Why do liberals support immigration so much?

[Tosh5457]

I agree with most liberal ideas, because they're usually rational, but the one thing I don't think is rational are their ideas about immigration and affirmative action. Why do they support the continuation of legal immigration as it is, and why do they support giving amnesty to illegal immigrants?

Legal immigration laws are allowing mass immigration, both to USA and Europe. The problems already started decades ago:
- rejection of host country's culture
- formation of localities where the natives become minorities. In every case I've seen in Portugal and other countries (like France), the culture that becomes dominant between the kids and youth is a gangster culture.
- rise in criminality
- in some cases unfair competition (chinese shops which buy very cheap products from China to sell here, which is an unfair competition to the local merchants);
- and on top of that, liberals support affirmative action, which is discriminatory and racist (it helps people solely based on race, and it discriminates natives). In Portugal, a good example of how unfair affirmative action is, is the allowance of foreign students from Portugal's former african colonies to go to medicine with really low grades, where students from Portugal must usually have a grade of 18 out of 20, minimum, to study medicine. This situation is making some portuguese natives who have really high grades, which obviously worked much harder than the foreign students, to give up on medicine, since the foreign students are taking some slots.

And about illegal immigration, why do they support amnesty as a rule? Too much amnesty gives an incentive for other immigrants to come illegally to the country, it doesn't even make sense to have borders if you give amnesty to all the illegal immigrants.

Just to be clear, I'm not against immigration - I'm in favor of smart immigration laws, not the laws there are today in most european countries and USA. As for amnesty, it's supposed to be an exception, not a rule. For example, if some refugees went to an European country illegally I think they should get amnesty while their country doesn't have conditions to receive them. But amnesty to immigrants who just run through the borders doesn't make any sense. And I'm completely against affirmative action.

 

[turbo]

Liberals don't support immigration. They just don't vehemently resist immigration like the GOP does.

Immigration is a fact of life (after all, all but a few of us - some of my ancestors excepted) in the US are not immigrants. When I was a child, I was given a hard time because my mother's family was French-Catholic (Metis) and because my father's family immigrated here due to the potato famine in Ireland. Who can come in and be assimilated and who must be vilified? Is that a fair question?

 

[Tosh5457]

Liberals don't support immigration. They just don't vehemently resist immigration like the GOP does.

Immigration is a fact of life (after all, all but a few of us - some of my ancestors excepted) in the US are not immigrants. When I was a child, I was given a hard time because my mother's family was French-Catholic (Metis) and because my father's family immigrated here due to the potato famine in Ireland. Who can come in and be assimilated and who must be vilified? Is that a fair question?

The GOP only resists illegal immigration, and very weakly.

The fact that americans are descendants from immigrants doesn't mean you have to support an irrational immigration system that allows mass immigration just because. Since Japan doesn't have the tradition of immigration in their past, does that mean they have to stick to it forever?

Who can come in and be assimilated and who must be vilified? Is that a fair question?

When a country's future is at stake, of course that's a fair question.

 

[Jack21222]

Just curious, do you have any statistics that legal immigration increases crime? Are you seriously going to tell me that Indian and Chinese kids have a "gangster culture?" In this country, when most people whinge about immigration, they're specifically talking about immigration from Mexico. I hear almost nobody complain about Canadians or Scots immigrating.

I think that if we streamlined the process to immigrate to the country, to let more people in legally after a straightforward screening process, we'd cut down on illegal immigration substantially. If we do that, I'd be more comfortable being much stricter about illegal immigration.

I just can't get angry at illegal immigrants for wanting to improve their lives in a nonviolent manner, even if it means they are willing to take lower wages than an American citizen.

I'm not a nationalist, and I have no particular loyalty to this country, so I really don't care if the person who built my house (or whatever else you'd like to consider) was born in the USA or born in Mexico or any other country.

Lastly, if you want to talk about affirmative action, start a different thread. It is an entirely separate topic which has nothing to do with immigration.

