The Atlantic: How Democrats Lost Their Way on Immigration

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

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

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

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?

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

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

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

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

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.


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

You are so out of touch on this issue. You are supposed to be the party of the working class and you are using arguments from the Wharton Business school. "Most academic research finds little long run effect on Americans’ wages." What did Keynes say about the long run again? That's right "In the long run we are all dead." So they admit that immigration does depress wages, but if you look over a long enough period of time, like say 30 or 40 years, then it all evens out so it's all good, right? Meanwhile, American families are suffering from depressed wages and lost jobs during their peak working years when they are trying to support families, but it's OK because we have the new Democratic party here to tell them that in the long run things are going to be to great.

Your party was involved in allowing a huge influx of immigrants and trade deals that took away jobs and depressed wages for American workers, and your solution is to continue the same policies, and just have those workers who lose out go on welfare. Most people don't want to live off of handouts, they want jobs, they want to feel like they are needed. What the hell happened to the party of FDR? What happened to big government works programs in times of high unemployment? Don't just blame Republicans, this is all on your party. You guys had compete control in 2009, with Congressional majorities not seen in a generation and you did crap with it. We should be subsidizing private businesses to take on long term unemployed, and creating temporary government jobs constructing and cleaning up public roads, buildings, parks, etc. We should also be paying to help retrain laid off workers. Again, don't just blame Republicans, you guys had the power and didn't do it.

Stop relying on the old talking point "America is a nation of immigrants" as a way to justify mass immigration now and forever. We've had periods where immigration was reduced and it worked out. The new arrivals became part of the melting pot, and we had the greatest expansion of the middle class in our nations history. Now the share of the US population that are immigrants is the highest it's been since the Gilded Age. It's no coincidence that the periods of high immigration overlap with the periods of high income inequality in US history. Also, we are at the point where unskilled labor is becoming less and less needed due to automation, so we should adjust our immigration policy to only bring in highly skilled immigrants in areas where there is an actual shortage. Let our own unskilled citizens have those few jobs that remain, and let them earn a decent wage doing them, instead of flooding the market with cheaper labor, all so the top 1% can extract bigger profits.

You guys also keep using talking points one would expect from a right wing business executive when you say they do the jobs Americans won't do. The reality is they do jobs at wages so low Americans won't do them, or can't afford to support a family doing them. You claim we wouldn't have enough construction workers if it weren't for illegal immigrants, when it was their presence that drove down wages and took away jobs in the industry, and forced Americans to look elsewhere for work with the hope they could find better paying jobs. If they weren't here then those jobs would pay a higher wage and more Americans would take them. So again, if your argument boils down to needing a permanent underclass of cheap exploitable labor to keep our country going, then you have no business calling yourself a party of the working class. Just admit you are either complicit in that exploitation or are useful idiots for the wealthy 1%.

Using arguments from a business school to justify not treating people like locusts because they immigrated to the US is "anti-working class" now? The actual article states that there in general isn't a significant effect on native workers, though immigrant laborers unfortunately face a decline of around five percent. Plus, you don't get to act like people have no right to human decency because they were born in a different country then you.

And to address some of your trash later in this thread, A. maybe poverty rates would be a better measure, B. People don't tend to immigrate when there are no jobs available, eg in an economic depression that hurts wages, C. The people who made immigration easier in the 80's were the same people who began a bunch of  damaging reforms that caused problems, eg killing unions, and finally D. Ice cream cone sales go up during june. Drowning deaths go up during june, does that mean that ice cream causes drowning? No, the truth is that the heat of summer makes swimming and ice cream more appealing. Correlation does not equal causation.