Illegal immigration solution step 1: raise the immigration quota for Mexico

[glenn1]

You have one side who claims it's all about people coming here illegally, with calls to wall off the Mexico border and round up/deport all those undocumented who are here already. On the other hand you have people claiming the better good is to leave families intact and with a lottery mentality that once you're here, they've "won" and should be left alone.

Unspoken in the background is the obvious - if millions are migrating here illegally, maybe perhaps the immigration quotas are a bit off? In economics, you have the concept of an equilbrium curve where value is maximized on both axises, you would think that there'd be a point at which legal immigration would be a more economical choice for those wanting to come here.

From the Mexican point of view it would add a degree of certainty - sure, it might take a couple of years waiting in queue, but once you were allowed in, it would be with papers and without fear of Immigration coming to deport you.

From the American point of view, you already weren't stopping Mexicans getting in, so what difference does it make if the quota is raised from 1 million a year to 3 million (these are made up numbers).

Of course, my own hunch is that the stated reasons of the partisans on both sides are far more ugly than they'd like to admit. I'd wager to bet that most of the Minutemen and those wanting to build a fence along the Rio Grande are just using legal status as a fig leaf, they just don't like Mexicans coming here period. And those who immigrate illegally don't give a rats ass about trying to do things the legal way and resent the law for limiting them in the first place.

 

[Zebo]

Prove we need them with poverty and inner cities that look as bad as the third world right here in USA. Where masses of unemployed reside and some areas arnt even safe to go in. I'd rather put them to work than leaching off society. We also have 5-6% unemployment which should get first dibs as they have paid into the system.

 

[fitzov]

Plenty of people from other countries besides Mexico want to come here. To make the process fair, we would need to raise the quota for all immigrants. Also, Mexico is already given the largest number of visas by comparison. The only legitimate solution is to enforce the existing laws.

 

[Ronstang]

Originally posted by: fitzov
Plenty of people from other countries besides Mexico want to come here. To make the process fair, we would need to raise the quota for all immigrants. Also, Mexico is already given the largest number of visas by comparison. The only legitimate solution is to enforce the existing laws.

And the simplest. The laws are there. Politicians are looking the other way as they hand this country away. The current quotas are fine. You cannot just let masses of unskilled low wage earners into the country at will. You think Social Security is in trouble now, wait until you have all these low wage earners, that pay in very little, break the back of the system even more. These people consume a disproportionate amount of social services compared to the amount they pay in. It is only a matter of time before everything grinds to a hault or the politicians simply raise taxes on all the people who actually pay a decent amount to pay even more for the services provided to those who don't. The politicians in DC need to understand that they are suffering from the same kind of myopia that has brought GM to it's knees. There is time to do something correctly for once. But I am not holding my breath.

 

[chowderhead]

For perspective, there are 300 million people in the US.
Each year, the government gives out nearly 1 million green cards to people around the world
This is driving our population growth in many parts of the nation. We need more workers in the future as our population ages but we need people that are educated or have the skills to put money into the system.

I am for legal immigration and against illegal immigration. We cannot be the world's welfare state. We cannot continue to have our education, health care and other services heavily burdened by more and more people that earning next to nothing and do not put much back into the system. You continue to offer the carrot of amnesty and legalization and more and more people will come illegally. It is time that the federal government enforce the law, crack down on employers and secure our borders. Then, we can reform legal immigration to give perference to people that have the skills and education we need.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Ronstang

Originally posted by: fitzov
Plenty of people from other countries besides Mexico want to come here. To make the process fair, we would need to raise the quota for all immigrants. Also, Mexico is already given the largest number of visas by comparison. The only legitimate solution is to enforce the existing laws.

And the simplest. The laws are there. Politicians are looking the other way as they hand this country away. The current quotas are fine. You cannot just let masses of unskilled low wage earners into the country at will. You think Social Security is in trouble now, wait until you have all these low wage earners, that pay in very little, break the back of the system even more. These people consume a disproportionate amount of social services compared to the amount they pay in. It is only a matter of time before everything grinds to a hault or the politicians simply raise taxes on all the people who actually pay a decent amount to pay even more for the services provided to those who don't. The politicians in DC need to understand that they are suffering from the same kind of myopia that has brought GM to it's knees. There is time to do something correctly for once. But I am not holding my breath.

They won't raise taxes Ron. Tax raises are a sure fire way to get thier ass tossed from office. They will just slash benefits middle America counts on from higher education to SBA loans. We are seeing already with this adminsitration and I think it's a recipe for being just like Mexico. On the one hand you have very few billionairs and millionaires on the other millions of poor, uneducated unable to compete on the world economy. Mexico has thus far been unable to reap any benefit from nafta primarly because thier half hearted attempts to educate, build port facilites, and infrastucture needed by employers.

Mexico, whos elite tends to look strikingly European, have instead preferred to shift thier mestizo and indian "unwashed masses" to America rather than invest in them. They even get loans and remittance form the USA and still move them here rather than pay any taxes embezzeling them instead for themselves.