 

[Tosh5457]

Just curious, do you have any statistics that legal immigration increases crime? Are you seriously going to tell me that Indian and Chinese kids have a "gangster culture?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime

No, indians and chinese don't. But if I said specifically who has a gangster culture, I'd be called a racist.

I think that if we streamlined the process to immigrate to the country, to let more people in legally after a straightforward screening process, we'd cut down on illegal immigration substantially. If we do that, I'd be more comfortable being much stricter about illegal immigration.

Your solution to illegal immigration is to allow more people in legally? Legal immigration already let's way too many people in without any good reason behind it.

I just can't get angry at illegal immigrants for wanting to improve their lives in a nonviolent manner, even if it means they are willing to take lower wages than an American citizen.

I'm not a nationalist, and I have no particular loyalty to this country, so I really don't care if the person who built my house (or whatever else you'd like to consider) was born in the USA or born in Mexico or any other country.

I don't have a problem with illegal immigrants either, but like the name says, they went to the country illegally, so they can't stay. You can't mix emotions with law.

 

[Pythagorean]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_crime

From that page:

The Handbook of Crime Correlates states that unlike studies outside the US, a majority of studies in the US have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants. Again, the country of origin may be more important than immigrant status itself.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Legal immigration laws are allowing mass immigration, both to USA and Europe. The problems already started decades ago:
- rejection of host country's culture
- formation of localities where the natives become minorities. In every case I've seen in Portugal and other countries (like France), the culture that becomes dominant between the kids and youth is a gangster culture.
- rise in criminality
- in some cases unfair competition (chinese shops which buy very cheap products from China to sell here, which is an unfair competition to the local merchants);
- and on top of that, liberals support affirmative action, which is discriminatory and racist (it helps people solely based on race, and it discriminates natives). In Portugal, a good example of how unfair affirmative action is, is the allowance of foreign students from Portugal's former african colonies to go to medicine with really low grades, where students from Portugal must usually have a grade of 18 out of 20, minimum, to study medicine. This situation is making some portuguese natives who have really high grades, which obviously worked much harder than the foreign students, to give up on medicine, since the foreign students are taking some slots.

Please post references to literature that support all of these claims. To clarify the research must take into account the whole picture, posting studies that focus on particular areas (i.e. one ghetto in Paris or one Chinese supermarket in London) is not acceptable.

Personally I would class myself as liberal (though that word means different things depending on where you are) and I don't mind immigration at all.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This whole thread is starting on a false premise. Read up on FDR's immigration policy, especially towards the Japanese.

 

[Jack21222]

I don't have a problem with illegal immigrants either, but like the name says, they went to the country illegally, so they can't stay. You can't mix emotions with law.

Thing is, illegal immigration is basically just a paperwork issue. My proposal is to streamline the paperwork process. Then, they're no longer here illegally. Problem solved.

And you CAN mix emotions with law. That's why many laws exist, and that's what the punishment for breaking laws is based off of in part. A violent assault often carries a lighter jail sentence than rape, even though they're somewhat similar in some respects (an attack on the body of another), but rape is so emotionally repugnant that society doesn't stand for it, and doles out harsh punishments.

In the same way, I feel that illegal immigrants should be given a medium-sized slap on the wrist and given the choice of taking a difficult yet feasible path to citizenship or being deported. As long as they aren't committing other crimes, I'd like to give them the option to become a citizen. To me, it's none of my business where they want to live.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Thing is, illegal immigration is basically just a paperwork issue. My proposal is to streamline the paperwork process. Then, they're no longer here illegally. Problem solved.

And you CAN mix emotions with law. That's why many laws exist, and that's what the punishment for breaking laws is based off of in part. A violent assault often carries a lighter jail sentence than rape, even though they're somewhat similar in some respects (an attack on the body of another), but rape is so emotionally repugnant that society doesn't stand for it, and doles out harsh punishments.

In the same way, I feel that illegal immigrants should be given a medium-sized slap on the wrist and given the choice of taking a difficult yet feasible path to citizenship or being deported. As long as they aren't committing other crimes, I'd like to give them the option to become a citizen. To me, it's none of my business where they want to live.

