal immigration which would 1) be large enough to offset the flow of illegal migrant laborers into the US and 2) be targeted at people like that to fill those jobs. Some might vote for more doctors and professors and tech workers, but there aren’t 11 votes to be had for migrant farm workers.
I dunno - personally I think they’ll slip something to that affect by within the next two years but will try to minimize its PR. Maybe quietly pass it after they gut Roe v Wade or cripple Medicare.
Well, Russian/Ukranians steal your identity, tax returns and drain your accounts, it’s not all that different. They would also walk right into Citibank in manhattan and install skimmers. Cameras? Don’t care.
People also run a bunch of rings to get people’s medicare ID (sometimes they just get homeless vets and bribe them with a pair of sneakers). Then they bill Medicare with a bunch of fake tests/medical equipment/etc and collect the money. They cracked down on this a bit the last decade. Russians and Cubans did a lot of this in Brooklyn.
