The Atlantic: How Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration

[Famous Mortimer]

The idea that Hillary would have won if she moved to the right on immigration is laughable.

I agree. Supporting immigration is smart politically. It's terrible policy-wise though.

[Famous Mortimer]

Immigrants are people too, throwing them under the bus because muh americans is disgusting and unforgivable.

Oh please, spare me the "throwing them under the bus" garbage. Their own countries can take care of them, it's not our responsibility. We have to take care of our own citizens first, then if there is anything left over we can give aid to foreign countries. Why is it that you guys always seem to care more about the welfare of foreigners than your own countrymen? It's that perception of your priorities that cost you an easily winnable election, and gives greater credence to the idea that you only care about importing future voters.

An in turn spare me that nativist crap our immigrant forefathers got coming off the boats. The facts are the facts and illegals don't rank high in violent offenses, they take jobs no else will do, and don't drain welfare system compare to natural citizens

Immigrant headed families most definitely drain the welfare system.

As to "our immigrant forefathers", they came to America when this country had no welfare system at all.

Additionally, they came during the Gilded Age, when robber baron capitalism was at its worst, wages were low, and workers were abused. Kind of like now. Do you know how we stopped it back then? We basically stopped taking in new immigrants for about 50 years, that's how we stopped it.

[Famous Mortimer]

If you don't support the right of the entire population of Nigeria being able to move to the United States and collect welfare, you are racist.

[Famous Mortimer]

Mortimer's got a point though. You know how many DEMOCRATS I'm friends with who have voiced frustrations in casual conversations about Democrats being ridiculously open border and anti-deportation?

Between the corporate lobbying, the portion of the base that wants basically no deportations aside from felons (??) and the party's perceived need to pander to Hispanic voters, it is really a perfect storm for them. I think Democrats could suffer little to no electoral impact by being somewhat less "generous" towards immigrants, but they won't do that for the reasons^ stated above.

Politically, it's a tough line to walk. You don't want to be seen as a party who seems to care more about foreigners than Americans. Having your presidential candidates basically promise not to deport anyone but violent criminals doesn't help that.

Oh I agree. Yet half the Democratic Party disagrees with their own messaging, but the party peaders are afraid of offending people who probably won't vote for them anyway. If they were to take the sane stance on immigration, they'd probably get all those Obama voters back, but whatever. I guess you're automatically a racist if you support any form of deportations

It's less that immigration reform helps politically and more that it's morally wrong to leave people to struggle in hopeless poverty, especially when the economic growth means that immigrants makes feeding everyone easisr. What justification is there for deporting innocent people?

You say it's morally wrong to let Mexicans live in poverty in their own country, so there's a moral imperative to let them come to our country so they can live in slightly less poverty.

Okay.

Why doesn't that apply to the whole world? Do you think anyone should be able to immigrate to the United States as long as they're poor?

Where do you draw the line?

[Famous Mortimer]

I'd venture a guess that the vast majority of people wish poverty didn't exist, but the real issue is how to address it and how much of our resources to devote to fixing it. Given the way the world is, there has to be limits. Further, it's not even like the entire country wants to fix everyone else's problems. Sure, you can disagree with them, but you must strike a balance. You can't just ignore their wishes entirely. It is their country too, and those that wish for America to play a limited role are no small bunch.

It's one thing to deport those here already and another to further lock down the borders and prevent a situation in the future where we have another 10 - 12 million undocumented immigrants. The idea that that we can have some sort of border security, but then say, "well, if they manage to sneak in, they can stay" seems kind of ridiculous. Give the people already here at this current point in time citizenship, and work to prevent a similar situation in the future.

Very well put.

I should say that I myself actually do think the government should contribute to fighting global poverty. We just shouldn't do it to the point that we hurt our own standard of living, especially since our standard of living has been in decline for quite some time.