I think you're trivialising the connection here, it's not just based on initial emotions. There are many quite complex and well thought out moral systems at work in society and very empirical ways of measuring harm. Other wise I agree with you.

 

[nitsuj]

lol, it's a tax / GDP base.

without prejudice, white folks just don't make babies like they used to.

Despite the couple of generations for tax/GDP generating integration, it is fair better than a declining population. In particular if a country is already spending beyond its tax income.

The amnesty thing is probably optics from a government perspective.BBC news had a cool stat the other day. "White" births in the US accounted for less than half the total births, (in some recent time frame).

"...mix it up until there are no pedigrees..." RHCP - Midnight

In addition, it is "cherry picking" from the non-US citizen population, another obvious comparative benefit.

 

[Gokul43201]

Legal immigration already let's way too many people in without any good reason behind it.

Here's a counter-argument (not that you actually provided an argument):

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Working for a new company? There's a more than one-in-four chance your new boss wasn't born here.

Immigrants created 28% of all new firms last year. They were also twice as likely to start a new business when compared to those born in the United States.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/05/07/smallbusiness/immigration-entrepreneurs/index.htm

 

[Locrian]

From a US perspective, given the amount of money transferred from workers to retirees these days (1 trillionish a year) having a larger worker base paying taxes would be a good thing.

In my mind that's an argument for reforming the entitlement programs, but there's no will to do that. So it's either more workers, higher taxes, or lower benefits. . . and we're not going to do the last two. . .

 

[Tosh5457]

From that page:

the country of origin may be more important than immigrant status itself.

Well you can take it to the nationality/race level, in that case it's even clearer where most of the crime comes from, since in USA there are statistics on that. I don't see anything being done to change that though.

Please post references to literature that support all of these claims. To clarify the research must take into account the whole picture, posting studies that focus on particular areas (i.e. one ghetto in Paris or one Chinese supermarket in London) is not acceptable.

I can find different studies that say exactly the opposite thing, am I supposed to show the ones that support what I'm saying? These claims are very obvious, and are supported by observation.

This whole thread is starting on a false premise

It's false that liberals support immigration? I don't know what liberals you are referring to.

And you CAN mix emotions with law. That's why many laws exist, and that's what the punishment for breaking laws is based off of in part. A violent assault often carries a lighter jail sentence than rape, even though they're somewhat similar in some respects (an attack on the body of another), but rape is so emotionally repugnant that society doesn't stand for it, and doles out harsh punishments.

You can, but you shouldn't, but that's not the point. My point was that you can't ignore an existing law because of emotions, which is what amnesty is.

Here's a counter-argument (not that you actually provided an argument):

You found something good about immigration - it would be even worse than I thought if there were no positive things about it! But it has to be weighted against the bad things.
Here's the core problem with the current immigration law in my opinion: it leads to replacement of the native population. In US some will use the argument that the only natives are the indian-americans, not european-americans, but USA itself was founded by european-americans. In my opinion immigration should never ever lead the natives to become minorites in their own country.

 

[lisab]

From a US perspective, given the amount of money transferred from workers to retirees these days (1 trillionish a year) having a larger worker base paying taxes would be a good thing.

In my mind that's an argument for reforming the entitlement programs, but there's no will to do that. So it's either more workers, higher taxes, or lower benefits. . . and we're not going to do the last two. . .

We could have more babies, but that's not going to happen, either.

 

[Locrian]

We could have more babies, but that's not going to happen, either.

True!

We could even incentivize it. I’ve always thought the first sign that we’re doing the whole wealth transfer thing wrong is that 4x-5x as much wealth is transferred to retirees as children (or the children’s families). I understand there’s value in treating our elderly population with some care, but children are the future of the country. . . and will be the ones paying those taxes pretty soon.

I once figured it up and if you swapped transfer payments between children and elderly (Soc Sec/Medicare vs Medicaid/Education etc.) the excess would amount to over $9,000 per child per year. That would allow our society to take a lot of the hardship out of child rearing.
I’m not saying that’s a good idea, I’m just agreeing with you and pointing out that there’s a pretty good reason we have the demographics we have.

In any case, that would be a 25 year solution to a 5 year problem. . .

 

[rootX]

We could have more babies, but that's not going to happen, either.

Something I read recently,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18100457
Non-Hispanic US white births now the minority in US

 

[Bacle2]

Re allowing too many people in legally, you may want to consider that a good portion of the high-tech startups in Silicon Valley and in general, are done by Indians, Taiwanese, Israelis, etc. entrpreneurs.

You need to consider too, the case of people who try to immigrate from far away, for whom the option of returning is not really a viable one. For that reason, these people are likely to be hard-workers. In the case of people comming from nearby countries, the story I heard is that Mexicans have a leftover contempt for the US border from the time that more than 40% of their land was taken in an unprovoked war.

Seems too, like a lot of science profs. in a lot of schools are foreign-born (this is true in my experience, and from what I have seen online, etc.). It may be that when a country becomes prosperous, its citizens do not want to go through hardships ( meaning spending and scrapping by 10+ years in school to get a PHD ) the same way people did when there was less propsperity.

Moreover, AFAIK, up to 1930-or-so, just-about anyone coming into the US was allowed in, and it seems like things turned out O.K. Of course, circumstances change, but seems to reinforce the idea that immigration is benefitial.

 

[Jasongreat]

To pythagorean, your quote is talking about immigrants, no one I know is anti-immigrant! But, immigrants who come here illegally have all broken the law, that is 100% if my math is right?

 

[Jack21222]

To pythagorean, your quote is talking about immigrants, no one I know is anti-immigrant! But, immigrants who come here illegally have all broken the law, that is 100% if my math is right?

Everybody has broken the law. I drive in excess of the posted speed limit every day of my life. I have listened to illegally downloaded songs. I jaywalk. I've trespassed in taking a shortcut. I've probably cursed too loud in public, which could be construed as disorderly conduct.

So, I don't quite understand the point you're trying to make.

 

[Pythagorean]

To pythagorean, your quote is talking about immigrants, no one I know is anti-immigrant! But, immigrants who come here illegally have all broken the law, that is 100% if my math is right?

You are answering a different question though. The quote made a statement about crime rates. Rate is a continuous number that can hold many values and changes with time. Instead, you framed the question binary "have they broken a law or not".

 

[nitsuj]

I understand there’s value in treating our elderly population with some care, but children are the future of the country. . . and will be the ones paying those taxes pretty soon.In any case, that would be a 25 year solution to a 5 year problem. . .

That first comment I think touches on a crucial point. Poetically, it is a clash between our empathy & selfishness.

Even from the tender age of 32, to me it's clear "care" for elders is NOT top quality healthcare with 24/7 nursing support and a 24/7 on call doctor, subsidized at a minimum of 50% by the government.

That's the "scene" in Canada. Yes it does provide a fantastic amount of "service" labour at "living wage" pay grades. A form of equity balancing, a remarkable percentage of professional nursing staff are "new" Canadians, but in a addition the education required is an attractive balance with the near guaranteed job & ever increasing wages (all nurses are unionized, well pretty much). In other words it is easy entry into the field, not rags to riches, but min.40k annual ain't to shabby, excluding fringe benefits such as "employer funded" pension.

btw I'd peg the cost per "resident" in an LTC facility at about 4k a month total, say about 14million capital for 125 residents.

The average age of an LTC facility resident in Ontario is 81. Life expectancy in Canada is 80.7. Consider that this is a LONG term care facility, right; I suppose long is a relative term in this context.

The logic is funny from this perspective, and clearly this isn't "caring" for elders so much as "caring" for something else. Whats the education scene from this perspective? Wish I knew, but would guess it's pretty close. Excluding the "backwards" logic of 81yr olds in a Long Term care Facility in a country where life expectancy is 80.7. Neat food for thought in the context of "Selfish Gene" concepts.