[Famous Mortimer]

If Democrats moved sharply to the right on immigration, as requested by Beinart, and maintained their current stance on economic issues, I'd probably stop voting. Why would I vote for a hawkish, neo-liberal party that also panders to the racist right on immigration? I could not bring myself to vote for CEOs who talked about "controlling our borders", I'd rather die than do something so undignified.

Beinart supported the War in Iraq. I'd suggest that his ability to prognosticate is very limited and that his intellectual capabilities aren't very impressive either or, worse, he's very intellectual dishonest. I'm far from an expert on the economics of immigration - I'm barely a dilettante - but many of his statements are opinion posing as fact or conventional wisdom. Many labor economists would dispute his claims about the affects of immigration on the wages of the low-skilled/native-born - the conventional wisdom that Beinart portrays simply isn't present and quoting Krugman - a trade specialist - and Borjas - a very controversial figure to say the least - does not lend much credence to his claims.

It's fine for Beinart to inveigh against the accepted wisdom within the professional class in the US that immigration is good, beautiful and so on but he'd be better off making the case that we simply aren't honest enough about the difficulties associated with diversity and tolerance rather than arguing that immigrants strain the welfare state - they don't, that's nonsense - or that low-skill immigrants saddle the economy - has he looked at the manner in which housing prices are skyrocketing and the problems facing farmers in California? Immigration generates tremendous economic benefits. This is inarguable, it is settled science, it is a fact comprehensible by 7 year olds etc. The question is how we use these benefits; we have failed miserably to put them to good use but this is not an argument against immigration, it is an argument against the failed centrist dickheads who control the Democratic Party and the reactionary troglodytes on the right.

Immigrant led families absolutely strain the welfare system. The claim that they don't is based on the fact that children of immigrant led families are often citizens but they wouldn't be citizens if their parents weren't allowed to immigrate either legally or illegally in the first place.

Also, why are you bringing up the housing crisis? That's counter intuitive. There's a housing crisis because of immigration. If there were less people, the price of housing would go down. That's not even economics, that's just basic math.

[Famous Mortimer]

Mortimer's got a point though. You know how many DEMOCRATS I'm friends with who have voiced frustrations in casual conversations about Democrats being ridiculously open border and anti-deportation?

Between the corporate lobbying, the portion of the base that wants basically no deportations aside from felons (??) and the party's perceived need to pander to Hispanic voters, it is really a perfect storm for them. I think Democrats could suffer little to no electoral impact by being somewhat less "generous" towards immigrants, but they won't do that for the reasons^ stated above.

Politically, it's a tough line to walk. You don't want to be seen as a party who seems to care more about foreigners than Americans. Having your presidential candidates basically promise not to deport anyone but violent criminals doesn't help that.

Oh I agree. Yet half the Democratic Party disagrees with their own messaging, but the party peaders are afraid of offending people who probably won't vote for them anyway. If they were to take the sane stance on immigration, they'd probably get all those Obama voters back, but whatever. I guess you're automatically a racist if you support any form of deportations

It's less that immigration reform helps politically and more that it's morally wrong to leave people to struggle in hopeless poverty, especially when the economic growth means that immigrants makes feeding everyone easisr. What justification is there for deporting innocent people?

Well for starters, simply granting blank amnesty gives employers an incentive to underpay

Allow undocumented immigrants to sue and make the penalties for underpaying severe.

If Democrats moved sharply to the right on immigration, as requested by Beinart, and maintained their current stance on economic issues, I'd probably stop voting. Why would I vote for a hawkish, neo-liberal party that also panders to the racist right on immigration? I could not bring myself to vote for CEOs who talked about "controlling our borders", I'd rather die than do something so undignified.

Beinart supported the War in Iraq. I'd suggest that his ability to prognosticate is very limited and that his intellectual capabilities aren't very impressive either or, worse, he's very intellectual dishonest. I'm far from an expert on the economics of immigration - I'm barely a dilettante - but many of his statements are opinion posing as fact or conventional wisdom. Many labor economists would dispute his claims about the affects of immigration on the wages of the low-skilled/native-born - the conventional wisdom that Beinart portrays simply isn't present and quoting Krugman - a trade specialist - and Borjas - a very controversial figure to say the least - does not lend much credence to his claims.