I like they wording of your last comment!

 

[OmCheeto]

We only support immigrants that support our values*.

The rest can go home.

Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live.

Tom McCall was an immigrant from Massachusetts, and our governor when I was a young lad.

*ps. Our values here are pretty simple: Don't litter**.
pps. OMG! I just read that one of our recent mayors is a German born Rooski. And I always wondered why she had a Brooklyn accent.
**ppps. Now we'll have to start an 86 page long thread on what 'litter' means to Om, as compared to the rest of humanity.

 

[ThomasT]

I agree with most liberal ideas, because they're usually rational, but the one thing I don't think is rational are their ideas about immigration and affirmative action. Why do they support the continuation of legal immigration as it is, and why do they support giving amnesty to illegal immigrants?

[ ...]

Just to be clear, I'm not against immigration - I'm in favor of smart immigration laws, not the laws there are today in most european countries and USA. As for amnesty, it's supposed to be an exception, not a rule. For example, if some refugees went to an European country illegally I think they should get amnesty while their country doesn't have conditions to receive them. But amnesty to immigrants who just run through the borders doesn't make any sense. And I'm completely against affirmative action.

I basically agree with this.

 

[Locrian]

Excluding the "backwards" logic of 81yr olds in a Long Term care Facility in a country where life expectancy is 80.7.

What's backwards about it? The life expectancy of an 80 or 81 year old is not 80.7. The life expectancy of an 80 year old is a bit over 9 years here in the US, though it will vary by sex, region, ethnicity and marital status (among others). It probably isn't that different in Canada.

I have to remind my dad about this all the time, when he talks about his future and mentions a life expectancy of 75 years. The life expectancy for a newborn might be 75 (though I think it's higher), but you're not a newborn and you better be ready to finance a number of years after that, bud. . . get thee to a financial advisor. . .

 

[nitsuj]

?? It's long term care, That is not old age. One who requires long term care, is in dire straights before going to the facility. A statistic showing the Average age of a resident is equal to the life expectancy in the country for me says the residents are not in need of long term care, the is very little "long" left.

Why isn't the average age of a LTC resident not less than the life expectancy>? That would make sense.

Funding long term care for someone who is already past the normal life expectancy is a waste of public resources.

(and taking it too far) If someone wants to pay 4k a month to extend a loved ones life beyond the average life expectancy via 24/7 nursing and a buffet of pharmaceuticals then go for it.

But don't have it publicly funded and slap a Long Term Care label on the expense.

At a facility I worked at there was a gentleman who was my age, 30ish, a very rare sight. But imo is a perfect example of what long term care is.

Someone being admitted in their 70's so their life expectancy can be stretched out to the norm? I don't agree with that, there are far more younger candidates that could use the funds to improve their life, and that should be the intent of long term care.Oh your 80 year old life expectancy of +9 years would be for an individual NOT requiring 24/7 healthcare right? Yea, it'd vary allot if that is taken into consideration. Which is my point.

To round off these stats, I would need to know the average length of stay for an LTC resident. (I do know there would be a fairly large variance here, from 10yrs to a few months.)

 

[Oltz]

nitsuj

I think the point he was trying to make is life expectancy is for people born today not people who are already that age remember to get an average of 80 50 people need to live to 81 for every person who died at 30 or think about teenagers in car accidents...hence the ones that have made it to that age statistically are actually expected to make it to something higher to actually achieve the expected average.

So you can not say well teh life expectancy in our country is 80.7 we anyone over 79.5 doesn't need any healthcare. If they all died at 80.7 your "expectancy" would continue to drop every year for each person who dies "early" eventually you would have no healthcare over 40...

I am not sure any of that made sense back to work.

 

[nitsuj]

Ah I see, I was comparing apples to oranges there, but I still miss the point.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Considering this thread started on a false premise and the OP has nothing to back up his statements there is no point keeping it open.