It's fine for Beinart to inveigh against the accepted wisdom within the professional class in the US that immigration is good, beautiful and so on but he'd be better off making the case that we simply aren't honest enough about the difficulties associated with diversity and tolerance rather than arguing that immigrants strain the welfare state - they don't, that's nonsense - or that low-skill immigrants saddle the economy - has he looked at the manner in which housing prices are skyrocketing and the problems facing farmers in California? Immigration generates tremendous economic benefits. This is inarguable, it is settled science, it is a fact comprehensible by 7 year olds etc. The question is how we use these benefits; we have failed miserably to put them to good use but this is not an argument against immigration, it is an argument against the failed centrist dickheads who control the Democratic Party and the reactionary troglodytes on the right.

Immigrant led families absolutely strain the welfare system. The claim that they don't is based on the fact that children of immigrant led families are often citizens but they wouldn't be citizens if their parents weren't allowed to immigrate either legally or illegally in the first place.

Also, why are you bringing up the housing crisis? That's counter intuitive. There's a housing crisis because of immigration. If there were less people, the price of housing would go down. That's not even economics, that's just basic math.

There would be less people to build houses as well. Immigrant families still pay taxes, and don't get much in the way of benefits.

 

Mortimer's got a point though. You know how many DEMOCRATS I'm friends with who have voiced frustrations in casual conversations about Democrats being ridiculously open border and anti-deportation?

Between the corporate lobbying, the portion of the base that wants basically no deportations aside from felons (??) and the party's perceived need to pander to Hispanic voters, it is really a perfect storm for them. I think Democrats could suffer little to no electoral impact by being somewhat less "generous" towards immigrants, but they won't do that for the reasons^ stated above.

Politically, it's a tough line to walk. You don't want to be seen as a party who seems to care more about foreigners than Americans. Having your presidential candidates basically promise not to deport anyone but violent criminals doesn't help that.

Oh I agree. Yet half the Democratic Party disagrees with their own messaging, but the party peaders are afraid of offending people who probably won't vote for them anyway. If they were to take the sane stance on immigration, they'd probably get all those Obama voters back, but whatever. I guess you're automatically a racist if you support any form of deportations

It's less that immigration reform helps politically and more that it's morally wrong to leave people to struggle in hopeless poverty, especially when the economic growth means that immigrants makes feeding everyone easisr. What justification is there for deporting innocent people?

You say it's morally wrong to let Mexicans live in poverty in their own country, so there's a moral imperative to let them come to our country so they can live in slightly less poverty.

Okay.

Why doesn't that apply to the whole world? Do you think anyone should be able to immigrate to the United States as long as they're poor?

Where do you draw the line?

People immigrated to the US because there were jobs. Mexican immigration has been going down for a long time. Immigration had been shown to have long term benefits.

http://www.budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-effects-of-immigration-on-the-united-states-economy

Illegal immigrants do not pay income taxes at all and even legal immigrants often avoid paying income tax because of the child tax credit. Immigrant, both legal and illegal, get more welfare than native born families, to say otherwise is simply a lie.

[Famous Mortimer]

My 2 cents of the topic -

Immigration's role in preventing a collapse of Medicare, SS & entire US economy - US has an ageing population. The number of people who are old vs in the working age is disproportionately higher & could cause a budgetary crisis. An influx of people in their working age paying taxes is what is supporting this system (many just pay taxes & never get anything in return). Without immigration, it would collapse.

You are being extremely misleading to the point of lying.

What you say would only be true if immigrants were paying a lot of taxes.

While it's true that SOME immigrants pay taxes and don't use a lot of services in return, that is not true of most of them.

Immigrants are more likely not to pay any federal income tax at all (because they are more likely to have low paying jobs and more likely to have children, thus more likely to actually pay NEGATIVE taxes) and their families are more likely to use services than native families.